The Promise and the Blessing: a Historical Survey of the Old and New Testaments, by Michael A. Harbin
One of the really cool benefits of writing a blog like Veracity is all the backdoor sharing. People are constantly bringing things to our attention or sharing some thought, question or resource from their devotional lives.
This week I feel like a kid in a candy store. One of Marion’s coworkers loaned me her copy of The Promise and the Blessing: A Historical Survey of the Old and New Testaments, by Dr. Michael A. Harbin. I haven’t been able to put it down.
Dr. Harbin’s text is used in Old and New Testament ‘survey’ courses in colleges and seminaries. What makes it special is that it ties all the biblical text to the timeline of Judeo-Christian history while maintaining a brisk flow from Genesis to Revelation. The pieces are thoroughly connected. It’s packed full of illustrations and references and has no qualms about taking the reader off on interesting tangents with sidebars. Theological topics are introduced and adequately summarized, with fair treatment given to opposing doctrinal views.
One of my litmus tests for any resource is how much fresh and useful information it contains. I can’t seem to turn anywhere in this text that I don’t get new information or have the parts of the Bible presented in a fresh light.
Normally I advocate electronic versions of books, particularly when they can be accessed in the cloud with tools like Kindle Cloud Reader. Kindle puts all of my books in a library that I can access with any device, including my iPad, iPhone, and computer. The upshot of reading this way is that you can highlight and bookmark the text, and search it electronically. It makes books very portable and eliminates the need to flip through pages manually trying to find some passage you barely remember.
However…The Promise and the Blessing is such a beautifully composited book I recommend buying the hardcopy version, which you can do for minimal expense by clicking here. If you’d like to preview the book before you buy it, here is a link to the Browse Inside page.
Enjoy!
HT: Liz Marshall
Veracity 
October 24th, 2014 at 10:31 am
As usual I’m doing something wrong. I can’t get “The promise” by clicking “here” ????? XXXXX
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October 27th, 2014 at 1:06 pm
Good afternoon Augusta!
Try turning off your pop-up blocker (it’s one of your browser settings). If you’re not sure how to do that, try right-clicking on the link and selecting “Open link in a new tab.”
Either way, please let me know how it works. Marion or I will come over if needed. 🙂
Thanks!
John
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October 29th, 2014 at 7:56 pm
At the National Conference on Christian Apologetics, I had a brief yet fascinating discussion with Walter Kaiser on what he calls “Promise Theology.” I am still mulling it over in my mind….
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October 30th, 2014 at 5:46 am
So you had conversations with Gary Habermas, Hugh Ross, Michael Kruger, Walter Kaiser, Norman Geisler and other speakers. There’s gotta be a couple of thought-provoking posts in there somewhere. With photos. 🙂
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