Description: Finally, there is a college-level survey of Old Testament content that is as engaging and user-friendly as it is informative. Encountering the Old Testament is a survey unlike other surveys. In addition to first-rate scholarship, this textbook boasts full-color photographs, sidebars containing supplemental information, chapter summaries, study questions, an instructor's manual and many other helpful features.

Also included with the book is an interactive CD-ROM (both Mac- and Windows-compatible) that features interactive review questions, supplemental information, photos and video clips of Bible lands, a glossary of key terms from the text, and video interviews with the authors concerning various topics. The CD is designed for students to use outside the classroom in order to reinforce the content of the textbook.

In addition to the book and CD-ROM, there is also available for the professor, free of charge, a floppy disk containing transparency masters, test questions, media resources, and lecture ideas. This textbook is part of the series. A companion volume entitled Readings from the Ancient Near East: Primary Sources for Old Testament Study will complete the educational package.

Author Information: Bill T. Arnold (Ph.D. , Hebrew Union College) is professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of Encountering the Book of Genesis: A Survey of Its Content and Issues. Bryan E. Beyer (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) is dean of students at Columbia International University.

Arnold and Beyer have produced an exciting new survey of the Old Testament with the college student specifically in mind. They have masterfully designed their work with text and graphics in a way that will not only grip the student's attention but will guide them through the material with their expert touch. I enthusiastically recommend this volume to you.

The authors are commended for providing their readers with a lucid survey of the Old Testament. They cover a wide array of issues in an easy to read text. Complex issues receive a balanced treatment. The illustrations, sidebars, glossary, and study questions open up the relevance of the biblical text both in its ancient context and our modern situation. A very useful volume.

Baker has done extensive market research and come up with a pleasing and useful format for its Encountering Biblical Studies series, including the use of auxiliary helps, such as an interactive CD-ROM, books of related readings, and teacher's guides. This particular volume is written in a clear and engaging style, and is generously graced with study questions, summaries, listing of key terms, suggestions for further reading, illustrations, charts, and maps. The college-level students for whom this is written will find that this is truly what it claims to be: a textbook aimed at them. It is not the generic, all-purpose work that is too often produced, aimed at all (college and seminary students, pastors, scholars, and interested laypeople) and succeeding at hitting very few. Arnold and Beyer are well-versed in their fields and they succeed at explicating the message of the Old Testament in clear, readable style. A fine, college-level survey that sets a high standard for all such surveys in the future.

Hardly could an inquisitive student ask for better guidance.

For college students who are encountering the Old Testament for the first time, this attractively produced textbook offers a clear and helpful orientation to the world and literature of the Old Testament. The full-color photographs and maps, as well as the user-friendly charts, sidebars, review aids, and interactive CD-ROM, combine to invite everyone who opens this book to begin reading it immediately—a refreshing improvement over the standard textbook fare!

Arnold and Beyer are well-versed in their fields and they succeed at explicating the message of the Old Testament in clear, readable style. A fine, college-level survey that sets a high standard for all such surveys in the future.

Along with its award-winning New Testament counterpart authored by W. A. Elwell and R. W. Yarbrough, this volume sets a new standard in user-friendly, pedagogically adept, technologically advanced introductions to the Bible.

Speaking as one who has started literally dozens of Old Testament surveys and found only a few worthy of completing, I highly recommend this volume to all who read the Old Testament....This is a five star recommendation.

This volume is warmly recommended for the undergraduate environment or a Christian education class with the ambitious and laudable goal of reading and exploring the world of the Hebrew Scriptures.

This book is an excellent Bible survey resource tool....This series is useful to both new students of the Bible and those who have studied the Old Testament in more depth but need occasional access to good survey material.

One student aptly summarized the general consensus in regard to the book when she wrote, 'it was very interesting and caught my attention without going over my head.' This assessment and others like it indicate that Encountering the Old Testament should make a valuable contribution to Christian higher education as an introductory textbook for years to come.