During the eye-straining hours I spent reading through more than one hundred 1972 books in pastoral psychology, Paul’s words to Timothy kept intruding into my mind: “ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” I chose the following books for mention because they seem to me to present significant opportunities for further learning. Readers are urged to be like the Bereans, who “searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so.” As we evaluate these books in the light of Scripture, perhaps our ever learning will move us toward a fuller knowledge of the truth.

For the Christian counselor, five new books will be especially useful. Henri Nouwen, psychologist and Catholic priest, has written persuasively on the need for deep involvement in counseling in The Wounded Healer (Doubleday). Particularly useful is his analysis of modern man’s predicament (inward, fatherless, convulsive) and the corresponding three requirements of effective pastoral ministry (it must be articulate, compassionate, contemplative). The open and meaningful encounter Nouwen speaks of is far removed from the instant closeness and forced honesty sought in many encounter groups. “Involvement” in counseling (apparently the “in” theme for 1972) is further explored in Groups, Gimmicks, and Instant Gurus by William Coulson (Harper & Row). After reading Coulson’s convincing criticisms of the gimmicky, artificially open group, Christian leaders will be more likely to be appropriately cautious about promoting such cell groups in the church. Although Coulson’s framework is thoroughly Rogerian, his book will stimulate useful thinking about group work with Christians. Jay Adams’s essay “Group Therapy- or Slander,” appearing in his new collection of essays on Christian counseling entitled The Big Umbrella (Baker), should be read along with Coulson for needed Christian balance. I found some of these essays disappointing, especially the one on demon possession (see Kurt Koch’s Christian Counseling and Occultism [Kregel] for the definitive work, newly reprinted, in this area). In A Psychologist Looks at Life (Key), Gary Collins discusses in an easy-to-read style some common human problems, such as laziness, anxiety, and phoniness. Collins is good at simply summarizing psychological research findings and, within a biblical perspective, drawing out implications for Christians. Finally, Hazel Goddard’s Hope For Tomorrow (Tyndale) unites warmth with insistence on responsible behavior in a counseling strategy that insists Christ is the final answer.

Sifting through the seemingly endless books on marriage and family life yielded a few that stood out as fresh and helpful: David Hubbard’s Is the Family Here to Stay? (Word), Kenneth Gangel’s The Family First (His International Service), and Everything You Need to Know to Stay Married and Like It by Wiese and Steinmetz (Zondervan). Both Hubbard and Gangel have written short, incisive books that offer excellent guidelines for the couple wanting to follow God’s pattern in their life together. Everything You Need to Know comes across more like an interesting and thorough textbook on the subject; unless used in regular family or group study, it could easily end up on the shelf of half-read books. Help! I’m a Parent by Bruce Narramore (Zondervan) is a must. The author provides a biblical framework and a balanced approach to discipline—both firm and loving—that is often lacking.

Two new excellent books on drug abuse were published in 1972. Although Voices From the Drug Culture by Harrison Pope, Jr. (Beacon) is written from a secular, sociological viewpoint, his conclusions are believable and full of implications for Christians. Most books on the drug problem ask why kids use drugs. In Is Your Family Turned On? (Word) Charlie Shedd asks why some kids do not use them. His comments are based on essays written by teens explaining why they have remained straight.

One other book that deserves mention before we go on to second choices in various categories is James Jauncey’s Psychology For Successful Evangelism (Moody). Any soul-winner who reads and follows Jauncey’s biblically consistent advice will not be vulnerable to the charge of irrelevance in his efforts to communicate the Gospel.

PASTORAL COUNSELING Elizabeth Skoglund’s Where Do I Go to Buy Happiness? (Inter-Varsity) is an important contribution. Loosely based on reality therapy, this book is mainly concerned with counseling the teen-age drug-user. Pastors will find useful counsel in two books on suicide. Howard Stone’s Suicide and Grief (Fortress) discusses ministry to the family after a suicide. Guidelines for working with the person contemplating suicide are offered in Understanding and Counseling the Suicidal Person by Paul Pretzel (Abingdon). Ministers who have had a hard time with hospital visits will find some help in Pastoral Care in the Modern Hospital by Heije Faber (Westminster).

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFEGod Help Me, I’m a Parent by Gordon McLean (Creation House) deals mostly with teen problems, is solidly biblical, and is filled with practical advice. Families afflicted with a dull sense of routineness could find their spirits lifted by following Robert Schuller’s Power Ideas For a Happy Family (Revell). Common conflicts that often cause trouble are effectively discussed in Your Marriage—Duel or Duet by Louis Evans (Spire). This is a good one to give to married couples seeking help with “normal” problems. In a warm and readable style, Bernard Harnik in Risk and Chance in Marriage (Word) analyzes various stages in marriage and suggests how to use crises in each stage as growth opportunities. Although too brief to be convincing, David Belgum’s defense of marriage in Why Marry? (Augsburg) should stimulate productive thinking among young people about problems involved in living together without legal commitment.

SEX AND THE CHRISTIAN Two books about nonpracticing homosexual Christians merit attention. In a series of articulate and thoughtful articles to his would-be lover, Alex Davidson in The Returns of Love (Inter-Varsity) gives us a meaningful glimpse into the inner struggles of a Christian pulled by strong homosexual desires. For a less philosophical, narrative account of the same theme, read John Drakeford’s Forbidden Love (Word). 1971’s God, Sex, and You by Vincent is still the best Christian book on sex. Such problems as impotence and orgasm inadequacy (not specifically dealt with by Vincent) are discussed simply and scientifically by David Mace in Sexual Difficulties in Marriage (Fortress). This short book could be used to advantage in a pastoral counseling situation.

SELF-HELP In our age of increasing busyness, John Alexander’s Managing Our Work (Inter-Varsity) is a timely call to a disciplined use of time. His detailed program for effectively budgeting time is practical and workable. Christians may develop a new perspective on some issues and problems by reading heart specialist Dudley Dennison’s discussion of such topics as drugs, abortion, and anxiety in Give It to Me Straight, Doctor (Zondervan). H. S. Vigeveno’s Letters to Saints and Other Sinners (Holman) deal with problems in three areas: family, personal, and Christian. Those who have opportunity to counsel by mail might find this one useful. A final self-help book worth listing is Peter Gillquist’s Farewell to the Fake ID (Zondervan). With conviction and enthusiasm, the author invites us to experience all that God has for us by doing away with phoniness.

GENERAL AND ACADEMIC Every Christian student preparing for college should receive from his church a copy of Christ and the Modern Mind, edited by Robert Smith (Inter-Varsity), in which recognized Christian scholars briefly suggest a biblical perspective on most academic disciplines. Paul Johnson’s Healers of the Mind (Abingdon) includes fascinating, sometimes heavy, autobiographical sketches of ten prominent psychiatrists and their search for a faith to live by. It is a good book to give to your intellectual, searching friends. Monroe Peaston in Personal Living: An Introduction to Paul Tournier (Harper & Row) provides insights into the man and a useful summary of his work. Colston and Johnson’s Personality and Christian Faith (Abingdon), argues for the relevance of faith to man’s central problem of alienation, and Philip Helfaer’s The Psychology of Religious Doubt is a scholarly, thorough treatise on the subject.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

The most significant book of church history to appear last year was Sydney Ahlstrom’s A Religious History of the American People (Yale). The title indicates the scope. This is a history not merely of religious institutions but of a major dimension of life that in one form or another affects everyone. Ahlstrom is no “grand consensus” historian; he acknowledges the bewildering diversity of religious expression and is modest in his claims for discerning common stances. He marshalls considerable evidence that the American people are undergoing a religious shift. If so, thoughtful reading of this volume is especially in order.

GENERAL With the publication of “Types of Religious Culture,” Werner Stark has now completed his five-volume magnum opus, The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom (Fordham). His purview takes in all of Christian history, from which he draws material supporting his theses. Catholicism and Calvinism are particularly in focus, with obvious preferences for the former and dissent from some of the influential views of Troeltsch and Weber.

A Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, edited by J. G. Davies (Macmillan), deserves a place in every reference library, as do Textile Art in the Church by Marion Ireland (Abingdon) and The Art and Architecture of Christianity, edited by Gervus Frere-Cook (Case Western Reserve). The last two books have large pages with sumptuous illustrations. Many students need books like these to be reminded that proper understanding of church history calls for knowing much more than just doctrinal and institutional patterns and disputes.

Church history needs to be studied in the context of general history and the history of religions. The Columbia History of the World, edited by John Garraty and Peter Gay (Harper & Row), draws on the resources of a great university’s faculty to give an authoritative yet integrated and very readable overview (in half a million words). More personal and philosophical is Arnold Toynbee’s revision and abridgment into one volume of A Study of History (McGraw-Hill), with an outstanding collection of illustrations to make the past more lively than words alone can do. One need not agree with Toynbee’s theological or historical judgments to be stimulated by this work. The diversity of man’s religiosity over the millennia is authoritatively presented in Religions of the World, edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Grosset and Dunlap). It too has splendid illustrations throughout.

Twentieth-Century Theology in the Making (three volumes), edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (Harper & Row), consists of articles written for a major German reference work around 1930 by men who would thereafter shape academic theology. Almost all the articles are historical in whole or in part, and merit reading and reflection. A high standard for specialized papers on neglected areas continues to be set by the British series “Studies in Church History” (Cambridge). Volumes on Popular Belief and Practice, edited by G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker, and Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, edited by Derek Baker, appeared in 1972.

EARLY AND MEDIEVALA Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages by Walter Ullman (Barnes and Noble) is a major survey of a major institution. J. N. D. Kelly’s long-standard Early Christian Creeds (McKay) is now in its third (and extensive) revision. Early Christian Art (through the fourth century) by Pierre du Bourguet (Morrow) presents, with lavish illustrations, a complementary approach to the creed-making period. Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine by Peter Brown (Harper & Row) collects essays that look beyond the thinker who is their central figure to the faith and practice of the people themselves. Similarly, in The Coming of Christianity to England (Schocken), Henry Mayr-Harting probes beneath the actions of kings and bishops to see how diehard heathen Anglo-Saxons (now the villains in America as once they were to the Celtic British) were so pervasively (even if not thoroughly) converted.

Other medieval currents are represented by an overall look at The Crusades by Hans Eberhard Mayer (Oxford), collected essays on Medieval Church and Society by Christopher Brooke (New York University), and a scholarly, rather than laudatory, biography of Francis of Assisi by John Holland Smith (Scribner). An important movement, in some respects pre-Christian, in others anti-Christian, in earlier times as well as currently is expertly documented in Witchcraft in Europe, 1100–1700, edited by Alan Kors and Edward Peters (University of Pennsylvania).

REFORMATION AND MODERN Most ambitious in scope is Protestantism by Martin Marty (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). The indefatigable author (who may be the most prolific American writer on religion since Cotton Mather) attempts to provide not a full account of Protestant history but rather “an historically informed, theologically interested phenomenological study.” The lengthy annotated bibliography is probably the book’s strongest point. The book might be more aptly titled “Varieties of Non-Roman Catholic Christianity.” A contemporary country-by-country survey of most of Christendom by skilled sociologists of religion is now available: Western Religion, edited by Hans Mol (The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton). Four books on the Reformation are noteworthy because they treat important aspects that have been neglected. The Social History of the Reformation is a collection of seventeen essays, edited by Lawrence Buck and Jonathan Zophy (Ohio State University). In Anabaptism: A Social History, 1525–1618 (Cornell University), Claus-Peter Clasen omits the Dutch and north German locales so as to make his thorough study, based on long neglected contemporary documents, more manageable. Christopher Hill looks at the often religiously inspired radical wing of the Puritan-led English Revolution in The World Turned Upside Down (Viking); the appropriateness for our own time is obvious. Another dimension of Puritanism (including Bunyan and the Quakers) in old England is based on an examination of more than two hundred “spiritual” autobiographies in The Puritan Experience by Owen Watkins (Schocken).

Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century is investigated again, but this time author Claude Welch commendably looks at English as well as German sources, conservatives as well as innovators (Volume 1, 1799–1870; Yale). A long and authoritative country-by-country look at The Pentecostals by Walter Hollenweger (Augsburg) appeared in English translation, abridged from a multi-volume German original.

A distinctive book, perhaps the first of its kind, examines Patterns of Christian Acceptance: Individual Response to the Missionary Impact, 1550–1950 (Oxford). Martin Jarrett-Kerr has drawn together disparate sources to present a series of case studies; the reader can form his own conclusions. At a time when China and the United States are renewing contact it is good to have Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China: A Documentary History by Donald MacInnis (Macmillan). Only introductory in scope, Trinity seminary professor David Wells’s Revolution in Rome (Inter-Varsity) will be of some help in understanding the changes under way in the world’s largest religious organization.

AMERICA In addition to Ahlstrom’s Religious History of the American People (see above), there were, as usual, a large number of fine studies. A survey of the overall context, lavishly illustrated, is available in American Civilization, edited by Daniel Boorstin (McGraw-Hill), with the chapter on religion by—who else?—Martin Marty. Documents illustrating The Puritan Tradition in America: 1620–1730 were ably collected by Alden Vaughan (University of South Carolina and Harper & Row), and writings on the immediately following period by Jonathan Edwards were published as The Great Awakening, edited by C. C. Goen (Yale). On the same subject, John Pollock displays his well-established writing credentials with George Whitefield and the Great Awakening (Doubleday), a popularly oriented book, not definitive but accurate enough.

The Black Church in the United States is the subject of a small survey by William Banks, an evangelical (Moody). Joseph Washington, Jr., looks at Black Sects and Cults (Doubleday) categorically rather than chronologically. He includes denominations such as the Methodists and Baptists. An indispensable reference work for serious study in this area is Afro-American ReligiousStudies: A Comprehensive Bibliography With Locations in American Libraries, compiled by Ethel Williams and Clifton Brown (Scarecrow). (One-eighth of the book is on the African background.) A major contribution on white attitudes is provided by H. Shelton Smith’s In His Image, But …: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910 (Duke). That white southerners have by no means been the only religious racists does not mitigate accountability before God in view of explicit New Testament teaching.

Surveys of major aspects of American religion were undertaken in The American Religious Experience: The Roots, Trends, and Future of Theology by Frederick Sontag and John Roth (Harper & Row), Religious Liberty in the United States: The Development of Church-State Thought Since the Revolutionary Era by Elwyn Smith (Fortress), and, uncritically, Our American Catholic Heritage by Albert Nevins (Our Sunday Visitor).

More specific studies of special merit include The Faithful Shepherd: A History of the New England Ministry in the Seventeenth Century by David Hall (University of North Carolina), The Great Revival, 1787–1805: The Origins of the Southern Evangelical Mind by John Boles (University Press of Kentucky), Mormonism and American Culture, edited by Marvin Hill and James Allen (Harper & Row), Lutheranism in North America, 1914–1970 by E. Clifford Nelson (Augsburg), The Jesus People: Old-Time Religion in the Age of Aquarius by three men associated with Westmont College, Ronald Enroth, Edward Ericson, Jr., and C. Breckinridge Peters (Eerdmans), and, overlapping the fringes of professing Christianity and the historic Asian religions, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America by Robert Ellwood, Jr. (Prentice-Hall).

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

A comparatively large number of well done books on the sharing of the Good News at home and abroad appeared during 1972. The book that generated the greatest interest is Why Conservative Churches Are Growing by Dean M. Kelley (Harper & Row). The author, an executive with the National Council of Churches, charts the membership decline of the ecumenical bodies and the rapid growth in many evangelical or sectarian groups. Kelley says a clear statement of a place to stand (ultimate meaning), a test of the readiness of prospective members, and tight internal control of authority characterize growing churches. The book challenges the assumption that to be successful, churches must be reasonable and open to criticism from the world’s point of view. Eternity magazine selected it as the most significant book of the year for evangelicals.

MISSIONS The debate over the goal of mission and the meaning of evangelism continues. The Eye of the Storm: The Great Debate in Mission, edited by Donald McGavran (Word), lets widely differing viewpoints focus upon the question whether attempts to convert others are outdated. Differences between ecumenical and evangelical understandings are clearly evidenced. These differences are also evident in the essays on The Future of the Christian World Mission, edited by William Danker and Wi Jo Kang (Eerdmans) to honor leading missiologist R. Pierce Beaver. McGavran also edited Crucial Issues in Missions Tomorrow (Moody), in which several evangelicals write on theological, anthropological, and practical issues.

Catholic publishers were busy dealing with revolution and political theology in Liberation, Development and Salvation (Orbis) by René Laurentin and The Church and Revolution (Orbis) by François Houtart and André Rousseau. Laurentin is representative of the increasing number of theological writers emerging in the third world. His thought reaches beyond the traditional theological categories to the categories of “liberation” and “revolution.” From the African scene the changes in mission theology are represented in Mission and Ministry (Sheed and Ward) by Adrian Hastings.

In a readable short book, The Validity of the Christian Mission (Harper & Row), Elton Trueblood states that the greater danger today is to have service without evangelism. Two other small volumes, however, may have more significance for evangelicals. Peter Beyerhaus has become well known in North America, largely through being a chief architect of the Frankfurt Declaration. In Shaken Foundations (Zondervan) Beyerhaus clarifies the underlying theological issues and the history of the declaration. He appeals for a return to a more biblical definition of mission and maintains that biblical hermeneutics is the starting point. For a fuller understanding of his thinking one should also read his Missions: Which Way? (Zondervan).

Strachan of Costa Rica by Dayton Roberts (Eerdmans) is much more than a biography of the late leader of Latin America Mission and founder of Evangelism-in-Depth. It is also, as the subtitle indicates, full of “missionary insights and strategies.” A book that could lead to further debate in evangelical circles is Frontiers of Missionary Strategy (Moody) by C. Peter Wagner, formerly of Bolivia and now at Fuller’s School of World Mission. The church-growth school of thought has often been criticized for not having an adequate theological undergirding. Wagner outlines several theological principles related to a strategy for church growth.

Church-mission relations continue to draw much attention in evangelical mission circles. The papers of Green Lake ’71, a major conference on this theme, are included in Missions in Creative Tension, edited by Vergil Gerber (William Carey). Out of the conference emerged the desire to articulate more clearly the issues of the relation between mission agencies and both the sending and the receiving churches. A more polished volume to grow out of Green Lake is Church/Mission Tensions Today, edited by C. Peter Wagner (Moody). Sending and receiving churches, mission agencies, missionaries, national workers, and the complex of relations among them are discussed in twelve essays.

Besides the many special studies, there is a notable new comprehensive treatment available, A Biblical Theology of Missions by George W. Peters (Moody). The author is a Mennonite and has taught for many years at Dallas Seminary. The book will doubtless be used as a text in many seminaries and Bible colleges.

Special mention should be made of Patterns of Christian Acceptance: Individual Response to the Missionary Impact, 1550–1950 (Oxford) by Martin Jarrett-Kerr. The author cuts across all church boundaries and gives a readable and scholarly account of the missionary impact in the lives of some significant but lesser-known persons of the third world. The book brings together much information not readily accessible elsewhere. Another book of reference interest is Bibliography For Cross-Cultural Workers by A. R. Tippett (William Carey).

EVANGELISM The year of Key 73 is upon us, and several 1972 books on evangelism demand attention. The All-Mennonite Consultation on Evangelism resulted in Probe: For an Evangelism That Cares, edited by Jim Fairfield (Herald). The purpose is to put to rest once for all the division between evangelism and social action. The Christian Reformed Church called a consultation to discuss what the Scriptures had to say about the nature of the Church and evangelism in the twentieth century. Who in the World? (Eerdmans), edited by Clifford Christians, Earl J. Schippers, and Wesley Smedes, is the result. Evangelism Now (Baker), edited by Ralph G. Turnbull, surveys different means of evangelism. Evangelism Alert: A Strategy for the Seventies, edited by Gilbert Kirby (World Wide), presents the papers of the 1971 European Congress on Evangelism. The Explo Story by Paul Eshelman (Regal) tells about the huge meeting of youth to promote evangelism in Dallas last year.

A book of great practical value is the Congregational Resource Book, prepared by the Committee for Key 73 (418 Olive St., St. Louis, Mo. 63102). As the title suggests, the book consists of numerous specific suggestions and lists of suitable materials.

Every year sees a number of books on personal evangelism. Among the more interesting and fresh ones this year were A Coward’s Guide to Witnessing by Ken Anderson (Creation House), Say It With Love by Howard Hendricks (Victor), and Explosive Evangelism by George Jaffray, Jr. (Tyndale Bible Society).

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

The past year was an excellent one for readers of religious books, especially in the New Testament area. Although prices continue to rise (especially in the United Kingdom, where the inexpensive British edition has virtually disappeared), publishers continue to churn out a surprising amount of good material. Most noteworthy were offerings in New Testament theology, commentaries, translations of important German works, and books for the general reader.

My choice for the year’s most significant book in New Testament studies is The Love Command in the New Testament by Victor Paul Furnish (Abingdon). Furnish’s study is a masterly example of exegetical and theological methodology and should counteract the superficiality of much of the current discussion about Christian ethics. He first carefully exegetes Jesus’ commandments to love and then discusses the various emphases given this teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. Next comes a careful analysis of the adaptation of Jesus’ love command by Paul, John, the general epistles, and the apostolic fathers. An appendix discusses the various New Testament words for “love.” The Love Command is absolutely essential reading for anyone wrestling with theological ethics and is highly recommended to all serious students of the New Testament. It is one of a number of testimonies to the coming of age of American biblical scholarship. One does not have to agree with all the author says about the historical setting of the various Gospels or the authorship of the epistles to benefit from his insights into these most important biblical texts.

In the same general area of concern is a more modest volume by Paul S. Minear called Commands of Christ (Abingdon), a very practically oriented but scholarly based discussion of ten basic imperatives of Jesus and their implications for present-day Christian thinking and living. This work will be of interest to layman and theologian alike.

GENERAL An important study of the history of New Testament criticism now available in English is The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems by Werner Georg Kümmel (Abingdon). The author is successor to Rudolf Bultmann as professor of New Testament at Marburg. One would be well advised to balance his account with the more conservatively oriented history by Stephen Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1861–1961 (Oxford, 1964). Nevertheless, this work is indispensable for any who wish to understand the course of the past two centuries of biblical research.

Three volumes for the student of the Greek New Testament are An Index to the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Lexicon by John R. Alsop (Zondervan), A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Sakae Kubo (Andrews University), and A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger (American Bible Society). The first lists all the words discussed in the alphabetical lexicon in the order in which they appear from Matthew to Revelation and refers the student to the appropriate page and section in Bauer. The second is designed to help the inexperienced student of Greek to improve his reading skill and hence lists vocabulary according to chapter and verse. Both are time-saving devices that will be a great boon to struggling students. The third is an indispensable companion to the forthcoming third edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament. Wherever significant conflicting readings exist, Metzger explains why the UBS committee made the choice it did.

For the serious student who lacks Greek, Ralph Winter has made an excellent tool (intended to be the first of a series) by taking the old Bagster’s Greek Concordance and adding to each word the numbers that appear adjacent to each entry in Strong’s English Concordance; the result is The New Englishman’s Greek Concordance (William Carey Library). The student can now readily move from his English testament through Strong’s to a list in English of every other occurrence of the Greek word behind the particular translation. A concordance is the basic reference tool (a dictionary being essentially a summary of a concordance), and proper use of it keeps the student from putting more weight on a particular word than its uses in various contexts warrant.

THEOLOGY The general reader has two differing but reliable and very interestingly written overviews of the subject: A. M. Hunter, Probing the New Testament (John Knox), and H. D. McDonald, Living Doctrines of the New Testament (Zondervan). Hunter deals with representative words, phrases, and themes. McDonald expounds the message of each section of the New Testament in its canonical order and deals with themes such as God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, man, sin, and grace. Be sure to look for the superb Message of the New Testament by F. F. Bruce, to be published soon in North America by Eerdmans.

Of interest to both scholar and ordinary churchman is The Signs of an Apostle by the British theologian C. K. Barrett (Fortress). Barrett discusses some of the main issues in contemporary ecumenics that bear on the doctrine of the ministry; his study is both ecumenical and practical. Nine other papers by Barrett have been published in the volume New Testament Essays (SPCK). Also dealing with a controversial aspect of contemporary Christian belief and experience is Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism by William J. Samarin (Macmillan). Samarin offers a linguistic interpretation of the New Testament and contemporary phenomenon of glossolalia (speaking in tongues); regardless of whether it proves to be ultimately convincing, his work must be reckoned with by anyone who ventures an opinion on the subject. It brings together the insights of linguistic, anthropological, and sociological research, as well as biblical exegesis, and should be regarded as a prototype for other cross-disciplinary projects in this area.

COMMENTARIES Of special interest is A Commentary on the Revelation of John by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans). Even though the format is non-technical, this is a most important work, for it reflects a lifetime of study of eschatology by one who as much as any other person has influenced younger evangelical biblical scholars in North America. Ladd takes a moderately premillennial viewpoint with a futurist method of interpretation that blends in some preterist aspects. He finds no reason to see in the seven letters of chapters two and three a forecast of seven stages of church history, nor does he draw as sharp a line of demarcation as do many between Israel and the Church. Of course no commentator on Revelation can expect to please all evangelicals, but I think Ladd’s is easily the best available treatment of this most difficult book for the pastor or layman. Similar in outlook and spirit are Highlights of the Book of Revelation by G. R. Beasley-Murray (Broadman) and “Revelation” by M. Ashcraft in volume twelve of “The Broadman Bible Commentary.” Also included in the latter volume are competent treatments of Hebrews (C. A. Trentham), James (H. S. Songer), First and Second Peter and Jude (R. Summers), and the letters of John (E. A. McDowell). In a more technical study, The Future of the World (SCM), Mathias Rissi offers an exegesis of Revelation 19:11–22:15 together with reflection on the message of the book as a whole.

A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Luke by J. Reiling and J. L. Swellengrebel and A Translator’s Handbook on the Acts by B. M. Newman and E. A. Nida were prepared for the American Bible Society primarily with missionary translators in mind but will be of help to all serious Bible students and of value to those with only an elementary knowledge of Greek. The second volume published in the new “Hermeneia” series is another translation from German, The Pastoral Epistles by Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann (Fortress). Although both shorter and more technical than last year’s volume, it is a “must” for all theological libraries. Two conservatively oriented commentaries on an intermediate level worthy of special mention are The Gospel According to Luke (“New Clarendon Bible”) by G. H. P. Thompson (Oxford) and The Epistle to the Hebrews by H. A. Kent, Jr. (Baker). Truth on Fire, a slender paperback exposition of the message of Galatians by Clark Pinnock (Baker), brings together theology and exegesis in an exemplary manner. The “New Century Bible” is about half complete and now has an American distributor, Attic. The Gospel of John by B. Lindars and The Gospel of Matthew by D. Hill are the latest New Testament offerings. The “Anchor Bible” of Doubleday continues with G. W. Buchanan’s To the Hebrews.

JESUS AND THE GOSPELS All who have read the writings of Stephen Neill, currently professor of religious studies at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, have come to expect a high standard, even when he writes for the non-specialist. His little book What We Know About Jesus (Eerdmans) is an introduction to the historical foundation of the Christian faith that is as profound as it is simply written. The Gospels in Current Study by Simon Kistemaker (Baker) presents a student’s-eye view of such matters as manuscript discoveries, textual criticism, hermeneutics, and theological emphases. Though bearing some marks of hasty writing, this is a handbook of worth. Donald Guthrie’s Jesus the Messiah (Zondervan) is a simple exposition of the gospel narratives of the life and ministry of Jesus by a respected scholar and will doubtless have a wide readership. The Consciousness of Jesus by Jacques Guillet (Newman) is a reverent and scholarly treatment of the claims of Christ in the Gospels; the author is a French Roman Catholic scholar. Jesus and the Old Testament by R. T. France (Inter-Varsity) is a careful study of Jesus’ use of the Old Testament and application of certain passages to himself and his mission according to the Synoptic Gospels. Although a very technical work—it was written as a Ph.D. thesis at Bristol University in England—France’s monograph should have a wide circulation, for it deals with a subject that is at the heart of the Christian faith. Charles Anderson, who earlier surveyed other scholars’ Critical Quests of Jesus, now offers his own positive conclusions as The Historical Jesus: A Continuing Quest (Eerdmans). It is good to see an able presentation of the evangelical position by one who has so thoroughly familiarized himself with divergent arguments. James Boice, an able young preacher, offers his thoughts on The Sermon on the Mount (Zondervan), and they are well worth pondering.

Important studies of individual Gospels include New Light on the Earliest Gospel by T. A. Burkill (Cornell), seven essays on Mark (not related to the O’Callaghan thesis), and The Hidden Kingdom by A. M. Ambrozic (Catholic Biblical Association), a redaction-critical study of references to the kingdom of God in Mark. In a posthumously published work, The Passion Narrative of St. Luke (Cambridge), Vincent Taylor attempts to refine and buttress his “proto-Luke” hypothesis. Whether or not the reader accepts the author’s special theory, he will have to admit that Taylor has put his finger on important data that cannot be ignored. Barnabas Lindars outlines some of his views on critical matters related to John in Behind the Fourth Gospel (SPCK); his suggestions concerning the various sources and editions of the Gospel are, of necessity, speculative, but are also interesting. A fascinating book in a category by itself is Mark of the Tau by Jack Finegan (John Knox). This is historical fiction by an author who, as is rarely the case, is a scholar with a firm grip on the historical realities of the period and circumstances of his story, as well as a good grasp of literary technique. Hero of the book is John Mark, member of the Jerusalem church and author of the Gospel that traditionally bears his name. This is a book for bedside reading or for study; it might even turn a few theological students on to the importance, and even excitement, of historical research!

PAUL Three non-technical books on the Apostle to the Gentiles are Paul: Envoy Extraordinary by Malcolm Muggeridge and Alec Vidler (Harper & Row), My Brother Paul by Richard L. Rubenstein (Harper & Row), and Reapproaching Paul by Morton Scott Enslin (Westminster). Each is very individualistic and tells us at least as much about the author as about Paul, but dullness is certainly not a characteristic of any one of them. Paul: Envoy Extraordinary originated as the script of a five-part BBC television series and is a discussion of his life and thought between a journalist recently attracted to the Christian faith and a theologian of long standing. Very attractively produced and containing twenty-four beautiful color plates, this probably gives the best introduction to the man Paul for the general reader. Rubenstein attempts to apply the insights of psychoanalytic theory to the study of the letters of Paul and comes out with a surprisingly sympathetic account. He is a non-orthodox Jew who identifies with Paul (hence the title), albeit a Paul whose theology is thoroughly demythologized. Enslin attempts to rescue Paul from “the theologians into whose possessive hands he has fallen” and also from “Luke.” His work is so full of dogmatic assertions of the most extreme criticism of the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline epistles that it will be difficult for anyone but an old-time liberal theologian like the author himself to read his book with any degree of appreciation.

Wayne A. Meeks has added brief introductions and notes to the RSV text of the letters of Paul and has collected excerpts and essays by students of Paul from the first century to the present day in a volume entitled The Writings of St. Paul (Norton). This will be a useful volume for students, though conservative scholarship has not been represented at all. Paul: Messenger and Exile by John J. Gunther (Judson) is a combined study of the life and letters of Paul in the context of problems of chronology. Gunther takes the narrative of Acts seriously, though he rightly regards Paul’s letters as the primary source of information on his life and thought. The author has come to some extremely original conclusions and must be taken seriously by scholars. Paul and the Gnostics by Walter Schmithals (Abingdon) is the English translation of a work that will be of interest to scholars, though not very many are likely to agree with his thesis that the enemies of Paul in nearly every case were Jewish Christian Gnostics. Robert Jewett in Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings (Brill) allows for a greater diversity among the opponents of Paul, but he is much too dogmatic about matters of chronology and hypothetical life-settings for the various epistles. J. A. Zieller in The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul (Cambridge) argues for an understanding of the term that is closer to the traditional Roman Catholic view than to the Reformers’ view—and this at a time when many Catholic scholars are embracing Luther’s interpretation of Paul as the correct one! Still, Protestants should not be so entirely prejudiced that they fail to benefit from this careful and scholarly work.

NEW TESTAMENT BACKGROUNDS Offerings in this area range from very technical to moderately popular. On Qumran there is a new volume by William Sanford LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Eerdmans), that offers an excellent account both of the discoveries and of the light they throw on the New Testament. This topic unfortunately continues to be greatly distorted in sensationalistic books by normally reputable secular publishers. An essential volume for all college and seminary libraries is A Classified Bibliography of the Finds of the Desert of Judah, 1958–1969 by B. Jongeling (Brill), which brings an earlier bibliography by LaSor up to date. On Judaism there are a number of new works and an important reprint. Emil Schürer, The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus (Schocken), is a reprint of a section of his monumental nineteenth century History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ with an introduction and supplementary bibliography by Nahum Glatzer. Although dated, this is still a valuable work, and it is good to have it available in an inexpensive paperback. Jacob Neusner has two new works, one for the general reader and the other for the scholar. There We Sat Down (Abingdon) is the story of classical Judaism in the making (in Babylonia) and provides the Gentile with a good introduction. The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees before [A.D.] 70, three volumes (Brill), provides the scholar with a mine of information about Judaism in the time of Jesus. In Targum and Testament (Eerdmans) Martin McNamara offers a guide to the Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible and the light they shed on the New Testament.

Herod Antipas by Harold Hoehner (Cambridge) bridges the world of Judaism and Roman Hellenism to fill in one portion of the background to the life of Jesus. Hoehner, who teaches at Dallas Seminary, has woven together all the available data over a large part of the land of Palestine during the public ministry of Jesus. The work will probably be the definitive study for several decades to come. John Gager, in a study entitled Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism (Abingdon), examines all the important references to the person or teaching of Moses by pagan authors; although not directly related to the study of the New Testament, his study does tell us something about the impact of Judaism on the general culture at the time of Christ. Arthur Darby Nock was widely regarded as the leading authority earlier this century on the religious scene surrounding the first century A.D. Fifty-eight of his papers and reviews are now conveniently available in two volumes as Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (Harvard).

MISCELLANEOUS Despite the rising costs of printing for technical monographs, a surprising number continue to roll from the presses. The following are a sample of those recently published that do not fit easily into any of the above categories. Anton Fridrichsen, who died in 1953, was the single most influential figure behind the large group of New Testament scholars coming out of the University of Uppsala in Sweden during the past four decades. An early work of his, The Problem of Miracle in Primitive Christianity, originally published in French in 1925, is now available in English from Augsburg. Manfred Kwiran, The Resurrection of the Dead (Basel, Switzerland: F. Reinhardt) presents an account of the interpretation of First Corinthians 15 by German Protestant theologians from Baur to Künneth. J. Paul Sampley, in a study of Ephesians 5:21–33‘And the Two Shall Become One Flesh’ (Cambridge), concentrates on the sources and background of Ephesians and on the use of the Old Testament in the epistle. Richard R. DeRidder, The Dispersion of the People of God (Baker), takes a look at the covenant basis of Matthew 28:18–20 against the background of Jewish proselytizing and the apostleship of Jesus Christ and draws important lessons for the mission of the Church in our day. David Aune, in The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology in Early Christianity (Brill), seeks to understand the variety of ways in which the expression of eschatological salvation in the New Testament arose out of Christian worship and life. Aune also edited Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Brill) to honor Allen Wikgren of Chicago. Among the essays: O. Linton raises some acute problems for redaction-critics, B. Reicke argues that the gospel accounts predicting the destruction of Jerusalem give no evidence that they were written after the fact, and E. Colwell discusses limitations on any Greek testament that lacks full critical apparatus. Many scholars have joined in well deserved tribute to Oscar Cullmann in Neues Testament und Geschichte (New Testament and History), edited by H. Baltensweiler and B. Reicke (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr). Some of the essays are in English.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

After the 1971 famine of Old Testament books (particularly commentaries), 1972 brought us a feast. We will attempt to digest it one course at a time, identifying the works that are special treats as we go along. An asterisk (*) will designate those books that are suitable fare for the student whose teeth have not been sharpened by formal theological education.

SURVEYS At least five new volumes that attempt for the general reader a synthesis or synopsis of the Bible have come to light in 1972. Two may be treated together as they form part of the introductory material for the “Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible”: The Making of the Old Testament*, edited (and largely written) by Enid B. Mellor, and Understanding the Old Testament* by O. Jessie Lace (with D. R. Ap-Thomas) give the literary, archaeological, and historical background of the Old Testament story. Both books are helpful, though brief, introductions, and form part of the library of useful and relatively inexpensive laymen’s commentaries included in this series.

Three additional books are of interest as a reflection of current trends within diverse religious communities. Marc Lovelace, a Southern Baptist, has written Compass Points For Old Testament Study* (Abingdon), a book designed as something of a self-study course for laymen, and stressing the historical-geographical-cultural setting of the various writings. The Threshing Floor* (Paulist) by John F. X. Sheehan, an American Jesuit, approaches the subject from a literary-theological perspective, focusing on various themes such as exodus, chaos and creation, covenant, and messianism. In contrast to Lovelace’s work, Sheehan’s book is a call to the unconvinced, and seeks to show on every page how the biblical world of thought has meaning in the context of modern Christian humanism. A third book, The Enjoyment of Scripture* (Oxford), comes from the facile pen of Samuel Sandmel, a leading Reformed Jewish scholar. Sandmel’s book is rich in its understanding of the symbolism, the literary development, and the spiritual significance of dominant motifs in the Old Testament, and he is the only one of the three who openly bases his work on classic documentary hypotheses. Readers schooled in any one of the three traditions represented could benefit from an exposure to one of the other approaches.

HISTORY OF ISRAEL The appearance of a revised edition of John Bright’s A History of Israel* (Westminster) is naturally a landmark in Old Testament studies. Probably no book has had a wider sale or a greater influence on the undergraduate seminarian. Special significance must be attached to the fact that, fourteen years after the almost contemporaneous issuance of the first edition of Bright’s History and the English translation of Martin Noth’s The History of Israel, Bright, with his considerably more confident acceptance of early Israelite traditions, still dominates the American scene. It is with no small sense of relief that we discover in the foreword to the new edition that its author has in no essential element been forced to alter his position. His keen sense of the important in Israel’s history and religion is just as vividly expressed, and we predict for the new edition the same long and prosperous career enjoyed by the old.

For many reasons, references to Gibeon in the Old Testament have fascinated scholars. The very fact that Solomon went to that city’s high place to pray (1 Kings 3:4) has long suggested that there may have been more cultic significance to Gibeon than our canonical Old Testament is willing to admit. Now all that can be known and a good bit of scholarly speculation (quite sober generally) have been brought together in a dissertation by Joseph Blenkinsopp entitled Gibeon and Israel (Cambridge). Blenkinsopp, whose research is generally limited to analysis of the biblical text, concludes that Gibeon was probably the resting place of the ark of the covenant prior to its removal to Jerusalem, a fact that conservatives will find difficult to accept in light of direct biblical evidence that it was at Kiriath-jearim during that time. Nevertheless, Blenkinsopp’s study is of great value and will probably remain the last word on the subject for years to come.

Another doctoral thesis concentrates on the titles and functions of civil officials under David and Solomon. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger in Solomonic State Officials (Lund: CWK Gleerup) takes in order the office of secretary, herald, friend of the king, house-minister, chief of the district, and superintendent of the corvée. His approach is biblical, philological, archaeological, and comparative. In the latter aspect he has carefully considered all available evidence from surrounding cultures, especially Egypt, and has concluded that both David and Solomon borrowed many (but not all) elements of Egyptian administration, and that the channel was undoubtedly the scribal wisdom school. A very important historical study.

Though not stated as such, Edward E. Hindson’s The Philistines and the Old Testament* (Baker) apparently began as a thesis. The careful scholarship of the two previous monographs is missing, and there is a slight feeling that the entire work is second-hand. Evidence that is cited for Philistine presence in the Palestinian littoral prior to the migrations of the twelfth century often seems taken out of context (e.g., does G. E. Wright’s statement about “pre-Israelite” anthropoid coffins from Tomb 570 in Lachish mean the same thing chronologically to Hindson, who, undoubtedly, takes an early date for the exodus?) and in any case can hardly prove much about Philistines in the time of Abraham. Certainly the appeal to Cyrus H. Gordon (p. 98) is hardly relevant, for Gordon dates Abraham in the Late Bronze Age, a fact that Hindson conveniently forgets to note. There is much that is good in this book, making it doubly unfortunate that the whole is marred by sloppy scholarship.

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY OF ISRAEL Noteworthy in this category is the English translation of Georg Fohrer’s History of Israelite Religion (Abingdon). The German edition, which appeared in 1969, was designed as a revision of and substitute for the major work of G. Hölscher (1922), and the translation will certainly become a standard textbook on the subject in the English-speaking world. Fohrer’s historical analysis builds on the critical conclusions expressed in his own revision of E. Sellin’s Introduction to the Old Testament, and ideally the reader should have access to that volume. Fohrer is well versed in various positions and eminently fair in his treatment. His own conviction that the religion of YHWH began with Moses will be stimulating to all, but hardly acceptable to critics of either the right or the left.

A volume that should take its place as a standard preface to Old Testament theology is Gerhard Hasel’s Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate (Eerdmans). This short book divides contemporary Old Testament theologians into five categories based on methodological presuppositions, and then goes on to discuss in detail the problem of theology and its relating to history, the question of a unifying theme, and the relation between the testaments. In a closing chapter, Hasel opts for what he calls “a new approach” that will be both historical and theological. Evangelicals will readily respond to the suggestions, whether or not the claim for newness can be sustained, and indeed we may hope that Hasel is representative of a fresh concern for a truly historical approach among conservative theologians.

The same author’s doctoral studies are presented in a new Andrews University monograph entitled The Remnant: The History and Theology of the Remnant Idea From Genesis to Isaiah. In his research, carried out at Vanderbilt, Hasel discovered that the remnant motif had its roots deep within the earliest literary traditions of the ancient Near East. He then traced the concept in the Hebrew Bible from Genesis through the rise of prophetism in the eighth century. The study closes with a detailed account of writings of Isaiah of Jerusalem, in which the remnant theme is seen as a dominant theological motif. It is hoped that soon a major publisher will issue a more popularized form of this work.

No study of Old Testament theology since Eichrodt has been able to ignore the concept of “covenant.” Old Testament Covenant: A Survey of Current Opinions (John Knox) by Dennis J. McCarthy is just what the name suggests. McCarthy is one of today’s foremost covenant researchers, and he does not hesitate to evaluate the various claims of a wide variety of scholars. Covenant studies affecting every aspect of Old Testament research are discussed (e.g., covenant as treaty, covenant and the prophets, covenant and kingship, covenant and theology), and in closing the author offers suggestions for additional labors.

A short monograph by James L. Crenshaw entitled Prophetic Conflict: Its Effect Upon Israelite Religion (Berlin: de Gruyter) looks at the seemingly scant impact of prophecy in pre-exilic Israel and asks why it eventually disappeared before the forces of wisdom and apocalyptic. He concludes that the prophets never did gain much of a hearing, partly because their convictions about where history was going were simply contradicted by experience. The shift to wisdom and apocalyptic was a natural and inevitable development. Some intriguing comments on the development and nature of false prophecy form part of the study, while many still unanswered questions about the origin and dating of wisdom influence are raised anew in this context.

One of the most basic hermeneutical questions facing the Church is its relation to the Old Testament. Standing within the classical Dutch reformed position, but aware of the works of contemporary theologians, is the contribution of A. A. Van Ruler in The Christian Church and the Old Testament (Eerdmans). Van Ruler claims for the Old Testament full equality, and with the claim raises questions that penetrate every aspect of contemporary church life. This book, published in German in 1955, should become a standard reference on the subject and is one more fruit of the prodigious translation labors of Geoffrey W. Bromiley.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM Twenty years ago the venerable Oswald T. Allis gave a series of lectures at Fuller Seminary on the theme “Old Testament Introduction.” The lectures, expanded and revised, now appear as The Old Testament; Its Claims and Its Critics* (Baker), and the result turns out to be a veritable potpourri of assorted data on the Old Testament. More than five hundred pages deal with such matters as the doctrines of Scripture, the literary forms (Allis ignores contemporary research in favor of what he considers more truly representative forms), the history of higher criticism, the individual passages on which critics have spoken (always with a scholarly defense of the conservative alternative), and the whole subject of comparisons between Bible and the ancient Near East (very little connection is admitted). The book, which stands in the tradition of J. A. Alexander, W. H. Green, and R. D. Wilson, is not bedtime reading, and it is questionable whether the format and breadth will encourage a wide sale. Nevertheless, as a personal statement of one of the last of the conservatives of the old Princeton school, this volume should take its place as a period piece in Old Testament scholarship.

With the current rush to translate any respectable bit of German biblical scholarship (and some works that don’t fit that description!), it is surprising that Martin Noth’s A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Prentice-Hall) didn’t see the light of day much earlier. As translator Bernhard W. Anderson points out in his introductory essay, Noth’s work has been highly influential in developing the “traditio-historical” approach to Old Testament study. Briefly, Noth is committed to a series of themes (such as promise to the patriarchs, the exodus, the revelation at Sinai) that developed separately as the core of Israelite tradition. The themes were kept and developed around various sanctuaries and in the pre-literary stage were combined into one great cultic confession. This reconstruction is considered axiomatic by many North American professors of Old Testament, so it is especially gratifying to have the basic work available in English.

Continuing its series of “Guides to Biblical Scholarship,” Fortress has published Tradition History and the Old Testament* by Walter E. Rast. These little books present, in easily digestible form, definitions for and history of the subject at hand, usually followed by some application of the method to Scripture portions. G. M. Tucker’s earlier Form Criticism of the Old Testament discussed the literary form and its setting; Rast’s book takes up the theme of transmission of the original unit and its eventual redaction into final form, though this is properly labeled “redaction” criticism. Rast, who builds on the work of both M. Noth and the Scandinavian oral tradition school, has left us a most useful handbook on a subject that evangelicals often find confusing as well as, in many instances, objectionable.

COMMENTARIES Turning to treatments of particular books, we find special emphasis given to Exodus, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets. The “Cambridge Bible Commentary” offering on Exodus* is by Ronald E. Clements, and provides no surprises. Very different is John J. Davis’s Moses and the Gods of Egypt* (Baker), an in-depth laymen’s treatment of the archaeological and historical backgrounds to the account of the Exodus. Davis opts for an early date, and much of his material becomes irrelevant if one does not accept his conclusion, but this is a small fault and hardly avoidable in such a study. Moses, the Servant of Yahweh* (Eerdmans) by Dewey M. Beegle, a study of the life of the great lawgiver in its context, is much more dependent on the reconstructions of standard Old Testament scholarship than is Davis’s volume. For many a reader, much of what both Davis and Beegle include will seem unnecessarily detailed, though all of it is in laymen’s language for the one who cares. None of the volumes mentioned fills the need for a standard, contemporary, English-language commentary on Exodus, but each is valuable for its intended purpose.

A major work in the Alt-Noth tradition is the commentary on Joshua (Westminster) by J. Alberto Soggin. The author, a prominent Waldensian scholar, finished the French edition in 1970. Soggin posits as author/editor of Joshua a Deuteronomic historian somewhere in the exile, though he acknowledges that most critics would hold to a Palestinian provenance. Good bibliographies are accompanied by solid exegesis and helpful discussion of the text, though we wish Soggin were less prone to abandon the Massoretic text. All in all, the book is a first-rate product and a welcome addition to the limited literature on the subject.

Another contribution to the “Cambridge Bible Commentary” for 1972 is R. N. Whybray’s brief study of Proverbs*. The author is a recognized authority in the field of Wisdom study, and his work will stand as a useful supplement to the much more extensive works now available.

For many a contemporary Christian, the poetry of Bernard of Clairvaux, the great twelfth-century mystic, expresses the height of Christian devotion. Newly available is a collection of twenty sermons by that great saint in a volume entitled On the Song of Songs I* (Consortium Press). Already published are his treatises, and soon to come is another volume of sermons on the Song of Songs. For those too sophisticated to indulge in the kind of mystical and typological exegesis here represented, Bernard will still serve as a prime example of medieval exegesis at its height.

1972 will be known as the year Isaiah study came into its own. Posthumously published is The Book of Isaiah*, Volume III (chapters XL–LXVI), by Edward J. Young (Eerdmans). Though not the last word in a commentary—discussion of the Servant Songs and any kind of form-critical studies are conspicuous by their rarity—this book and its predecessors do provide a major exegetical tool for students of all parts of Isaiah. Understandably, the work lacks the polish of earlier volumes, but it is nevertheless a gold mine of careful scholarship for the intelligent English-speaking student.

As part of the “Old Testament Library” of Westminster comes Otto Kaiser’s volume on Isaiah 1–12. It fills a long-felt need for a depth treatment of the opening chapters. However, we are disappointed that Kaiser has given so little introductory material, and his discussion of the text seems limited to accepting various conjectural readings from the Biblia Hebraica. Critical discussion follows standard patterns (material in these chapters is dated all the way from the eighth century to the post-exilic period), and there is good discussion of the historical-theological development of the time.

A major translation and commentary on chapters 1–39 comes from the Jewish-Christian scholar Victor Buksbazen in The Prophet Isaiah* (Spearhead). A third of the book is concerned with helpful introductory material, in which standard conservative positions are staunchly defended, while the latter two-thirds is devoted to the text and comments. Finally, a volume by Virgil H. Todd, Prophet Without Portfolio* (Christopher), examines the themes and background of the so-called Second Isaiah. Todd’s work presupposes a prophet of the exile responsible for chapters 40–55, and his style is a bit tedious, but the work is well researched and the ideas will be found stimulating.

A major contribution to the study of a little-known book comes in the form of Delbert R. Hillers’s “Anchor Bible” volume on Lamentations* (Doubleday). In recent years, only Robert Gordis (in the Jewish Quarterly Review) has given major comment on Jeremiah’s short lament, and his work is still relatively inaccessible. Hillers, who sees as the central theme of the book an expression of hope and confidence in God despite the circumstances, follows recent AB translators in offering both extensive notes on the text and an expanded selection of commentary.

To round out the feast, three new volumes on the minor prophets appeared. Probably the most significant will be the volume by Joyce Baldwin on Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi* (Inter-Varsity) in the Tyndale series. Miss Baldwin has packed much valuable insight and careful research into her slender book, not only giving help on the text but also illuminating the entire period of post-exilic prophecy.

A general coverage of the twelve minor prophets is given in volume seven of the Broadman Bible Commentary* (Broadman), edited by Clifton J. Allen, and also by Homer Hailey in A Commentary on the Minor Prophets* (Baker). Broadman continues to represent a solid combination of informed scholarship and a moderately critical approach. Hailey is equally well informed (though his book often avoids critical discussion), but he, in contrast to Broadman’s contributors, invariably ends with an affirmation of the traditionally conservative position of a commentator like Keil. A case in point is the unity of Zechariah; J. D. W. Watts suggests that, despite an overriding unity of theme, there are probably two prophets at work, while Hailey claims with Keil that such suppositions are “founded upon false interpretations and misunderstandings.” A more important watershed is illustrated in the handling of “messianic” sections, again illustrated by the commentary on Zechariah. Zechariah 9:9, 10 is seen by Watts as “fitting” to explain the Christ and his entry into Jerusalem, while Hailey sees in this reference a primary allusion to the Christ. For the student seeking help on the text, Broadman is probably best; for the preacher preparing a sermon, Hailey is both dependable and lucid.

COLLECTED ESSAYSStudies on the Ancient Palestinian World, edited by J. W. Wevers and D. B. Redford (University of Toronto), is a festschrift presented to Professor F. V. Winnett. Papers by J. B. Pritchard, W. L. Reed, and A. D. Tushingham concern archaeological subjects, and incorporate unpublished technical material. In a section on text and versions, E. J. Revell discusses Hebrew vocalization, while R. J. Williams studies energic verbal forms in a section on syntax. History and exegesis are then offered, opening with W. S. McCullough’s study of eschatology in which he argues that the important features of Israelite eschatology down through Daniel (secondary century) can best be accounted for by Israel’s own background rather than by influence from Persia or Greece. Robert Culley goes outside the field of biblical studies to look again at the question of historicity in oral traditions; N. E. Wagner resurrects literary-critical arguments that would place the origin of much of Abraham’s legendary status in the post-exilic period. And finally, D. B. Redford writes on the taxation system of Solomon.

Long known as one of the most creative of contemporary biblical scholars, Professor Robert Gordis has pursued an active career in publication for over thirty years. In Poets, Prophets, and Sages (Indiana University) we have fifteen of those essays, covering a variety of themes. What Gordis says is always challenging, seldom dull, and consistently important.

A number of old but valuable essays are presented in Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretations*, edited by Walter C. Kaiser (Baker). Among the contributors are W. H. Green, R. D. Wilson, P. Faribairn, and W. J. Beecher. With the publication, Kaiser challenges evangelicals to return to the mainstream of hermeneutical debate and non-evangelicals to reconsider the contribution of their conservative brethren.

Twenty-seven essays on a subject that needs more contemporary attention are presented in Ktav’s No Graven Images: Studies in Art and the Hebrew Bible.* Edited by Joseph Gutmann, this volume includes a few essays in French and German, together with some illustrative material, including several of the famous Chagall windows in Jerusalem.

LANGUAGES For students seeking a knowledge of beginning Hebrew, Harvard philologist Thomas O. Lambdin’s Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Scribner) will provide an additional tool. The book is remarkably clear in presentation and format, making it one of the better choices for the student seeking to learn without a teacher. A foundational study in semantics comes in John F. A. Sawyer’s monograph, Semantics in Biblical Research: New Methods of Defining Hebrew Words for Salvation (SCM), a book concerned with both methodology and theology. The lexical groups hoshia and hiṣṣil form the basis of the study. A basic work on the kethib-qere is reprinted and brought up to date with Ktav’s issue of Robert Gordis’s 1937 dissertation, The Biblical Text in the Making. Two additional books function as lexical aids and special supplements to the Hebrew or Greek concordance. A Synoptic Concordance to Hosea, Amos, Micah by Francis I. Andersen and A. Dean Forbes (Biblical Research Associates) not only lists every Hebrew word but separates out particles such as the prepositions be, le, and ke and gives a computerized listing of each. “The Computer Bible” series of which this is volume six will be a prime research tool. From the Pontifical Biblical Institute’s press comes Xavier Jacques’s List of Septuagint Words Sharing Common Elements, a study of the morphological cognates in every word found in the Hatch and Redpath concordance.

From the same press comes a Johns Hopkins dissertation entitled Personal Names in the Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions by Frank L. Benz, a scholarly work that will be useful within a limited circle of interest. If further evidence is required to show the Pontifical Institute in the forefront of scholarly publication, it is found in Loren R. Fisher’s edition of The Claremont Ras Shamra Tablets. Working in collaboration with M. C. Astour, M. Dahood, and P. D. Miller, Fisher presents translation and commentary, together with plates and drawings, of four Akkadian and two Ugaritic texts. Considering the exhorbitant prices of recent scholarly work from other presses, these works from Rome continue to be a bargain in every way.

By now something of the magnitude of the literary banquet should be apparent. If you have persevered to this point in the article, you are obviously a person who is ready to do some serious reading in the coming twelve months. Blessings, fellow bookworm!

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

GENERAL A simply and lucidly written paperback from the pen of John R. W. Stott, the internationally known Anglican missioner and Bible expositor, is pure gold. Understanding the Bible (Regal) provides the ordinary Christian Bible-reader with an introduction to the purpose, message, and authority of the Bible, and also with some guidelines on interpretation, the historical and geographical setting of the various books, and the like. Stott is always worth quoting:

It seems to me that our greatest need today is an enlarged vision of Jesus Christ. We need to see Him as the One in whom alone the fulness of God dwells and in whom we alone can come to fulness of life.

There is only one way to gain clear, true, fresh, lofty views of Christ, and that is through the Bible. The Bible is the prism by which the light of Jesus Christ is broken into its many and beautiful colours. The Bible is the portrait of Jesus Christ.…

In order to apprehend Jesus Christ in His fulness, it is essential to understand the setting within which God offers Him to us. God gave Christ to the world in a specific geographical, historical and theological context. More simply, He sent Him to a particular place (Palestine), at a particular time (the climax of centuries of Jewish history) and within a particular framework of truth (progressively revealed and permanently recorded in the Bible).

Within some two hundred and fifty pages Stott offers a vast amount of information and insight that is bound to help the young Christian in his desire to get to know his Bible and thus better understand the revelation of God in Christ.

Raymond F. Surburg in How Dependable Is the Bible? (Holman) traces the history of criticism of each part of the Scripture, and briefly defends an orthodox position for each subject covered. The book is useful because, though written for laymen, it contains a wealth of scholarly data in a form that will be palatable to the average Christian layman. Of a different sort is Ralph Earle’s How We Got Our Bible (Baker). Earle, a veteran Nazarene scholar, is not directly concerned with apologetic values and presents rather a layman’s survey of what is called general introduction. Chapters dealing with the origin, preservation, transmission, translation, and propagation of Scripture are followed by a useful comparison of the various translations available and forthcoming in English.

Users of the New Scofield Bible will welcome A Companion to the New Scofield Reference Bible by E. Schuyler English (Oxford), with helps to the notes in the margins of that Bible, combined with a brief outline (correlated with notes in NSRB) of the theology of the editors. While most readers will use this book as a Bible-study guide, it will also be helpful to one wishing a brief statement of the beliefs of contemporary dispensationalism. Also from Oxford comes The Preacher and the New English Bible by Bishop Gerald Kennedy. The book is really a collection of sermonic seed-thoughts, suggested originally by fresh renderings in the gospel accounts of the NEB. Though we might wish for more of a contextual understanding of each passage (is Luke 9:62 really a rejection of Christians who reminisce about “the good old days”?), we cannot fail to be enriched by the good bishop’s ability to express a trenchant thought in a fresh turn of the phrase.

The New World Idea Index to the Holy Bible, edited by H. K. Griffith (World), is just what the title indicates. It is simply an index and not a substitute for a good Bible dictionary or a concordance and therefore will be of help primarily to essayists, journalists, and public speakers who have occasion to refer to the Bible and who are rather unsure of its contents. Another entry in this field is The New Compact Topical Bible, compiled by Gary Webster (Zondervan). More than 100,000 references to verses (not the verses themselves) are included under nearly 7,000 topics in a truly compact format.

An important collection of scholarly essays on the Bible—perhaps the most significant group of essays produced in recent years by (mostly) North American scholars—is The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays: Studies in Honor of William Franklin Stinespring, edited by James M. Efird (Duke University). The title article, written by D. Moody Smith, provides an excellent statement of the subject and discussion of the issues and results of recent scholarship. Some essays are quite technical and will therefore be of interest primarily to professional biblical scholars (e.g., a form-critical study of Joshua 2 by G. M. Tucker, a study of Gnostic exegesis of the Old Testament by O. Wintermute, and a translation and discussion of a Ugaritic text by M. H. Pope), but several, in addition to the one by Smith, will be of general interest (F. E. Eakin, Jr., on spiritual obduracy and the purpose of parables, D. L. Williams on Israelite and Christian worship, M. E. Polley on H. Wheeler Robinson and the problem of organizing Old Testament theology, and W. D. Davies on the moral teaching of the New Testament). This volume brings to the attention of the general public the important contribution Duke University has made and is making to academic biblical studies in North America.

To the many one-volume commentaries on the market has been added another, The Teacher’s Bible Commentary, edited by Franklin Paschall and Herschel Hobbs (Broadman). It was written by twenty-three Southern Baptists explicitly for Sunday-school teachers who want a consistently evangelical and practical approach and are not primarily concerned with scholarly arguments and details. There are no general articles.

Finally, we want to commend both author and publisher for a high-school textbook on the Bible, Alton C. Capp’s The Bible as Literature (McGraw-Hill). Capps presents sample selections from both Old and New Testaments under the headings Epic Literature, Lyric Poetry, Rhetoric, Wisdom Literature, and Prophetic Literature. He lets the Bible speak for itself, avoids critical debate of a questionable nature, and effectively correlates the literary types of Scripture with those familiar to the high-school student.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY Interpreting the results of archaeology to a popular audience has in recent years become almost a fad. Most scholarly archaeologists fail for want of a more facile pen, while the typical journalist fails for want of a good scholarly methodology. Happy exceptions (like the works of Yigael Yadin) only prove the rule. A new book by journalist Jerry M. Landay entitled Silent Cities, Sacred Stones (McCall) is an unqualified success on both counts and, in addition, provides probably the most useful illustration of the subject ever assembled in a popular volume. Landay’s field is Palestine, his outline follows the history of biblical times with a good section telling the story of modern discovery, and his orientation is toward modern Israel. After years of studying photographic evidence, we are amazed at Landay’s ability to choose and present not one but hundreds of black-and-white and color pictures that truly illustrate the story. Good shots of artifacts, sites, and every prominent person who played a part in the drama, from a classic picture of Sir Flinders Petrie to a 1938 shot of E. L. Sukenik teaching pottery types to Ruth Amiran, Nachman Avigad, and Yigael Yadin, make this the book for the coffee-table archaeologist to buy.

Another volume, this one directly the work of Israelis, is similarly designed for the general reader. Avraham Negev, editor of Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (Putnam’s), has put together more than 600 entries, very well illustrated in the manner outlined for Landay’s book. Specialists will be disappointed in the lack of bibliographic help, and those interested in the wider field of the Ancient Near East will wish for broader coverage of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but these are minor flaws. Negev has assembled all the information the non-specialist (travelers, students, archaeological dilettantes take note) will require, listed topically by site or event, and the best part is that, in contrast to usual practice, the content is truly archaeological.

Of a very different order is the volume by Edwin Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures, (Holman). The book is clearly apologetic and presents chapters illustrating the objective truth of biblical events from such varied sources as the ancient cities of Mari and Nuzi and the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran. Other sections compare literary evidence from New Testament times with the figure of Christ in the Gospels and attack certain forms of criticism for ignoring this evidence. But finally, Yamauchi concludes, archaeology, which can show us only artifacts, can never be a substitute for a personal faith in the living God. Such a God can never be subjected to the scrutiny of a mere archaeological spade.

Two further books deserve mention. Almost half of the Hebrew Union College Annual: Volume XLII, is devoted to an article by E. K. Vogel entitled “Bibliography of Holy Land Sites.” Miss Vogel has produced the definitive work on the subject, and we can only hope her work will be carried on into the areas beyond Palestine. Far less important for research but nevertheless of interest is the reissue of Harry M. Orlinsky’s 1954 book Ancient Israel in an expanded format under the title Understanding the Bible Through History and Archaeology (Ktav). The original text, printed on the left-hand page, is accompanied by extensive biblical quotations on the right, with parallel columns in Hebrew and English. Some very useful illustrations round out the volume, which will be especially helpful to a popular Jewish audience (“Bible” for Orlinsky stops with Malachi).

A specialty study intended for traveler as well as armchair archaeologist is G. Frederick Owen’s Jerusalem (Baker). Owen includes chapters on the Holy City’s valleys, its hills, its walls, and its gates and streets. The book is inspirational and often helpful, but suffers from a lack of up-to-date information (there is now less question about the location of the north wall in Jesus’ time than Owen would admit) or theological bias (there is no need to try to preserve the uniqueness of divine revelation by denying Phoenician influence in Solomon’s temple). An enthusiastic personal reminiscence by Lowell Thomas forms the introduction.

Moving to the field of history (see also specific articles on Old and New Testament), we note the arrival of volume six in Rutgers’s World History of the Jewish People. This volume, edited by Abraham Schalit and entitled The Hellenistic Age, is slightly disappointing for a major new work and would not, by itself, be the recommended text on the period 332–67 B.C. However, as a part of a major and exciting new series, the work provides adequate if uninspired coverage of an important formative period in Judaism.

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY With the publication of volume eight of G. W. Bromiley’s English translation, the famous Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (Eerdmans), nears completion. The present volume covers the letters tau and upsilon and is smaller than earlier volumes (only 620 pages!). Twenty-four contributors write on forty-one words and word-groups that are important for a theological understanding of the Bible. Despite the work’s title, much material on the Old Testament is included. Among the important articles are long essays on “son” and “sonship” (by five authors), “the Son of Man” (C. Colpe), and the “Son of David” (E. Lohse). No one interested in “the theology of prepositions” will want to miss Harald Riesenfeld’s study of hyper.

That good things come in small packages has repeatedly been proven by Fortress Press with its “Facet” series. This year’s offering, Beginning and End in the Bible by Claus Westermann, is no exception. The author, a prominent German form critic and Genesis scholar, challenges O. Cullmann’s contention that beginning and end are simply historical events on the time line of human salvation-history. Rather, because the biblical language differs so in discussing the two events (the study covers Genesis 1–11 and Revelation), we are led to the conclusion that in creation and fulfillment God is doing something vastly greater than simply dealing with man in salvation. Westermann would have us see this greater thing as a cosmic, universal event, one no more limitable to earth and its categories than God himself would be. And in fact, claims Westermann, it is God himself, as the Alpha and the Omega, the Utterly Transcendent one, who is the key to both beginning and end.

A second biblical-theological monograph, The Old Law and the New Law by William Barclay (Westminster), is really a popular exposition of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. As usual, there is help for the preacher who is concerned with getting the message across to the congregation and also for the general reader who simply wishes to understand.

Turning specifically to studies dealing with the end time, we are treated to two books on the current state of research into that branch of eschatology called “apocalyptic.” Because the subject forms a bridge between Old and New Testament studies, these volumes are of interest to students of both. Perhaps the best place to begin is with Leon Morris’s introductory study, Apocalyptic (Eerdmans), a book in which the background and development of apocalyptic in the intertestamental period is traced. Morris rightly rejects the extreme view of E. Kasemann and others that apocalyptic is “the mother of all Christian theology,” though many will feel his limitation of apocalyptic to “the background of the New Testament message” too severe. A second volume, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic by Klaus Koch (SCM), is primarily a critical survey of recent European discussion of the subject, particularly in the work of New Testament scholars. Koch contends that insufficient attention has been paid to the texts themselves; this, coupled with a faulty historical methodology, has led to a negative reaction that can only do harm in the long run. Koch and Morris (who is part of the reaction) express just two of the many positions being ventilated on the subject today, but their works provide a good starting point for understanding the rest.

CANON Teachers of biblical studies and historical theology alike will be grateful to Fortress for making available in English Hans von Campenhausen’s The Formation of the Christian Bible. The author’s study of the formation of both Old and New Testament canons is set in the context of the history of the Church during its first three centuries. All will find this volume illuminating, though many will question some of the conclusions.

Two more specialized monographs, written from vastly differing perspectives, take their places in the continuing debate about canon. Both attempt to move the discussion back from the traditional arguments about Jamnia to the time the concept of canon was formulated, but there the similarity ends. In The Structure of Biblical Authority (Eerdmans) Meredith G. Kline builds on his earlier studies of the structure of covenant or treaty law as found in Deuteronomy, and concludes that one of the functions of the covenant form was to give immediate canonicity to the document in question. Just as a Hittite treaty had immediate authority when promulgated, so the various parts of the Torah had immediate authority.

A second book, Torah and Canon (Fortress) by James A. Sanders, likewise investigates the function of canonicity and finds its origin in the early post-exilic community, which, facing its own potential nonbeing, responded to its old traditions in such a way that the traditions became the basis for a new and living Torah. With Sanders, the ultimate source of this authority is in communal recognition; with Kline, the ultimate source of authority is the God who, as Great King, established covenant with Israel. Both works are provocative, both present a fresh approach to an important question (though much of Kline’s work has appeared elsewhere), and both deserve widespread attention.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

Once a year we attempt to bring our readers up to date in the various fields of Christian learning by devoting an issue to books. But those of our magazine readers who are not also book readers needn’t abandon the issue here at the threshold: features, editorials, letters, and news will furnish plenty of variety. Even these readers should take a look at our list of last year’s “Choice Evangelical Books” (page 34). Books are filled with ideas, and ideas are weapons. Of all books of weaponry, the Bible itself, of course, stands foremost. So read books, and read the Book!

From this issue’s unity we move on to diversity. Coming up a fortnight from now: An article on abortion, and the central question that the U. S. Supreme Court avoided in handing down its recent decision (is the fetus to be considered a human being?); another on justification, by the well-known evangelical theologian-philosopher Gordon Haddon Clark; an exhortation to exhorters by our peripatetic editor-at-large John Warwick Montgomery; and a guide to “discerning artistic spirits,” which will launch a new monthly feature: a three-column page devoted to the arts.

Cheryl Forbes has climbed up a step on our editorial ladder, from editorial assistant to editorial associate. Kudos to her.

This year we return to putting all our surveys of the previous year’s books in one issue. In just two years we have increased our number of survey articles from three to eight in order to make this annual issue an even better permanent reference tool. “Significant” books are not determined by doctrinal soundness, for we can profit from books with which we disagree. Similarly, bestsellers are not necessarily of lasting value. Compiling these surveys depends upon the cooperation of the publishers as well as the surveyors, and we wish to thank them and to apologize for unintentional or unjustifiable omissions. On pages 34 and 35 we mention a few books by evangelical authors to which we wish to call special attention.