Brian LePort from nearemmaus.com has a review of Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction by Jonathan Pennington. LePort thinks that this would be the book he would use, along with the gospels, to actually teach gospels in a seminary or church setting. Sounds like good book to pick up.
I prefer the conjunctions both/and to either/or, so this book was one of my favorite to read in 2012. Pennington’s approach to the Gospels is to encourage readers to see the value in the historical-grammatical (I’d add critical), literary, and theological approaches, rather than choosing one way to read the text. When I read the Gospels I find value in everything from working on the Synoptic Problem, to doing historical studies on the context within which the text was formed, to Lectio Divina. I read the Gospels as historical texts and as active, living Scripture. This is what Pennington’s book is “œabout”, reading. It is not a typical hermeneutics textbook, nor is it your common introduction to the Gospels, but a hybrid of the two.
continue reading the rest of the review at nearemmaus.com