Customer Reviews

Methodical Bible Study

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This guide to Bible study would be of use to some folks, but not most. The limited appeal of it doesn't really have anything to do with a reader's level of experience with the Bible, a novice could start off with Robert Traina's technique as well as a seminarian could adopt it, if they had the right 'reader personality'. This book would, I believe, appeal to the sort of reader who diagrams sentences, flow charts plot lines, draws up Venn diagrams to show relationships. For most readers, who take notes but don't process the information into formal presentations for themselves, the method taught would seem tedious. For the rest of us, I would recommend Fee & Stuart's "How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth".

All in all, Traina's isn't a bad book, just not very accessible.

For those who want to look at the Bible in a objective manner, this book presents the tools needed to accomplish such a task. How can one construe Biblical passages in such a way that his interpretation is not tainted with his own pre-conceived ideas? This book shows the method that makes this goal available to all. For the layman of the Bible these techniques are not vital, but they are worthy of consideration for any student of the Bible. The methods laid out in this book will help aid the student of the Bible to be able to make the best interpretation possible in the given context of a passage. This could be a tedious process for anyone but beneficial to the dedicated reader of scripture.

Most of this books content is useful for all but not the entire book. That is why I gave it four stars.

I'm reading Traina's book for an internship I'm doing with a college ministry. It has been a great help in understanding how to prepare for doing Bible studies on a college level and even during devotions and daily reading. However, the book can be dry and sometimes difficult to get through. It is worth the struggle, though, for anyone wanting to learn how to dig deeper into God's Word.

This book was written by a 29-year old man in love with the Bible. In his life he has become a widely known, read, and beloved man of the Word, as well as teacher, mentor and friend of countless men and women.

If we are to live as Christ would have us live, we need to know what Christ wanted and said. The Bible is our primary and foundational source for this. The question becomes, can we understand what the Bible means in this age of relativism and post-modernism? Is there meaning in the text? How do we get that? Can we?
This book, truely written as a pioneering text in the field of inductive, methodical Bible study, gives its readers the tools they need to become people of the Bible.

We all say, if we are Christians, that the Bible is the authority for faith and practice. Well, is it? What does Jesus want you to do with your money? Your lovelife? Your gifts? Your children? Your church attendance? Your relationships? Why does he want that? How?
The Bible is the source for the answers to these and many other questions. This book will help you find them without your own biases or flimsy notions of what the Bible really says. Great buy!

This is a well-thought-out and detailed book about the inductive Bible study method. That is, it helps you make observations and ask interpretive questions of the Biblical text and helps you find answers to those questions within the text itself. I have had to read it for a seminary class. It is not the most exciting book in the world - sometimes the observations can be fairly obvious, and there are a lot of footnotes and some repetition. But this does not take anything away from its importance, which I think it has. Because to me very few things are more important than knowing how to study your Bible. One of my favorite things in the book is the author's sample of how to make observations and ask interpretive questions related to the text, using Psalm 23 as his case study. The insights you will gain from this sample "walk through" are amazing; it will probably change how you read the Scriptures. So be warned. It's good, but it's boring at times too! It's good to have a class or an outlet where you can practice these concepts where it is not all conceptual.

Methodical Bible Study
The book describes some basic approches/methods for in depth Bible study, their benefits and important steps to take to avoid errors due to failure to consider the contexts: textual/biblical, historical, cultural and linguistic.

I read this book 30 years ago in a course with Dr. Traina on studying Biblical books as a whole at Asbury Theological Seminary. It is an excellent foundational resource and was glad to find that my exegesis professor utilized this inductive approach as well. It is tough to read in certain places, but Dr. Traina and Dr. Steve Harper unpacked this method very well for us. However, I have found its updated version, Inductive Bible Study: A Comprehensive Guide to the Practice of Hermenuetics by David R. Bauer and Robert A. Traina, to accomplish a very orderly step by step description of this method starting with the book as a whole and moving to detailed observation. If I were to chose between the two today, I would pick the newer version. The earlier version is worth buying for it makes important points that are worth reading.

I received everything as ordered. I never have a problem when ordering from Amazon. I give you Top marks.
Thanks.

This book will be one of my greatest resources in stepping up my study of the Bible!

This book is very well laid out and full of good information for the serious Bible student.