Leander E. Keck (1928–2024)

I first heard about this book while in seminary, a pastor in my hometown told me all of my hair-brained ideas would pass away once I spent some time in the pulpit - he recommended this book as proof of that. I vowed never to touch the book. Then last month I saw this book referenced in a Peter Gomes book and thought I should give it a look-see. I am glad I did.

I particularly liked the first part of the book, primarily his description of how people enter seminary and what affect seminary show more education, primarily historical-criticism, has on the seminarian. I feel seminary did a great job deconstructing the faith of my youth, but I am just now reconstructing it. I wonder what place reconstruction has in a divinity school cirriculum?

I appreciated his concentration on biblical preaching, but not just offering biblical quotations as biblical preaching. No biblical preaching must take the story serious and the story of the current situation serious.

I only wish all of Keck's eggs were in the historical-critical basket. show less

The exegetical resource no pastor should be without. Anchor Bible may be an older, more venerable series, but New Interpreters has a better stable of scholars to contribute to it.

That said, only having this as a source of exegesis would be quite foolish, because no method of exegesis is going to tell you everything, nor should logically be expected to do so. For this reason, it is rated well, but not perfectly.

Series of essays, so far very interesting. We'll see if the Scriptures line up with what the essays say. Enjoying it so far.

These are phenomenal resources for personal study and for preaching.