Sunday, September 9, 2012

Deuteronomy by Edward J. Woods Review

The Pros: Excellent exegesis and Woods does a great job as showing the overarching structure of the book of Deuteronomy. He doesn't get boiled down into the minutia of the text while at the same time the reader never feels short changed. He brings into account a decent amount of Hebrew (always transliterated) and yet never is overly technical. I was also surprised by how thorough his introduction to the book of Deuteronomy was. He obviously adopts a very conservative stance concerning the authorship and dating of the book which was also a plus. The structure of the commentary in general is very lucid, moving from context to the commentary to the meaning. The application is solid (though not spectacular) throughout.

The Cons: The commentary is painfully dry. As I mentioned above, the application is nothing to write home about. In fact, it really plays a secondary role to the commentary itself. That is fine, but pastors should be forewarned before thinking they will get an application section like the NIVAC series provides.

Summary: Woods does a great service to pastors by bringing a very accessible (albeit dry) commentary on Deuteronomy. You can find this commentary pretty cheap online and, in my opinion, it is worth every penny you spend on it. Pick it up.

*According to FTC regulation, I was provided a copy of this book for free in exchange for a fair review from IVP Academic*

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