Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters.

Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters. Edited by Donald K. McKim (IVP Academic, $45). This is the second, much expanded edition of exegetes from Abelard to Zwingli. Generally you have to die to make it into this book, but there are notable exceptions: Walter Brueggemann, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, George Mendenhall, and Phyllis Trible, each of whom has contributed significantly to the current exegetical scene. But where are Frank Moore Cross, Helmur Koester, and Krister Stendahl, also highly significant and still with us at the time of publishing (though Stendahl has subsequently died)? In addition to the more than 200 entries on individual scholars, there are six survey articles on biblical interpretation from the early church to the twentieth century. William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, graduated from college at the age of 14 and summed up his life this way: "You understand that my special business in the world is stirring up people on the English Bible. The University of Chicago is entirely a second hand matter." Two-thirds of the marginal notes in Tyndale's first English New Testament were taken from Luther--this was pointed out by L. Franklin Gruber, whose rare book collection is one of the treasures of LSTC. These meaty mini-biographies can teach much about biblical interpretation--and the Bible!