Religion and Theology

The author of the article is Mr. David C. Deuel, an associate professor of Old Testament studies on The Masters Seminary, an evangelical corporation of a college and seminary based in Sun Valley, California. The author wrote the article with a single goal in mind To elaborate the usefulness and effectiveness of story-line preaching, in contrast of other kinds of preaching like the behavioral or historical preaching. He suggests that in manifesting the feature of evangelical narratives as stories in preaching the Word of God, the preacher would avoid shortcomings of interpreting the evangelical narrative to other means than keeping the story format.

On reading the said text, it is much obvious that the writer used a literary interpretation of the Old Testament to give solid proof to his arguments. This is forthcoming since his research is about the story format implemented by narratives found in the Old Testament. The author had used a lot of sources for the article however, most of these sources are side-commentaries rather than additional clarification or rationalization on the subject.

The main audience of the text would be pastors, as they are the ones who would benefit the most from reading this article. The author is suggesting something about preaching, so who else would be more attentive to this article but pastors A secondary audience would be scholars interested in evangelical communication such as preaching. It would differentiate several kinds of preaching to each other, in lieu with communication practices such as rhetoric.

The strength of the article lies on its organizational structure, in so far that it follows a seemingly perfect and logical sequence of points and arguments. The author was able to present a problem, a desired solution, evidences to his solution, and a conclusion that reflects to his objective at the beginning of the article. Aside from this, he was also able to present clear and reasonable points at the end of his article that furthers the authors goal. To keep short this point, the article was a good composition and a fine example of a scholarly work.

Another good point about the article is that it is packed with good content. The article is substantiated by the authors evidences all throughout the text. This is good since the audience that would be reading the text would not be only reading the authors opinion, but also facts that would validate the authors opinion. This is definitely another plus for Deuels article.

However, the downside of the article is that it does not provide enough examples to give life to the evidences presented. Only late in the article did the author provided an example, that is, the life of Joseph in Genesis. This is also truncated to its barest bones, in so far that the author did not fully elaborate on his own example. For example, readers of the text would be confused by Deuels definition of what a story-line is, especially since the context is the Bible, in so far that it does not provide an example to back it up. Nevertheless, since the audiences are pastors, this may not be an issue at all.

Another bad thing about the article is that the author did not include ignores arguments against story-line preaching. An article is never solid-proof unless it is tried in fire. Even if the article is backed with a lot of evidences, this is nothing as critics would surely find a hole in the argument. Once they find this loophole, and without anything to answer it back in the article, the whole text would surely go down in the ashes.

In regards to the audience, pastors reading the article would surely be enlightened as the article provides an insight about ideal preaching. This is good since one of the secondary goals of the article was to provide an easy way for pastors to preach the Word of God, without falling in the pitfalls mentioned at the penultimate part of the article. Pastors, however, would have to read this text twice to fully understand it. It requires a higher kind of thinking it is not an article that could be swallowed in one bite. It takes understanding, and understanding takes time.

As a concluding statement, I believe that the author had met his stated goal at the start of the article. He was able to provide a good argument, and was able to present it well. There were some flaws however, these flaws could be overlooked in so far that the audience would still get the main idea of the article despite these flaws.

Over-all, Deuels article would have a fine piece of work if it could be truncated to its essentials and give enough consideration for the audience to give some examples.

Analysis of The Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel The Implications of the Manuscript Finds from Masada and Quaran, written by Hector M. Patmore, published on the Summer 2007 issue of the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

The author of the article is Mr. Hector M. Patmore, an Anglican researcher with primary interest on the Old Testament. The goal of the article was to inform rather than to suggest, as it was in the first analysis of Deuels text. The article compares and contrasts two different versions of the Ezekiel text in the Bible. The first of these versions is the Masoretic text, which is used by most versions of Bibles today, and the second version is the Greek version found in the Masada. The author argues that the Masoretic text, which is longer than the Greek version, is not only an expanded version of the Greek text. He further concludes that neither of the Greek and Masoretic text came first they were in circulation concurrently with each other.

The analysis used by Patmore is historical and analytical, with the author examining the scrolls and texts as compared with the other texts. He also compared these texts with the events as written in history as to validate their truth value. The author also scrutinized every word that the two texts use, thinking whether or not the Masoretic text is indeed an expansion of the Greek text, rather than a legitimate and original cultural relic.

The main audience for the text would be historians that would be much interested in what predates what and the time of which the texts were actually written. Another primary audience would be Bible scholars that would be interested in knowing more about the Bibles formation and form, as the Masoretic and Greek text versions of the passage of Ezekiel differ very much in content.

The strength of the article is that it is highly full of content, backed by evidences found by the author himself. The evidences, therefore, were found first-hand and the audience could be assured that there is neither malice nor no mistranslation. On the other hand, the article is also good in so far that it has a lot of sources, ranging from other Bible scholars to studies about the Masoretic and Greek texts.

The downside of the article, however, is that it is rather long and weary, with the author explaining and scrutinizing every bit of detail. The author assumes that the reader does not know a thing, to the point that the reader absorbs nothing out of the article. Although it is good to be detailed, too much detail spoils the readers concentration. To shorten this argument, the article was a tad boring.

In regards to the audience, I believe that it could be highly informative for Bible scholars and historians alike however, the author has no definite conclusion, only a suggestion that the Masoretic text may not be an extension of the Greek text. The question of probability still exists, and the goal at the very start of the article was not fully answered.

As a concluding statement, the article was good, in so far that it meets the expectation of explaining things well to the audience. However, there were some flaws in the article, such as the over-detailed explanations that need to be truncated so that the reader may proceed to the next point without exerting too much concentration on a specific paragraph. This may be overlooked, however, by historians that are much focused on details than the casual reader.

Over-all, the text is good, in so far that it is an article for historians. However, there might be problems if this article is read by the public audience because they would have a hard time deciphering every bit of detail that the author had written. If I were the author, I would truncate it to its essentials to make it more user-friendly.