Handbook on the Prophets

by Robert B. Chisholm Jr.

Book Overview

The prophetic books of the Bible contain some of the most difficult passages in the entire Old Testament. Veteran professor Robert Chisholm guides readers through the important and often complex writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets, examining the content, structure, and theological message of each book. Rather than attempting to provide a detailed verse-by-verse commentary, this handbook focuses on the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080103860X
• ISBN13: 9780801038600
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

great resource

I appreciate Chisolm's commitment to the Biblical text, and to the grammatical-historical setting. I have used the book primarily in connection with teaching through Isaiah. I also use Chisolm's "From Exegesis to Exposition" to help with grammatical matters.

Great!!

Got it quickly. Is a great manual...required for my class! Don't agree with him on his quite "non-traditional" approach to several things, but overall, Chisholm offers a fine survey of the prophets.

Very Good!

Easy to read summary of the prophets with lots of good interpretations. Good to use with the RSV & NJB.

Review of Chisholm

Throughout the semester the text Chisholm's Handbook on the prophets has been a valuable resource for me as far as research and collecting a different opinion goes. This book offers a thorough and insightful introduction for any student studying the Old Testament Prophetic literature. Rather than attempting to provide a detailed verse-by-verse commentary, this handbook focused on the prevailing themes and central messages of the prophetic books. In the text, Chisholm starts every chapter with a brief analysis of the historical and social setting of the book under discussion. Chisholm works his way through the writings describing the structure, content, and important concepts found in the text. Chisholm made it vital to examine and review critical issues whenever they are important for the interpretation of a particular passage. However, he focused more broadly on the theological themes that characterize the work as a whole. Students in seminary and of the advanced biblical studies would find this volume enlightening and extremely helpful as they make their way through the prophetical books. This handbook on the prophets will also be a good resource for pastors and teachers to use in their teaching and research of this portion of scripture.

The words of the prophets

Like the other books in this series, 'Handbook on the Prophets' is a highly useful and accessible text. Baker Book House also published 'Handbook on the Pentateuch' many years ago, which has become a widely read book, and 'Handbook on the Historical Books' just a few years ago. Chisholm's book is a welcome part of this collection.This is not a verse by verse commentary on the prophetic books of the Hebrew scripture. Rather, this is a more general commentary that looks as pericopes (logical blocks of text that flow together) as units. Each chapter (or, in the case of the minor prophets, sub-chapter) has an introduction that gives the basic historical and social background, pertinent linguistic and literary information, and general structural and contextual themes.The longest chapter, as befits its subject among the prophets, is on Isaiah. This gives a good indication of the kind of commentary Chisholm produces. In the discussion on the authorship of Isaiah, he puts forward the theory that the author of 'First Isaiah' (Isaiah 1-39) is different from the author of 'Second Isaiah' (Isaiah 40-66); perhaps there is even an 'Third Isaiah' (Isaiah 56-66) distinct from the other two. However, Chisholm prefers the more traditional idea that there is but one author of Isaiah. Rather than dealing with the multiple-author theory, he rather sets it forward as a scholarly possibility, but concentrates his writing on the single-author text. From this, one can see from this that Chisholm's interpretative framework is a more traditional and conservative one, but not one that does excludes alternatives.One of the strengths of this text lies in the bibliographies -- this commentary is not a book by scholars for scholars, but does not ignore that consideration. After each section there are bibliographies of commentaries and of recent studies. Chisholm tends to include works published after the 1980s, so this is a good snapshot of work done in the past decade.This book is really aimed for the working minister, the individual and group-studying bible reader, and perhaps undergraduate students. It avoids the most advanced and technical language that tends to be the exclusive province of professional scholars and graduate students, yet it does not condescend or lack for insight because of this.