Inquiry into the New Testament: Ancient Context to Contemporary Significance is an academic textbook pitched to undergraduates in the university setting. In the introduction, Landry indicates the portions of the volume that should be attributed to Martens, who stepped in during an illness, as well as the origins and intentions behind the text. He covers critical biblical interpretation with a focus on context and evidence-based conclusions, and then gives a nod to his predecessors. Herein, he acknowledges his debt to and modeling after Bart Ehrman's work in terms of structure and inductive presentation of exegesis in the context of content.

This textbook has much to commend it. Twenty-two chapters are followed by a glossary of selected terms and a subject index. Although the entirety of the text is black and white, there are numerous pictures, maps, and explanatory text boxes along the way that greatly enhance the presentation and pedagogical strategy. Following the introduction, each chapter culminates in a list of key terms, review questions, discussion questions, and a brief bibliography and suggestion for further study. Each of these components could be invaluable in the pedagogy of a New Testament survey course. The first five chapters offer what could be allocated as background: the formation of the New Testament, some prominent noncanonical gospels, Greco-Roman religions, ancient Judaism, and the Roman Empire. Chapter 6 provides an introduction to the Gospels and chapter 7 does the same for biblical criticism. Chapters 8 to 13 cover the Gospels and Acts (Mark, source criticism and the synoptic problem, Matthew, Luke, Acts, John and his letters), and chapters 14 to 18 study Paul and the letters attributed to him (introduction, Paul's “genuine letters”/rhetorical criticism and Philemon, Paul's letters to the Thessalonians/Philippians/Galatians, Paul's letters to the Corinthians/Romans, and the “deuteron-Pauline and Pastoral Epistles”). Chapter 19 focuses on Hebrews and the general epistles, and chapter 20 exposits the Book of Revelation. Chapters 21 to 22 round out the textbook with discussions of the quest for the historical Jesus and the relevance of the New Testament in the modern world. Each chapter is meticulously presented and discussed. I identify these chapters in order, quoting some of the idiosyncrasies in presentation to detail Landry's approach. Nomenclature, format, and presentation can have as much pedagogical force as content.

Scholars and teachers have differing opinions about exegetical pedagogy and interpretive content. Some will prefer a more deductive plan of attack that lays out the fundamentals, then applies them systemically in the study of content. Others will prefer a more inductive strategy that presents fundamentals as their helpfulness arises in the study of content. Still others may be far more content-focused on the undergraduate level and only dabble in interpretive method. If the second is your preference this may well be the textbook for you. It provides a solid alternative to Ehrman's text (with which some, from all traditions, take issue) from a Roman Catholic press. The research and scholarship are sound (including extensive footnotes—uncommon in such textbooks), and the content is offered accessibly and readably for the target audience: beginning students in an undergraduate or early graduate context.

New Testament survey textbooks are notoriously both prolific and hard to find for a given teacher's approach. Those of us who teach these classes are always searching for the perfect textbook. I find myself in the more deductive camp, which believes that less is more in an assigned textbook. This is revealed in my own entry into the market. Others may not agree. I find myself wondering how to deal with a textbook (and potential course) that discusses noncanonical gospels in chapter 2 and only hits upon the Jewish background of the New Testament in chapter 4 and exegetical fundamentals in chapter 7, but other instructors may find this the very textbook they have been seeking. Inquiry into the New Testament is certainly a worthy participant in the discussion contributed by established scholars who are determined to put teaching and learning on par with interpretive content in their study of the New Testament and its relevance for the twenty-first century and beyond.