Future Fact? Future Fiction?
The Terminal Generation, by Hal Lindsey with C. C. Carlson (Revell, 1976, 192 pp., $6.95, $3.95 pb), The Living End, by Charles Caldwell Ryrie (Revell, 1976, 129 pp., $4.95), Up, Up and Away, by Robert Yerby (Reiner, 1976, 118 pp., n.p., pb), Interpreting Prophecy, by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes (Eerdmans, 1976, 135 pp., $2.95 pb), and The Jesus Hope, by Stephen Travis (InterVarsity, 1976, 128 pp., $2.25 pb), are reviewed by W. Ward Gasque, associate professor of New Testament, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Religious hook publishers frequently herald impressive sales statistics for books on prophecy that have appeared since Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (Zondervan, 1970). Sometimes it seems that sales success is viewed as evidence that the Bible has been accurately exegeted. Yet no one similarly concludes that books on a secular best-seller list necessarily have great scholarly or literary merit.
Could it be that the eschatological boom that began with Lindsey’s popularization of the traditional dispensationalist understanding of “last things” (which benefited from an exceptionally well chosen title and an easy-to-read style) is simply a fad? Is there some significance in the fact that books on astrology, science fiction, “ancient astronauts,” and the occult are also selling today as never before? Is the desire of many Christians to know God’s hidden program for the future spiritually healthy?
Lindsey’s latest book is his best one yet. Despite the title, it really is not primarily about the end of the world but rather about Christian hope. And his exposition of this subject is basically sound. Even the criticism of contemporary culture (à la Francis Schaeffer) with which he begins his book is satisfying, given the popular aim of the book, though it does seem to be derived entirely from secondary materials. Apart from the final chapter and an odd paragraph here and there, I would consider the book a fairly good presentation of the Christian message for evangelistic purposes. Yet I would hesitate to give it to anyone, because I think it is extremely dangerous to link the Gospel with a prophetic program that might prove to be entirely mistaken.
The problem with the evangelicals who turn the Bible into a kind of crystal ball is that they show very little historical awareness. They speak assuredly about the signs that are being fulfilled “right before your very eyes” and point to the impending end. Lindsey confidently refers to our own as “the terminal generation.” However, these writers do not seem to be aware that there have been believers in every generation—from the Montanists of the second century through Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135–1202) and Martin Luther to those Russian Mennonites who undertook a “Great Trek” to Siberia in 1880–84 and the nineteenth-century proponents of dispensationalism—who have believed that they were living in the days immediately preceding the second coming of Christ. So far they have all been mistaken. How many people have lost confidence in clear doctrines of Scripture affecting eternal life because of misguided prophetic teaching is, unfortunately, not likely to be investigated.
A few months ago I had occasion to talk to Hal Lindsey about the date of Christ’s return. Jesus asserted emphatically that it was impossible to know the exact time of his return (Mark 13:32). Happily, Lindsey does not assign it a day and an hour, but I asked him whether his projections in The Late Great Planet Earth were on target. If they were, shouldn’t the curtain have gone up on the final act in God’s drama by now? “You can’t know the day and the hour, but you can know the generation,” Lindsey replied. “Matthew 24:34 teaches that. ‘This generation’ means the generation in which it first begins to be recognized that we’re living in the last days, the generation which sees Israel (the ‘fig tree’ of verse 32) back in the land of Palestine—this is the chief sign—and sees all the other signs of Matthew 24 being fulfilled (false Christs, wars such as the world has never seen before, famines over the whole world, a growing frequency of earthquakes, worldwide apostasy, and so on). I don’t know how long a biblical generation is. Perhaps somewhere between sixty and eighty years. The state of Israel was established in 1948. There are a lot of world leaders who are pointing to the 1980s as being the time of some very momentous events. Perhaps it will be then. But I feel certain that it will take place before the year 2000.”
“But what if you’re wrong?” I asked. Lindsey replied, “Well, there’s just a split second’s difference between a hero and a bum. I didn’t ask to be a hero, but I guess I have become one in the Christian community. So I accept it. But if I’m wrong about this, I guess I’ll become a bum.” Too often Lindsey’s type of writing seeks to make its case by isolating proof-texts rather than by combining comprehensive with in-depth Bible study; by pontification rather than by interaction with other devout students of Scripture. Such books paradoxically tend to neglect the heart of biblical prophecy, which is its reinforcement of biblical ethics. They turn the rich forest of God’s word into toothpicks.
Is it possible to take a dispensationalist approach to the subject of Bible prophecy without falling into the trap of dating the end or engaging in fruitless speculation? I see no reason in principle why it is not. In fact, the dispensational schema that I was given during the years immediately after my conversion as a teen-ager was relatively free of these things. But that was before The Late Great Planet Earth.
When I picked up a copy of C. C. Ryrie’s new book, The Living End, I hoped it would be an improvement over the sensationalists. Here was a book by a reputable evangelical theologian with doctorates from Dallas Seminary (where he teaches) and from Edinburgh University. Surely he would be more cautious than Lindsey.
How disappointed I was. Here was the same old stuff—lack of historical perspective, dogmatism without exegesis, the attaching of biblical texts to current events with no regard for their original contexts, and a dating of the end. The Russians, the Arabs, the Common Market, the World Council of Churches—all are in their places. “The stage is set. The props are in place. The actors are in the wings. The script has been written. Soon we’ll hear, ‘Curtain.’ ” There will be “no tricentennial for the U.S.A.” Ryrie is apparently committed to a view of eschatology that requires one to believe for certain (he does not talk in terms of probabilities) that the end is very near.
Ryrie’s The Living End is but one of scores of recent books that take the same position as Lindsey. But what about other views? Are there books that offer a different perspective? Yerby, in Up, Up and Away, occasionally betrays the same kind of dogmatic attitude that characterizes Lindsey and Ryrie, but his book at least makes it clear that (1) dispensationalism has not always characterized orthodox Protestantism, (2) many contemporary evangelicals are in fact not dispensationalists, and (3) those who follow what is termed the amillennial approach to eschatology do take biblical authority as seriously as other Bible students.
Philip Hughes’s Interpreting Prophecy offers a careful and scholarly approach to the subject. He takes exegesis seriously and refuses to engage in speculation; he also focuses on the key biblical texts and crucial theological issues. The one drawback is the rather difficult style. Hughes is badly in need of the help of a C. C. Carlson! But those who are willing to expend the effort to read it will find Hughes’s work enlightening and helpful.
The best book on the subject for the general reader thus far is, in my opinion, The Jesus Hope by Stephen Travis. Here is a really sensible book—thoroughly biblical, cautious, down to earth, and written in a style that is easy to read. Travis avoids peripheral details and goes to the heart of the matter: the truth of the Lord’s coming and the implications of this for Christian life and witness. The Jesus Hope offers biblical theology at its best: the doctrine of the kingdom of God expounded in terms easily comprehensible by laymen of high school age and older, yet recognizable to the New Testament scholar; Jesus’ Olivet Discourse (Mark 13; Matthew 24) explained in a manner that both does justice to its original historical context and makes sense in our day; the fact and meaning of the Lord’s return and the final judgment; life after death; and how all this should affect our daily lives. The eschatological teaching of the Bible is interpreted as a call to prayer, a life of faith and service, evangelism, and social concern.
Commenting on Mark 13:10, “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations” (NIV), Travis writes: “Evangelism is one of the marks of the whole period between Jesus’ resurrection and his return.… God’s church in every generation has the job of declaring Christ’s lordship and offering his forgiveness to every nation. Jesus gave no assurance that the gospel would be believed by all men, but he did say that it would be proclaimed.” This clarion call to mission is totally lacking in the eschatological schema represented by Lindsey and Ryrie, who relegate responsibility given by the Lord in Mark 13:10 to a remnant of Jewish believers during the Great Tribulation when the Church has been removed from the world.
However, “God’s mission doesn’t mean only drawing people into his kingdom. It means serving and caring about people of all kinds—just because they are people whom God created and loves.” In Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 24:31–46—another passage usually relegated by dispensationalists to another age), he says in effect, “You show your attitude to me by the way you react to your fellow-men in their suffering. On that basis you will be judged.” Rather than withdrawing from the world and its ills, the faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be involved in social and political action. The eschatology of the Bible gives not simply a blueprint for events immediately surrounding the Second Coming of Christ but a pattern for Christian discipleship in the present age. Although God’s kingdom can never be identified with the kingdom of this world, the principles of the kingdom of God have profound implications for the secular kingdom; therefore the Church is to be a sign of the future and final kingdom of God by living according to its principles and being concerned that God’s will be done on earth today.
When Was The New Testament Written?
Redating the New Testament, by John A. T. Robinson (Westminster, 1976, 369 pp., $15), is reviewed by David E. Aune, professor of religion, Saint Xavier College, Chicago, Illinois.
Robinson’s book is a direct and serious challenge to some of the most cherished opinions of leading New Testament scholars. His basic thesis is that all the documents composing the New Testament were written before A.D. 70; many scholars generally place only what they consider the genuine Pauline letters, and perhaps the Gospel of Mark, before that date. Robinson holds impeccable credentials in both New Testament studies and constructive theology, and for that reason alone the book deserves to be considered seriously by conservative and liberal biblical scholars alike. Those who will tend to view Robinson’s proposals as much like the topsy-turvy world that confronted Alice would be well advised to give heed to his arguments on their own merits. On the other hand, those who will be tempted to embrace Robinson as a comrade and ally would be well advised to remember that choice tidbit of conventional wisdom, caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware!”).
The keystone of Robinson’s enterprise is an argument from silence: none of the books of the New Testament refers, either implicitly or explicitly, to the catastrophic event of the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman legions under Titus in A.D. 70. Had they written after that date, so the argument runs, they would surely have at least alluded to that crucial event. The author first zeroes in on the common critical assumption that Jesus’ prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem (particularly the Olivet Discourse in Mark 13; Matthew 24, and Luke 21) were formulated by Christians after A.D. 70 and then placed on the lips of Jesus. Relying heavily on the research of Bo Reicke, Robinson constructs a very compelling case against this assumption.
Turning to the Pauline letters, he understakes an excellent, though intricate, discussion of the chronology of Paul’s life and letters. After establishing a workable chronological framework for the major events of Paul’s life, Robinson then proceeds to fit each letter into that framework. Accepting the Pauline authorship of Ephesians, he places it with Philemon and Colossians in the summer of 58.
More surprising is his acceptance of the authenticity of the Pastorals; his way of integrating them into Paul’s life is absolutely unique (as well as unconvincing). While conservatives have generally placed the composition of the Pastorals in the period following Paul’s first Roman imprisonment, Robinson locates First Timothy in the autumn of A.D. 55 (written in the Troad or Corinth), Second Timothy in the autumn of A.D. 58 (written from Caesarea), and Titus in the late spring of A.D. 57 (written en route to Jerusalem, perhaps from Miletus). These datings involve the author in two difficulties: (1) Second Timothy 1:17 reads, “But when he [Onesiphoros] was in Rome, he looked for me and he found [me].” In order to associate Second Timothy with Paul’s Caesarean imprisonment, Robinson interpets this verse to mean: “But when Onesiphoros was in Rome, he looked for me [but failed to find me; subsequently he looked hither and yon around the Mediterranean world] and [finally] found me [at Caesarea].” This kind of exegetical legerdemain (of which many other examples could be cited) only serves to mar a book that deserves serious consideration from the scholarly establishment. (2) The Pastorals, like the captivity letters, are distinguished from other Pauline letters by a great many common features. When Robinson separates them from each other with regard to both time and space, it becomes virtually impossible to account for their commonalities. Let us charitably regard his solution of the chronology of the Pastorals as an erratic boulder on an otherwise uncluttered landscape.
In his consideration of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, Robinson is immediately faced with the implications of the two-source theory (the hypothesis that Matthew and Luke independently of each other used two sources, Mark and Q). If Mark is dated ca. A.D. 70, then the other gospels must be placed in the eighties or nineties. Robinson solves this problem by dating Mark as early as A.D. 45! His general analysis of the development of the Synoptic Gospels is as follows: stories and sayings collections took shape in the thirties and forties, “proto-gospels” were formed in the forties and fifties, and the Synoptic Gospels themselves took final form from 50 to 60. With regard to Acts, Robinson accepts Harnack’s final decision that it was composed shortly after the narration itself ended, i.e., ca. A.D. 62 in Rome.
Robinson then proceeds to devote more than a hundred pages to the problem of dating the Catholic letters prior to A.D. 70. His discussion of James is both refreshing and stimulating, and he suggests a date late in 47 or early in 48 (noting the interesting similarities between James and the apostolic decree in Acts 15). An important part of his discussion of the Petrine letters and Jude is a long, extremely valuable excursus on the Roman persecution under Nero. Peter “stands behind” First Peter (written near the end of April A.D. 65). Robinson’s solution of the date and authorship of Second Peter and Jude can only be described as eccentric. Both were written, claims Robinson, in A.D. 61 or 62; Jude the brother of James was working on the composition of Second Peter as Peter’s “agent,” when the situation in Asia Minor became so desperate that he dropped everything to write a shorter letter in his own name. Robinson has a much easier time with Hebrews, since he has a great deal of recent scholarly support; it was written ca. A.D. 67 to a Roman community by Barnabas. The Revelation of John, claims Robinson, reflects the Neronian persecution; the author had been a “partaker of the sufferings” of that persecution in Rome (Rev. 1:9). Again, since the book does not reflect the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the book is dated between late 68 and early 70 (though how and why John was exiled to Patmos from Rome is anyone’s guess!).
Robinson’s research on the Gospel of John led him to rethink the traditional critical dating structure of the entire New Testament. Finding both contradictory and meaningless the patristic testimony that John the apostle lived to a ripe old age and composed the gospel in the late nineties during the reign of Domitian, he looks at the traditional dating in a fresh way. He notes that contemporary scholars are disinclined to think that John either knew or used the Synoptics, and he concludes that John cannot therefore be dated after them. He recognizes that the Gospel of John reflects an intimate knowledge of the Palestinian world that was obliterated in A.D. 70. The first draft of the gospel he dates to the forties in Palestine, a revision to the fifties in Asia Minor. An important feature of the discussion of the date of the Fourth Gospel is Robinson’s treatment of the references to “excommunication” (John 9:41; 12:42; 16:2), which many scholars have taken as an anachronistic reference to the imposition of the ban on Christians by late-first-century rabbinic authorities. Havïng naively accepted this position myself at one time, I must admit that Robinson’s arguments against taking these references in this way are thoroughly convincing.
Robinson does not stop with the canonical New Testament. Scholars have long noted that several of the writings collectively designated as the “Apostolic Fathers” speak of the Jewish temple cultus at Jerusalem in the present tense. One such writing, First Clement (traditionally dated to A.D. 90), is placed early in A.D. 70 by Robinson in a complicated and thoroughly unconvincing argument. The Didache is placed ca. A.D. 40–60 (following Audet), the Letter of Barnabas—the first Christian document to mention the fall of Jerusalem—about A.D. 75, and the Shepherd of Hermas ca. A.D. 85. Students of the New Testament will recognize the revolutionary notions inherent in these redatings.
Robinson’s book is packed with erudition and has sections that are absolutely brilliant as well as sections that are both nonsensical and eccentric. On balance, the virtues far outweigh the faults. The book deserves wide circulation among students of the New Testament, since scholarly opinion (whether conservative or liberal) should regularly examine its assumptions and conclusions. In passing, it is perhaps important to note that Robinson makes elaborate use of the scholarship of Theodore Zahn, perhaps the most brilliant conservative New Testament scholar in the last century. While Robinson himself cannot be pigeon-holed as a conservative (he seems to oscillate between conservative radicalism and radical conservatism), he has nevertheless introduced an extraordinary amount of common sense and measured judgment into the subject of New Testament studies. Let us hope that he will be heard.
The Role Of Women
The Shalom Woman, by Margaret Wold (Augsburg, 1975, 128 pp., $2.95 pb), Woman Beyond Roleplay, by Elizabeth Skoglund (Cook, 1975, 112 pp., $1.25 pb), and Lovingly Liberated: A Christian Woman’s Response to the Liberation Movement, by Sandie Chandler (Revell, 1976, 122 pp., $4.95), are reviewed by Judy Brown Hull, New York, New York.
The author of The Shalom Woman has been the wife of a Lutheran pastor for thirty years, is the mother of five children, and styles herself as “born-again, serious-minded, and Spirit-filled.” The thrust of her journal of a consultation of women held by the World Council of Churches hardly undergirds the traditional view of women of these designations, however. She expresses a deep longing throughout the book that the barriers of hostility and separation between women and men will be broken down in the Church and society in terms of shalom, the biblical reality of wholeness and peace that Jesus Christ promises and becomes to those who receive him. She records numerous interviews with women from Asia, Africa, and Latin America who decry both the fate of women bound by tradition in these countries and also the harsh realities of life that the competition and power-seeking of Western industrial countries have brought to their people.
This book is without the bitterness and arrogance of some of the radical feminist rhetoric with a similar message, because it is full of the hope of one who finds in the Gospel a sufficient manifesto for wholeness for women and men together, without clinging to past forms that have oppressed one or the other sex.
Woman Beyond Roleplay is by a counselor who is an unapologetic single woman. It can be called moderately feminist with striking concessions to American cultural definitions of feminine. It does indeed take positions that are not usual among conservative evangelical women in affirming a woman’s right to be a working mother and to be an ordained minister of the Gospel, and in resisting the idolatry of the male advocated in the “total” and “fascinating” woman phenomenon. She urges Christian women to dress attractively and stylishly lest they stand out as drab. Ms. Skoglund upholds the loving headship of the man in marriage. She feels that women in particular are called as Christians to be kind and to practice hospitality, apparently overlooking the epistles’ application of those virtues to all Christians. She strongly supports the point that Christian women should identify their gifts and use them intelligently and assertively, even within the limitations she upholds.
Lovingly Liberated is the personal reflection-prayer journal of a woman with gifts in teaching and leadership who identifies herself totally in terms of her relationship to others: “wife, mother, sister, daughter.” Consequently, there is a continual love-hate movement in this book with women and ideas in the feminist movement, which she sometimes lauds and sometimes caricatures mercilessly. Husbands must head the household, but women must be free to exercise leadership. Mothers must give themselves more to the care of children, but fathers are called by St. Paul to be the chief nourishers and cherishers in the family. Career-oriented women might be better mothers if they blended career and motherhood, but feminists have no peace of mind. These binds remain with the author at the end of the book, but the concerns and questions she raises are central ones for evangelical women.
New Periodicals
Some guidance for selecting what to read from the vast number of books, articles, and theses appearing each year that have relevance for preaching is provided in Homiletic, an annual presentation of reviews. It is co-sponsored by the American Academy of Homiletics, the Religious Speech Communication Association, and the College of Preachers (where it is edited). Volume one, which appeared in October, 1976, has 171 entries and sells for $2 to individuals, $3 to libraries (3510 Woodley Road N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016).
Robert Schuller, pastor of the widely known Garden Grove Community Church, is the publisher of Solo, a magazine for singles (never married, divorced, widowed). The editor is Jim Smoke, a minister at the church and the author of Growing Through Divorce (Harvest House). The first issue (November-December, 1976) has forty pages of brief, practical, positive-thinking (“choose to be happy”) articles (bi-monthly, $6/year; 12141 Lewis St., Garden Grove, Calif. 92640).
