Books on studying the Bible tend to have assumptions built into them that aren’t appropriate for people reading books they don’t regard as The Sacred Word Of God. There will probably be some useful material in there, but I wouldn’t expect a great density of it.
There are books on studying the Bible written by people who don’t make those assumptions, but I think those books tend to be directed more specifically at theology students, which would reduce their general relevance in other ways. (There’ll likely be more attention to issues specific to the Bible, or to particular bits of it—dealing with the fact that it’s usually read in translation from somewhat-uncertain sources, addressing the original context of societies very unlike our own, etc.)
It’s entirely possible that there are some Bible-study-advice books out there that are general enough, and treat the Bible enough like an “ordinary” book, that a good portion of their advice is more broadly applicable, and perhaps some of them give good advice. But I don’t think just saying “look up some books about the Bible” is going to be helpful; the majority of Bible-study-advice books probably aren’t so useful. Do you have a particular recommendation?
That is a good point, I’ve only just begun to look into it, so I don’t have any general recommendations. It just seemed like as I was coming up with a reading list on reading, some books seemed to pop up in Amazon’s “people also bought” section. I think part of it is because the guy who wrote “How to Read a Book” was heavily influenced by Thomas Aquinas. I also looked up hermeneutics afterwards and it seemed appropriate for what I was trying to do. One key takeaway seems to be looking at reading as work...
One book that I was looking at was “Inductive Bible Study: A Comprehensive Guide to the Practice of Hermeneutics” by Traina, as the table of contents looked interesting (survey of books as wholes, survey of parts as wholes, selecting questions and formulating premises, drawing inferences, evaluating and appropriating, correlation,...). Haven’t got to it yet though.
Books on studying the Bible tend to have assumptions built into them that aren’t appropriate for people reading books they don’t regard as The Sacred Word Of God. There will probably be some useful material in there, but I wouldn’t expect a great density of it.
There are books on studying the Bible written by people who don’t make those assumptions, but I think those books tend to be directed more specifically at theology students, which would reduce their general relevance in other ways. (There’ll likely be more attention to issues specific to the Bible, or to particular bits of it—dealing with the fact that it’s usually read in translation from somewhat-uncertain sources, addressing the original context of societies very unlike our own, etc.)
It’s entirely possible that there are some Bible-study-advice books out there that are general enough, and treat the Bible enough like an “ordinary” book, that a good portion of their advice is more broadly applicable, and perhaps some of them give good advice. But I don’t think just saying “look up some books about the Bible” is going to be helpful; the majority of Bible-study-advice books probably aren’t so useful. Do you have a particular recommendation?
That is a good point, I’ve only just begun to look into it, so I don’t have any general recommendations. It just seemed like as I was coming up with a reading list on reading, some books seemed to pop up in Amazon’s “people also bought” section. I think part of it is because the guy who wrote “How to Read a Book” was heavily influenced by Thomas Aquinas. I also looked up hermeneutics afterwards and it seemed appropriate for what I was trying to do. One key takeaway seems to be looking at reading as work...
One book that I was looking at was “Inductive Bible Study: A Comprehensive Guide to the Practice of Hermeneutics” by Traina, as the table of contents looked interesting (survey of books as wholes, survey of parts as wholes, selecting questions and formulating premises, drawing inferences, evaluating and appropriating, correlation,...). Haven’t got to it yet though.