The op art-flop art jackets and provocative titles of many new books almost make one believe he can judge a book by its cover these days. But the unpredictability of the content of religious books restrains us from making bold predictions about the value of the volumes scheduled for publication this spring. This list of new titles does suggest, however, the concerns that seem uppermost in the minds of Christians who use the printed word to advance the kingdom of God. Two topics that have generated much heat in the past year are destined to receive still more fuel in forthcoming volumes: the relationship of the Gospel to contemporary man and society, and the mission of the Church.

The churches’ growing concern with the social and political scene is shown in new titles dealing with Communism, the race question, poverty, the draft, the sex revolution, and the place of the Church in modern society. The debate on Christian ethics shows no sign of subsiding as James A. Pike, Joseph Fletcher, David Redding, Z. B. Green, T. B. Maston, and E. L. Long offer further contributions on moralities, new and old. Some ten new volumes address the problem of revitalizing the Church so that it will be capable of communicating the Gospel in our difficult day.

Readers who desire to keep up with Christendom’s leading thinkers will find new works or newly published titles by such luminaries as C. S. Lewis, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gerhard Kittel, Joachim Jeremias, Kenneth Scott Latourette, J. B. Phillips, Frank C. Laubach, and Pope John XXIII. Since more and more important books are appearing in paperback editions, this forecast will list paperbacks (labeled P) along with hard-cover volumes in appropriate categories.

AESTHETICS, ARCHITECTURE, MUSIC:ABINGDON will publish Music Leadership in the Church by E. Routley. HELICON,Church Architecture and Liturgical Reform by T. Filthaut. MORROW,The Heritage of the Cathedral: A Study of the Influence of History and Thought upon Cathedral Architecture by S. Prentice. PRINCETON,Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art by R. Rosenblum. WORLD,The Historical Atlas of Music: A Comprehensive Study of the World’s Music by P. Collaer and A. V. Linden.

APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE: From BAKER will come In the Beginning by R. R. Ward. BRAZILLER,No Other God by G. Vahanian. BROADMAN,Integrity Therapy by J. W. Drakeford. EERDMANS,Service in Christ: Essays Presented to Karl Barth edited by T. H. L. Parker and Christian Reflections by C. S. Lewis. HARPER & ROW, The Anthropology of Sex by A. Jeanniere, The Vision of the Past by P. Teilhard de Chardin, and Philosophical Faith and Revelation by K. Jaspers. MCKAY,Between Knowing and Believing by P. L. du Nouy. REVELL,The Mind Magnificent by R. M. Foote. SCRIBNERS,Basic Modern Philosophy of Religion by F. Ferré and Questions of Religious Truth by W. C. Smith. WORLD,Christian Faith and the Space Age by J. G. Williams. YALE,The Fabric of Paul Tillich’s Theology by D. H. Kelsey and The Emergence of Philosophy of Religion by J. Collins.

ARCHAEOLOGY:BAKER will print The Nag Hammadi Gnostic Text and the Bible by A. Helmbold. OXFORD,Sinai by H. Skrobucha. WORLD,Persia II by V. G. Lukonin.

BIBLE COMMENTARIES AND DICTIONARIES:AUGSBURG will present The Sacred Sixty-Six by R. Aaseng. BAKER,Clarke’s One Volume Commentary abridged by R. Earle. EERDMANS,Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume IV, by G. Kittel. SEABURY,Exegetical Method: A Student’s Handbook by O. Kaiser and W. G. Kummel. STANDARD,Standard Bible Commentary: Acts edited by O. Root.

BIBLICAL STUDIES: From BACK TO THE BIBLE will come God and the Nations by G. C. Weiss. BAKER,Baker’s Pictorial Introduction to the Bible by W. S. Deal and Night Scenes in the Bible by F. E. Marsh. BROADMAN,The Holy Spirit: Believer’s Guide by H. H. Hobbs. EERDMANS,The Covenant by J. Jocz and Covenant and Community by W. Klassen. LOIZEAUX,The Gladness of His Return: A Closer Look at the Second Coming by N. M. Fraser and The First Person by L. Strauss. NELSON,The Apostolic Fathers, A New Translation, Volume V: Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Fragments of Papias.OXFORD,The Acts by R. P. C. Hanson (in the “New Clarendon Bible Series”). ST. THOMAS,The Story of Heredity—A Biblical View by W. J. Tinkle. SCRIBNERS,Rediscovering the Parables by J. Jeremias. STANDARD,Daily Life in Bible Times by W. S. LaSor. WESTMINSTER,The Land of the Bible by Y. Aharoni and True Deceivers by W. and L. Pelz. WORLD,Prophetic Voices of the Bible by H. Staack. ZONDERVAN,The Instant Bible by F. M. Wood.

BIOGRAPHY:AUGSBURG will issue Missionary Pioneers of the American Lutheran Church by L. Hesterman. BAKER,I Talked with Paul by W. L. Pape. BROADMAN,Wimpy Harper of Africa by J. C. Fletcher. EERDMANS,Beyond the Ranges by K. Latourette (autobiography). HARPER & ROW, The Teilhard de Chardin Album edited by Mortier and Aboux. INTER-VARSITY,Karl Barth (P) by C. Brown. MACMILLAN,Nikolai: Biography of a Dilemma by W. C. Fletcher. MCGRAW-HILL,Another Hand on Mine by W. J. Petersen. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN,Joan of Arc by J. Michelet. WORLD,Jesus: Man and Master by M. C. Morrison.

CHURCH HISTORY:AUGSBURG will come out with Augsburg Historical Atlas of Christianity in the Middle Ages and the Reformation by C. S. Anderson. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS,Church History, Early and Medieval by E. Ferguson. CONCORDIA,We Condemn by H.-W. Gensichen. EERDMANS,The Cross and the Flame by B. Shelley. HARPER & ROW, The Fellowship of Discontent by H. Hillerbrand. HERALD,Mennonites in the Confederacy by S. L. Horst. MACMILLAN,Popes and Jews in the Middle Ages by E. Synan, The Rush Hour of the Gods by N. McFarland, and The Condition of Jewish Belief, from Commentary magazine. SCRIBNERS,Christians in Contemporary Russia by N. Struve. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN,Religion and Regime: A Sociological Account of the Reformation by G. E. Swanson. WESTMINSTER,A History of the Ecumenical Movement by R. Rouse and S. C. Neill and The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America by J. S. Judah. YALE,Strasbourg and the Reform: A Study in the Process of Change by M. U. Chrisman.

DRAMA, FICTION, POETRY:AUGSBURG will be printing No Uncertain Sound by L. C. Proctor.EERDMANS,Reluctant Worker Priest (P) by E. Heideman and William Golding, J. D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, World War I Poets, Pylon Poets, and Graham Greene from the “Contemporary Writers in Christian Perspective” series (P), edited by R. Jellema. HERALD,The Secret Church by L. A. Vernon. JUDSON,Yeshua’s Diary by W. Shrader. LIPPINCOTT,Code Name Sebastian by J. L. Johnson. PRINCETON,Matthew Arnold: The Poet as Humanist by R. Stange. SIMON AND SCHUSTER,The Chosen by C. Potok. ZONDERVAN,Valley of Desire by A. Pryor, To Make the Wounded Whole by M. Crawford, Jungle Fire by B. Porterfield, and The Secret Love by R. Borne.

ECUMENICS:AUGSBURG will be issuing Söderblom: Ecumenical Pioneer by C. J. Curtis, HARPER & ROW, The Seven Steeples by M. Hendrickson. HELICON,Dialogue with Israel by J. Danielou. MACMILLAN,Tradition and Traditions by Y. M.-J. Congar. MCGRAW-HILL,American Bishop at the Vatican Council by B. R. E. Tracy. SCRIBNERS,Christ in India: Essays Towards a Hindu-Christian Dialogue by D. B. Griffiths. SIMON AND SCHUSTER,An Invitation to Hope by Pope John XXIII. WORLD,The Vatican Council and the Jews by A. Gilbert.

Bell, L. Nelson:Convictions to Live By (Eerdmans, 185 pp., $3.50). Practical and stirring essays that relate a distinguished layman’s faith in Christ.

Chafin, Kenneth L.:Help! I’m a Layman (Word, 131 pp., $3.50). A ringing appeal for every Christian to become personally involved in a creative ministry.

Elliot, Elisabeth:No Graven Image (Harper & Row, 244 pp., $3.95). A gripping novel that realistically depicts the strivings, compensations, and trials of a woman missionary.

Ford, Leighton:The Christian Persuader (Harper & Row, 159 pp., $3.95). The theology and methods of evangelism necessary for Christian response to the urgent demand for evangelism in our day.

Forsberg, Malcolm:Last Days on the Nile (Lippincott, 216 pp., $3.95). The story of the tumultuous conflict of the cross and the crescent in Sudanese history and the recent expulsion of foreign Christian workers.

Franzmann, Martin H.:Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets (Concordia, 109 pp., $2.95). The Sword of the Spirit flashes in fifteen incisive sermons that call men to Christ.

Henry, Carl F. H.:The God Who Shows Himself (Word, 138 pp., $3.50). Vigorous essays that set forth the claims of evangelical Christianity in light of contemporary issues and competing theologies.

Henry, Carl F. H., editor: Jesus of Nazareth: Saviour and Lord (Eerdmans, 277 pp., $5.95). A symposium that assesses the riptides of modern Christology and shows that God’s revelation in Christ and the Bible is solidly anchored in history.

Hitt, Russell T., editor: Heroic Colonial Christians (Lippincott, 255 pp., $4.95). Biographical portraits of Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, David Brainerd, and John Witherspoon showing their indelible imprint on colonial times.

Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe, editor: Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology (Eerdmans, 488 pp., $6.95). Informative introductions to Barth, Berkouwer, Brunner, Bultmann, Cullmann, Niebuhr, Teilhard de Chardin, Tillich, and five other twentieth-century thinkers.

Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe, editor and translator: The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin (Eerdmans, 380 pp., $12.50). An unusual historical volume that shows the conflict between church and state in Calvin’s Geneva and sheds light on the Servetus controversy.

Jones, Howard O.:Shall We Overcome?: A Challenge to Negro and White Christians (Revell, 146 pp., $3.50). Straight talk from an associate Graham evangelist to white evangelical churches about failures in race relations and the unity of all believers in Christ.

Kallas, James:The Satanward View: A Study in Pauline Theology (Westminster, 152 pp., $4.50). A stinging indictment of those who demythologize Satan.

Kelso, James L.:Archaeology and Our Old Testament Contemporaries (Zondervan, 192 pp., $4.95). An outstanding work, well grounded in natural science and the history of technology and alert to parallels between the biblical and modern world.

Lindsell, Harold, editor: The Church’s Worldwide Mission (Word, 289 pp., $3.95). Evangelicals take a fresh look at missions in light of biblical imperatives and world needs and map strategy for future witness.

Little, Paul E.:How to Give Away Your Faith (Inter-Varsity, 131 pp., $3.50). An exceedingly helpful book on personal Christian witnessing.

Nichol, John Thomas:Pentecostalism (Harper & Row, 1966, 264 pp., $5.95). The best historical work so far on the turbulent history of this important movement within the Christian Church.

Pfeiffer, Charles F., editor: The Biblical World: A Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology (Baker, 612 pp., $8.95). An enlightening resource book on such archaeological subjects as geography, customs, literature, biblical personages, and significant excavations.

Pollock, John:Billy Graham: The Authorized Biography (McGraw-Hill, 277 pp., $4.95). A balanced biography that helps one understand why Graham’s life and ministry have been mightily used of God.

Scharpff, Paulus (translated by Helga Bender Henry): History of Evangelism (Eerdmans, 373 pp., $5.75). A substantial work that traces revival movements in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States during the past three hundred years.

Wenger, J. C.:God’s Word Written (Herald, 159 pp., $3.50). A Mennonite bishop-professor’s constructive work on the nature, inspiration, and authority of the Bible.

Wirt, Sherwood Eliot:Not Me, God (Harper & Row, 94 pp., $2.95). Fictionalized conversations between an ordinary American and God that reflect the human condition and relate God’s wisdom and love.

Lest publications covering the whole Bible be over-looked between two separate articles dealing with Old Testament and New Testament studies, first mention is given here this year to The Jerusalem Bible (Doubleday; Darton, Longman and Todd), a splendid production by British Roman Catholics. It is modeled on the French Dominican Bible de Jérusalem, but while the introductions and notes are for the most part straight translations from the French, the Bible version is rendered from the original texts. An important addition to “World Christian Books” is the Concise Dictionary of the Bible in two paperback volumes, edited by Stephen Neill and others (Lutterworth). Old and New in Interpretation, by James Barr (Harper & Row; SCM), is a study of the two Testaments that deals with such crucial questions as history and revelation, typology and allegory, and the work of salvation, and for good measure adds at the end “a note on fundamentalism.”

Volume III of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Eerdmans) covers the letters theta to kappa. The second installment of the Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament (edited by L. Coenen and others (Brockhaus [Wuppertal, Germany]), a work whose character was described in last year’s survey (Feb. 4, 1966, p. 13), confirms the good impression made by the first installment; its entries, which follow the alphabetical order of German words, run from Bewachen to Elias. Nigel Turner has given us a feast of good things in Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (T. and T. Clark); here the fruits of his technical mastery of Greek grammar are made available to the Bible student. If he is right about Luke 2:2, he has solved the historical problem of this verse once for all. The Language of the New Testament, by E. V. N. Goetchius (Scribners), is a Greek beginners’ workbook.

A number of New Testament introductions call for mention. Most impressive of them is W. G. Kümmel’s Introduction to the New Testament, translated from the German by A. J. Mattill (Abingdon; SCM). This work, known to an earlier generation of students as Feine-Behm, has long been a standard handbook in German; it is good that it is now available in English. Even more massive in format is the Introduction to the New Testament by A. Robert and A. Feuillet, two French Catholic scholars, translated by P. W. Skehan and others (Desclée). R. H. Fuller’s Critical Introduction to the New Testament (Duckworth) replaces the identically entitled volume by A. S. Peake in the “Studies in Theology” series. But the work in this field that most readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY will find especially congenial is B. M. Metzger’s The New Testament: Its Background, Growth and Content (Abingdon). Understanding the New Testament, by H. C. Kee, F. W. Young, and K. Froehlich (Prentice-Hall), is a well-illustrated work prepared for the Society for Religion in Higher Education; it combines literary and theological perspectives in a historical setting so as to provide a unifying approach. New Testament Illustrations, compiled and introduced by C. M. Jones (Cambridge), is a volume in the “Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible.” New Testament Essays, by R. E. Brown (Bruce), is a selection of papers written by the author over a number of years, including some particularly important ones on the Fourth Gospel. Historicity and Chronology in the New Testament, by D. E. Nineham and others (SPCK), is a volume in the paperback series of “Theological Collections”; Nineham writes on the present position regarding the Jesus of history, and another article that may be mentioned is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s “What was the Ascension?”

Two monumental volumes have been added to the series “New Testament Tools and Studies”—Index to Periodical Literature on Christ and the Gospels, by B. M. Metzger, editor of the series, and A Classified Bibliography of Literature on the Acts of the Apostles, by A. J. Mattill and M. B. Mattill (Brill; both will also be published by Eerdmans).

Two slim contributions to the mounting literature on the Scrolls and the New Testament are M. Black, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Doctrine (University of London Athlone Press), and F. F. Bruce, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity (Rylands Library, Manchester).

When we come to the central issue of the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth, Saviour and Lord, a symposium in the series “Contemporary Evangelical Thought,” edited by C. F. H. Henry (Eerdmans), demands our attention. Here eight evangelical scholars have dealt with various historical and theological aspects of the New Testament doctrine of Christ. Another symposium on a similar theme is The Finality of Christ, edited by Dow Kirkpatrick (Abingdon). This is a Methodist production, although one chapter presents three non-Christian views of Christ, by a Buddhist, a Sikh, and a Jew. One excellent chapter is Morna Hooker’s “The Christology of the New Testament: Jesus and the Son of Man,” which may serve as an appetizer for a full-length book on this subject due to appear in 1967. R. H. Fuller’s Foundations of New Testament Chistology (Scribners; Lutterworth) shows how further reflection on the interpretation of the Bultmann school has persuaded him to change the position he took some years ago in The Mission and Achievement of Jesus. In Christ, Lord, Son of God (Allenson; SCM), Werner Kramer endeavors to establish pre-Pauline precedent for the characteristic Christological affirmations of Paul.

A. R. C. Leaney has given us The Christ of the Gospels (New Zealand Theological Review), while Sherman Johnson’s The Theology of the Gospels (Duckworth) supersedes the earlier volume with this title contributed to “Studies in Theology” by James Moffatt. Vindications, edited by A. T. Hanson (Morehouse-Barlow; SCM), is an outspoken rejoinder to the excessively skeptical evaluation of the New Testament documents as historical documents of which we have had a surfeit of late.

THE DEACON HAS A WIFE

With a cool, cool smile

On her sneer-bent lips

She greeted them,

Gave them two lime-green dips

Of conversation.

That was this morning.

Tonight they think

They’ll skip the sermon and have a drink

Or two with their neighbors.

She has frosted their beer

With her glacial ice.

They like it chilled

But they won’t risk such a freezing twice

In any narthex

For any price.

ELVA McALLASTER

William Barclay’s The First Three Gospels (SCM) is a popular introduction written with his characteristic lucidity and charm. The Parables of Jesus, by Eta Linneman (SPCK), is a scholarly “introduction and exposition” sponsored by Ernst Fuchs. Rediscovering the Parables, by Joachim Jeremias (Scribners; SCM), is a shorter edition of the author’s major work on The Parables of Jesus. Another of Jeremias’s major works, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, has appeared in a new English translation by Norman Perrin (Scribners; SCM).

The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Alexander Jones, translator of The Jerusalem Bible (Sheed and Ward; Geoffrey Chapman), is a Catholic commentary based on the Revised Standard Version. The Sermon on the Mount, by W. D. Davies (Cambridge), is an abridged edition in paperback of the author’s great work on The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount. Vincent Taylor’s magisterial commentary on the Greek text of The Gospel According to St. Mark (Macmillan) has appeared in a second edition. The Gospel of Luke, by Bo Reicke (John Knox; SPCK), is an essay that undertakes to rebut the “de-eschatologizing” of the Third Evangelist familiar from the works of Hans Conzelmann. While Luke’s work is early (before A.D. 65), Reicke maintains, it can at that date envisage the world-mission of Christianity, because this is in line with Jesus’ own intention. The first New Testament volume in a new series of paperback “Bible Study Books” is St. Luke, by E. M. Blaiklock (Scripture Union). The editors of a volume of essays in honor of Paul Schubert (L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn) have decided to devote it to Studies in Luke-Acts (Abingdon); here are nineteen important essays written from divergent viewpoints. The first of two volumes on The Gospel According to John in the Anchor Bible (Doubleday), by Raymond E. Brown, covers chapters 1–12 but includes a valuable introduction to the whole Gospel of more than 120 pages. The Gospel According to St. John, by Owen E. Evans (Epworth), is a distinguished addition to the publishers’ “Preacher’s Commentaries.”

The Acts of the Apostles in the “Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible” is expounded by J. W. Packer, one of the editors of the series (Cambridge). The volume on Acts 14–28 has been published in the new translations of Calvin’s New Testament commentaries (Eerdmans; Oliver and Boyd). For the scholar, Eldon J. Epp has contributed The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts to the monograph series of the Society for New Testament Studies (Cambridge); he finds an anti-Judaic tendency in the manuscript.

Pauline studies have not flagged during the year. Two issues in “Studies in Biblical Theology” (Allenson; SCM) deal respectively with The Collection: A Study in Paul’s Strategy (by Keith F. Nickle) and Christianity According to Paul (by Michel Bouttier). The latter work bears almost the same title as C. A. Anderson Scott’s Christianity According to St. Paul, a standard work for nearly forty years, which has now made a welcome reappearance in paperback (Cambridge). The Gospel According to Paul, by A. M. Hunter (SCM), is a new edition of part of an earlier work and bids fair to fulfill the author’s hope that readers will find in it “a short, reliable and up-to-date sketch of St. Paul’s theology plus … a suggestion that Paul still has something to say to us.” That Paul has less to say to us than Hunter thinks is the opinion of A. Q. Morton and J. McLeman, whose Paul: The Man and the Myth (Harper & Row; Hodder and Stoughton) is described as “a study in the authorship of Greek prose” but is less dispassionate than essays in statistical analysis normally are.

The eager impatience of those who waited for the second volume of John Murray’s commentary on Romans in the “New International Commentary” series (Eerdmans) has been more than rewarded by its appearance. In this volume, covering chapters 9–16, Professor Murray has excelled himself, giving proof not only of his well-known qualities as theological exegete but also of his sound judgment as an exponent of Christian ethics. Another volume in the series of new translations of Calvin’s commentaries contains the Reformer’s work on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians (Eerdmans; Oliver and Boyd). A welcome reprint of a much appreciated classic has been issued by Baker Book House in its “Limited Editions Library”: W. M. Ramsay’s Historical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. Where Ramsay has least to give—in the study of the theological content of the epistle—a major contribution has been offered to us in the doctoral dissertation by A. J. Bandstra entitled The Law and the Elements of the World (Kok [Kampen, the Netherlands]). Bandstra takes issue with the common view that the “elements of the world” in Galatians and Colossians are the lords of the planetary spheres and concludes that the “elements” envisaged by Paul are two in number—the law and the flesh—and do not need to be demythologized for twentieth-century application as the astral powers do.

ST. MATTHEW 25:42

Waterswollen bellies of the unfed

Mock most of the hymnody pieties

Of those of us who gnaw our daily bread

(Moaning meanwhile about all the inflation

In a martini-thirsty nation,

And the inconvenience of our lot).…

And yet, beyond some reredos,

Some gilded morning, Deity

Chargingly emerging may

Have a discommoding say:

I was hungry and you fed me not.

HENRY HUTTO

The volume on The Pastoral Letters in the “Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible” has been written by A. T. Hanson (Cambridge); he finds many puzzling features in these three letters, particularly the miscellaneous character of their contents. The author, urging his readers to remain true to the teaching they had received, takes his theological language “from the prayer book and hymn book of his day” and includes in his work genuine fragments of Paul, which belong to the period following Paul’s release from his first Roman imprisonment.

Volume VI of The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, edited by C. W. Carter (Eerdmans), covers the New Testament books from Hebrews to Revelation; this is a conservative production, with strong devotional emphasis, based on the American Standard Version. Two excellent works on James appeared in 1966. One is The Epistle of James by C. L. Mitton, the latest volume in the “Evangelical Bible Commentary” (Eerdmans). It is a verse-by-verse commentary by a well-known scholar that reveals the relevance of James’s teaching for today and insists throughout that “faith is not true faith unless it is the motive power that produces Christian living.” The same essential emphasis is found in James Speaks for Today, by H. F. Stevenson (Marshall, Morgan and Scott), a collection of twenty studies in the epistle in which its heavenly wisdom is applied to earthly practice.

B. F. Westcott’s commentary on the Greek text of The Epistles of St. John has been reprinted by the Marcham Manor Press, with a preliminary essay in which the present writer surveys the progress of Johannine studies since Westcott’s day. A modern approach to the problem of the first epistle is presented by J. C. O’Neil in The Puzzle of First John (SPCK).

Our survey of commentaries ends with one of the best to appear in 1966—G. B. Caird’s The Revelation of St. John the Divine in “Harper’s New Testament Commentaries” (Harper & Row). When so much has been said about the Revelation as a reaction to pre-Christian Jewish eschatology, or as a putrid backwater in relation to the mainstream of Christian thought, it is refreshing to read a work by a scholar who sees it so clearly for the thoroughly Christian book it is. And when so much literature on the Revelation gives way to unrestrained fantasy, it is refreshing to turn to the product of such a disciplined mind as Dr. Caird’s.

The New Testament literature is related to the Christian literature of the period immediately following in the new edition of Edgar J. Goodspeed’s History of Early Christian Literature (first published in 1942), revised and enlarged by Robert M. Grant (University of Chicago Press). Its scope ranges from Paul to Eusebius.

Has 1966 been a good year for Old Testament publications in English? Quantitatively, yes. But qualitatively, particularly from an evangelical viewpoint, the answer must be a guarded no.

Certain areas have been solidly productive during the past year. One is commentaries: of the eleven Old Testament releases that can be identified as the year’s most important for evangelicals, five are in this category. Yet only one of these, and that the least intensive, can be called conservative. The level of such top-notch 1965 volumes as M. Woudstra’s The Ark of the Covenant or E. J. Young’s Isaiah 1–18 (“New International Commentary”) just was not attained during 1966. Still, liberal sets such as Allenson’s “Studies in Biblical Theology,” Doubleday’s Anchor Bible, and Westminster’s “Old Testament Library,” along with a few conservative sets such as Baker’s “Studies in Biblical Archaeology,” “Shield Bible Study Series,” and “Old Testament History Series,” continued to produce on schedule. The following survey seeks to point out, by area, some of the leading books of 1966, plus a few from 1965 that appeared too late to be listed last year.

Concerning the biblical text itself, Father Alexander Jones’s edition of The Jerusalem Bible (Doubleday) ranks as one of the year’s top eleven volumes in Old Testament. Although its headings and notes generally render the 1956 French Bible de Jérusalem, its text is in splendid English. But when its Roman Catholic sponsors bill it as “unbiased” and as “acceptable to all faiths,” one wonders what conservatives—whether Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish—are supposed to make of its third-century date for Chronicles or its “figurative Yahwistic narrative” in Genesis 2:4b ff.

Then there were the two Catholic Bibles in the Revised Standard version. The New Testament part of the Holy Bible, RSV: Catholic Edition (Nelson), produced by the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain, had appeared in 1965 with sixty-seven textual changes; in 1966 came the Old Testament, with the Apocrypha inserted throughout and with notes at the ends of both testaments. The Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (1966 imprimatur edition) is really just the 1965 Protestant publication with the addition of fourteen minor notes. A defense of the Jewish Torah version, especially in its freedom as opposed to the “LXX-type” word-for-word translation, came from H. M. Orlinsky (ed.): Genesis: The New Jerusalem Version Translation (Harper Torchbooks); this is the 1962 edition revised on the basis of the Torah’s actual reception. A comparative exhibit of the sort of Genesis text that Orlinsky attacked appeared in L. A. Weigle (ed.): The Genesis Octapla: Eight English Versions of Genesis in the Tyndale-King James Tradition (Nelson).

To get back to the original languages, 1966 brought Part XII:2, Ecclesiasticus, of the Septuaginta, edited by J. Ziegler (Göttingen, Germany); A. A. DiLella, The Hebrew Text of Sirach (The Hague); Y. Yadin, The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada (Israel Exploration Society, 1965); J. A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave II (Oxford, 1965; “Discoveries in the Judean Desert,” IV); J. A. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave I (Pontifical Biblical Institute); and J. Reider, An Index to Aquila (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands; “Supplements to Vetus Testamentum,” XII).

Volumes on textual criticism ranged from D. R. Ap-Thomas, A Primer of Old Testament Textual Criticism (Fortress); through S. Talmon’s editing of the fifth volume of Textus: Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project, with various Qumranic notes and a recovered photograph of a page out of the lost Pentateuchal part of the Aleppo Hebrew Codex; to J. de Waard, A Comparative Study of the Old Testament Text in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament (Brill and Eerdmans, “Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah,” IV), our first such really comprehensive analysis.

Next to commentaries, books on historical background seem to have been 1966’s best Old Testament contribution. A Short History of the Ancient Near East, by the conservative (indicated through the rest of this survey by an asterisk) Seventh-day Adventist S. F. Schwantes,* won Baker’s twenty-fifth anniversary manuscript contest. The book sweeps through the political history of Shinar, Egypt (in one-third of the book’s 175 pp.), Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Aram, and Israel. It has helpful maps, charts, and illustrations. A translation of M. Noth’s The Old Testament World (Fortress) likewise travels through geographical, cultural, and archaeological settings to end up with a discussion of the text itself.

J. Van Seters in The Hyksos: A New Investigation (Yale) identifies the Hyksos with urbanized Amorites and places their capital city of Avaris near Qantir rather than Tanis. J. L. McKenzie provided a useful manual in The World of the Judges (Prentice-Hall), while C. Gordon continued his Mediterranean studies with Ugarit and Minoan Crete (Norton) and Evidence for the Minoan Language (Ventnor). Gordon’s views on early contacts between the Aegean and the Near East are projected in E. M. Yamauchi’s* paperback, Greece and Babylon (Baker, “Studies in Biblical Archaeology”). K. Stenring in The Enclosed Garden (Stockholm) outlines the chronology of the Old Testament, with diagrams; and K. M. Kenyon surveys Amorites and Canaanites (Oxford) and how Israel adopted their culture after the conquest. Another book in the Prentice-Hall background series is E. H. Maly’s The World of David and Solomon. C. F. Pfeiffer* continued his survey books on Hebrew history with Israel and Judah (Baker) during the divided kingdom, while for the period from 538 B.C. onward there is M. Avi-Yonah’s The Holy Land from the Persian to the Arab Conquest: A Historical Geography (Baker).

Concerning archaeology, a useful tool that is suggested as another of 1966’s eleven most important Old Testament books for conservatives is C. F. Pfeiffer* (ed.): The Biblical World, a Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology (Baker). It presents an excellent check list of digs under “Archaeology”; but in its striving for objectivity it comes up with a few conclusions that have made both conservatives and liberals lift an eyebrow, e.g., that Jericho was “presumably” destroyed by Joshua in 1325 B.C. Critical problems about the Moabite Stone, for example, or Moses’ relation to Hammurabi, are often bypassed. Its bibliographies though brief, are helpful.

Similarly broad in scope is R. W. Ehrich’s Chronologies of Old World Archaeology (University of Chicago). More specialized studies ranged from the technical report of B. Mazar, T. Dothan, and I. Dunayevsky, En-Gedi: The First and Second Season of Excavation, 1961–62 (Israel Exploration Society) to J. C. Trever’s autobiographical The Untold Story of Qumran (Revell), which clears up some of the uncertainties, nineteen years after the discovery.

Turning to biblical content, we first find the one-volume Dictionary of the Bible (Bruce, 1965) by the outstanding Catholic Old Testament scholar J. L. McKenzie. It claims to be “a synthesis of the common [i.e., liberal] conclusions of scholarship” and is a large (954 pp.) but well done one-man job. Sister Laurentia Digges gives popular sketches of Old Testament characters from Adam to David in Adam’s Haunted Sons (Macmillan)—haunted by visions of God, that is. Similarly biographical is J. Kelso’s* Archaeology and Our Old Testament Contemporaries (Zondervan). While it popularizes a few critical conclusions, such as Abraham’s being a merchant prince, and the name Yahweh’s having a “Creator” meaning (hiphil), it still maintains an evangelical position, with a Mosaic Deuteronomy and a miracle-working Christ. Selected as third on the list of eleven most important is a work by V. Moller-Christensen and K. E. J. Jorgensen, Encyclopedia of Bible Creatures (Fortress, 1965), which contains scientific footnotes on all the animals of the Bible.

Studies in Old Testament introduction do not have to be skeptical. In 1966 some were, like W. Beyerlin’s Origins and History of the Oldest Sinaitic Traditions (Blackwell) or G. von Rad’s sixteen essays that span the last thirty years, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (McGraw-Hill). Yet others were not, like W. F. Albright’s New Horizons in Biblical Research (the Whidden lectures for 1960, published by Oxford), which traces the positive effect of archaeology from Abraham to Judges, and E. M. Yamauchi’s* Composition and Corroboration in Classical and Biblical Studies (Baker, paperback), which compares the use of literary criticism in these two disciplines.

A. Altmann edited nine essays that were first presented in colloquia at Brandeis University on Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations (Harvard), e.g., Cyrus Gordon’s definition of Leviathan as an eternal (uncreated) monster, symbolic of evil. C. Barth has furnished students and laymen with a critical survey of poetic forms and meanings in his Introduction to the Psalms (Scribners, paperback); cf. W. M. W. Roth’s Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament, a Form-Critical Study (Brill, 1965, “Supplements to Vetus Testamentum,” XIII). Yet of a more conservative bent are the papers read at the seventh and eighth meetings of Die OT Werkgemeenskap in Suid Afrika,* Studies on the Books of Hosea and Amos (Potchefstroom). Small but important—fourth of the year’s best eleven—is D. J. Wiseman* et al., Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel (Tyndale, 1965); forty-eight of the seventy-nine pages are a defense by K. A. Kitchen * of a date in the sixth century B.C. for the Aramaic of Daniel’s prophecy.

Commentaries were 1966’s richest Old Testament contribution. There appeared in English nine “heavy” commentaries on specific Old Testament books, all of them negatively critical. G. von Rad understood Deuteronomy (Westminster, “Old Testament Library Series”) as a covenant form for office-bearers in Israel. J. W. Myers continued his previous Anchor Bible efforts on Chronicles with Ezra-Nehemiah (Doubleday), ably stressing an essential historicity, even though he finds Ezra insertions in Nehemiah, and dating the former in 428 B.C. R. Gordis produced a fine translation in The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job (University of Chicago), holding generally to the book’s literary integrity. From the Pontifical Biblical Institute, M. Dahood’s Anchor Bible, Psalms I (chapters 1–50; Doubleday) is the first serious incorporation of present-day knowledge of Canaanitish literary forms (Ugaritic) into a study of the Psalter.

Both G. A. F. Knight’s Deutero-Isaiah: A Theological Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (Abingdon, 1965) and J. D. Smart’s History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40–66 (Westminster) stress consistency of thought. Smart’s work, in fact, treats all twenty-eight chapters as a unity, though of 550 B.C., and locates the writing of Judah, with its hopes not focused on a return from Babylon. J. Bright was criticized for treating Jeremiah (Anchor Bible, Doubleday) as mostly authentic; no one could accuse N. Porteous of doing that in his Daniel: A Commentary (Westminster, 1965, “Old Testament Library”), though he does concede that the “stories” of Daniel 1–6 might have been based on pre-Maccabean materials. Like all three of the Westminster commentaries mentioned above, J. M. Ward’s Hosea: A Theological Commentary (Harper & Row) is more interested in theological synthesis than in detailed textual and literary criticism. But it was still our first full-length Hosea commentary in fifty years, and it and the Gordis, Dahood, and Bright volumes may be listed as numbers five to eight in our eleven of top importance.

Among the more popular expositions (M. F.) Unger’s* Bible Handbook (Moody) is more than 90 percent commentary notes. The Wesleyan Bible Commentary,* Volume I (Eerdmans), edited by C. W. Carter and released late in December, became the first Old Testament part of a work already available in the New. R. L. Honeycutt, in These Ten Words (Broadman), operates from critical presuppositions to make practical applications of the Decalogue; C. T. Francisco outlines words of later editors who regarded themselves as extensions of Moses in The Book of Deuteronomy (Baker, paperback). I. L. Jensen* added two helpful paperbacks to the Moody Colportage Library, Joshua: Restland Won, and Jeremiah: Prophet of Judgment, both with maps and charts.

Two double-volume studies that cover both major and minor prophets are E. Kraeling’s Commentary on the Prophets (Nelson) and the Beacon Bible Commentary,* Volumes V–VI (Beacon Hill). The Nelson commentary, which consists of considerably more Bible text (RSV) than notes, follows the critical spirit of the RSV on such passages as Daniel 9:27; Micah 5:2, and Zechariah 6:13. The Beacon work, however, rates a rave as number nine of the year’s best eleven. Here eight Nazarene and holiness scholars have succeeded in putting together a careful evangelical study, well abreast of current thinking and especially good in citing conservative sources. The Aldersgate Biblical Series* (Light and Life Press) reached completion in 1966 with the release of Books 13 and 14 Isaiah, and 20, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. The Leader’s Guides contain the ninety-sixe-page Study Guides plus helpful analyses; in Book 14, however, the intrusion of a deutero- and even trito-Isaiah seemed incongruous after the stress on the Virgin Mary and Jesus in Isaiah 7:14.

THE FOOL HATH SAID …

They jeered God from their pinnacles of knowledge

And hooted him from tome and tabloid sheet.

They danced him out beneath a noose suspended

Then tried to drop the trap beneath his feet.

As Haman found a long, long time before,

A gallows can be used by either … or.

MARIE J. POST

A. W. Blackwood, Jr.,* applied The Other Son of Man, Ezekiel/Jesus (Baker) to contemporary problems; and J. P. Lewis* uses 105 pages to bring us adequately The Minor Prophets (Baker), a volume available also in paperback. This was unquestionably Amos’ year for study helps, with choices open between D. Garland,* Amos: A Study Guide (Zondervan, paperback), good on content though weak on biblical analogy for predictions; P. Kelley,* The Book of Amos (Baker); R. L. Murray, Plumb Lines and Fruit Baskets (Broadman), practical; and J. D. W. Watts, Studying the Book of Amos (Broadman), with background, content, and meanings for today. Two other “briefies” were W. L. Banks’s* Jonah: Reluctant Prophet (Moody), and P. Kelley’s Malachi (Baker).

During 1966, the study of Old Testament religion bordered on a comeback after years of eclipse by a neo-orthodox biblical theology. Five releases attempted to crash the textbook market, hopefully appealing to liberal-minded professors with combinations of Old Testament survey, history, and religion: G. W. Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel (Oxford, a redoing of Wardle’s “Clarendon Old Testament,” Volume I); H. M. Buck, People of the Lord (Macmillan); A. S. Hopkinson, Modern Man Reads the Old Testament (Association); J. W. Myers, Invitation to the Old Testament (Doubleday); and H. C. Snell, Ancient Israel: Its Story and Meaning (University of Utah). H. Ringgren’s 1963 German work appeared in English as Israelite Religion (Fortress), stressing the period of the monarchy with a characteristic Uppsala interest in the cult, kingship, and traditions. Also translated were five of A. Alt’s studies, Essays on Old Testament History and Religion (Blackwell).

In a restricted area was J. Morgenstern’s Rites of Birth, Marriage, Death, and Kindred Occasions Among the Semites (Hebrew Union College; Quadrangle). Essential for an appreciation of current trends, and number ten of 1966’s top eleven, were the papers read at the one-hundredth meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Modern Scholarship (Abingdon), so edited by J. P. Hyatt as to sweep from early history and cult, through prophecy, and into later apocalyptic and “theology”—actually only a history of Israel’s ideas.

For valid Old Testament theology there was J. W. Watts’s* Old Testament Teaching (Broadman), but also, paradoxically, what H. Renckens entitled The Religion of Israel (Sheed and Ward); for, if one takes this Roman Catholic writer’s theories of what J, E, D, and P said was early Israel’s thought as being what really was its thought, then the result becomes a useful biblical theology, for Renckens believes in divinely revealed doctrines. On specific subjects were C. J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament (Brill) and P. Scharper (ed.), Torah and Gospel (Sheed and Ward), an interesting colloquium between Jews and Roman Catholics in which agreement was reached on the inspiration of Scripture—namely, that both groups could afford to adopt negative biblical criticism since both had an independent basis for authority in their extra-biblical traditions anyway (but they couldn’t agree on who really constituted Israel!). Surveying ten positions that the Church has taken toward the older Scripture was another translation, A. A. Van Ruler’s The Christian Church and the Old Testament (Eerdmans).

Inspiration in the light of modern science was the subject of such diverse volumes of biblical apologetic as A. Hulsbosch, God in Creation and Evolution (Sheed and Ward), the liberal Roman Catholic canonization of evolution, and H. M. Morris,* Studies in the Bible and Science (Baker), or D. W. Patten,* The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch (Pacific Meridian), a conservative Protestant scientist opposes uniformitarianism.

On the subject of Old Testament ceremonial, H.-J. Kraus’s Worship in Israel (John Knox), originally in German, M. Thierry’s A Feast in Honor of Yahweh (Notre Dame), from the French, and W. Harrelson’s The Worship of Ancient Israel (Doubleday), in original English, agree on an evolutionary transformation within Israel on what were originally pagan Canaanitish rites. Similarly, the liberal Catholic P. Drijvers, in The Psalms: Their Structure and Meaning (Herder and Herder) and the neo-orthodox Protestant Harvey H. Guthrie, Jr., in Israel’s Sacred Songs (Seabury), see eye to eye on a God of encounter in worship rather than a God of truth. On the other hand, C. Westermann’s analysis of Gunkel’s psalm types, The Praise of God in the Psalms (John Knox, 1965), offers excellent insights on the true quality of praise. A description, then, of wisdom as non-Yahwistic, at least in pre-exilic days, was the burden of R. N. Whybray, Wisdom in Proverbs (Allenson, “Studies in Biblical Theology,” 45). An indepth contribution was G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Volume II: The Theology of Israel’s Prophetic Traditions (Harper & Row). Weakness appeared in Von Rad’s concluding attempt to relate the Old Testament to the New; but his stress on the prophets as called of God and as building upon the prior entity of the law merits the selection of this volume as a final, eleventh, Old Testament book of the year for evangelicals.

Among important new editions—later 1965 and 1966—of former publications were J. M. Adams,* Biblical Backgrounds (Broadman), extensively revised by J. A. Callaway; J. Gray, The Legacy of Canaan (Brill), adding one hundred pages to The Ras-Shamra Texts and Their Relevance to the Old Testament (“Supplements to Vetus Testamentum,” V); A. S. Rappoport, Myth and Legend of Ancient Israel (Ktav), with an introduction and additions by R. Patai; and E. R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (Eerdmans). (Thiele has now come to an explicit disavowal of original inerrancy in First and Second Kings: “This work was done by men, not God.”)

Newly appearing in paperback were such basic works as H. F. Hahn, The Old Testament in Modern Research (Fortress), H. Lansdell,* The Tithe in Scripture (Baker); J. B. Phillips, Four Prophets (Macmillan); I. M. Price et al., The Monuments and the Old Testament (Judson); E. Sauer’s* trilogy on the history of salvation (Eerdmans); G. A. Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land (Harper & Row); and G. Vos,* Biblical Theology (Eerdmans). Finally, coming in new form were a set of eight classroom-size, five-color maps, The Abingdon Maps of Bible Lands—from the Oxford Bible Atlas of 1962—and the Tyndale Bulletin,* the voice of British evangelicalism, enlarged into an annual volume. Over half of the seven articles in this first release (#17, 1966) were devoted to the Old Testament; special praise is due to K. A. Kitchen’s* “Historical Method and Early Hebrew Tradition.”

The pace of literary production was well maintained in this area during the past year. By any standards, however, much of it is ephemeral stuff, which at most will merely help to swell the bibliographies of doctoral dissertations and next year’s works. One wishes sometimes that the mind could be given a little more of the time devoted to the pen.

This is not to say that we do not have some solid work. In encyclopedias, for example, the Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church (Augsburg) and the Catholic Dictionary of Theology, Volume II, are both valuable reference works. The Luther translation has also advanced with the Lectures on Genesis (Concordia), and T. H. L. Parker has given us a useful selection of English Reformers in “The Library of Christian Classics” (Westminster). The republication of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume III (Yale), is another worthy project. Edwards will undoubtedly survive C. Cherry on The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Doubleday). Another series to be noted is the new edition of apostolic fathers, to which Volume IV on Ignatius of Antioch (edited by R. M. Grant, Nelson) has now been added. J. Stevenson has also finished his sequel to the New Eusebius in Creeds, Councils and Controversies (SPCK), an invaluable collection of early Christian documents.

Early church history is by no means irrelevant to the present, and some of the finest studies are in this field. One might begin with a new and enlarged edition of Goodspeed’s History of Early Christian Literature (edited by R. M. Grant, University of Chicago). Henry Chadwick raises again some important issues in Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford), and with H. von Campenhausen he also takes up the problems of succession and primacy in Jerusalem and Rome (Facet Books, Fortress). From L. W. Barnard we have both the general Studies in the Apostolic Fathers and Their Background and the more specific Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Abingdon). A general account of the first centuries is attempted by S. Laeuchli in The Serpent and the Dove (Abingdon), although one wonders whether the title was aptly chosen for this disentanglement of good and evil in the story.

The late medieval and early Protestant period can always be relied on for interesting and useful studies. Here pride of place goes to M. Spinka, who in the last two years has given us both John Hus at the Council of Constance (Columbia University) and the definitive John Hus’ Concept of the Church (Princeton). To the same general area belongs G. H. W. Parker’s more popular The Morning Star in “The Advance of Christianity” series (Eerdmans). P. E. Hughes, whose translation of the Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin has now been brought out by Eerdmans, also writes with authority on The Theology of the English Reformers (Eerdmans). Luther, of course, commands a book or two, including In the Footsteps of Luther, by M. A. Kleeberg and G. Lemme (Concordia).

Some good historical writing is devoted to Anglican matters. Owen Chadwick has opened what promises to be an important work with Volume I of The Victorian Church (Oxford). G. V. Bennett and J. D. Walsh have also edited some interesting Essays in Modern English Church History (Oxford). Wesley exacts his annual tribute in R. C. Monk’s John Wesley and His Puritan Heritage (Abingdon), which analyzes one of the elements in this complex and forceful character.

On the American side we find a particular interest in heroes and heretics. The American Religious Heretics of Abingdon (edited by G. F. Shriver) are counterbalanced by the Heroic Colonial Christians of Lippincott (edited by R. T. Hitt). The history of the Plymouth Colony in the seventeenth century is retold by G. D. Langdon, Jr., in Pilgrim Colony (Yale), and L. C. Rudolph gives us a fresh picture of that founding father of American Methodism, Francis Asbury (Abingdon). Too much should not be expected of so short a work as The Religious History of America, by E. S. Gaustadt (Harper & Row), although it will be appreciated by those who share its emphases. More generally satisfying is D. E. Trueblood’s The People Called Quakers (Harper & Row).

The year has produced some good studies, including a whole series on church growth by Eerdmans. More generally, S. Neill makes an acute analysis of the significant if ambiguous relation between Colonialism and Christian Missions (McGraw-Hill), while J. Edwin Orr’s The Light of the Nations (Eerdmans) might very well be regarded as a history of mission by revival. We also have a voice from Scandinavia, that of A. Sundkler on The World of Mission (Eerdmans). Three biographies may be put under the heading of world evangelism. Lois Carlson tells again the story of her husband in Monganga Paul (Harper & Row). R. K. Curtis takes up again a familiar theme in They Called Him Mr. Moody (Eerdmans). Finally, J. Pollock writes an official biography of the world’s leading evangelist today, Billy Graham (McGraw-Hill).

It may be doubted whether any of the new devotional works listed can compare with the great classic, William Law’s Serious Call (reprinted by Eerdmans). Selected Sermons of St. Augustine, edited by Q. Howe (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), should also promote spiritual nurture as well as patristic knowledge. The riches of hymnology are explored by E. Routley in Hymns and Human Life (Eerdmans). Those who seek a better understanding of worship may profitably consult F. W. Schroeder’s Worship in the Reformed Tradition (United Church Press) and also The Liturgy of the Church of England Before and After the Reformation, by S. A. Hurlbut (Eerdmans).

Some of the most interesting books come from leading Roman Catholic authors, especially on the reforming side. The ecumenical bearing of the recent council is discussed by B. Leeming in The Vatican Council and Christian Unity (Harper & Row). Hans Küng tackles a question of peculiar difficulty to Roman Catholics in Freedom Today (Sheed and Ward). From Karl Rahner we have Volume V of his interesting Theological Investigations. Behind the enlightened chorus, however, a more sinister note is sounded by Pope Paul in his encyclical Christi matri rosarii, whose mariology is less commendable than its plea for peace. Here is a salutary reminder that for all the changes, Roman Catholicism still has an active element that is incompatible with evangelical truth.

Ethics has gone increasingly theological. This is good, but it is no panacea. Everything depends on the theology. G. F. Woods gives us a Defence of Theological Ethics (Cambridge) that raises the question whether, if defense be needed, it should not itself be a theological defense. J. Sellers has a Theological Ethics (Macmillan) that does at least illustrate the need for a sound theology if we are to have a sound ethics. In a class of its own is the monumental Theological Ethics of H. Thielicke (Volume I: Foundations, Fortress), which from a Lutheran standpoint gets to grips with the real dogmatic issues behind ethics and is one of the great books of the century. It demands serious scrutiny and shows up only too vividly the shallowness of so much that passes for ethical discussion in our day.

From theological ethics it is but a step to theology in the narrow sense. In How I Changed My Mind, essays by Barth have been collected and published with some interesting photographs and chatty introductory material by J. D. Godsey (John Knox). H. A. Meynell in Grace Versus Nature attempts an evaluation of one of Barth’s main emphases from a Roman Catholic standpoint (Sheed and Ward). I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, edited by W.-D. Zimmerman (Collins), presents Bonhoeffer through the eyes of some of those who knew him. Existentialism finds a persuasive advocate in J. Macquarrie’s Principles of Christian Theology (Scribners) and Studies in Christian Existentialism (Westminster), but the future of real theology is obviously not to be found here. Georgia Harkness has a good theme in The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit (Abingdon), but there is more solid meat in the reprint of Swete’s The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (Baker). W. Hordern writes the Introduction (Volume I) to the series “New Directions in Theology Today” (Westminster); it is more helpful descriptively than materially. A. H. Leitch uses the similar but more biblical Winds of Doctrine (Revell) for a survey from a more orthodox standpoint. C. F. H. Henry also has a fine review of the modern theological scene in Frontiers in Modern Theology (Moody). Another useful survey is the Guide to the Modern Debate about God, by D. E. Jenkins (Westminster), which rightly perceives that the knowledge and doctrine of God are basic to all else.

This leads us to the great theological fad of the year, the so-called death-of-god theology—a nice contradiction in terms! It is ironical that God’s supposed death has been needed to focus attention again on the living God as the proper theme of theology. Also ironical is the way in which most of the titles, even in refutation, ring the changes on the death-of-God theme. Is advertising our theological criterion? T. J. J. Altizer himself is, of course, justified when he tries to state what he has in view under the titles The Gospel of Christian Atheism (Westminster) and (with W. Hamilton) Radical Theology and the Death of God (Bobbs-Merrill). The only problem is to find the Gospel and the theology. But then a Roman Catholic response comes under the query Is God Dead? (edited by J. Metz; Paulist Press). The same (rhetorical) question is asked in the title of a Zondervan symposium. K. M. Hamilton has the bold title God Is Dead (Eerdmans), though in fact he writes one of the best rejoinders. J. W. Montgomery has another refutation under the more general The Is God Dead Controversy (Zondervan), and under the similar The Death of God Controversy (Abingdon) T. W. Ogletree attempts a rather different evaluation. G. H. Girod assures us in his title that God Is Not Dead (Baker), and G. MacGregor, though on substantially liberal ground, feels bold to speak of God Beyond Doubt (Lippincott). It is surely odd that in none of the titles is clear reference made to the great biblical doctrine of the living God.

Is it right, in any case, that theology should dance thus to the piping of atheism, however Christian? One might argue with some justice that the truth must be stated in opposition to every form of error. One might also point out that stupid ideas about the value of death-of-God teaching need to be averted and exploded by proper analysis and refutation. It should be remembered, however, that even the negative task will not be done unless the movement is not taken too seriously as theology but is rather unmasked as the empty, speculative mythologizing it really is. Nor can the positive task be fulfilled unless it is clearly seen and shown that, first and last, to know God is to know him as he has revealed himself to be in Holy Scripture. The death-of-God theology is another attempt to fill the vacuum left by the failure of so much modern theology faithfully and forcefully to present the biblical God, who is not only the God of the living but also the living God.

The mailman recently delivered a blurb sheet for a new book on writing for money. It promised to show me how to turn out 10,000 words a week for as much as 30¢ a word. Editors will buy this stuff by the ton, I learned, even if it isn’t grammatically correct and lacks any “unusual inspiration.” For a moment or two I was tempted to switch rather than struggle. Then I recalled advice by a former fiction editor of Collier’s, Thomas Uzzell, who taught narrative techniques to a small group of us in the thirties. The very first night he said: “If you want to write for the public, turn out a million words of your best and toss them into the wastebasket; then you’re ready to begin.”

Somewhere between these extremes there’s probably a happy hunting ground for success in the word business. But if as a beginner I had to choose between these two lines of approach, I’d buy the giant wastebasket before opening the bank account. At CHRISTIANITY TODAY we receive hundreds of manuscripts a month, and we get both kinds of copy daily.

There’s a difference between literary hacks and literary artists. The essayists who are out in front with our editorial readers are almost always those who search patiently for words to fit the theme. Some of the losers, however, think that if a religion editor doesn’t accept material on a “first come” basis, he forfeits his right to survival in this age of equality, tolerance, and bloody murder of the king’s English.