464 - How to Read Prophecy

How to Read Prophecy
Joel B. Green
Downers Grove, Ill., InterVarsity Press, 1984. 154 pp. $5.95.

At the time this book was published, Joel Green was a Methodist minister and a Ph.D. candidate

465 - How to Read Prophecy

studying with the noted Evangelical scholar, I. Howard Marshall. Within the confines of American Evangelical-ism, this is an enlightened and sober treatment of how prophetic material should be read. It is a popular treatment, intended for a general audience, and especially concerned to correct the abusive use of prophecy within the Evangelical wing of the church. The prime targets of Green's criticism are writers like Hal Lindsey who think the ancient prophets provide us with a chronological key for understanding contemporary events as rushing to the final apocalyptic end. Green is also critical of the Christian Zionist tendency to support the modern state of Israel regardless of its policies. The real strength of the book, however, is its very practical positive suggestions to the general reader about how to study the prophetic and apocalyptic material in the Bible.

J. J. M. Roberts
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, N.J.