My professors are amazing. They know what they are talking about, and I learn so much from them, not only from their books but their classes too! This book is an amazing way to learn, whether as a college student, seminary student, or anyone wanting to learn, how to interpret and exegetically get into the Bible. They've done an excellent job at explaining without getting into "technical details" I fully recommend this book, and any other book written by these two amazing men!

THe book is ideal for a beginning study of hermeneutics. It gives well written explanations and numerous exercises with each lesson. This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to improve their study skills of the bible.

Grasping God's Word has great structure with easy-to-follow, step-by-step outlines and repetitive themes to reinforce what is being taught, such as the four steps of interpretive journey (which become five steps to dealing with the Old Testament) referred to throughout the book. Grasping the text in their town, measuring the width of the river to cross, crossing the principlizing bridge and grasping the text in our town provide readers with excellent illustrations of steps for the interpretive journey. Numerous passages of Scripture are explored using these steps in various places in the book. The authors provide numerous Bible examples of these. The reader is given a review at the end of many of the chapters to further drive home the valuable concepts being taught.

Duvall and Hays offer good examples of how different episodes in the gospels connect with each other (p. 67-8) along with interpretive principles to determine what the smaller stories tell us about Jesus and what the authors of the individual gospels are saying by the way the shorter stories are put together (p. 239). Contrasting characters in the biblical text is another literary device that Duvall and Hays encourage readers to look for as they study the gospels. They illustrate this concept well with numerous biblical characters. Duvall and Hays give readers insight into how to make observations and pick up clues dropped by the writer of the biblical narrative (p. 302).

Duvall and Hays make the point that biblical interpretation needs to be approached within the framework of the Historical-Cultural context, because this is how God gave the Bible (p. 96). This is logical because if interpretation of a passage does not make sense in the context of the time of the writing, it is a misinterpretation.

Unfortunately, the authors' understanding of the Old Covenant is flawed. One of the ways this manifests itself is in their writing about the Old Covenant. Duvall and Hays believe the Old Testament saints main focus was the Law, whereas New Testament saints are saved by grace (p. 366). Scripture teaches, though, that God's people under the Old Covenant were saved by grace through faith (Gen. 15.6; Ex. 14.31; Jonah 3.5; Hab. 2.4), just like those under the New Covenant (Eph. 2.8).

Duvall and Hays have a flawed understanding of certain aspects of the New Covenant as well. They caution readers not to be Judaizers in the application of the Old Testament prophets. They believe that the message of judgment does not apply to Christians because they are under the New Covenant. They believe that when a Christian is unfaithful it hurts God emotionally, and it damages the relationship with Him, though judgment is only for unbelievers (p. 366). But according to the New Testament, judgment begins with believers (1 Peter 4.17), and God will chastise His people living in sin (1 Cor. 5.5, 11.29-31; Heb. 12.3-11).

Even though readers may disagree with Duvall & Hays' theological prospectives, particularly pertaining to the Old Covenant, Grasping God's Word is well written and provides a useful tool for interpreting Scripture. Readers might desire more information about certain topics but, for the most part, Grasping God's Word is quite extensive.

I purchased this as a textbook for a seminary course I am taking. That being said, if I had known what a wonderful tool this would be in learning how to dig deeper into God's word, I would have bought it for personal enrichment alone. The authors do an admirable job of breaking down the elements of Hermeneutics in a way that can be understood and applied by anyone. Each chapter has multiple examples of how to apply the principle being taught and the practice exercises at the end of each chapter are enlightening and instructive. This tool works just like any other, the more often you pick it up, the deeper you can dig. If your goal is to wring out all the spiritual nourishment you can from the Bible, This is the proper tool for the job. As a side benefit, it also sharpens your critical reading skills as applied to other source material. By the way, this is now a permanent part of my library. I couldn't resell it if I wanted to due to the extensive highlighting on every page!

Not a bad little text book. Gives good insight on reading and undestanding the Bible for my class.