Biblical languages do not come easy for me.

In Bible College and Seminary, I spent more hours trying to learn Greek and Hebrew than in all of my other classes combined. It was not uncommon for me to get through most of my other homework in less than one hour each evening, only to spend three or four hours on my Greek or Hebrew. Even then, I struggled on the tests and quizzes.

One of the strategies I developed, however, was a notebook of “Cheat Sheets.” No, I didn’t use these to “cheat” on any tests or quizzes, but I quickly learned as I did my Greek and Hebrew homework that there were certain paradigms and issues of grammar and syntax that I frequently had to look up and refer back to. So I eventually typed up these charts and paradigms and arranged them into a few “Cheat Sheets” which could easily be looked at and referred to as I did my homework and read Scripture in it’s original languages.

I still have (and use) these notebooks of Cheat Sheets.

So it was with great interest when Kregel Publishers recently sent me a review copy of the new book by Douglas Huffman, The Handy Guide to New Testament Greek. It turns out that this little book is a somewhat expanded version of my Cheat Sheet notebook. It shows the main parts of the Greek sentence, and how to identify, parse, and translate them.

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Mark Roncace, professor at Wingate University in NC, sent me a review copy of his newest book, Raw Revelation: The Bible They Never Tell You About. After reading it, it is hard for me to recommend it, for I disagree so strongly with much of what he wrote.

But on the other hand, one of the things I value most in books, is when they make the reader think. Raw Revelation certainly does that!

If  you can keep yourself from throwing the book across the room in rage and frustration at what Mark Roncace writes, you will be challenged to rethink what you believe about the Bible and how you teach it.

His basic premise is that the Bible is full of ideas and stories which most people never hear about because pastors and Bible teachers strip these difficult sections out of Scripture and feed us only the nice, clean, well-prepared, happy, untroubling portions of Scripture. Roncace argues that the Bible is raw, uncooked, unprocessed, and full of dirt and gristle, and we do ourselves and God a disservice when we try to make the Bible more palatable for modern ears.

After presenting his case, the author looks at several areas in which this happens most often. Through the writing is not academic and doesn’t contain footnotes or in-depth analysis of texts, the chapters are extremely challenging to read in that they bring into question almost everything you know and believe about the Bible itself, God, Jesus, Doctrine, and Morality.

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I was given a few books for Christmas. The problem is that I have long ago run out of bookshelf space. So I was shocked to recently discover the following bookshelf… I don’t know if it’s real…

I imagine this is what heaven will look like… and the best part is that I will have eternity to read them ALL!