A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart teach readers to notice the different kinds of writing gathered in the Bible and to ask what a passage meant in its original literary and historical setting before applying it now. Chapters offer practical guidance for epistles, narratives, law, prophets, wisdom, psalms, Gospels, parables, and Revelation.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
Many interpretive problems begin when every biblical sentence is read by the same rules. This long-used evangelical guide gives nonspecialists a workable first discipline: genre and context matter. It also adds a constructive, tradition-affirming entry point to a shelf that includes substantial historical and critical analysis.
Good starting place if…
You want practical help reading different biblical genres more responsibly while remaining within a broadly evangelical understanding of scripture.
Know before you begin…
This is a Christian hermeneutics handbook, not a neutral introduction to biblical scholarship. Its original-meaning-then-application model is useful but does not resolve every disagreement about history, theology, ethics, or the reader's social location. Some examples and conclusions reflect the authors' evangelical commitments and should be compared with Jewish, Catholic, liberationist, feminist, and other interpretive approaches.