Cracking Old Testament Codes: A Guide to Interpreting the Literary Genres of the Old Testament

I haven't quite finished this book yet, but overall it's a very good introduction to the different genres found in the Old Testament. It's composed of a series of essays addressing the different genres found in the Old Testament. This means you're getting exposed to various scholars' views.The first chapter is a general overview of genre study and how it can impact interpretation. After that, each chapter addresses an individual genre. The key features of each genre are presented and discussed. Then the chapter usually ends with a "case study."The authors also do a good job of including a bibliography for further reading. Overall a very good introduction to the impact that genre studies can have on biblical interpretation.

This book is an essential book to read for anyone who is looking to study the Bible correctly in full-time ministry. Thankfully this book is written very well and is an easy read, so I would even recommend it to anyone who studies the Bible outside of full-time ministry. "Cracking Old Testament Codes" looks into how the books of the Old Testament are written in different styles of Jewish genres of writing, and is very insightful into how these different styles should be read. A good analogy is given in the book to show that reading different genres of writing in different ways is very important because each genre has a different style and purpose: If you looked at a newspaper today, you would not read it the same way that you read a novel because they have different styles and structures and usually serve a different purpose.For anyone who has read "How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth", this book will be a good supplement to it.

This book is a valuable overview of genre and worth the read if only for the beginning and ending chapters on understanding the importance of identifying genres in order to correctly interpret the OT.

Cracking Old Testament Codes is a very helpful book to understand the different genres of writing that are used in the Old Testament. The premise of the book is that we, as modern English readers fail to understand the use of literary devices and categories in the text of the Old Testament.The book on the whole does a good job of pointing out general principles about each genre, such as the nature of a proverb as compared to narrative. There are boatloads of false teachings that would be eradicated if their proponents would simply understand what is in this book.I wouldn't say the book is a must-read, but it's pretty close, not because of its quality (although it is indeed good), but because of the nature of the book. It teaches us what we should already know.

good!

There are books that treat a subject and then there are books that exhaust a subject. Cracking OT Codes is the best book on the subject. It treats it exhaustively and gives us the reason for the growing interest in OT codes seen on the History Channel. Excellent read.

This book is a great resource for intro Bible study for teaching. I disagreed with a few of his interpretations but overall it was very helpful.

I found this book to be very insightful. I had to buy this for a college class, thought I would recommend this to anyone that wants a more clear understanding on how to interpret the old testament.