Customer Reviews

Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible

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I taught Hermeneutics, a course on how to study the Bible, for 13 years at S.C.S.E. I read "Words of Delight" (when it was still a two volume work) six years into my work with the school and found that it fit the bill for what I wanted to accomplish with my students.

The book is divided into four parts treating Biblical Narrative first. Part two focuses on Biblical Poetry; Part Three on Other Biblical Literary Forms and Part Four, The New Testament. Some books treat the Bible as nothing more than literature. But if you are looking for a book that helps you to appreciate the literary aspects of the Bible while at the same time addressing it as the Word of God, this book is for you.

Frankly, I am surprised that someone else hasn't already written a glowing report of this book for Amazon. I recommend it to every Bible student. It is the single-most useful book I have read on the subject. (I would also recommend a work Dr. Ryken co edited, "Dictionary of Biblical Imagery" and "The Complete Literary Guide to the Bible," and a book he co-authored with Jim Wilhoit, "Effective Bible Teaching.")

Oh, why don't I just come right out and say it, "If Leland Ryken's name is associated with it, get it.

Dr. Ryken uses this book in his Literature of the Bible class, and follows the text almost chapter-by-chapter. Hearing him talk through the concepts and their importance in biblical studies solidifies the methodology he uses in the text.
The book itself sometimes seems long and difficult to work through, but it is by deliberately working through the concepts that the method of literary interpretation starts to sink in. It is an infinitely valuable exercise that will improve your reading of virtually every biblical text and make it come alive in new ways. Remarkably, it is also an approach less in biblical studies that allows the Bible to speak for itself, and reveal its own literary forms into interpretive frameworks that every-day readers can understand.

While some scholars may contest Dr. Ryken's approach as not the same caliber as other works in biblical studies, this would be a mistake. Ryken does not delve into the ancient contexts or deal with syntactical discourse analysis of the original languages, but he takes the literary forms of the Bible as they are and allows inductive reading to take its full effect in the text. This should not happen at the expense of studying the historical contexts, but it is an often overlooked, and invaluable addition to the discipline.

Furthermore, Ryken interacts with various scholars and delineates a very reasonable approach to difficult passages, especially in Revelation where as he says "wild speculation" is rampant.
But the most immediately valuable sections, I have found, are his tips to identifying "unity and variation" in the Psalms, and identifying the sub-genre categories to "make your joy full" in reading the text, as he would say.

Ryken's text is a great resource not only for Biblical Studies but also for general Literature Studies. There are great explanations of literary terms- I wish I had this book four years ago when I started my English Degree. The Biblical explanations are clear, and very helpful if you are not aquainted with the Bible, but can be redundant if you spent a lot of time in Sunday School. Overall, this is the best book of the term, and possibly one of the greatest textbooks Ive used in 4 years of college.

I love this book! As a life-long student of the Bible who has read most of the major translations and also studied numerous Bible study editions, I found this scholarly but easy-to-read text by Dr. Ryken clarifies biblical texts and times while providing insight into all genres of literature. I highly recommend the book for Bible teachers, Bible students, pastors, and priests, but if you're a Christian poet and writer, Bible lover, and lover of literature, as I am, you will most likely consider this book your primary resource, as I do, next to the Bible itself.

Learned a lot of information concerning the Bible. Easy to read and understand. Great addition for all that teach Biblical courses.

Book arrived super fast and as promised. I highly recommend this seller to anyone desiring a great deal on books. A++++

The book is well organized, highly researched, and well written, but very boring! It simply analyzes biblical literature to death and makes many of the not so interesting and not so well written parts of the Bible out to be much more than they really are. It's a bit like trying to make the phone book out to be a great piece of literature. It isn't. It is a good source of information and that's all. The Bible has some nice literary parts to it to be sure, but the author stretches the value of much of the literature in the Bible. Her focus on the mundane, was tedious, and left much to be desired. I would have much rather had her be less detailed and cover the more interesting and valid aspects of Biblical literature rather than trying to make even Geneologies and redundant historical accounts out to be more interesting than they really are. Frankly, many of the stories in the Bible are really not that well written and to try and make it seem as though they are is just delusion