I love this book! In brief compass Dennis Hamm provides as good an introduction for laypeople or beginning undergraduates to reading Acts as one will find. Dr. Hamm, who teaches Scripture at Creighton University, Omaha, writes as a seasoned Acts scholar, having completed doctoral work on the healing at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1–10) and having since then published a number of fine scholarly articles on Acts. He also writes as a splendid communicator who expresses himself clearly and memorably. For example, I shall long remember the observation that the issue at the Council of Jerusalem may not have been “so much menu as venue” (72). He mediates scholarship in an accessible way; I frequently found myself admiring his handiwork in drawing on technical studies and articles and expressing their evidence and conclusions judiciously, succinctly, and accurately. His approach, in line with this series, is to provide a section-by-section commentary on the text, after a brief (six pages) scene-setting introduction. The text of the New American Bible is provided at the top of each page and the commentary in the lower part of the page. The text itself takes up between one third and a half of the page, so Dr. Hamm’s space for comment is severely limited. It is all the more impressive that he has chosen the matters on which he comments so judiciously. [Full Review]

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