The New Testament: A Very Short Introduction

Short Review: I like the idea of Very Short Introduction books, but the reality of them is very mixed. The thing I like least is the tendency of some of them to talk about the academic research into the thing without talking about the thing itself. The VSI book on the Bible did this.

But the majority of this book actually talks about the content of the New Testament. There is an introduction on history and a conclusion on the cannon, but basically the rest is about the synoptic Gospels, Paul or the Johnanine books. And I think he made a good decision to talk about Paul and then look at two books more deeply. This, of course, is just an introduction, but at about 150 pages of main content, it is a very good introduction.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-new-testament-a-very-short-introduction-by-luke-timothy-johnson/