Theological Questions

Reviewed by Julie Jaszkowiak, Community Faculty, Metropolitan State University on 3/6/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This text is organized based on theological questions that would be asked by 6 different groups. These are the “chapters” of this text. The chapters are chronological in historical order. This is a good methodology of limiting the scope of such a broad topic.
There are appendices with lists of the graphics and supplemental material. A glossary of terms would be helpful. Many terms and concepts are defined within the textbook but a separate list of terms and concept definitions would be beneficial.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The content of this textbook is accurate and error free. It contains examples of theological questions from a variety of religious affiliations. However, it does focus on Jewish and Christian religions.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

General terms and concepts about theology are well defined and should not become obsolete. This textbook is written for use in teaching at a Catholic institution of higher education so the content is relevant to that context. Most of the content uses historical examples. However, this is not a history text so the historical references are not all inclusive.

Clarity rating: 3

This textbook is written in a traditional textbook style. There are definitions of terms and concepts both within the text and in text boxes. The introduction does a good job of explaining some basic terms and concepts related to theology that are necessary for basic understanding.
The exercises in some of the chapters are not clearly structured as separate from the regular text. The quotations are noted only with indentation. This can be confusing with longer quotes as to where the quoting begins and ends withing the regular text. In chapter 3 there are multiple quotes that are not specifically cited so it is unclear by whom and where they are from.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is consistent with the structure of each chapter containing relevant information relevant to each theological question. There are some exercises embedded within only some of the chapters.

Modularity rating: 4

This textbook is arranged in 6 “chapters” that cover questions asked by specific religious groups. These are listed in a historical order so it may be difficult to read a later chapter without reading the previous chapters.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

Each “question” section or “chapter” is numbered. The subsequent questions for each chapter are numbered in an outline format. This numbering schema can be confusing as it can be difficult to link the text back to the associated question. I would use a different outline format or headings.

Interface rating: 4

The pictures do not have alternative text that appears when you hover over the text. This document should be reviewed for accessibility issues. Many of the images are decorative
There are text boxes within the overall text. These should be reviewed for accessibility to determine if a screen reader will read the pages with text boxes correctly.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

I did not find any grammatical errors in the text. There are some minor spacing issues and layout issues with text and graphics in some parts of the text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

There are no examples or text that are culturally insensitive or offensive. The examples are specific to Judaism and Christianity. There is a focus on Catholicism as this text was written to be used in teaching theology at a Catholic institution. The viewpoint of many of the topics is essentially from white males based in western religions. There is not any inclusion of other groups or viewpoints.

Comments

I think that this text would work well for a structured course that includes faculty direction about the content. There is a lot of content as this is a broad topic. I enjoyed the structure of posing specific questions and providing content to address the questions. This methodology lends itself well to either course discussion or additional academic study.