I have recently been reading through Darrell L. Bock and Buist M. Fanning’s text Interpreting the New Testament Text. I am about half way through the book and have thoroughly enjoyed it.
While not formally called a festschrift, the book is written in honor of long time New Testament professor Harold Hoehner. I will be writing a more lengthly and formal review of it later, but just to note, this looks like a very well-rounded, read and practically helpful text book on New Testament exegesis. I have thoroughly enjoyed the detail of chapters on the definition of exegesis, textual criticism and grammatical analysis.
The chapter I have most benefited from and enjoyed thus far is that on “Sentence Diagramming, Clausal Layouts, and Exegetical Outlining: Tracing the Argument,” written by Jay Smith. In my experience over the past ten years, such diagramming (especially structural and block diagramming) is the single most important disciplines one can employ in finding and tracing the author’s main point and intention n a given NT text.
I have also been reminded that exegesis is not really exegesis if one is not personally delving consistently and deeply into the Greek New Testament. The book has put me on a course to strengthen my Greek exegetical skills and pay closer attention in my weekly exegetical sessions in my sermon preparation. I can remember the days of using the word “exegesis” without any working knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. How foolish. I have been made even more aware of how foolish I can still be to throw the term around with even the small amount of training I have had thus far. The book is helpful as well as humbling.
The book would be a bit technical if one has no working knowledge of Greek, but I can see how it would be a very helpful text in seminary exegesis courses. While I would not subscribe to all of the details (especially on the synoptic problem issue), I would highly recommend the book.
