interpreting the prophetic books -- a book review

Gary Smith and David Howard's Interpreting the Prophetic Books:  An Exegetical Handbook is a well-written and -arranged introduction to the various issues in interpreting the prophetic books of the Old Testament.  Chapter 1 covers style, genre and parallelism, etc.  The author's illustrations of parallelism in the Prophets is well done.   Chapter 2 provides good brief notes on each book, including major the themes.  Historical setting for each prophet is brought out in chapter three. Conservative dates are adhered to, which is reassuring (Joel is considered pre-exilic; Obadiah as exilic).

Chapter 4 covers all the "Interpretive Issues".  I am particularly impressed with Smith and Howard's discussion of the differences between "literal" and "figurative" interpretation, and they present a balanced view of the differences between conditionally near and far prophecy.  But perhaps the best parts of the entire book are found between pages 131-136.  Their discussion of the sensus plenior is particularly important for preachers -- which becomes the focus on the final two chapters that deal with how to preach these prophetic texts.

But in all, I was left wanting more from the first three chapters of the text.  Smith and Howard seem to slide by the various themes of the books of the prophets.  The details of chapter 3 -- in placing the prophets in their larger historical context -- is particularly wise advice for preachers, but Smith and Howard leave so much unsaid about the way to connect those contexts to the homiletical contexts of preachers and congregations.

This is a fine introduction, and would prove useful in teaching the prophets, but their are other handbooks available with more depth.

___________________
I received a free copy of this book from Kregel Academic in exchange for my honest review here.