This book offers a mass of help. As an added bonus, it is a gorgeous book. I guess the publishers knew they had something special and so gave it the gold treatment. The authors are widely respected and were a good choice to handle what must have been a Herculean task. When Mr. Goswell listed William Dumbrell as major influence, it all made sense.

Chapter 1 sets the agenda on what biblical theology is exactly as they carefully distinguished it from other approaches (You can sure tell D. A. Carson guided their thinking here). They even present a case study to explain the practice of biblical theology. I appreciate how they uphold biblical inspiration, which is the vitality of biblical theology. As you have probably surmised, this chapter serves as the introduction for the entire book.

The next chapter talks about book order, though that is something that’s never particularly interesting me, but it’s laid out in great detail for you. From there, the next chapter dives into the Pentateuch. Now it’s time to slow down because this book starts getting really good. Many of the things you find are written in other places, but it is a boon to us to have it all brought together here. Each book in the Pentateuch is discussed in terms of themes, ethics, and the book in the storyline of scripture. That is a fantastic way to approach the biblical theology of these books. I found myself agreeing with so many points that were made. Finally, the Pentateuch is looked at as a whole in the same three categories as mentioned above.

From there, he tackles the Prophets (remember he follows the Jewish organization of the OT rather than that in our Bibles), followed by the Writings. He follows the same pattern mentioned above. Some books of the Bible take less pages for him to describe than others, but obviously that makes sense.

The NT follows the same pattern. There’s coverage of book order but with little consensus. Next there’s discussion of the relationship between the testaments. The look at parallels was the most fascinating part there. When the NT use of the OT is explained, it’s taken book by book. Then each book of the NT is looked at exactly as done in the OT section. The farther I get into the book, the more I like that set up.

This is an epic book. I have a few others in my library that try to tackle biblical theology in this way, but I found this one to be more consistently even. The amount of research that went into this volume is mind-boggling. If you don’t believe me, just notice the footnotes! I’ve heard the publisher may be printing the Old and New Testament sections of this book in separate editions in the future. You simply can’t go wrong with this gorgeous book.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.