Rabbi, Why Torture The Pronoun?
The Torah, The Five Books of Moses, A new translation of The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic text (The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1963, 416 pp., $5), is reviewed by Jakob Jocz, Professor of Systematic Theology, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Canada.
With several new translations in recent years and with the New English Bible in the process of completion, it may come as a surprise that the Jewish Publication Society of America should venture upon yet another English translation. There are, however, good reasons for this special Jewish enterprise.
Any Christian translation of the Old Testament, no matter how scholarly, is suspected of Christological overtones. It is also a matter of scholarly pride as stated in the Preface of the 1917 version: “The Jew cannot afford to have his Bible translation prepared for him by others. He cannot have it as a gift, even as he cannot borrow his soul from others.” Furthermore, Jews believe that they have a flair for the Old Testament which is peculiarly their own.
If we may judge from this volume (two more are in preparation: The Prophets and The Hagiographa), the translation is in several respects revolutionary. Whereas the 1917 version was largely modeled upon the idiom of the King James Bible, the present translation is a complete departure from traditional language. Not only is it a new translation but a new rendering in modern terms. In some ways it is also a departure from established theological tradition. A case in point is the Shema which now reads: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Deut. 6:4). The text is the locus classicus for the Jewish concept of the Unity of God.
The unevenness of style in the 1917 version was due to the fact that about 23 scholars had a hand in it. The present translation is mainly the rendering by one man, Dr. Harry Orlinsky of Hebrew Union College. His work was scrutinized by an editorial board consisting of two other scholars and three rabbis, with Dr. Solomon Grayzel acting as secretary. The presence of the three rabbis, each representing a section “of organized Jewish religious life,” is to ensure acceptance by the whole Jewish community.
We thus have before us a lucid text in modern English almost free of archaisms. Theological implications have been slurred over. At any rate, this was the intention. The result, however, is not devoid of polemical bias. The effort to avoid Christological allusions is evident. Thus Genesis 3:15 reads: “They shall strike at your head and you shall strike at their heel.” Yet the Hebrew text uses the singular pronoun. The same applies to Numbers 24:17, which reads: “What I see for them is not yet, what I behold will not be soon.…” This is a departure from established tradition. Even the 1917 version reads: “I see him but not now; I behold him, but not nigh.”
In cases where the text is controversial there are appended footnotes leaving it to the reader to make his choice. The name of God as disclosed to Moses in Exodus 3:14 is left untranslated: Eheyeh—Asher—Eheyeh. Consequently we are left with the following: “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, Eheyeh sent me.” The story of the Fall loses much of its deeper meaning by the description of the “tree of knowledge of good and bad.” In this context, “bad” is hardly the opposite of “good.” Here, as elsewhere, the lack of theology is only too apparent. It is a question whether the Bible can be adequately translated without a theological position.
This is an attractively produced book on excellent paper in large, easy-to-read type. The Jewish Publication Society of America deserves to be congratulated on an outstanding achievement.
JACOB JOCZ
Never Dull
Psalms of David, by David A. Redding (Revell, 1963, 174 pp., $3), is reviewed by James D. Robertson, Professor of Preaching, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.
The minister of First Presbyterian Church, Glendale, Ohio, uses the searchlight of twenty-three psalms to probe the thoughts and intents of the heart of Everyman, and the result is a vast uneasiness. But this honest inventory of human deviations and foibles is preparatory to the release of that spiritual dynamo that is at the heart of the psalms. If the diagnosis is disturbing, the cure provided is ample. These sermons richly interpret the grace of God as expressed in the psalms, showing its relevance to all sorts and conditions of men. The psalms are presented as prayers—“the prayers of every man, every where, every time; earthbound but heaven-bent, blind, stumbling, feeling his lonely way in the darkness up to God” (xv).
The messages are rich in variety of allusion and aptness of illustration. The style is eminently contemporaneous—curt, direct, often colloquial, and never dull. Many sentences are almost epigrammatic: “Heaven comes in the same breath as death.” “Happiness is a thread hanging in a forest of flashing knives.” Some readers, however, will question the pulpit propriety of frequent expressions like these: “Pharaoh was making God furious, but God kept His sense of humor.” “Castro will say phooey to God once too often.” “Only God can wash behind the years.” Nothing stuffy about this language! It does succeed in calling attention to itself! For its wealth of provocative insight, however, this little book of sermons should be studied by the man who contemplates preaching on the psalms.
JAMES D. ROBERTSON
Too Spiritual
The Meaning and Mystery of the Resurrection, by Thomas S. Kepler (Association, 1963, 188 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Fred L. Fisher, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Mill Valley, California.
If one wants a book that summarizes all the factors which must be considered in a study of the Resurrection, this is such a book. If one wants a book which solves all the problems of the Resurrection stories, he will not find it here. Kepler views the resurrection of Jesus as a real, but bodily, resurrection which has left an indelible impression on religious culture; herein lies its meaning. He finds it impossible to express exactly what happened in the Resurrection; herein lies its mystery.
Many of the New Testament traditions of the Resurrection Kepler views as mythical stories to explain the Christian belief that the same Jesus who walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee has now become the living Lord of the churches. However, Kepler sees in such a view no reason to give up the comfort and assurance that are attached to the reality of the Resurrection. Many Christians will find it difficult to maintain their faith in the meaning and reality of the Resurrection if they must give up the historical reliability of the stories of the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus. Certainly, it would be impossible to fit a theory of the solely spiritual resurrection of Jesus into the theology of Paul, who insisted that both the resurrection of Jesus and that of Christians are bodily resurrections.
A major plus of the book is a good summary of resurrection beliefs in the ancient world and a careful distinction between the Greek theory of the immortality of the soul and the Christian doctrine of resurrection. This book will make you think, but be prepared to cross swords with a skillful antagonist.
FRED L. FISHER
Even Better Than Intended
New Insights Into Scripture: Studying the Revised Standard Version, by J. Carter Swaim (Westminster, 1962, 206 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by C. Ralston Smith, Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Reading for Perspective
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITIONS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLE
* The Reality of the Resurrection, by Merrill C. Tenney (Harper 8: Row, $4). The resurrection of Christ is vigorously defended as a hard, unshakable historical reality, and full treatment is given its many facets.
* New Testament Introduction: Hebrews to Revelation, by Donald Guthrie (Inter-Varsity, $4.95). A flowering of conservative scholarship of such excellence that others may measure their efforts by its standard.
* Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings, Revised Edition by F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley (Scribner’s, $15). Thoroughly revised by scholarship ranging the theological spectrum as widely as did its original authors fty years ago. Excellent new maps.
The achievement of this book is better than its intention. It can be lifted above its immediate objective (to aid in the study of the RSV) to serve as an encouragement in the reading of the Scriptures in any of the many versions. Conveniently divided into 12 chapters, it might be used as a springboard text for a study group meeting over a year’s time. One might argue with some of the defenses of those areas of translation in the RSV which have caused concern. However, this would be to lose sight of the greater value of the book in encouraging an enthusiastic, humble, confident approach to the Bible as the authoritative Word of God. The style is quite simple and chatty, and one moves with ease through the pages. Many interesting illustrations from life in a pastorate season the teachings. It is helpful to have a Bible at hand for ready reference and understanding of some of the reasoning presented.
C. RALSTON SMITH
To Find A Method
Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910–1931, by T. F. Torrance (Alec R. Allenson [Naperville, Ill.], 1962, 231 pp., $5; SCM Press, 25s.), is reviewed by James Daane, Editorial Associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
Torrance’s purpose is not to present a compendium of Barth’s early thought but to trace the course of Barth’s debate with modern theology. This is done in the hope that the superficial interpretations and tendentious criticisms so often leveled at Barth will be waylaid.
Torrance knows Barth’s thought inside out; this is prerequisite to his task of showing how Barth attempted to forge a theological method which would be wholly determined by the nature of its object: God’s revelation of himself in the time and history of Jesus Christ. Barth was convinced that the regnant theological method of the time was determined by man’s own religious ideas and consciousness, by the scientific and philosophical concepts then in vogue; he was equally convinced that this methodology produced a theology of culture and not a theology of the Word of God. Barth, therefore, sought to forge a method which would express a theology untainted by any idealogy. The quest was an agonizing struggle, one that traveled no straight road. Barth had to backtrack and rewrite his Römerbrief and undo his Die Christliche Dogmatik in terms of his Kircheliche Dogmatik. He had to retrace his steps to replace his original dialecticism and subjectivism (in which man was a “participant” in revelation) with an analogical (i.e., Christological) theology in which not man, but Jesus Christ was both the objective and subjective possibility of revelation, and also the Being as well as the Act of God. Further, his earlier analogia entis had to be displaced by an analogia gratiae.
The most decisive turning point in Barth’s struggle stemmed from his study of Anselm, a story told in Barth’s book on Anselm, Fides Quaerens lntellectum. From this point on (1931) Barth moved away from an abstract theology about God and away from a subjectivistic theology of man, toward a theology determined wholly by the consideration that God became man, and thus a theology of the Humanity of God, of Jesus Christ.
How well Barth succeeded in excluding all extraneous influences and in penetrating the reality of revelation to discover all the determinants for a truly Christian theological method will long be debated.
Torrance makes no attempt to evaluate critically Barth’s early thought, except in terms of the inner logic of its own development. Yet his overall estimate is obvious. He places Barth in the ranks of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther. More significantly, he asserts that at the great watershed of modern theology we must choose the basic method either of Barth or of Bultmann, adding that “there is no third alternative.” He writes further, “The way of Barth leads to the establishment of Christianity on its own solid God-given foundations and to the pursuit of theology as a free science in its own right; the way of Bultmann leads to the dissolution of Christianity in secular culture and to the pursuit of theology as an expression of a reactionary, existentialist way of life.” If indeed these are the only two choices, then for the biblical theologian there is but one.
Torrance has brilliantly presented the movements and outcome of Barth’s decades of labor to achieve a theological method befitting the object of its concern. In doing it he has demonstrated his competence to proceed to a critical evaluation of Barth’s method; if he will now do this, he will render another unequaled service.
JAMES DAANE
Crown Of The Orient
Ancient Antioch, by Glanville Downey (Princeton University Press, 1963, 340 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by James L. Kelso, Professor of Old Testament History and Biblical Archaeology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
This book is a condensation of the author’s earlier History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest—the most important book on this key city of the Near East. Antioch vied with Alexander for the honor of being second only to Rome. After the death of Alexander the Great, Antioch transplanted Greek culture into the Levant. Rome also complicated the picture when Pompey captured Syria and Palestine. The early Church had missionary headquarters in Antioch, and later this Church created a Hellenic theological pattern which subsequently came into full bloom in Constantinople—the city which replaced Antioch for both church and state.
Temples and festivals to Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Tyche emphasized the Greek nature of the city, and paganism fought Christianity here until the city’s decay in the sixth century. Antioch was full of famous churches and of church leaders, such as Paul, Ignatius, Basil, and Chrysostom. Seleucus Antiochus, Epiphanes, Tigranes, Pompey, Anthony, the Roman emperors, the Persian kings, and Queen Zenobia all contributed to the city’s story. Antioch was a major literary center; the books of its famous writers have been preserved and give a vast amount of detailed information about the city.
Antioch was the military center of the Roman Empire’s defenses against the Persians and the emporium for trade from faraway China and all lands between. Its wealth enabled it even to be lighted at night, and here pleasure and athletics vied with war, business, and religion. Riots were common, and even the Church factions used this technique. The city was often laid low by earthquake and fire; ultimately these two, plus the plague and a Persian sacking of the city, brought about the end of Antioch. Constantinople then became the master city of the Near East. The whole restless Levant with its interest in everything good and evil is excellently portrayed in Antioch, the city famed as the “Fair Crown of the Orient.”
JAMES L. KELSO
How Growth Goes
The Dynamics of Church Growth, by J. Waskom Pickett (Abingdon, 1963, 124 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Frank Bateman Stanger, President, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.
Whenever Bishop J. Waskom Pickett speaks or writes it is always imperative for the Christian world to give careful heed. Now retired from the active episcopacy, but not from continuing Kingdom-labors, Bishop Pickett speaks out of a background of a ministry which was fulfilled in the context of Christian missions. He is truly a missionary-statesman, possessing keen insights into the relationship of the Christian faith to all other religions and of the Christian church to the new age being ushered into the world’s history.
As D. T. Niles states in the Foreword, in this volume the author writes concerning the urgency and possibility of Church expansion in the contemporary world.
The book contains seven chapters. Each chapter reveals a basic Christian conviction in the mind and heart of the author. In the opening chapter, “The Case for Rapid Growth,” the author declares his foundational emphasis upon the principle of community in successful evangelism among people of non-Christian cultures. Bishop Pickett has always been a firm believer in “group movements.”
Chapter II, “The Tragedy of Retarded Growth,” portrays the urgency of the present situation for evangelism.
The voice of experience sounds throughout Chapter III, “Assembled Lessons from Many Lands.” The author presents both mistaken missionary assumptions of the past and lessons learned in missionary experience.
No Christian person can afford to bypass the reading of Chapter IV, in which the author declares that Christianity is the most effective weapon against Communism. Even the chapter’s title allures the reader: “How Protestant Churches Obstruct and Counteract Communism.”
The author is convinced of the importance of the ministry of laymen. Chapter V is based on the thesis that “preaching is imperative but not sufficient.”
Chapter VI, “Yesterday’s Best Not Good Enough Today,” is an impassioned call to a new and deepened Christian dedication, both on the part of Christian individuals and in the life and program of the Church.
The closing chapter abounds with Christian optimism. In addition to the mention of nations now predominantly Christian, Sarawak, Korea, and certain African nations are discussed as “potential Christian nations of tomorrow.”
This is a book with a world perspective. Its major values lie in its insights for the advancing work of the Church in its program of world evangelization. But the spiritual principles and procedures discussed are no less relevant for the Christian worker in the local church and for the lay evangelist in the homeland.
FRANK BATEMAN STANGER
According To Philip
The Gospel of Philip, by R. McL. Wilson (Harper & Row, 1963, 198 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Gerald L. Borchert, Associate Professor of New Testament, North American Baptist Seminary, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Since the discovery of the codices from Chenoboskion (Nag Hammadi) our knowledge has been greatly augmented with respect to the period following the close of the apostolic age when the Gnostic heresy became a threat to the Church.
Among the 49 Coptic documents which came to light at Chenoboskion three so-called gospels have turned up, viz. The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, and The Gospel of Philip. R. McL. Wilson has finally made available to the English-speaking world a very helpful introduction to the third of these so-called gospels. His translation of Philip seems to be slightly more accurate than the earlier work of Catanzaro-Schenke, and his sectioning or paragraphing of the text (e.g. #4) also seems to be more plausible. In addition to a translation, Wilson has included an excellent commentary, a short introduction, and a brief statement of the theology of The Gospel of Philip.
The author, a New Testament lecturer at St. Andrews, has given most of his attention to the commentary. He compares the ideas in Philip with what we know about Gnosticism from the church fathers and the early non-Christian writers, and he draws a number of helpful parallels to biblical, rabbinic, and other Chenoboskion texts. By means of these comparisons and parallels the commentator supports the view that Philip was probably written late in the second century by a Valentinian Gnostic.
This book will be read primarily by those interested in the field of Gnosticism or early Church history. It is nonetheless written in such a way that the clergyman who has first read R. M. Grant’s commentary on The Gospel of Thomas (The Secret Sayings of Jesus) will find that he is quite at home in this work also.
In general, as a commentary on the Chenoboskion discoveries Wilson’s book marks a decided advance over Kendrick Grobel’s fragmentary work on The Gospel of Truth.
GERALD L. BORCHERT
Moses In Mosaic
Old Testament Theology, Volume I, by Gerhard von Rad (Harper, 1962, 483 pp., $8), is reviewed by Merrill F. Unger, Chairman of the Old Testament Department, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.
This brilliantly scholarly work is authored by the well-known professor of theology at Heidelberg University, Gerhard von Rad, and made available in English through the translation from the German by D. M. G. Stalker. Hailed as a pioneering figure in biblical studies, Professor von Rad offers the reader the most thoroughgoing application of form criticism to the pages of the Old Testament. Part One deals with a history of Jahwism and of the sacred institutions of Israel, and Part Two treats the theology of Israel’s historical traditions. There is no doubt that the author’s handling of his material on the basis of his critical presuppositions, his vast learning, and his technical skill, is masterful. Those who delight in a new approach, based upon latest critical theories, will hail the fresh and original manner in which Professor von Rad attempts to present Old Testament theology.
But the results of the author’s researches are certainly perplexing and disappointing to the student who sees the Old Testament as a historically reliable document. To Professor von Rad the Hexateuch (the Pentateuch and Joshua) came into being from a confessional arrangement of different complexes of conflicting and contradictory traditions. The figure of Moses, for example, is mixed up and blurred in these various groups of traditions, later forcing his way into narratives where originally he was a stranger. The best that can be done for Israel’s great lawgiver and type of Christ (cf. Deut. 18:15–18) for those who picture him as the founder of a religion, is that they can only reach back to “very ancient individual traditions which are difficult to reconcile with one another” (p. 14). If this is true of Moses, who figures so prominently in Old Testament theology and who can be traced so minutely as a type of Christ, what happens to the pattern of the rest of Old Testament theology, which is so intimately interwoven with New Testament theology and forms the basis? Brilliant but unsound handling of God’s Word in this manner will have its style and popularity, but will be forsaken when some new critical fad comes into vogue to capture scholarly fancy in Old Testament higher criticism.
MERRILL F. UNGER
Book Briefs
Journeys After Saint Paul, by William R. Cannon (Macmillan, 1963, 276 pp., $4.95). An excursion into history; the author travels every place connected with Paul and gives an on-the-spot description. Good reading.
The Great Promise, by Karl Barth, translated by Hans Freund (Philosophical Library, 1963, 70 pp., $2.75). Bible lectures Barth presented to students during Advent in 1934.
Daniel to Paul, edited by Gaalyahu Cornfeld (Macmillan, 1963, 377 pp., $13.95). A historical critical evaluation, tempered neither by fact nor by responsible scholarship. The kind of interpretation that invites psychoanalysis.
In Time … For Eternity, by G. W. Hoyer and J. P. Kretzmann (Concordia, 1963, 353 pp., $5.95). Sixty-eight sermons on the church year; to be read for their biblical thought and inspiration, not for their style.
Space Age Christianity, edited by Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. (Morehouse-Barlow, 1963, 191 pp., $4.50). An edited account of the lectures and discussions on “Space Age Christianity” which took place at the Seattle World’s Fair. A book of high interest for those who fear that the science of the space age is a threat to the Christian faith.
Sermons to Intellectuals, edited by Franklin H. Littell (Macmillan, 1963, 160 pp., $3.95). Sermons by, and representative of the theologies of, W. S. Coffin, Jr., P. Tillich, H. Thielicke, D. T. Niles, W. Herberg, and eight others. High in quality, they traverse the theological spectrum wide and free.
Job: Defense of Honor, by Roger N. Carstensen (Abingdon, 1963, 158 pp., $3.25). Job’s trials interpreted as a defense of man’s inherent worth and honor. Christian author sees similarities between the Book of Job and Greek drama.
Salute to a Sufferer, by Leslie D. Weatherhead (Abingdon, 1963, 95 pp., $2). Author gives some radically Christian insights and suggestions about human suffering. Written—successfully—for laymen.
George Washington and Religion, by Paul F. Boiler, Jr. (Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, 235 pp., $4.50). Was Washington a Christian? An extended examination concludes that if being a Christian means believing in Christ’s deity, atoning work, and resurrection, then Washington was not, for he was more unitarian than anything else.
The School Question, compiled by Brother Edmond G. Drouin (Catholic University of America, 1963, 261 pp., $7.50). A reference book for the literature that has arisen around the religion-in-public-schools controversy, 1940–1960.
Red China Prisoner, by Sara Perkins (Revell, 1963, 127 pp., $2.50). Firsthand account of the experiences of an American missionary in Old and in Red China. A story of faith versus Communism.
Luther, by Franz Lau, translated by Robert H. Fischer (Westminster, 1963, 178 pp., $3.75). A portrayal of Luther that finds the key to his life in his inmost spiritual struggles.
Visible Unity and Tradition, by Max Thurian, Brother of Taizé (Helicon, 1962, 136 pp., $3.50). The author, one of the three original brothers of the Protestant monastic community of Taizé, considers the already considerable visible unity of the Church, and calls for more.
Dogmatik, by Wolfgang Trillhaas (Alfred Töpelmann [Berlin 30], 1962, 581 pp., 36 German Marks [$9]). A substantial dogmatic work; by a German author who uses but refuses to be bound by theological tradition, and seeks to speak both to the Church and to the world.
Paperbacks
An Educator’s Guide for Preparing Articles for Periodicals, by James W. Carty, Jr. (self-published [order from Box 218, Bethany, W. Va.], 1962, 28 pp., $1). Teacher of journalism gives pointers to teachers on how to write an article that will be published and read. Also excellent for ministers with an urge to write. Its value dwarfs its size and price.
Positive Protestantism, by Hugh T. Kerr (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 108 pp., $1.75). Author sees the essence of Protestantism in a positive, constructive rather than critical affirmation of the Gospel that God was in Christ for man’s redemption. First printed in 1950.
How to Teach the Word of God, by Edwin J. Potts (Harvest Publications [5750 N. Ashland, Chicago 26], 1963, 104 pp., $1.50). Uncomplicated but pertinent short essays to aid the teacher of religious education.
Current Books and Pamphlets (Missionary Research Library [3041 Broadway, New York 27], 1963, 32 pp., $.50). All the new titles added to the Missionary Research Library between July 1 and December 31, 1962. Rules for borrowing books by mail may be had on application.
Reprints
The Birth of the Christian Religion and The Origins of the New Testament, by Alfred Firmin Loisy (University Books, 1962, 413 and 332 pp., $10). The last two great works of Loisy, excommunicated Roman Catholic priest and leader of Catholic modernism, in which he employs critical historical methods to the rise of Christianity.
The English Hymn, by Louis F. Benson (John Knox, 1962, 624 pp., $6.50). Survey of the development and usage of hymns in the worship of English-speaking churches. First printed in 1915.
Paul the Missionary, by William M. Taylor (Baker, 1962, 570 pp., $3.95). A biography of Paul. Evangelical. First printed in 1909.
