ENGAGING THE OLD TESTAMENT: HOW TO READ BIBLICAL NARRATIVE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY WELL. By Domonick S.Hernández. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023. Pp. xii + 302. Paper, $29.99.

Hernández's primary goal is to provide strategies so that readers of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Hernández intentionally uses the title “Old Testament” for the Christian usage of the text, rather than the title “Hebrew Bible,” which can improve their reading. Hernández affirms those who understand the Bible as the inspired word of God, but he also challenges those same folks to take the authors seriously whom God inspired to write the scripture texts. While scripture is the inspired word of God, Hernández argues that text cannot exist without the engagement and context of those who write it. To appreciate the full meaning of scripture, readers must consider the context of the biblical authors, too. Furthermore, Hernández argues that the context and engagement of the reader are also critical to scriptural understanding. If readers are not aware of the context of the scriptural authors, they will read their own context into the biblical story. Consequently, the reading strategies that Hernández offers provide tools for identifying the context of biblical authors and for listening to what the authors are saying through that context. Hernández strives to offer reading strategies for the Old Testament through nineteen chapters. The first chapter operates as an apologetics for the importance of the Old Testament and the need for reclamation and relevance among Christians. The second chapter provides four core commitments for reading the Old Testament that are referenced throughout the rest of the text: (1) read humbly, (2) read successively, (3) read entirely, and (4) read deliberately. The rest of the chapters name and elaborate on different reading strategies. While each chapter is unique in its strategies and scriptural foci, they all follow similar formats. Each chapter starts with a contemporary text (movies, television shows, popular books, etc.) to operate as a comparison with a scriptural example. This enables the reader to consider the reading strategy with an accessible contemporary text before then applying it to the scriptural example. Immediately following the elaboration of the contemporary text, a scriptural example is described. Once the contemporary text and the scriptural text have been compared for their similarities and differences, Hernández introduces the reading strategy or strategies. Hernández spends the majority of each chapter applying that reading strategy to the scriptural example offered. He sometimes engages the contemporary text within the chapter, but it is most often relegated to the introduction and the conclusion of the chapter. Hernández's choice to offer both scriptural and contemporary contextual exemplars for his reading strategies is effective and helpful. Connecting the strategies with tangible scriptural stories and accessible contemporary texts makes Hernández's arguments feel practical and relevant. Through these examples, Hernández offers a compelling argument for reading strategies that enable Christians to spend just as much time engaging the Old Testament as the New Testament. However, this focus on textual exemplars often made a central tenet of Hernández's argument fall into the background: genre. The three genre types that are named in the title of the book—narrative, poetry, and prophecy—get lost amid the description and practical exemplars. Since the structure for situating the reading strategies within their specific genre already exists, one easy fix to this problem would be to break the chapters into four parts: Part I: Introduction (Chapters One through Two); Part II: Narrative (Chapters Three through Thirteen); Part III: Poetry (Chapters Fourteen through Sixteen); Part IV: Prophesy (Chapters Sixteen through Nineteen). Naming this structure via four named parts would help the reader to make clearer and more deliberate connections between the reading strategies and their respective genres.