Every discipline has its own language. It might use English letters; many of the words might even be recognizably English terms; but the terminology will have specific meaning for those within that field or discipline.

And this kind of specific language absolutely exists in the world of Biblical interpretation, as anyone who has ever tried to dive into a more advanced commentary on a book of the Bible knows all too well.

The Soulens have revised and updated their Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 4th Edition. The goal is to provide explanations of the main characters, schools, and terms within the world of Biblical criticism: the attempt to understand and interpret the Old and New Testaments.

It’s not designed to be a book read cover to cover; instead, it serves more like a dictionary. If one has the tolerance and patience for it, however, there can be benefits to reading it from beginning to end: I’ve come across the terms defined many times, and it was useful to see some of them fully explicated.

The authors come from a more conservative theological and interpretive background, and that will inform the perspective on the explanation of some of the schools of thought, yet they do seek a level of objectivity in describing even those ideas with which they might personally disagree.

This remains a useful resource for Bible students trying to figure out all those German terms and the transliterated Greek terms they find throughout Bible commentaries.