Lucidly written by leading biblical scholars Michael D. Coogan and Cynthia R. Chapman, this balanced, engaging, and up-to-date introduction to the Hebrew scriptures distills the best of current scholarship. Employing the narrative chronology of the Bible itself and the history of the ancient Near East as a framework, Coogan and Chapman cover all the books of the Hebrew Bible, along with the deuterocanonical books included in the Bible used by many Christians. They work from a primarily historical and critical methodology but also introduce students to literary analysis and other interpretive strategies.