Give Them What You Have: Interpreting the New Testament for Today

by John J. Denniston

Give Them What You Have encourages everyone, especially those less familiar with Scripture, to explore the New Testament with thoughtfulness and excitement. Readers will recognize the debt owed to those who have made lifelong commitments to biblical scholarship and to the Church's mission to be fed by the Word of God.

The author reviews the strengths and weaknesses of various biblical study methods and outlines themes in the New Testament. The book also evaluates the contemporary extremes of irrational fundamentalism and Western secularism. The writing style in this piece uses a homiletic tone which is in line with Pope Benedict's desire that all biblical theology should touch people's hearts as well as their intellect. Such a style was modeled by Jesus himself in the New Testament.

Paperback

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764816209
• ISBN13: 9780764816208
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Liguori Publications
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great balance between scholarship and readability.

Some people have a strong knack for taking complex history, technology or whatever and making it more available to us ordinary folk. In this book, John Denniston has achieved a great balance between scholarship and readability. He keeps the intellectual level high enough that the challenge is enough to pique our interest--but not so obscure as to discourage us from going to the next chapter. I believe it takes an extra-smart guy to see how to hit that balance. It's not entirely an intellectual excercise. Christian Faith is pervasive in the book and in much of the Scriptural interpretation that he describes. Though Father Denniston is a strong Catholic, there are also many references to Protestant, Orthodox and Jewish thought and books. I'd recommend this to any Christian (or other) person looking for a handle on how Biblical interpretation has developed over the centuries. Chris