01.00.3-Author’s Preface

Author’s Preface This course manual may be distributed freely but only on the condition that it is always offered without cost and that these credits remain. It is “shareware” for public use, like a sermon, originally designed for use with students in Nigeria, not for traditional publication or financial remuneration.

However this manual is distributed, it is not to be changed significantly without somehow highlighting these changes or requesting permission to do so from the author. The author of the work is to be mentioned and his disclaimer/preface must remain with the document and any distribution of it.

Many ideas in the genre parts of this manual closely follow Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Zondervan); I am especially indebted to their work on psalms and epistles. Most of the rest, however, began especially from inductively grappling with the Bible itself over many years, and then with the ancient sources that reveal the world of the Bible. The “background” illustrations can be found in much greater detail in Craig Keener’s (i.e., my) IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993, with about a quarter of a million in print).

I request that users of this manual, especially those using it as a syllabus, would let me know how the manual is being utilized. To let me know how you are using this course work or if you have found it helpful, please contact my friends at www.PneumaFoundation.org who have offered to distribute this manual online and pass along any comments they receive. At the time of this writing, you could contact their Member Services department on this page: http://www.pneumafoundation.org/contactus.jsp — Dr. Craig Keener September 19, 2004 and January 7, 2005 Last Revision: May 11, 2005