Review: How to Read Exodus

How to Read Exodus by Tremper Longman III
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Longman III has produced an easy to read guide geared at the beginner/intermediate readers, though I can see that cell group or bible study leaders or even pastors may find it useful. The material would assist one in teaching/preaching from the book of Exodus to a lay audience being the content is kept consistently easily-digestible and understandable. The most valuable part of the title would be part 4, where Longman III essentially provides a concise summary of the theological narrative that pans out in the book of Exodus - reading this part would let you catch a glimpse of the 40 chapters in record time.

I especially appreciated how the topics were segmented into bite-sized chunks, with the ideas and substantives being relatively easy-to-follow. Also very useful how Longman III started off with inviting us readers not to merely take the reading/interpretation/study of Exodus as merely an intellectual exercise, rather the thought-provoking discussion questions served to point us toward how we modern readers would want to and can faithfully apply the theological principles in our lives. Having read (and reviewed) Longman III's excellent title in the series How To Read Genesis, I was pleasantly surprised at how while similarly structured, the opening chapters of a Q&A of the two books had differently worded responses - he did not just cut and paste, but appears to have responded from scratch - and so the read was fresh even if the response he gave was similar! As with the other books in this series, Longman III provides bite site comments on the commentaries on the book, which is essentially similar to what you find if you were to purchase his Old Testament Commentary Survey.

Interestingly, the strength of the book was also its weakness (especially for more theologically advanced readers) - the lean paperback (of about 200 pages) meant that I went away wishing that some topics were explored at greater length. To name a few examples: the earlier or later dating of the book of Exodus, God hardening of Pharoah's heart, Chapter 11's discussion about the false dichotomy of the ceremonial and moral law (where he left us readers with multiple questions for reflection without giving us the "textbook" answer of his position on the topic).

Overall the material was engaging, though because of the relatively larger scope of events Exodus had as compared to Genesis and yet the similar page count of about 200 pages, I felt this title did not provide as much insightful theological reflection and depth-wise was not as extensive in comparison. If in subsequent revisions, Longman III expands the content more extensively, this could be a wonderful companion to the brilliant 5 star How to read Genesis.

I received this book from InterVarsity Press for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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