{"id":4045,"date":"2023-03-08T14:31:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T14:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/?p=4045"},"modified":"2023-03-20T15:09:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T15:09:15","slug":"book-review-joshua-ebtc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/book-review-joshua-ebtc\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Joshua (EBTC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joshua<\/p>\n

Reading, let alone reviewing, a book by a former teacher is always a daunting thing. In this case, a commentary by my Old Testament lecturer (At St Johns, now he’s at Trinity College Bristol) David G. Firth is a particularly daunting prospect as we work together on the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary (He’s the series editor, I’m the in house editor) and other projects. This was the first Evanglical Biblical Theological Commentary (EBTC) on an Old Testament book I’ve worked through – I previously enjoyed Matthew Harmon’s EBTC on Galatians, and plan on looking at Kostenberger’s Pastoral Epistles EBTC later on in the year – and so I was intrigued to see how it would work. The simple answer is well – Firth ably and calmly points out where the story of Joshua finds fulfilment, allusion, explanation and other things in the story of Jesus and the Early Church in the New Testament, as well as some key cross-canonical connections with other books of the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

The EBTC sets itself a particular goal – distinguishing it from, say an exegetical commentary like a Tyndale or a Baker OT (like Goldingay’s Genesis<\/a>, recently reviewed), a theological commentary (like Ford’s John, out of a series but written for WJK’s ‘Belief’ series) or a critical commentary (like Wilson’s ‘Matthew’<\/a> which I reviewed here). There are almost as many\u00a0kinds<\/em> of commentary as there are commentary series (with lots of overlaps!), but Lexham claime the EBTC:<\/p>\n

“locates each biblical book within redemptive history and illuminates its unique theological contributions. All EBTC volumes feature informed exegetical treatment of the biblical book and thorough discussion of its most important theological themes inrelation to the canon – all in a style that is useful and accessible to students of Scripture<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

Firth faithfully fulfils these aims – particularly in regard to the\u00a0themes<\/em>, which make up a significant percentage of his introduction but are carefully traced and reintroduced throughout the commentary proper. Firth also writes in a surprisingly readable style, for a commentary seeking to do as much as he does. His footnotes – which for me hit that ‘goldilocks zone’ of being just enough but not overwhelming’ – show that there is serious and sustained engagement with secondary scholarship, but for Firth the focus is on the text. I particularly appreciated his comments on the genre<\/em> of Joshua in the introduction: “we can describe Joshua as a work of narrated history… that is, it is told with artistry and selectivity<\/em>” (p. 23). The rest of the introduction is very helpful – and would make for good standalone reading, or preparation for thinking about preaching through Joshua as Christian Scripture. Firth doesn’t ignore the hard questions (this is one the hallmarks of his ministry, as I noted in my review of his ‘Including the Stranger<\/a>‘), but also sits and wrestles with the text in a way that the themes and suggestions he draws out make for helpful comment, and geniunely encouraging devotional reading.<\/p>\n

To give you a flavour of things, here are some particular quotes that resonated with me:<\/p>\n