Book Review

In an email this morning the ESV Study Bible has added a new sample to their site. Formerly the introduction to Luke was available this one contains the introduction to Revelation.
It contains 12 major sections

1. Author and Title
2. Date
3. Genre:
   This information is taken from the ESV Literary Study Bible and I'm very glad to see this included.
4. Theme
5. Purpose, Occasion and Background
6. History of Salvation Summary
7. Timeline (of the writing not an interpretive timeline)
8. Key Themes
9. Literary Features (again from the ESVLSB)
10. Schools of interpretation
1. Historicism
2. Futurism (both Historical Premillennialism and Dispensational Premillennialism)
3. Preterism / Partial Preterism
4. Idealism
5. Mixed View
11. Millennial Views
1. Premillennialism (Classical & Pretribulational)
2. Postmillennialism
3. Amillennialism
12. Structure and Outline

Overall the introduction is balanced and attempts to represent the divergent interpretive schools without tipping your hand in either direction. The ESVSB goes on to note,

Few books have been as beneficial to me in my studies on the life of my savior. There are time cues all over the place in the new testament but many of them are missed or ignored because we don't understand their meaning. Who cares that it was the Nth year of King whosits reign?

Having already read Faith Cox Bailey's brief biography of D.L. Moody I was looking forward to this one which promised to be a bit more in depth.