The Acts Of The Church

According to radio commentator Paul Harvey, a problem arose in Milwaukee recently. The association of tavern owners was upset with the Roman Catholic Church. The church was hurting their business, they said.

It wasn’t that revival had struck Milwaukee and that all loyal beer drinkers had abandoned the bar for baptism. The problem was more direct than that. The church was attempting to get a hard liquor permit for New Year’s Eve and the bartenders were upset.

It was bad enough that the church could serve beer at bingo, they contended, but now the Catholics were going all the way and the tavern owners felt they couldn’t compete. After all, whose side would God be on anyhow?

But if the Catholic church is competing head to head (or mouth to mouth) with the tavern owners in Milwaukee, then the conservative Protestant church is competing claw to claw and jaw to jaw with the circus in America. All you have to do is look at almost any major metropolitan area church page.

How can any law-abiding, conscientious circus promoter compete with “Ronald McDonald in person at First Baptist’s Sunday School,” or Fred Heyerbrund, Christian skydiver, parachuting to earth in a chute that reads, “Jesus Saves. Yes, even you.” And all the while Fred is floating “into church property from 5,000 feet,” he speaks to the crowd in the parking lot via two-way radio.

And Ronald and Fred aren’t the only acts at the church. We now have gospel magicians, talking birds, Christian karate experts, and strong men who speak. We have pastors who swallow goldfish, preach from the roof if over 600 attend the service, and generally make animals of themselves.

If the tavern owners can complain to the City Council of Milwaukee, then Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey ought to complain to pastors across the continent. But there’s a bright side to the picture. If the church keeps perfecting its act, it can soon move to circus life all together and quit messing around with the gospel. After all, what can the gospel compete with?

EUTYCHUS VII

Who And Where

In a recent essay (Footnotes, Jan. 16) Dr. Carl Henry made reference to the volume we edited entitled The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing. He wished to know who among the authors defined what “authentic Christianity” is. The answer is that the editors did (pp. 18–19), Dr. Kantzer did (pp. 38–67), Dr. Gerstner did (pp. 21–37), and Dr. Ahlstrom (pp 270, 271) and Dr. Williams (pp. 211–48) reinforced their definitional work.

JOHN D. WOODBRIDGE

DAVID E WELLS

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Ill.

Provoking Redefinition

Thank you for your thought-provoking issue, “The Church in Black and White” (Jan. 30). I found the article “Down With the Honky Christ—Up With the Funky Jesus” particularly stimulating. The phrase “personal salvation and little beyond that” occupied my attention for more than an hour.

We hear much today from evangelicals concerned with social issues to the effect that personal salvation is an inadequate solution to the problem of sin—particularly collective, institutionalized, social sin. Perhaps we need to redefine “personal salvation.”

If by personal salvation is meant the passive acceptance of an alleged change in one’s standing before God upon condition of a supposed sterile “faith” that does not necessarily produce a moral rebirth in the life … then it could be truthfully said that “personal salvation” is ineffective.… But if by personal salvation is meant the active experience of the grace of God that brings salvation … and that is accompanied by the personal moral revolution that Jesus said consists in supreme love for God and equal love for our neighbor … then it can be truthfully said that “personal salvation” is the basic solution for everything human.

J.W. JEPSON

First Assembly of God Church

McMinnville, Oreg.

The January 30 issue of your magazine opened a door and let fresh air into what had become a stuffy room. If you would like to send sample copies to the seniors at George Fox College … this is the issue to send.

ARTHUR O. ROBERTS

Professor of Religion

George Fox College and Philosophy

Newberg, Oreg.

It should not surprise Mr. Hilliard that central in the preaching of the “honkey gospel” is the cross on which Christ died. This cross, not the ones Christ carried before, was central in the writings of Paul (1 Cor. 1:18; Gal. 6:14). It is the message of this cross that is an “offense” to unbelieving man (Gal. 5:11), not the ones Christ carried “before He shouldered the last one,” nor “the crosses he expects us to lift.”

Mr. Hilliard seems to be calling the white middle-class church to deliver the Gospel from its social and cultural accretions, since “the call of the gospel is to join the black nigger Jesus at the very bottom of the social order.” I am wondering if Hilliard would interpret this literally or in a “spiritual” sense. It would seem that he means this “move to the bottom of the social order” in a literal way. If this is the case, do we not end up with a Christ who is still locked into a certain cultural and social level as much as He supposedly is in the “honkey gospel”? Putting Hilliard’s statements into a cross-cultural context, would he tell a Brahman that he must become a low caste person in order to become a Christian? Does not Christ rather both identify with and transcend every culture? Hilliard seems to have merely moved Christ from one social level to another and in the process lost sight of Him as the Son of Man who meets all men where they are. DR. JOHN GRATION Wheaton Graduate School Wheaton, Ill.

ERRATUM

In the article “Committing Seminaries To the Word” by Carl F. H. Henry (Feb. 13) the three lines above the featured quote on p. 8 should read: … earnestness tend to be committed mainly to relativism. Scripture speaks of those who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of truth”.…

Saul Bellow: Higher-Thought Clown

Since his first novel, Dangling Man (1944), Saul Bellow (b. 1915) has written short stories, articles on literature and culture, a novella, several dramas, and four major novels, two of which—Herzog (1964) and Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970)—garnered the National Book Award for fiction.

Mr. Sammler’s Planet was the first work by Bellow to impress me. Here was a superbly narrated story, a modern novel with an old-time hero whose intellectual and spiritual interests revealed an author with deep insight and consummate artistry. So I then went on to read most of Bellow’s earlier major works. Still, for me, Mr. Sammler’s Planet has remained the peak experience.

Bellow’s fifth major novel is now out: Humboldt’s Gift. Again reviewers are commending it, again a Bellow novel is a best-seller, again Bellow is up for the National Book Award.

But what a disappointment! With Humboldt’s Gift Bellow tries to do two things and fails at both. He continues the highly intellectual interior monologue that was the triumph of Mr. Sammler and he reverts back to the comic chicanery of Henderson the Rain King (1959). That is, he tries to combine high seriousness (here associated with the themes of death, intimations of immortality, the clash of world views and moral values) with slapstick comedy. Only occasionally does this combination work.

Here is one place it does. Seeking his origins, as it were, Charlie Citrine, the central figure of the novel, returns to his birthplace in Wisconsin to see the house where he was born. He knocks, gets no answer, and then goes to the back, climbs on a crate, and peers through a bedroom window. The lady of the house is home, however, and suddenly her husband, who runs a nearby filling station, appears behind him. Charlie explains who he is, asks for the neighbors by name, calms the man down, and saves himself a punch in the nose as a Peeping Tom.

Charlie reflects:

I could not say “I am standing on this crate among these lilacs trying to solve the riddle of man, and not to see your wife in her panties.” Which was indeed what I saw. Birth is sorrow (a sorrow that may be cancelled by intercession) but in the room where my birth took place I beheld with sorrow of my own a fat old woman in underpants. With great presence of mind she pretended not to see my face at the screen but slowly left the room and phoned her husband. He ran from the gas pumps and nabbed me, laying oily hands on my exquisite gray suit—I was at the peak of my elegant period. But I was able to explain that I was in Appleton to prepare an article on Harry Houdini … and I experienced a sudden desire to look into the room where I was born.

“So what you got was an eyeful of my Missus.”

He didn’t take this hard. I think he understood. These matters of the spirit are widely and instantly grasped. Except of course by people who are in heavily fortified positions, mental opponents trained to resist what everyone is born knowing [Viking, 1975, pp. 90–91].

Such humor, resulting as it does from the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the sublime, is fine in short pieces, but Bellow tries to sustain this tone throughout nearly five hundred pages. Rather too soon the sublimity begins to blend with the ridiculousness until one can’t tell whether Bellow expects us to ooh and ah or to double over with laughter.

The frustration is that Bellow’s hero knows what the tough and serious questions are: “The death question … [is] the question of questions.” He knows what one should do with these questions: “Either I conceded the finality of death and refused to have any further intimations condemned by childish sentimentality and hankering, or I conducted a proper investigation.” And Charlie Citrine has “incessant hints of immortality,” reminiscent of Mr. Sammler’s “God adumbrations in the many daily forms” or Peter Berger’s “signals of transcendence.”

He knows that these intimations are challenged by the prevailing naturalistic world view:

The existence of a soul is beyond proof under the ruling premises, but people go on behaving as though they had souls, nevertheless … and they have impulses and desires that nothing in this world, none of our present premises, can account for [p. 479].

But a reader can’t take Charlie’s seriousness seriously because he can’t take Charlie seriously. While his metaphysical meanderings are replete with touches from every era of Western philosophy and literature, Charlie himself clowns his way through life. He has had a string of relationships with women, mostly younger (often much younger) than he. When he is still in divorce court he is courting Renata, a well-endowed divorcee who is out for his money. His many friends include Pierre Thaxter, a parasite fellow writer; Rinaldo Cantabile, a would-be Chicago syndicate hoodlum; and George Swiebel, a successful contractor. And Charlie is blown about among them, moving when they push.

Moreover, he is troubled by the legacy left by his friend Von Humboldt Fleisher, a Dylan Thomas-like dissipated poet from whom Charlie has learned the ways of the decadent literary world. What story line there is traces Charlie’s attempt to discover what the legacy is and then to cope with it.

Charlie certainly rejects the prevailing naturalistic world view of contemporary culture. But instead of taking serious things seriously, he pursues truth in the anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner. Intrigued but not satisfied by Steiner, Charlie looks nowhere else—neither back to his own Jewish heritage nor around to the Christian tradition.

In this novel, Saul Bellow, unlike Charlie’s friend Thaxter, shuns the “major statement” he might have made with a work touching on so many significant issues. Instead Bellow lets Charlie Citrine, his “higher-thought clown,” wander ever more deeply into “crank theories” and what Charlie himself sees as “quaint metaphysical opinions.”

Of course, a novel need not make a major statement, but this one plays around the edges of the urge to do so, and that leaves me unsatisfied.

Bellow ends Humboldt’s Gift on a horrible death-resurrection cliche, thumbing his nose at the reader who is looking for any deep penetration of reality. So I end this review on a horrible reviewer’s cliche, waiting with anticipation for the appearance of Bellow’s sixth major novel.

JAMES W. SIRE

James W. Sire is editor of InterVarsity Press and author of the newly released book “The Universe Next Door: A Basic World View Catalog” (IVP).

By far the most significant book published in the area of New Testament studies during 1975 was the volume marking a fresh start of the long acclaimed International Critical Commentary series: The Epistle to the Romans, Volume One (on chapters 1–8) by C. E. B. Cranfield (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). The very appearance of a new volume in this prestigious series is noteworthy; but when the volume is a replacement of the long standard commentary by Sanday and Headlam, first published in 1895, and is by so distinguished and judicious a commentator as Cranfield, the event is doubly important. It would be difficult to praise this new commentary too highly. To those who know the older series and the work of Sanday and Headlam, it is sufficient to say that it not only updates their work and maintains the high standard of the best of the series but is double the size of the commentary it replaces while being a model of lucid brevity. If you have studied any Greek at all—or if you have a pastor or a friend who has—this is the book to buy. It is pure gold! (For more comments see my lengthy review of this book, scheduled to appear in this periodical soon.)

WORKBOOKS An unusual number of aids to serious Bible study were published last year. Perhaps the most creative and generally useful is Pauline Parallels by Fred O. Francis and J. Paul Sampley (Fortress or Scholars Press), which prints each letter of Paul (excluding the Pastorals) side by side with passages from the other letters that use similar language, images, literary forms, or (occasionally) contrasting ideas. Also included are references to pertinent passages in Acts, the Pastorals, and elsewhere in the Old and the New Testament. Hence the student has at his fingertips a wealth of information that is normally contained only in marginal references in his Bible or in the small print of learned commentaries. This handbook will doubtless be used in many classrooms in colleges and seminaries, but it will also be of use to any serious student of the Pauline corpus. The Horizontal Line Synopsis of the Gospels by Reuben J. Swanson (Western North Carolina Press [Box 29, Dillsboro, N.C. 28725]) offers the traditional gospel parallels in a form that enables the reader to note more quickly and easily the similarities and differences among the four Gospels. The text used is the RSV, as is the case in Pauline Parallels. H. E. D. Sparks’s The Johannine Synopsis of the Gospels (Harper & Row) supplements his earlier Synopsis of the Four Gospels (1964) by following the order of the Fourth Gospel. This second volume should be added to theological libraries but really adds little or nothing to Swanson.

Budding students of New Testament Greek will all rush out and order copies of An Analysis of the Greek New Testament, Volume One: Matthew-Acts by Max Zerwick and Mary Grosvenor (Rome: Pontifical Institute Press), a translation and adaptation in English of a work hitherto available only in Latin. Here the student has the meaning of words, the identification of forms, and brief grammatical comments on the text, as well as references to the standard grammars and commentaries, in the order in which the words and expressions occur in the individual New Testament writings; the student is thereby saved the time of looking up each word in a pocket lexicon or using an analytical lexicon for especially difficult forms. Purists will not approve of an aid such as this, which can, admittedly, become a substitute for necessary hard work in learning a language; but I will certainly recommend it to my students. The new edition of Sakae Kubo’s A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Zondervan), which offers only lexical information following the same general format, is also to be warmly recommended to students, especially those who have learned their paradigms well. Those who have no knowledge of Greek at all will find the Layman’s English-Greek Concordance by James Gall (Baker), a reprint of a work more than a hundred years old, a little easier to use than the similar Englishman’s Greek Concordance. It also contains a basic glossary of Greek terms, but this should be checked with more recent lexicons that incorporate up-to-date findings.

FOUNDATIONS New Testament Foundations: A Guide For Christian Students, Volume One: The Four Gospels by Ralph P. Martin (Eerdmans) is intended as a supplement to the standard introductions to the New Testament by Guthrie and Kummel. With an emphasis upon recent scholarship, it deals with the literary form “gospel” and with trends of current study. It presents historical and literary background of the New Testament period and gives a brief introduction to each Gospel, emphasizing its theology. Already known for two volumes of introduction to the epistles, Mennonite scholar D. Edmond Hiebert now contributes An Introduction to the New Testament, Volume One: The Gospels and Acts (Moody).

Of interest to the more advanced student will be Charles Talbert’s Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the Genre of Luke-Acts (Scholars Press), which traces suggested parallels between and within Luke and Acts, significant theological motifs, possible literary models from the Greco-Roman world, and the like. Not least of the valuable features of this important monograph is the low price, typical of books published by Scholars Press! A work that complements the material contained in Talbert’s work is my own A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Eerdmans). Suffice it to say that the book has been gratifyingly commended by reputable scholars.

A helpful guide to interpretive principles influencing the New Testament authors in their handling of the Old Testament and also Jewish hermeneutics of the same period is Richard Longenecker’s latest work Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Eerdmans). Once again Longenecker shows himself to be the master of his materials and leads the way in making an important evangelical contribution to contemporary biblical scholarship. In Kerygma and Comedy in the New Testament (Fortress), Dan O. Via, Jr., employs the literary category of comedy for interpreting death and resurrection in Paul and Mark’s passion narrative.

JESUS AND THE GOSPELS The book in this general category that will have an appeal to almost everybody is Jesus: The Man Who Lives by Malcolm Muggeridge (Harper & Row), though few if any readers will agree with everything he says. Here is a book, beautifully illustrated from classical Christian art and drawing its inspiration from a wide variety of literary sources, in addition to the Gospels, to wake up sleepy believers and to interest men and women outside the faith. Those who have followed the author’s pilgrimage for some years will be glad to see him clearly within the fold. The Child Jesus by Adey Horton (Dial) gathers paintings on the early years with commentary on the influence of non-canonical sources for Christian beliefs in areas where the Gospels say very little.

Of a very different nature and much more technical, but also bound to have a wide appeal because of its subject matter, is Jesus and the Spirit by James D. G. Dunn (Westminster). The author is a Scottish theologian who has specialized in pneumatology for some years. Dunn’s book should be studied by charismatics, anti-charismatics, and simply unhyphenated Christians alike.

Two other books in this area should be of wide general interest, the first of them more popular and the second decidedly technical: The Difficult Sayings of Jesus by William Neil (Eerdmans) and Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Tradition by Robert Banks (Cambridge). The first is a commentary on some of the more important sayings of our Lord that have been often misunderstood or that seem to be difficult for the ordinary Bible reader to understand; one hopes the author will issue a sequel, since his selection by no means exhausts the list. Banks’s study, originally a Cambridge doctoral dissertation, is a magnificent work dealing with the problem of “law” vs. “freedom,” authority, and structure in the context of our Lord’s teaching. His work will be important for the area of systematic theology as well as for biblical studies.

Parables Told by Jesus (Alba) is a non-technical introduction to the subject by Wilfrid J. Harrington, a Roman Catholic scholar who has the ability to communicate the results of contemporary research in extremely readable language. Of a more academic orientation is The Parables of the Triple Tradition by Charles E. Carlston (Fortress), which deals with representative parables and will be primarily of interest to teachers and more advanced students. The Jesus of the Parables by Charles W. F. Smith (Pilgrim), first issued in 1948, has now been updated and revised.

Three important works on the Gospel of John appeared last year: The Gospel of John and Judaism by C. K. Barrett (Fortress), presenting reflections of the subject subsequent to his well-known commentary published in 1955; D. George Vanderlip, Christianity According to John (Westminster), an exposition of the author’s conception of the major motifs of the evangelist’s message; and J. Painter, John: Witness and Theologian (London: SPCK), a revision of a doctoral dissertation written under Barrett. On Mark, the professor of New Testament at Strasbourg, Etienne Trocme, has written The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark (Westminster), a discussion of the sources that he thinks the author used in writing his Gospel. And on Matthew, there are The Passion Narrative According to Matthew by Donald P. Senior (Gembloux, Belgium: Editions Duculot, for Leuven University Press), a redactional study by an American Catholic scholar, and Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom by Jack Dean Kingsbury (Fortress).

Focusing on the place of the Lord in the Kerygma is Graham N. Stanton’s Jesus of Nazareth in New Testament Preaching (Cambridge), a Society of New Testament Studies monograph by a younger evangelical scholar. Also beginning with the Gospels but moving quickly into the realms of historical and systematic theology—how else could one write more than 500 pages on the subject?—is The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament by John McHugh (Doubleday), a very learned and orthodox Roman Catholic. Reading this book will be an eye-opener for all Protestants and liberal Roman Catholics. In much smaller compass but of major significance is Der Sohn Gottes by Martin Hengel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr), an attempt to show that the title “Son of God” applied to Jesus by Paul had its origin in a Jewish context, not in a pagan-hellenistic one, as some scholars have alleged. Ordinary Christians have always supposed this, but it is nice to hear it from the lips of a famous German scholar! Finally, a work written in honor of Hans Conzelmann of Gottingen, that contains essays in French, English, and German is Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie edited by Gerhard Strecker (J. C. B. Mohr); among others, the essay by E. Earle Ellis, “New Directions in Form Criticism,” which challenges some of the major assumptions of contemporary scholarship, will be of broad general interest. Advanced students will also want to consult Resurrection and the Message of Easter by Xavier Leon-Dufour (Holt, Rinehart and Winston).

PAUL Last year brought a harvest of good books on Pauline theology. One of the finest was the translation of Dutch theologian Hermann Ridderbos’s Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Eerdmans), which is bound to be a standard textbook, in conservative circles at least, for many years to come. Other important contributions to the understanding of Paul’s theology include Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority by John Howard Schutz (Cambridge), who combines New Testament exegesis with modern sociological insights in an attempt to come to grips with the apostle’s understanding of the nature of his own authority in the church as an apostle of Jesus Christ; Paul, Libertine or Legalist? by James Drane (SPCK), a Manchester graduate under F. F. Bruce, who suggests that Paul’s missionary stance led him to vary his approach to ethical and theological problems and that the result is the appearance of inconsistency; and a very welcome reprint of an important but heretofore out-of-print study by R. N. Longenecker, Paul, Apostle of Liberty (Baker). Newness of Life: A Study in the Thought of Paul by Richard E. Howard (Baker or Beacon Hill) is an exposition of Pauline anthropology by a Nazarene scholar.

Faith and Human Reason is the title of an investigation of Paul’s method of preaching as illustrated by the Thessalonian letters and Acts 17:2–4 by Dieter Werner Kemmler (Leiden: E. J. Brill), a young German scholar who presented this creative study as a thesis at Cambridge University under C. F. D. Moule before going out to Africa as a missionary. He points out that Paul in no way depreciated human reason but rather was concerned to anchor the Gospel in the minds of his hearers, and he offers a valuable examination of the key New Testament terms related to reason. His study is important not only for biblical theology but also for systematic theology.

A. van Roon presents a massive defense of The Authenticity of Ephesians (Brill), which will be welcomed by conservative Christians but will also have to be seriously considered by all scholars concerned with the study of Paul. Despite its rather high cost—about $40 for 450 pages—it is a very important book that should be in all institutional libraries. Rather more esoteric is Elaine H. Pagels’s The Gnostic Paul (Fortress), which looks at how key passages of the Pauline corpus were interpreted by the Valentinian Gnostics. Pagels concludes that, contrary to the suggestions of some scholars, Paul neither writes to refute Gnosticism nor adopts Gnostic terminology; rather, the second-century Gnostics adopted his terminology to expound their peculiar doctrines.

Although it is intended as a commentary for laymen, J. C. O’Neill’s decidedly eccentric intepretation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Penguin) will be primarily of interest to scholars—one would expect historians of theological curiosities. O’Neill excises more than 60 per cent of the letter, which he regards as the product of many editorial hands, by what most critics will regard as the most arbitrary methods of textual criticism, and he expounds Paul’s theology in hyper-Pelagian terms. Fortunate for the reputation and usefulness of the Pelican New Testament Commentary, the editor excluded this work from the series.

COMMENTARIES The number of commentaries and guides to the study of individual biblical books appearing on publishers’ lists boggles the mind. Most of these works are disappointingly superficial, offering the Bible student pious thoughts that often have little to do with the text supposedly underlying the comments and that often fail to go beyond what the thoughtful reader could produce for himself, if he had any literary gift at all. There are exceptions. Certainly the most provocative commentary published this past year was J. Massyngberde Ford’s contribution to the Anchor Bible series, Revelation (Doubleday). She argues that the author, or at least the recipient of the revelations, was not John the beloved disciple but rather John the Baptist; hence the book provides a link between the Old and New Testaments. It is not likely that many people will accept the author’s thesis, but the scholarship with which she marshalls her case and the insights she offers into the message of the book should not therefore be ignored. More down to earth is the equally scholarly work by G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Attic), the respected British Baptist leader who now resides in the United States and who has made it his life’s work to study New Testament apocalyptic. Two additional expositions of the Apocalypse that are helpful for the novice are I Saw Heaven Opened: The Message of Revelation by Michael Wilcock (InterVarsity) and The Revelation to John by J. W. Roberts (Sweet).

Two important but contrasting commentaries of major proportion are William Hendriksen’s The Gospel of Mark (Baker) and Hans Conzelmann’s First Corinthians (Fortress). Biblical expositors will enthusiastically embrace Hendriksen for giving them just the right balance between technical exegesis and pastoral concern. Although the volume is priced a little higher than earlier volumes in his series, it is still a bargain at $14.95 for 700 pages. Conzelmann’s work, another translation from German for the Hermeneia series, succeeds in turning one of the most exciting letters ever written into a very dull document. I challenge anyone to read, for example, his comments on Paul’s great love chapter (1 Cor. 13) and then tell me he was enlightened.

Homiletically oriented works abound. Among the finest of this genre is the first volume of a projected five-volume commentary on The Gospel of John by James Montgomery Boice (Zondervan), who seems to be walking in the footsteps of Donald Grey Barnhouse in more ways than one. Chapters one through four are covered. The indefatigable D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones continues his exposition of Romans with 450 pages on thirteen verses of the eighth chapter in Romans: The Sons of God (Zondervan) and expounds Ephesians 5:18–6:9 under the title Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home, and Work (Baker). Anyone who has never been exposed to the ministry of this prince of preachers should complete his education by reading one of these books; those who are disciples will already have purchased copies. Among a host of other books in this genre are H. L. Eddleman, An Exegetical and Practical Commentary on Acts (Books of Life [Box 1647, Dallas, Texas 75221]); John F. Walvoord, Matthew: Thy Kingdom Come (Moody); Arnold Bittlinger, Letter of Joy (Bethany Fellowship), on Philippians; Leonard Griffith, Ephesians: A Positive Affirmation (Word); George Allen Turner, The New and Living Way (Bethany Fellowship), on Hebrews; and William Greathouse, Romans (Beacon Hill), in the Beacon Bible Expositions series.

BACKGROUND Two books seeking to introduce students to the literature and history of this era are The History and Literature of the Palestinian Jews From Cyrus to Herod by W. Stewart McCullough (University of Toronto) and Introduction to the Intertestamental Period by Raymond F. Surburg (Concordia). Both cover roughly the same material, though McCullough is heavier on the historical side while Surburg stresses the literature of the period, extending his coverage to writings that are not strictly Palestinian. The format and price make Surburg a more useful student’s text, but McCullough’s book is a little more scholarly and carefully written.

The prolific Judaic scholar and professor at Brown University, Jacob Neusner, produced yet another study that will be of value to all Bible students. His Early Rabbinic Judaism (Brill and Abingdon) brings together a collection of essays published elsewhere (plus a new one on “The Meaning of Oral Torah”) in a form that makes them more readily accessible. The same author’s First Century Judaism in Crisis (Abingdon) is on the foundation of Judaism as we know it today in the wake of the Christian “defection” and the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

A useful technical collection of Post Biblical Jewish Studies by Geza Vermes, well known for his study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was issued by Brill. An extremely helpful work is The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools For Study by Joseph Fitzmyer (Scholars Press).

The other side of New Testament background is the subject of a major reference work, Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Classical World by Michael Avi Yonah and Israel Shatzman (Harper & Row). Some 2,300 entries cover the whole of Greek and Roman culture.

POTPOURRI Very important for the history of exegesis is a book by Horton Harris, a New Zealand evangelical who resides in Cambridge, England, on The Tübingen School (Oxford), that small but extremely influential band of nineteenth-century scholars who gathered around Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) and whose ghosts have continued to haunt contemporary New Testament scholarship. Harris’s work, together with his definitive earlier study of David Friedrich Strauss and His Theology (1973), should be required reading for all theological students and their professors.

The title of Jack T. Sanders’s book, Ethics in the New Testament (Fortress), might lead someone to expect some positive guidance about applying New Testament principles to contemporary personal and social ethical issues, but he would be mistaken. What relevance, in the author’s view, do the ethical teachings of the New Testament have for today? Answer: Not much. The author refers to his conclusions as “overwhelmingly negative,” and I am afraid that this phrase will apply equally to the reaction of the majority of his readers.

A major study of Worship in the Early Church by Fuller Seminary professor Ralph Martin (Eerdmans) is now available in a slightly revised edition.

Jesus und Paulus is a collection of essays written in honor of W. G. Kümmel, the present dean of German New Testament scholars, and is edited by E. Earle Ellis and Erich Grässer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht). Essays in English are by C. K. Barrett (on Mark 11:15–17), F. F. Bruce (Gal. 1:11–2:15), C. E. B. Cranfield (Rom. 9:30–33), N. A. Dahl (Eph. 3:18), M. D. Hooker (Phil. 2:6–11), H. C. Kee (Mark 11–16), B. M. Metzger (the “Nazareth” inscription), and C. F. D. Moule (Mark).

Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults is a four-volume festschrift for Morton Smith of Columbia University, edited by Jacob Neusner (Brill); it contains numerous important essays that shed light—or, in a few cases, cast darkness—on the New Testament. The contributions I found to be the most helpful were Max Wilcox’s on the speeches in Acts, E. E. Ellis’s on Paul and his opponents, and S. E. Johnson’s on early Christianity in Asia Minor. Much lighter weight in every way is a volume in honor of Christopher Evans of London University entitled What About the New Testament?, edited by Morna Hooker and Colin Hickling (SCM). It at least makes plain the fact that old-fashioned liberal theology has not quite died out, though it also contains one very solid essay by an evangelical.

Donald Guthrie provides an account of the New Testament writings from Acts to Revelation in terms that young Christians of high school age and older will appreciate in The Apostles (Zondervan), a sequel to Jesus the Messiah.

Finally, to conclude on a note that touches the crucial issue in the study of the New Testament, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans) is the testimony of an eminent scholar who gives good reasons for continuing to believe in the traditional Christian view of what happened on the third day following the crucifixion of our Lord.

Two books to which special attention should be called both reject many popular notions, in the one case those of scholars and in the other those of the laity. Both are written with some critical presuppositions that conservatives may consider debatable, but neither is dependent for its thesis on such secondary matters.

In Anthropology of the Old Testament (Fortress) Heidelberg scholar Hans W. Wolff has given us the first major treatment of the subject from an Old Testament perspective. Anthropology is one area where there exists, to be perfectly frank, a world of distance between evangelical scholars (who will welcome this volume) and the popularizing practitioners whose seminars and books have created a pop theology cum psychology for the person in the pew. Part I (The Being of Man) defines words like soul, flesh, and spirit, Part II (The Time of Man) discusses the life of man and its cycles, while Part III (The World of Man) sets man in his sociological relationships. This should be required reading for every pastor.

A second volume comes from a young Harvard scholar, Paul D. Hanson, and is entitled The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Fortress). Scholars are used to thinking of apocalyptic as a late, intertestamental movement, sharply divergent in outlook and teaching from the earlier prophetic literature. In a day when contemporary apocalyptic movements are on the rise (by no means limited to Hal Lindsey and Christian apocalyptic), Hanson has taken a fresh look at the roots of Jewish apocalyptic, particularly its views of the end time. His basic conclusion will challenge generations of scholarly output: both prophetic and apocalyptic writings share the essential vision of a restoration of Yahweh’s people in a glorified Zion. The roots of this vision are to be found in the continuity carried through into exile from the pre-exilic prophets and not in some foreign import taken over in the Persian period. Some interesting critical conclusions about Isaiah, together with careful studies of Zechariah 9–14, form the subject matter of this important and challenging study.

HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND ITS NEIGHBORS. The most comprehensive of the new historical studies is Siegfried Herrmann’s A History of Israel (Fortress). Herrmann, a student of Albrecht Alt, builds on the work of both M. Noth and J. Bright but reflects the views of neither. His attitude toward early Israel will appear to many to be skeptical. Though at points Herrmann has given the material a fresh treatment, the book does not command the interest of Bright’s prose, nor do the author’s conclusions command more frequent assent. It is, nevertheless, an able assessment of an old subject, and we welcome its appearance in English.

Sure to be provocative and controversial is the suggested etymology for “Philistine” given by Allen H. Jones in Bronze Age Civilization: The Philistines and the Danites (Public Affairs Press). The author, who teaches English literature, apparently with more than a dash of classics and ancient history thrown in, finds the elusive identification in the Greek phyloi (tribes) and the Ionian hearth goddess Histie. The rest of the book traces the origins of various Sea Peoples, particularly the so-called Danites, through various linguistic, lengendary, and archaeological strata. If Jones turns out to be right, this is probably the most important book of the year, though at present I would like to see far more evidence for the shift from phil– to phyl– in his etymology.

Less speculative but clearly breaking new ground is a dissertation entitled Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.E. by Morton Cogan (Scholars Press). Cogan contends for a new understanding of Assyrian policy regarding the religion of conquered peoples: not unless and until the area was incorporated into the Assyrian empire (as with Northern Israel in 721) was Assyrian religion imposed. Native deities were recognized, with the argument that these gods had abandoned their own peoples. The reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah are then seen again as distinctly religious, the idolatrous propensities of Ahaz and Manasseh are voluntary in nature, and the blame attributed to Manasseh by the book of Kings for the fall of Judah is vindicated.

Samaritans and Jews by the British scholar R. J. Coggins (John Knox) focuses on the origin of the breach between Jews and Samaritans. He argues that neither the traditional view (which traced schism between the two groups back to the eighth century) nor the more recent opinion (which dates the division after the time of Ezra) is correct. Rather, Coggins suggests, the two groups probably grew apart gradually over the years between the third century B.C. and the beginning of the Christian era, with no one event playing a decisive part in the separation. This is a very important book for scholars, though it is written in a fairly non-technical way and can be used with profit by any serious student of the Bible.

An overall view of the various aspects of Israelite life from King Saul to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. is provided by Andre Chouraqui in The People and Faith of the Bible (University of Massachusetts).

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES An important study that goes well beyond the available researches of James Barr without resorting to that scholar’s propensity for rejecting everything in sight is Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Simon J. DeVries (Eerdmans). Words for “day” and “today” and the various expressions pointing to the “day of Yahweh” are examined from a perspective informed not only by word studies (thereby sidestepping Barr’s criticism) but by the full range of investigation into the history of ideas. With the nature of time an important current and biblical theme, DeVries’s contribution should find a wide audience.

Another dissertation that explores philosophical as well as linguistic concepts in the Bible is Mary K. Wakeman’s God’s Battle With the Monster (Brill). Following a comparative survey of Near Eastern myths, Wakeman examines both sea and earth monsters in the Old Testament and the nature of their destruction at the hands of God. Her conclusions affect our understanding of myth and anti-myth as reflected in the Bible, together with our vision of the nature of a victorious God.

Drawing on Ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and mythical materials, Karen R. Joines connects serpents, seraphim, sex, and cult in a fascinating study entitled Serpent Symbolism in the Old Testament (Haddonfield House). Suggestions that the serpent motif loomed much larger in the history of the Southern Kingdom than allowed by our texts are intriguing, but much of the evidence remains somewhat conjectural.

Fatherhood and Motherhood in Israelite and Judean Piety by P. A. H. deBoer (Brill) concludes that God is really more “Eternal Parent” than Father. His evidence is clear enough up to a point; very few biblical scholars would argue with the metaphorical presentation of God in motherly as well as fatherly terms. But deBoer finds mother-goddess mythology in a good many unlikely figures, including Eve (originally a representation of mother earth) and Deborah (a Lady of Battle) as well as in the familiar and forbidden Asherah.

A boon to all future students of Old Testament theology, especially those trying to understand the intricacies of the subject as set forth by W. Eichrodt and G. von Rad, comes in the published dissertation (Oxford) of D. G. Spriggs, Two Old Testament Theologies (SCM). Rather than just a critique of the two, Spriggs’s work is an attempt to determine the real nature of that elusive discipline, Old Testament theology. His conclusion: von Rad is closer to the mark than Eichrodt, whose methodology, Spriggs feels, implies a lack of objectivity. It is, nevertheless, an appreciative statement and should help the ongoing task of the discipline.

An outstanding introduction has been expanded and updated to take into account developments since it was first published in 1972: Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate, revised edition, by Gerhard Hasel (Eerdmans). Also, Baker has reissued John Bright’s valuable book The Authority of the Old Testament in paperback. This is still the best contemporary introduction to the subject.

PENTATEUCH John J. Davis, a professor at Grace Seminary, has added yet another archaeologically based study of biblical history with his Paradise to Prison: Studies in Genesis (Baker). Those who know his other work will expect, and find, copious documentation, continual reference to Ancient Near Eastern backgrounds, and fairly straightforward acceptance of quite traditional conservative viewpoints. His statement that “perhaps the most impressive evidence for the earlier date of the patriarchal period is archaeological” is especially interesting in light of John Van Seters’s latest work, Abraham in History and Tradition (Yale). In more than three hundred pages, the iconoclastic Toronto don concludes that the Abraham story is essentially tradition rather than history. So-called archaeological proofs are his favorite target. Time-honored parallels between the patriarchal period and the second millennium are examined and found wanting, with giants like W. F. Albright, N. Glueck, and E. A. Speiser supposedly falling at every turn. When Van Seters is finished with the archaeologists, he takes on the literary critics, especially those who, following H. Gunkel and M. Noth, argued for a long oral tradition or tradition history. The result: Abraham is largely the product of the Yahwist, a story teller who wrote during, and reflects conditions of, the exilic period (yes, you read that correctly), with the Priestly Document a literary supplement from a later time. An “E” source for the Pentateuch is doubted, and the idea of oral tradition preserving earlier legends is dismissed as unappealing! Although the tendency of most scholars is to put down Van Seters’s arguments as a case of classic overkill (his thesis is so radical that it lacks the “ring of truth”), he is a careful critic and has called into question many of the assumptions so comfortably woven into a book like Davis’s.

A major German work has been translated, Elias Auerbach’s Moses (Wayne State University). The book is something of a curiosity, for the author, an Israeli physician and historian, begins with radical criticism as his touchstone and ends with a Moses as tall and magnificent as any figure created by Cecil B. DeMille. Much that surrounds the figure of the great lawgiver falls to the critic’s sword; Moses himself not only survives but becomes “one of the greatest geniuses to whom the world has given birth.” More popular and lavishly illustrated works are Moses, the Lawgiver by Thomas Keneally (Harper & Row), based on the six-part CBS television series, and Moses: The Man and His Vision by David Daiches (Praeger).

Three other books in this area are worthy of mention. Deuteronomy by J. A. Thompson (InterVarsity) is a welcome addition to the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series, a major project of evangelical scholarship. Genesis by W. Gunther Platt (Union of American Hebrew Congregations) is the first volume of a series on the Pentateuch entitled The Torah: A Modern Commentary. The liberal views of Reform Judaism are expressed. The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions by Walter Breuggemann and Hans Walter Wolff (John Knox) contains essays on the Pentateuch that combine common critical views with a profession of submission to the Word of God.

HISTORICAL BOOKS Certainly the most polished offering in this category is Edward E Campbell’s Ruth (Doubleday) in the Anchor Bible series. Campbell writes with grace and humor (even refusing to his advisors the usual exoneration from responsibility for errors—“they should have corrected me!”), a fact that does nothing to obscure and much to illuminate the message of Ruth. The book is seen as a historical novelette, composed with great skill and developing a theology of God as the omnipresent moving force in history. As is customary with the later volumes in this series, a full archaeological and philological commentary accompanies the text.

A work of equally careful research, but without any of the style of Campbell’s treatise, is Distressing Days of the Judges (Zondervan) by Leon Wood. He is a capable scholar, and predictably conservative in all his conclusions. In this volume he has given us a wealth of supporting data to illuminate the period in question: it is to be regretted that the work does not capture the spirit of the age as well as it transmits the details. A small book, completely lacking the scholarly apparatus given by Wood but strong in the areas where he is weak, is John Hunter’s Judges and a Permissive Society (Zondervan). Hunter, an English educator, presents a series of sermons on the theme of permissiveness (bad) and discipline (good), based on the stories in the book of Judges.

Francis A. Schaeffer continues to direct his attention toward more biblical exposition with Joshua and the Flow of History (InterVarsity). No attempt is made to fill in exegetical details, and the result is a kind of running expositional comment on the text, rising occasionally to the heights of keen insight for which the author is justly famous in his more philosophical work. In Elijah Speaks Today (Abingdon) G. Gerald Harrop thoughtfully and sometimes provokingly sets the Elijah stories (in some of which he sees little historical value) into a variety of contemporary preaching situations. And to round out the fare, we have a volume from Clayton Publishing House, the publishing arm of the “exiled” Missouri Synod Lutherans. Walter Wifall’s The Court History of Israel is a short commentary on the books of Kings, showing some good philological and archaeological insights but really too brief to capture the theology that the author wanted to convey.

PROPHETIC BOOKS No major commentaries appeared in 1975, but several important studies, at least one of which is primarily for the lay reader, are on the list. Jeremiah: Spokesman Out of Time (Pilgrim) is the product of William L. Holladay’s rich repository of original and scholarly study. Building on the idea of Jeremiah as a second Moses and dating the prophet to the days of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 1:2 gives the date of the prophet’s birth, not coll!), Holladay carries the reader back into Jeremiah’s time and the prophet forward into our day with a facility that many a technical scholar will envy.

Four books for scholars follow. The Norwegian scholar A. S. Kapelrud, in a study entitled The Message of the Prophet Zephaniah (Oslo: University Press), examines the man and his message. Zephaniah is seen as colored in his preaching by cultic terminology (the terms and their transmission are examined in detail) but not himself a cultic prophet. The section on message and themes is outstanding, capturing the tones of that gloomy yet hopeful figure with sensitivity and care. Ezekiel Among the Prophets (SCM), an important background on a suggestion of W. Zimmerli that there are similarities between Ezekiel and the pre-classical prophets Elijah and Elisha. Equally stimulating but of more specialized interest is the 1973 dissertation of Jack R. Lundbom entitled Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric (Scholars Press). Under the inspiration of Professor Holladay and the late James Muilenburg, Lundbom turned from consideration of the style and content to the rhetorical structure of the prophet. His finding that two devices (inclusio and chiasmus) control the poetry is carefully documented. Prophecy and Tradition by R. E. Clements (John Knox) briefly examines the relationships between the prophets and other aspects of Israel’s religious heritage.

More popular expositions, often in small paperback form, continue to appear. With the completion of his study of Hosea, Prophet of a Broken Home (Eastbourne, Sussex: The Prophetic Witness), British businessman-turned-lecturer Frederick A. Tatford rounds out his slender twelve-volume series on the Minor Prophets. The author is well informed and writes with clarity and insight, relating the prophets to contemporary concerns without losing the original life-setting. Hosea and His Message by Roy L. Honeycutt (Broadman) and Hosea: Prophet of God’s Love by T. Miles Bennett (Baker) represent the work of Southern Baptist scholars and are written as simple study aids. From InterVarsity comes Jeremiah, Meet the 20th Century, a study guide written by James W. Sire, the editor of that press.

WISDOM AND POETRY No major works in this field were published in 1975, though several interesting and helpful small volumes appeared. Psalms 73–150 by Derek Kidner (InterVarsity) completes the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary on Psalms, begun in 1974. This is a good place to begin your library on Psalms. Also published in 1975 was Psalms, by Robert Alden, the first of a three-volume commentary in the more popular-level Everyman’s Bible Commentary (Moody). In treating the first fifty psalms, Alden concentrates on themes, structure, and simple explanations of linguistic anomalies. Similarly devoid of critical concerns is Erik Routley’s Exploring the Psalms (Westminster), a slender paperback capturing the teaching of various psalms under the headings suffering, victory, covenant, praise, pilgrimage, royalty, nature, wisdom, and so forth. While none of these three books is a true technical commentary, each one demonstrates its author’s ability with his sources and translates the material into a form that will be of service to many.

A sensitively illustrated volume on the Song of Solomon by artist Dhimitri Zonia, Arise My Love (Concordia), celebrates the tenderness and mystery of courtship and love. With the drawings is printed the text of the King James Version in a volume that immediately suggests itself as an appropriate Valentine’s Day gift (for those among us who honor such mundane customs). Two similar books, but without illustrations, are Song of Love by Mike Gemme (Victor), a loose, contemporary paraphrase, and Lessons For Lovers in the Song of Solomon by Bob Dryburgh (Keats), a commentary.

The great profusion of literature on wisdom seems to have abated. A single offering entitled Israel’s Wisdom: Learn and Live by L. D. Johnson (Broadman) is a laymen’s introduction Although simple in format, this little book is full of useful reliable information and is recommended for study groups of beginning students.

TEXT AND LANGUAGE Leading the way in this category is a massive study by the late Israeli scholar E. Y. Kutscher entitled The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (Brill). In a volume marked by a lifetime of scholarship, as well as a lordly price, Kutscher concludes that the Qumran scroll (I Q Isaa) reflects a later textual type than the thousand-year-younger Massoretic Text (MT) and is, in fact, descended from a text “identical (or at least very similar) to that of the Massoretic Text,” while the converse is improbable. In a day when popular theories about the Scrolls still tend toward the spectacular, this kind of solid study needs all the more to be done.

Another fine textual study is The Greek Chronicles by London Bible College professor Leslie C. Allen (two volumes, Brill). Volume One explains the methodology used, while Volume Two presents the results of a comparison between the various Septuagint manuscripts and the Massoretic Text, concluding that corrections need to be made from both sides.

Bringing new linguistic theory of deep and surface grammar to the subject of Hebrew, Francis Y. Andersen’s The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew (The Hague: Mouton) will appeal to a limited audience despite the ground-breaking technique employed. More traditional is the second volume of a classic joint dissertation by Frank M. Cross and D. Noel Freedman entitled Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Scholars Press). These studies have deeply influenced scholarly opinion regarding the dating and character of passages like Exodus 15; Genesis 49, and Deuteronomy 33, and the appearance of the completed edition is welcome.

A couple of additional tools for learning Hebrew come in the reissue of the small paperback Hebrew-English Lexicon (Shocken) for students. A beginner’s manual, Biblical Hebrew by H. E. Finley and C. D. Isbell (Beacon Hill), adds yet another to a growing list of introductory grammars.

INTRODUCTION In the tradition of German scholarship associated with names like M. Noth, A. Weiser, and O. Eissfeldt comes a somewhat more elementary volume by Otto Kaiser, Introduction to the Old Testament (Augsburg). The book is designed for “students, teachers and ministers,” for all of whom it is a most readable compilation. Kaiser has some questions about certain standard reconstructions of Israel’s history and religion, and he feels that traditio-historical research needs again to be balanced by literary criticism, but other than that there is no great new ground broken. For the student wanting a contemporary German critical viewpoint but a bit afraid of Eissfeldt’s bulk, this is the book to consult.

Beginnings in the Old Testament (Moody) by Howard E Vos is a kind of narrative introduction to the material of the Bible, with some study questions for use at the end of each chapter. Much more a teachers’ manual, and designed for the public-school classroom, is Teaching the Old Testament in English Classes edited by James S. Ackerman et al (Indiana University English Curriculum Study Series). Intended to be a complete guide, this book gives a fairly standard critical reconstruction of historical and literary considerations, to which are added questions for class discussion, a bibliography for school library acquisition (a real attempt has been made to include conservative works), and a section on backgrounds. Inasmuch as the literature in this field is growing rapidly, teachers and interested parents should conduct a rather careful study when school boards are considering selection.

MISCELLANEOUS The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible comes closer to completion with the appearance of six volumes: The Book of Judges by James D. Martin, The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Lamentations: The Five Scrolls by Wesley Fuerst, The Book of Job by Norman Habel, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 by A. S. Herbert, The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 26–52 by Ernest Nicholson, and The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah by John D. W. Watts.

A remarkable series began to appear with the publication in book form by Zondervan of the first three of ten volumes of The Doorway Papers by Arthur C. Custance. The papers were first published separately over many years, and now several are brought together in each volume. Noah’s Three Sons has parts dealing with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the names in Genesis 10, the curse of Canaan, and a summary chapter developing a “Christian” view of history. No reader will question the inventive and stimulating nature of the author’s thought, but some of his conclusions seem so speculative as to be incredible. All world history is to be understood by examining the different contributions of the three distinct (culturally and racially as well as linguistically) groups emanating from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The Hamites (and their Canaanite descendants) were black, but also red, yellow, and brown. And it is from these Hamitic people that “almost everything basic to World Civilization” comes, including Eskimo igloos, Amazon enema syringes, Sumerian (they were black too) drinking straws, Chinese rockets, and Minoan indoor plumbing! Genesis and Early Man reconsiders primarily matters of physical anthropology with a liberal dose of cultural consideration as well. Custance, whose Ph.D. is in anthropology, ranges widely through a dozen different fields (including biblical studies, Semitic philology, and geology) with a sweep reminiscent of Immanuel Velikovsky. But it is difficult, despite the wealth of material presented, to escape the feeling that we are being led down a garden path to a never-never land where things are as we wish they were rather than as they are. Man in Adam and in Christ includes papers on “image” and “likeness” as used in Genesis 1:26, the subconscious and forgiveness of sins, the difference between “sin” and “sins,” and the two species of homo sapiens.

It is fitting that this survey be drawn to a close with reference to two books honoring one of the greatest Old Testament scholars. William Foxwell Albright, A Twentieth-Century Genius (Two Continents) is an appreciative tribute to the late dean of American biblical archaeologists, largely from the pen of his former assistant and pupil Leona Glidden Running. Great biography in the tradition of James Boswell it is not, being rather a kind of running commentary on Albright’s life. But for those whose earliest memories of Old Testament studies were tied up with every move and pronouncement of the great Hopkins scholar, the commentary supplied by Running (and supplemented by Noel Freedman) will evoke a good bit of nostalgia. Unity and Diversity edited by Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts (Johns Hopkins) contains eleven papers presented at a symposium in Albright’s honor. The papers, many of them by Albright’s students, testify to his ability to stimulate others to inquiry into and synthesis of data from the ancient Near East.

This year, unlike in previous annual book issues, we are surveying only books relating fairly directly to the Bible and to theology and ethics. Other kinds of books, such as those focusing on topics in the history of Christianity, are to be surveyed in the book issue planned for this fall.

These surveys are intended for the serious Bible student, but we have not restricted ourselves to books for scholars. The books are written from a variety of theological stances, which we normally indicate when pertinent. On page 32, we feature a few books that we think are especially noteworthy and that are written from a more or less orthodox perspective. They deserve a wide circulation.

The number of books may seem excessive, but we have in fact been selective (as many pained authors and publishers could testify). Most of the books were first published in North America during 1975, although a few late-1974 titles crept in, and we have mentioned a small number of reprints. We apologize for any unintentional omissions. Although our comments in these surveys must be quite brief, we remind you that many of these books have been or will be the subject of longer reviews in our regular book sections.

Clearly last year’s major publishing accomplishment in the area of biblical studies was the release of two major encyclopedias by evangelicals. Under the editorial hand of veteran New Testament scholar Merrill C. Tenney, the five-volume Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible leads the way. The ZPEB serves as the conservative counter-part to Abingdon’s four-volume Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (1962). Scholarship is generally adequate, bibliographies are extensive, and the format is pleasing, although the overall impression could have been strengthened by more careful editorial attention to accurate visuals.

Shorter but equally comprehensive is the two-volume Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia edited by C. F. Pfeiffer, H. F. Vos, and J. Rea (Moody). Drawing on many of the same contributors, WBE has a slightly different theological flavor, but only the expert would distinguish the difference. Both sets are good buys, but ZPEB at double the price of WBE is for the slightly more demanding reader. And if you think these two sets create a difficulty in choosing, it should be noted that the same list of contributors will eventually be appearing in the long-in-the-works third complete revision of the five-volume International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Eerdmans).

Another reference work was a fairly comprehensive revision of an old standard. Harper’s Bible Dictionary, originally edited in 1952 by M. S. and J. L. Miller (Harper & Row), has been given a facelift, but its lack of consistent bibliographical help, unevenness of revision, generally crowded format, and more liberally oriented theology will keep it from displacing the New Bible Dictionary (1962) for most of the readers of this survey.

Hard on the heels of the Eerdmans’ Handbook to the Bible (1973) comes Edward P. Blair’s Abingdon Bible Handbook. Functioning more like an introduction to the various Bible books than a running commentary, ABH follows fairly standard critical conclusions in the Old Testament section (though with continual reference to conservative alternatives and bibliography) but shows less distance from the author’s conservative roots in handling New Testament materials. There is no question about the author’s goal: he wants to lead the inquiring reader into a viable and intelligent faith in Christ through the witness of the Bible. Blair neither ignores nor appears patronizing toward conservative works, an attitude that we can hope will increasingly mark books of all types. A uniformly conservative survey by William Deal is now reprinted in paperback as Baker’s Pictorial Introduction to the Bible (Baker).

Essentially an archaeological history is Harry T. Frank’s Discovering the Biblical World (Harper & Row). Frank’s book, designed to be read by itself rather than simply as a companion to the Bible, is beautifully illustrated, clearly written, and a worthy companion volume to his Bible, Archaeology and Faith (1971).

William C. Lincoln’s Personal Bible Study (Bethany Fellowship) is a “how to” manual, with no attempt to deal with each book of the Bible. In contrast, the Reader’s Companion to the Bible (Fortress) by Ralph D. Heim gives, in highly digested form, key events, personalities, passages, teachings, and motifs of each book.

The Family Bible Study Book (Revell) edited by Betsy Scanlan is a house-wife’s collection of daily devotions for families, set out in a “this is how you go about it” format. A fine new Encyclopedia of Bible Stories (Holman) comes from the British Scripture Union, featuring more than a hundred short narratives retold by Jenny Robertson. Gordon King has provided good illustrations in full color.

Unlike anything else is Getting Straight About the Bible (Abingdon), a short work in which Horace R. Weaver discusses subjects from creation through apocalyptic literature and extraterrestrial travel. Taking on everyone from atheistic Russian astronauts, who didn’t find God in the stars, through Hal Lindsey, who finds fulfilled prophecy in too many places, to Erich von Däniken, who invents gods where they are not needed, Weaver has written a most stimulating and delightful book.

John R. Link in Help in Understanding the Bible (Judson) provides us with a manual as unhelpful as some of the others are helpful. Beginning with many of the right questions, Link, a Baptist, manages before he is finished to muddy the waters, coming up with such obfuscations as “if archaeological evidence would be found to prove that there was a general flood at the time of Noah, the value of the biblical story would be weakened, to say the least”! As with so many other statements attempting to explain faith in a historical vacuum, how and why this is so is never made very clear.

Probably the easiest way for the average minister or seminarian to learn what is involved in various forms of biblical criticism is through the Fortress Press series of paperbacks, Guides to Biblical Scholarship. As an introduction to the complete series we now have The Historical-Critical Method by Edgar Krentz. The author, a Missouri Synod Lutheran, represents the “moderate” wing of his denomination, and his book reflects a slight defensiveness as a result, but he is fair and complete in considering the issues.

In the tradition of his Crash Go the Chariots (1972), Australian Clifford Wilson has issued another scorcher. That Incredible Book, the Bible (Moody) is designed for the mass-market paperback trade. This time the enemy is not von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? but a variety of attacks on the uniqueness and reliability of the Bible. For a book so trendy and fast-paced, Wilson’s little volume is remarkably well informed. Evangelical apologists, lamentably given to stretching or selectively using archaeological material, would do well to consider the commendable caution Wilson exercises.

A lavishly illustrated coffetable book by the noted Israeli archaeologist Benjamin Mazar is entitled The Mountain of the Lord (Doubleday). Although not a detailed discussion of technical data, this survey of the holy city of Jerusalem through the ages is clear, accurate, and authoritative. Mazar’s own work in the temple area, carried on since 1968, assures a wealth of fresh material. A similar book, but by a non-specialist, focuses on The Temple of Jerusalem. The author is Joan Comay (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston). A brief Historical Atlas of Jerusalem by Dan Bahat (Scribner’s) covers down to the present.

Two notable paperbacks are designed to help us sort out the mass of available translations. Both give the reader an opportunity to decide for himself. So Many Versions? by Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht (Zondervan) is clearly the more technical, being an extensive review of all the major twentieth-century versions. The authors have taken pains to comment on every major questioned reading, comparing version with version and then with the original text or texts. Their closing section presents helpful comments on the text; it serves as a refutation of current passionate but misleading defenses of Textus Receptus. What Bible Can You Trust? (Broadman) is less detailed, though equally helpful. An excellent chapter by veteran translator Eugene Nida tells why translations are not all the same, and this is followed by a chapter detailing the reasons for each newer translation, in the words of those who did the translating.

The Face of Christ in the Old Testament by Georges A. Barrois (St. Vladimir’s Seminary) interacts with contemporary scholarship and uses the messianic theme as a foundation for an Old Testament theology. Barrois has given us what is one of the first biblical theologies issued by an Eastern Orthodox scholar. Protestants, who will not always concur with his dependence on tradition, will nevertheless find this a useful short introduction to the subject. Another book ties the Testaments together under the familiar rubric of Grace and Torah (Fortress). The well-known Lutheran professor Jacob M. Myers returns to the Old Testament to find that Gospel preceeds law from the beginning, a pattern followed right through to the New Testament.

The Apocalyptic Movement by Walter Schmithals (Abingdon) is the translation of an influential German book that links the Testaments and seeks to understand both the background and the message of biblical apocalyptic (principally Daniel and Revelation). It should be noted that Schmithals’s views are very eccentric and speculative in many details and are not accepted by the majority of other scholars. The book should be used with some caution. Still, it is an important one and should be included in theological libraries.

Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation edited by Gerald F. Hawthorne (Eerdmans) is a potpourri of essays by twenty-eight former students of Merrill C. Tenney of Wheaton Graduate School. Despite the variegated nature and inevitably unequal quality of the contributions, the volume offers exceptionally good value and should be of interest to all serious students of the Bible and the early Church.

Biblical Images in Literature edited by Roland Bartel (Abingdon) looks at fiction, poetry, and drama, examining biblical motifs in such authors as Melville, Hawthorne, Vonnegut, Kafka, Eliot, Twain, and MacLeish. The editorial interest lies in the use of common biblical themes rather than quotations or allusions, and we have here a most worthy companion to last year’s Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives. These are the first two volumes of a series called The Bible in Literature Courses.

An Interview With Charles Colson¹Charles Colson was one of the principal White House aides to former President Nixon. His reputation is probably best represented by the statement attributed to him that he would be willing to walk over his grandmother (as depicted on our cover) to ensure Nixon’s election. Although, as is often the case with famous quotes, he really didn’t say it, he admits that his attitude was such that he could have—speaking figuratively. In his new book, Born Again (distributed by Revell), Colson recounts the story of his conversion to Christ, and the events in his life in earlier and later years that prepared for it. He also tells of his subsequent prison experiences. Christianity Today’seditors interviewed Colson recently and here is the edited distillation.

Question. You are traveling around quite a bit now, and with the publication of your book you will probably keep doing so. How do you sense the mood of the country?

Answer. My basic concern is that you have in this country today a widespread apathy and disenchantment. A feeling on the part of the people that as individuals they can’t do anything. What we are living with is the result of a decade of frustration over war, Watergate, riots, domestic dissent, turmoil, and a period of about twenty-five years or more in this country in which people have had steadily inflated expectations of what government can do for them. Each time around they are disappointed. As long as people are looking to a man or a group of men to provide the leadership, they are going to be disappointed. There are Christians who seem to say, “If only we had a Christian in the White House we would solve all our problems.” Well, I think that is nonsense. It is false to think that the one man who is head of the government has a particular, divine influence and has the only pipeline to God so that the rest of us can just rely on that.

Q. We shouldn’t expect too much then even from the Christian who is in politics?

A. The real answer is in the heart of each one of us as believers, and each one of us as citizens of a free country. The parallels in this country right now with the conditions in the Weimar republic in pre-Hitler days are terrifyingly vivid, in my mind. It would be the easiest thing in the world for a demigogue of the left or the right to come in and sweep the country if he had a charismatic personality, if he could promise people that he was going to solve all the ills of our society and gave them hope. If a country is desperate enough, it will rally behind a strong leader.

Q. Then you think we could avoid a retreat by Christians by urging them to be more active in local politics and paying more attention to what goes on in the county courthouse?

A. Yes, that’s part of it. To get Christians to take on more civic responsibility and more involvement in their community. Government is a big part of the problem, but the other part of the problem, it seems to me, which is even more fundamental, is that every believer in this country should once a day at least be looking inside of himself, realizing that it begins with him. He needs to decide whether he has his own priorities in order, and is trying to live his own life according to what Christ teaches us. And then he needs to reach out and touch one other person with Christ’s love. I think if you had a spiritual awakening in this country, it would be a lot less important whom we elect to office because the politicians still mirror the mood and the attitudes of the American people.

Q. To be elected to high office—local, state or national-does one need the help of people of the sort you say you were before your conversion? If that is so, how can a Christian be in politics and remain consistent as a Christian?

A. If you want to get elected to public office by the conventional standards, you need guys who know how to mix it up in the give-and-take battles of American politics. But I don’t believe that is the only way to get elected. Today, there are a number of men in this government who are committed to Jesus Christ first, and I believe several would step down from public office before they would compromise their commitment to Christ. One Senator I know well has his office staffed with brothers who know the Lord, he has all the protection built right into his own offices, and he has a prayer group that meets with him regularly, if they saw him doing something they thought was contrary to his commitment, they would be the first to tell him.

Q. You refer in your book to “the enemies” as “those who opposed the noble goals we set up … for peace in the world.” Of all the political opponents of President Nixon, which ones did you think really wanted, instead of peace and stability, war and instability?

A. If you believe that your policies were going to lead to a stable peace in Southeast Asia, and you were being opposed by people who had equally patriotic motives and believed that their opposition to the war would lead to a more stable peace, then you looked upon them as opposing your goals.

Q. Your goals or your methods?

A. Your goals. I happen to believe that going into Viet Nam was a serious mistake and I believed that in 1964. I thought the Gulf of Tonkin incident was phony. I also believe going out the way we did—hundreds of thousands of people were depending on us, staking their lives on us, and then we walk away from them and you now have heard about the blood baths in Cambodia—that is just as immoral as whatever questionable judgments led us into the war, if not more so.

Q. Weren’t there some things Christians ought to have done during Watergate to keep it all from happening?

A. No, Watergate or something like it was inevitable. If Watergate marks the point at which we begin to reassess our whole national value structure of individual and government, what government can do, what the individual’s responsibility is, and the limitations on government, then it could be a very healthy, cleansing process. The nation needed some kind of cleansing process, because there was the growth of what is called the imperial presidency. If there had not been a Watergate, there would have been something like a Watergate. If Watergate could mark the beginning of a re-evaluation of people’s goals and dreams, their ideals and dreams about themselves and their government, then it would be a healthy country. I don’t think the Christian community in the United States could have done anything to prevent Watergate.

Q. Would you comment on the frequent observation that it is not good that new Christians be widely publicized soon after their conversion?

A. I never would have sought publicity about my conversion. I was really very genuinely upset when the first inquiry came. But then I had to figure that God had put me in that position for some reason, and I knew I would get a lot of ridicule, and I did, and still do. But I did not feel under all the circumstances I had any choice. If I had not spoken exactly the way I believed at that time, then I think I would have been, in effect, renouncing my beliefs. On the other hand, I never would have made it without a small group of men around me who sustained me all the time. I would never be making it today without brothers in Christ. I have a great deal of difficulty going somewhere and speaking unless they meet with me and we pray hard ahead of time. A couple of times last fall I was ready to abandon speaking. I hope I am not on an ego trip, but that is something you worry about constantly and your brothers will protect you against. The best advice I could give a young Christian, a new believer, which I still consider myself to be, is to go very slow, to surround himself with people who care about him, who will help him, who will encourage him when he needs encouragement, and knock him down when he needs knocking down. He should not allow himself to be used to the point where he is milked for a good story but isn’t himself growing spiritually.

Q. In your travels now, is there anything that you sense that may make you think we could be on the verge of a great spiritual awakening?

A. Very spotty. You don’t get the same feeling everywhere in the country. Some places I can feel the power of God and the Holy Spirit just sweeping and people really hungering and wanting and feeling. In other places that isn’t happening.

Q. Do you find any pockets of spiritual strength and interest and impact near Washington?

A. Yes. I think one of the places where, in talking with large groups and small, I feel a tremendous spiritual power and a spiritual force at work is right here in the city. I really believe that God is working in a very powerful way in this city.

Q. Do you feel that with the coming of a spiritual awakening there would be a greater neglect of government institutions?

A. Oh, no. If the heart of the country really is turned to God, the pagans would have a very difficult time running the country. Or they would certainly at least have to run it in accord with what the heart of the nation wanted. You know, we do still have a very responsive system of government. I sat there for four years figuring out a way to respond to the will of the people. Politicians are going to be very, very sensitive to the pulse beat of the country.

Q. Do you think such an awakening would make any difference in the racial tensions that are still very present in our country?

A. Well, I don’t suppose changes like these automatically follow; it takes leadership. But if a person is really in Christ, if he is really walking with Christ, he could not possibly discriminate against anyone. Christians live in two worlds, and we get torn by the social mores of the areas in which we live. I really believe a Christ-centered revival would be a tremendous reconciling force in the country at a time when we need reconciliation.

Q. Has your conversion made any significant differences in your political opinions?

A. Oh, I think it has made some difference. It has brought me back to some fundamentals that I had gotten away from. You know, I regarded myself as a kind of Jeffersonian liberal. But when a man gets in the government, then he becomes a sort of statist, which is neither Jeffersonian liberalism nor modern-day conservatism. On fundamental issues about the relationship of men and government, and the role of government in society I do not believe my conversion has changed my political views; it has probably reinforced them.

Q. You weren’t being consistent with your underlying political views then when you were serving President Nixon.

A. No, I realize that I was not.

Q. What counsel would you give to churches about how they can get their members to witness better?

A. The last thing that I would do as a layman who has known Christ for less than three years is to tell any church how to do a better job of witnessing. However, one of the things I believe very strongly in is that a Christian, no matter how fervent his belief, is really unable to make it if he is walking alone. The only way you can have spiritual power is by having a fellowship of men and women around you who will really help you and guide you and be as one with you. You need the spiritual power that comes from the unity of men and women bonded together in Christ.

Q. If you had been a Christian when you were in the White House, would you still have been able to work with the President and give him the kind of political help he needed?

A. Yes, I honestly believe I could have done that. I think if I believed the way I do today and had the support of a group of brothers, then I could have helped Nixon in some very, very fundamental ways in which I did not help him.

Q. How long could you have stayed there under those circumstances?

A. Maybe not very long. But long enough to have made a dent in a few areas. I used to argue with Nixon. I used to take him on. Some of the tapes that have never been published show me really telling him off about Watergate. “Tell the truth. Get rid of it.” And he didn’t like it. He got angry at me. But very few people did that, and I only did it near the end, when I knew I was leaving anyway. If you really believed that Christ is the center of your life and that’s all that matters, then you wouldn’t care if you get thrown out by telling the President exactly what he should hear.

Q. What are you doing now to occupy your time?

A. I’m finding it really thrilling and exciting to work with men in the prisons, to try to change the terribly oppressive way of life that is so contrary to building the kind of character in men that will enable them to come back into society. The prison system is so self defeating, and there is so much that needs to be done. Frankly, I’m speaking more than I enjoy, but when I realize I do have a platform and an opportunity to confront people with the reality of Christ, it’s hard to say no. I have no idea where the Lord is leading me to, all I know is I’ve turned down three or four very attractive propositions in private industry because I’d rather be doing what I am doing.

Q. You said that a large part of our prison system is counter productive, and self defeating.

A. Yes, it’s very self defeating. The basic problem is that the culture and entire way of life inside prison is 180 degrees opposite to the way of life that you’re trying to inculcate in a criminal offender who is going to be put back into the street. If you want a man not to be a criminal you must teach him to have self-respect, respect for the law, belief in family, in community, and in himself, ability to work, dignity. As a deterrent to crime punishment is important, but punishment and prison we too often think of as synonymous. You can punish a man without putting him in that kind of debilitating, demoralizing, depressing, oppressive environment.

Q. How?

A. By fines, loss of professional status, alternate public service, counseling if the offender is a drunk. Many Americans are in prison because they are alcoholics who were drunk or had black-outs when they broke a law.

Q. How can Christians be involved effectively in a prison ministry? It now mostly consists of a Sunday afternoon jail service; that’s it.

A. That’s the worst thing Christians can do: going into a prison and promising things they can’t deliver. The history of a typical prisoner’s life is one of rejection, and this goes way back in his life. Then people go into a prison and say, “I want to help you;” they give the inmates a nice talk, and then walk out and don’t come back. The typical convict’s reaction is, “Oh, another con job, more of those who say they want to do something, and then we never see them again.” If enough people went into the prisons with the idea of taking a personal interest in one man or one woman you would quickly, quickly begin to reduce the prison population and the crime rate in the United States. When the prisoner is released, such a friend takes that ex-convict and tries to help him or her find a job and a place to live. The biggest single deterrent for that person to go back to prison is that he is not going to let his friend down. Sometimes for the first time in his life, someone is taking a real interest in him and cares for him, and he isn’t going to mess it up, he isn’t going to betray that friendship.

Q. Could you comment on this whole philosophy of person-to-person contact with respect to the kinds of prisons without bars, for example, the ghettos, hunger, being on welfare with no opportunity to work.

A. Alcohol is a prison, the country club is a prison, the executive suite is a prison, society is full of prisons. I believe God put me in a prison with bars for a purpose and that is where I put my primary effort. You are absolutely right; there are many, many prisons in our society, and I would hope that believers who feel that they are being led by the Lord would be dealing with those areas. My brother Harold Hughes deals with alcoholics. Another brother works with the inner-city problems. But no one of us is going to be able to turn the world upside down overnight. We just keep doing our work each day and hope it will spread out from there.