Ecumenism is so well established and the current merger scene so touchy that the Consultation on Church Union is something of a sacred cow. But COCU delegates will converge on Atlanta in March for the annual negotiation fest with a bracing criticism behind them.

General Secretary C. Thomas Spitz, Jr., told the Lutheran Council in the U. S. A. meeting in New York this month that COCU has “moved even farther away from confessional commitment,” making it “increasingly difficult for Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox or any of the other historic confessional communities to participate.”

Even COCU’s 1966 agreement on the Apostles’ Creed “as a corporate act of praise and allegiance which binds it to the Apostolic Gospel” was a little weak to confessionally bound Lutherans. And last year, Spitz reported, this commitment was “considerably watered down.” A 1968 COCU resolution, he noted, “recognized (1) the historically conditioned character of the Creeds, (2) the corporate character of the Christian Creeds, (3) the principle that the Creeds are for the guidance of the members of the church and are to be used persuasively but not coercively.

“It was made quite clear that the Creed should not even be spoken in a public worship service if speaking it would give offense to any parties in the United Church. The Creed would, in effect, become simply a reference document to which it would not be possible to make or require any kind of responsible commitment. The Creed would not be used as any kind of standard of judgment.”

Since Spitz led the council’s first official observers to COCU, the words carry much sting. Not that Lutherans haven’t been saying such things for years. But Spitz is the first major U. S. church figure to indict the direction of the talks, aimed at creating a Protestant church with 25 million members.

The Lutherans’ theological caution is probably the chief reason why they were not invited to join COCU until several years after negotiations began. Many feared Lutheran presence then would brake the ecumenical express, perhaps even derail it.

Because Spitz’s remarks this month are about as representative a Lutheran consensus as you could get, there seems no possibility that any of America’s nine million Lutherans will join the united church. The 25 million Baptists form the other big Protestant group outside.

Besides the big ecumenical picture, the Lutheran Council itself is in the midst of some interesting interchurch days, though you never would have known it from its droning New York meeting. The council has an annual budget of $2.2 million and is slowly assuming more joint functions for the three big U. S. denominations. But almost everything is in suspended animation pending Missouri Synod’s July vote on fellowship with the American Lutheran Church. How do you cooperate with somebody you can’t even preach or take communion with?

But all the potential is there for a parallel to the National Council of Churches, and already a question is being raised on how the eighty local inter-Lutheran councils that have sprung up will relate to the older city councils of churches.

An LC committee headed by University of Michigan law Professor Paul Kauper filed a sweeping statement on “the changing social order” that had an NCC ring to it. (A socio-economic situation may be “so unjust that revolution, in a literal sense, is called for,” though most churchmen doubt the United States needs one.)

Another paragraph was snipped out and pasted on an official council condemnation of racism: “The need in today’s crisis is that the Church must become directly and corporately involved in the social struggle at all levels from the parish to the church body.”

But the day before, Spitz had told the council that mere money or political pressure—while often necessary—was not the Church’s most strategic social contribution. In fact, it may be “abdicating the unique purpose of its ministry—to lead men to the full stature of Christ.” He advocates the less dramatic job of educating the laity, which often disagrees with church leaders on such matters as race.

BYPASSING RELIGIOUS BOOKS

Pity the poor religious publisher. In these days of secular Christianity, some religious journals even give more review space to non-religious books than to religious ones.

Vice-president Werner Linz of the Roman Catholic book house Herder and Herder raised the gripe at the recent meeting of the Religious Publishers Group of the American Book Publishers Council.

During a day devoted to book reviewing, with many editors in attendance, Linz said the poor religious book coverage (as the most notable exception he cited CHRISTIANITY TODAY) may be unfair both to readers and to the publishers who give many advertising dollars to the magazines. He based his comments on a survey of six months’ worth of the major religious periodicals.

A Post-Pike Era?

Forced into a showdown choice between Bishop C. Kilmer Myers and his predecessor, James A. Pike, the Episcopal Diocese of California convention this month opted for Myers. Delegates overwhelmingly tabled a Pike-garnished measure that would have rapped Myers’s condemnation of Pike’s third marriage (see January 17 issue, page 42).

The hotly debated motion said Myers’s pastoral letter asking a pulpit ban on Pike cast doubt on the validity of “hundreds of marriages performed in this diocese after a judgment on the basis of spiritual death, including a good many marriages of the clergy.”

A week before the convention, Pike had charged in a thirteen-page memorandum that Myers had agreed to marry him and writer Diane Kennedy, and had even moved the date up a day to November 14 to fit his calendar. But fifteen days later Myers reneged, said Pike, then failed to answer later communications except to note that Pike’s second marriage was indeed “spiritually dead.”

After the Pike paper was released, Myers asked Presiding Bishop John Hines for advice, then declined further comment. During his convention keynote speech, with Pike seated on the platform as a courtesy, Myers spoke of “the pain that recent variances with my brother Jim have visited upon me.”

After the strong vote and a standing ovation, Myers vowed he would continue to apply the same “basic theological approach to the canonical problem of marriage and remarriage as established in this diocese for some years. I have always tried to be a pastor, and I include among my objects of concern Jim and Diane Pike.”

Earlier, Pike won a voice and vote in the convention despite his resigned and non-resident status. He said the 1966 convention that elected Myers had given him these privileges, even though the action was somehow omitted from the official minutes. Confusion remains over whether the action this year applies to future conventions.

Money was another concern at the meeting. Unpaid pledges from the 130 Episcopal churches in the San Francisco area jumped several hundred per cent over the previous year. This year’s $838,162 budget, down $75,000 from 1968’s, calls for the suspension of a century-old newspaper, slashbacks in foreign-missions and other financing for the denomination, and virtual elimination of the social-relations, education, and stewardship departments.

Conservatives attribute the crisis to offbeat inner-city programs and such controversial clergy as Pike. Youthful, vocal lay delegate Richard Phenneger, for one, believed relief would come if the denomination were less involved in politics, more in “evangelism and the ministry of Christ.” But liberals blame inflation, general disillusionment with the institutional church, and “revenge” motives of tight-fisted conservatives.

Whether Myers can bring unity to his troubled see remains to be seen. One thing is now sure: he has a wider base of support than Pike did as bishop. And as a top diocesan staffer put it, “Bishop Myers has at least last emerged from the long shadow of his predecessor; a post-Pike era has dawned.”

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

A Wing And A Prayer

National Airlines Captain Harry L. Davis is not among the flock of pilots whose airplanes have been hijacked to Cuba. But he came within a prayer of it.

Before the dramatic February 3 turnabout, 18-year-old Michael A. Peparo of Cold Spring, New York, fidgeted with a knife, demanding that the pilot fly him to Cuba. With the hippie-type youth was another, looking just as disturbed.

Davis, an Episcopal layman in Miami, recalled: “We felt after talking with this youth we could get to him psychologically because of his sensitive nature. We discussed his family background, school, and then got into religion. It came out he had been brought up in the Catholic Church and had been an altar boy.”

Sensing the boy’s trouble, Davis reasoned with him that Christ had “more trouble than anybody.… He was hounded and wound up on the cross crucified.” Davis several times asked the youth to meditate, seeking guidance.

Davis, who described himself as “sort of half agnostic” before getting interested in a Bible-study group for pilots, said, “For the better part of an hour I felt I ought to go back and pray with him.”

Finally, he followed the urging. “I walked right up to him, reached for his hand (still holding the knife) and said, ‘Let’s pray together.’ He pulled his hand away a couple of times, but I finally held on to it, and we prayed a short prayer. He broke into tears.”

Davis continued: “I believe this was the turning point. He didn’t surrender or anything then, but it was obvious that he was wavering from then on.” Davis, feigning a fuel shortage, landed in Miami, and the boy was taken into custody. In Miami, Davis expressed relief that the “disturbed boy” was in the hands of a man concerned for his welfare.

ADON TAFT

Family Of Man Fuss

New York’s annual Family of Man banquet has proved an easy way to raise $200,000 or so for the city Protestant council by giving an award to such big-name speakers as John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Lester Pearson, Lyndon Johnson, Jean Monnet, and (last year) to John D. Rockefeller III.

But technically the money went to the “Society for the Family of Man, Inc.,” which underwent a board reshuffle last summer and appears to be headed toward the sort of non-sectarian humanitarianism that publicity has always implied.

Now the city church council is suing to get $185,000 in gifts to the 1968 banquet, plus $100,000 in punitive damages, from twenty-two bluebloods including department-store magnate Wheelock Bingham (Macy’s). But in a countersuit the twenty-two defendants charge the church council has wrongly used Family of Man money for itself. Defendant Arthur Atha said “absorption” of funds by the council “was threatening to become an open scandal.”

Project Indignity

Edgar H. S. Chandler, 63, has all the right credentials: ecumenist, civil-rights leader, foe of the Viet Nam war. But that didn’t stop shouting students from nine Chicago seminaries from disrupting this month’s banquet honoring him upon retirement as chief executive of the area church federation.

Larry Rosser, 24, a graduate student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, took over the podium to run a question-and-answer session on Project Equality, the selective buying pact to aid fair employment which the protesters were supporting. With headline speaker W. A. Visser’t Hooft agog, Rosser even stood on the head table for a couple of minutes.

Chandler gamely joined a picket line outside but later admitted he “could have cried” over the banquet break-up. He now moves to a similar church-council post in quieter Worcester, Massachusetts.

SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN CLIFFHANGER

Southern Presbyterians, with most of the voting already tallied by mid-February on merger with the 377,000-member Reformed Church in America, were little closer to knowing the outcome than when they started. In fact, with St. Louis Presbytery not due to vote until days before the April General Assembly, it might go down to the wire.

A negative vote in only twenty of the seventy-seven presbyteries would kill the merger. With sixty-three of the regional bodies voting, seventeen were opposed-three short of defeat-with forty-six in favor.

With so many cross-currents in the RCA plan, the presbytery voting showed no simple conservative-liberal breakdown. Most spokesmen for the presbyteries not yet reporting were closemouthed about which way they thought the vote would go.

The merger plan gives southern dissidents a chance to leave the denomination with their property. But it also includes a more centralized version of property ownership, and shifts the margin for ecumenical merger from the present stringent three-fourths of presbyteries to two-thirds of “vote units” within presbyteries.

Other crucial Presbyterian votes are on permission for union synods and union presbyteries with northern Presbyterians. The latest vote was thirty-two for the synod unification, thirty-eight against. On the presbytery issue it was thirty-three for, thirty-seven against. In each case it takes thirty-nine “no” votes to kill.

Criteria for Curricula

Caught up in the push to build a total church program of education, pastors have sometimes been caught with their educational slip showing. Ministerial training courses have not always helped them tool up for their teaching tasks. Pressed by program demands, pastors look desperately about for some help in selecting curricular resources for classes, courses, and programs. Some rely on the recommendations of denominational leaders. Others put themselves on the mercy of the advertisements.

Not a few pastors have grown dissatisfied with standard materials available from publishing houses and have cranked up the mimeograph machine to produce their own. Many of these are woefully inadequate, consisting of little more than rehashed homilies. The lessons are neither educationally nor theologically sound. Other men keep shopping around for materials, changing curricular horses in midstream, ending up with a wide array of quarterlies, teacher’s guides, and visual aids for their bewildered teachers.

What guidelines can pastors use in selecting instructional tools for teaching the Bible? A practical starting point would be to become familiar with material currently in use in the classroom. It is safe to say that many pastors do not know what their laymen are teaching. A bookseller told of a minister who phoned in an order for Sunday-school materials. When asked to identify the publisher, the minister replied, “I can’t say for sure, but the junior material has a blue cover!” Recently a pastor told me that upon assuming the leadership of a church he found one class studying material published by a sect, unaware of what it was. Teachers may be teaching things that border on heresy simply because they are untrained and unsupervised.

Most churches have discovered that use of the material of one publishing company throughout all age levels gives continuity. Adaptations can be made to meet particular needs. No one teacher, however, should be allowed to dictate what he will or will not teach on a regular basis.

Pastors can also become familiar with curricular structure. Considerable innovation is going on at all levels, and a little awareness of curriculum scope and design is in order.

There are three basic types of Sunday-school literature: uniform lesson series, department or group graded lessons, and closely graded lessons. In the uniform series the same Bible content is taught at every level. An adaptation of this is the thematic development of content so that each level studies the same theme, but a variety of biblical material is used. Departmentally graded materials provide a two-or three-year cycle of materials with a different theme for each department. In closely graded materials, a one-year cycle is used with a single theme for each age or grade level.

Various attempts have been made to change curricula from the traditional quarterly basis. The United Church Curriculum, to cite an example, provides for two five-month semesters and a ten-week summer term. This corresponds with the public-school term and allows promotion at the end of the second semester. Other publishing houses may well follow that plan in the future, but for now the quarterly system prevails among both the interdenominational independents and most denominational systems.

The real excitement in curriculum development is taking place within the content itself. The impact of Piaget, Brunner, and Skinner is being felt in educational theory, and a closer link is being established with the theological disciplines. Beginning with the Faith and Life Curriculum of the United Presbyterians in the fifties, a radical departure from traditionalism took place in curriculum development. Material was organized along theological lines. This was followed by the Seabury Series with its clusters of existential questions. Up to now curricular innovation has been rather unilateral, but the 1960 Curriculum Project, recently completed by sixteen cooperating denominations, has begun to color the approaches to curricular development among large segments of American Christianity. The trend is definitely away from direct study of the Scriptures as the basic diet of Sunday schools. This may well be the greatest tragedy of our time.

A long hard look at content is in order to determine the theological, psychological, and pedagogical soundness of curricular materials. How is the Bible included in the curriculum? Is a high view of the Scriptures maintained? Are extrabiblical materials used wisely? Are essential doctrines emphasized and are the lessons doctrinally accurate? Do the lessons fit the age level? Do the materials emphasize the discovery of truth and not just the transmission of truth? How are pupil books or materials used? Are adequate aids available to the teacher for building a lesson plan?

How the material relates the learner to life is tremendously important. What attitudes are fostered toward God, the church, man, and society? Is a narrow provincialism toward one particular Christian life-stance fostered, or is there a recognition that fundamental faith may express itself in genuine Christian liberty? Does the material tend to emphasize one particular socio-economic level to the exclusion of others? Is a paternalistic spirit fostered toward all who are “different”?

The primacy of the home as the first teacher of values and character must not be overlooked. Does the curriculum relate to the home and enlist its cooperation? At this point pastors may want to supplement the courses with other materials that deal with the problems of teen-agers and the home.

When a pastor is satisfied that the materials selected are sound, the larger part of his problem still remains: what to do about the untrained teacher. In the hands of incompetent teachers, the finest curricular materials are like precision tools in the hands of children. Unless something specific is done to help the worker use the tools, little is gained. The Southern Baptists and the Bible Baptists, to cite notable examples, are working on the problem. Regular teachers’ meetings (“We meet every week because we teach every week”) help teachers meet the challenges of the classroom.—EDWARD L. HAYES, associate professor of Christian education, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado

Pontius Pilate, by Paul L. Maier (Doubleday, 1968, 370 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Ralph Earle, professor of New Testament, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

During the present decade, interest in Pilate has been revived by the discovery of the first inscription bearing his name. It was found at Caesarea by an Italian archaeological expedition in the summer of 1961. This book, therefore, is particularly welcome, especially since there have been almost no scholarly studies of Pilate in English.

The author, son of the late Dr. Walter A. Maier of “Lutheran Hour” fame, has done a magnificent job. The book is called a biographical novel. But it differs from most volumes in this category by being solidly documented. Evidence is cited from Greek, Roman, or Jewish writers for almost every point in the story. One feels he is reading factual history. And interest is heightened by the fascinating literary style. Here is one professor of history (Western Michigan University) who makes that subject really live—and at least one reviewer found it hard to put the book down and go to bed!

Maier’s exhaustive investigation of Pilate’s life in its historical setting has led him to propose several departures from traditionally accepted views. In the first place, he thinks that the title “procurator” as applied to Pontius Pilate by Josephus and Tacitus is an anachronism. The correct term is that found on the Caesarean inscription—“prefect.” This is what the governors of Judea were called during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. Maier comments: “The New Testament very accurately refrains from calling Pilate procurator, using the Greek for governor instead.”

His most innovative idea is his insistence that Christ was crucified in A.D. 33, not 30. Although there have been scholarly proponents of the later date, the majority opinion in recent years has favored the earlier one. But this made it necessary to say that “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” (Luke 3:1) involved a coregency of Tiberius with Augustus. Maier gives evidence that this was not so; for instance, “coinage in the Tiberian era dates his reign only from the death of Augustus.” He places the crucifixion on April 3 of the year 33.

A third deduction is that Pilate was not the wretch portrayed by a vitriolic Philo but a governor who wanted to be fair. Here, as always, Maier examines the evidence carefully.

As a New Testament teacher whose second love is history, I found Pontius Pilate tremendously rewarding reading, and I was pleased to note that this is the first in a projected series of documented historical novels by this author, I shall await succeeding volumes with eager interest.

Foundation For A Social Ethic

The Just War, by Paul Ramsey (Scribner, 1968, 554 pp., $12.50), is reviewed by Paul B. Henry, research assistant to Congressman John B. Anderson, Washington, D. C.

Paul Ramsey’s The Just War is more than a treatise on the just-war doctrine itself. It is a collection of essays dealing with a broad spectrum of problems relating to the responsible use of politicomilitary power in a nuclear age.

One of Ramsey’s basic themes is that contemporary ethicists have been so concerned with abstract notions of justice that they have failed to recognize that some sort of concrete order is a condition of justice. In response to the quasi-revolutionary theologues who address themselves to the “new man” suddenly “come of age,” Ramsey insists that modern man has in fact regressed to the illusions of past political Utopians: “If there is anything more eighteenth century than the nineteenth it is the mid-twentieth century man in the illusions with which he hopes to operate in politics.”

Ramsey calls for the demythologization of politics and for a return to an essentially Augustinian perspective. “We live in Two Cities, and not in the one world of the City of Man under construction. This puts politics in its place, and frees men for clear-sighted participation in it. Absolutely related to the Absolute, we should be content to be relatively involved in the relative.”

Using such a vantage point for his own political analysis Ramsey examines various church pronouncements on social order ranging from the papal encyclical Pacem in terris to the NCC’s “Appeal to the Churches Concerning Vietnam.” Although he upholds the rights and obligations of the Church to develop political doctrine, he objects to those who seek to transform such doctrine into definitive policy in the name of the Church.

Several essays examine the limits of nuclear war, the particular problems of guerrilla warfare, and the implications of the “aggressor-defender” war hypothesis in relation to the traditional guidelines of the just-war doctrine. An essay on selective conscientious objection to military service provides a superb analysis of recent court decisions on this matter while at the same time bemoaning the American psyche that has willingly accepted as the valid measure of religious belief “the place that the belief occupies in the life of the objector” rather than “the character of the truths believed.” In a “Farewell to Christian Realism,” Ramsey gives his thoughts on the decline of Christian realism as the dominant political philosophy in contemporary American Protestantism.

Several weaknesses make themselves apparent in this volume. First, the book is a compendium of essays and lectures, many of which have been previously published. As a result continuity between chapters is sometimes lacking, and repetition is sometimes quite obvious. Second, Ramsey’s style often becomes labored deadening the impact of what he has to say.

But despite these relatively minor weaknesses, this volume commends itself to all concerned with the problems of Christian social ethics. Many theological conservatives will find themselves in agreement with Ramsey’s criticisms of the activist clergy. But even more, they will find a foundation upon which a more responsible social ethic can be based. Perhaps Ramsey will stimulate some enterprising evangelical scholar to seek to fill that need.

Controversy In New Zealand

God in the New World, by Lloyd Geering (Hodder and Stoughton, 189 pp., 25s.) and Layman’s Answer by E. M. Blaiklock (Hodder and Stoughton, 1968, 160 pp., 21s.), are reviewed by Everett F. Harrison, senior professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

These two volumes are the fruit of the controversy that has been rocking the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. Lloyd Geering, the principal of Knox Theological College, Dunedin, is the man who provoked the tension. Geering holds that scientific conclusions about our universe should be allowed to judge and to alter our views of the Bible and the Christian faith. His book is frank, even blunt, and it serves to draw the lines of debate sharply. There is no special revelation of God, though “God-talk” should be retained lest we fall into the idolatry of humanism. The incarnation is abandoned as mythological, as is the bodily resurrection of Christ, the ascension, and the miracles. Also set aside are petitionary prayer and the hope of heaven. We are counseled to think in terms of a religionless Christianity, one that centers in man and this world, thus avoiding the dangers of mythology and other-worldliness. Geering is pessimistic about the Church as presently constituted: “It is destined to die, and we must let it die. For only then can there be a resurrection of the community of faith in a form relevant to the new world.”

Blaiklock, professor of classics at Auckland University, registers some telling points against his opponent. He demands proof for the allegation that whereas Israel tended to forsake mythology in favor of history, the New Testament writers were influenced by a Judaism that had recently succumbed to mythology from surrounding nations. With reference to the New Testament writings he points out that “those preoccupied with diminishing the historical value of the accounts are prone to push forward the dates [of the documents] to the latest possible time.” This opens the door to questions about the accuracy of those accounts. As to the use made of the documents, he comments, “It never ceases to amaze a Classicist how methods of criticism will be accepted in New Testament studies which would be dismissed as naive or ridiculous if applied to any other ancient document.” He quotes J. B. Phillips’s testimony that after he had read scores of myths in Greek and Latin, he was unable to detect any evidence of myth-making at work in the Gospels.

The idea of theology for a new world may seem challenging to restless minds, but past attempts to make Christianity acceptable to the contemporary outlook by excision or modification or revealed truth have not proved effective. Man remains the same, and his spiritual needs can be met only in terms of the Gospel of Christ.

Answers To Today’S Errors

The Letters of John, by J. W. Roberts (R. W. Sweet, 1968, 182 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Roger Mills, minister, Church of Christ, Bowie, Maryland.

This second volume in the new “Living Word Commentary” covers the three epistles of John. Dr. Roberts, professor of Greek and New Testament at Abilene Christian College, draws readily upon old reliables such as Westcott, Plummer, and “The International Critical Commentary,” as well as more recent studies by Dodd, Barclay, and Stott.

One of the most helpful parts of the book is a discussion of false teachers and Gnosticism that sheds light on some of the points John makes in the epistles. This analysis of early Gnosticism also uncovers the roots of errors taught today in certain cults and isms—the Bible meets today’s errors as well as yesteryear’s.

The letters are well outlined, and paralled scriptural passages are included to enlarge the subject under discussion. Difficulties (such as 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin,” in contrast with 1 John 3:6, “No one who abides in him sins,” and 1 John 5:16, “mortal sin”) are reasonably explained. A note on the term “only begotten Son” as used in the King James Version of First John 4:9 is especially helpful.

Dr. Roberts’s emphasis on the original language clarifies the meaning of many words. His book will not serve as a supply of “snappy” sermon illustrations. Rather, it is excellent source material for serious teaching of John’s epistles.

Book Briefs

Dictionary of the Council, ed. by J. Deretz and A. Nocent (Corpus, 1968, 506 pp., $12.50). A useful guide to the contents of the sixteen official texts promulgated by Vatican Council II. In alphabetical order, it takes up every area, idea, and topic mentioned in the documents and gives the relevant texts from the decrees.

Voice Under Every Palm, by Jane Reed and Jim Grant (Zondervan, 1968, 150 pp., $3.95). The heartwarming story behind the building of ELWA, Africa’s first missionary radio station.

Is It, or Isn’t It?, by E. M. Blaiklock and D. A. Blaiklock (Zondervan, 1968, 83 pp., $2.95). A classics scholar and a medical doctor (who are father and son) join forces to produce this vigorous apologetic for the Christian faith.

The Testament of Jesus According to John 17, by Ernst Käsemann (Fortress, 1968, 87 pp., $3.50). An extremely novel approach to the fourth Gospel that contends that John emphasizes Jesus’ deity at the expense of his humanity. Concludes that John’s Gospel was received into the canon by mistake.

Christ, the Theme of the Bible, by Norman Geisler (Moody, 1968, 128 pp., $2.95). A devotional study that sees Christ as the thematic unity of the whole span of scriptural revelation.

Expository Sermons on the Book of Daniel, by W. A. Criswell (Zondervan, 1968, 123 pp., $3.95). The president of the Southern Baptist Convention offers a series of sermons confirming the historicity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel.

Witnessing Laymen Make Living Churches, by Claxton Monro and William S. Taegel (Word, 1968, 203 pp., $4.95). The story of an effective program of lay evangelism established in some churches in Houston, and a statement of the biblical basis for such a program.

Luther’s Works, Volume 29, ed. by Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen (Concordia, 1968, 266 pp., $6). A valuable addition to the American edition of Luther’s works.

Bald Is Good For Business

A policeman on duty last month outside the South African Embassy in London was guilty of disorderly conduct. The facts are beyond dispute. When the building was attacked by a mob and sundry missiles were hurled his way, he threw them back. The whole basis of mobbish behavior was thus undermined, and Communist agitators were understandably grieved by this inexcusable breach of etiquette.

It reminded me of the views of one Erving Goffman, described as a sociologist, as reported recently in Time. “All rational human beings,” says he, in the sort of opener that maddens me, “share … a desire for public order.” The major sin of “social unpredictability” is committed when someone walks coatless through a downpour, eliciting from all “a startled and uneasy response.” He’s got a point. Even the new HEW secretary, Robert Finch, has bowed to public opinion and, according to an alleged friend, “puts on clothes just to keep from being arrested.”

It has ever been thus; one need think only of Burns, Dostoevsky, and all who have succumbed to the impulse to throw eggs into electric fans in public places. Nonconformity is seldom truly appreciated. Biblical and patristic parallels could be adduced, but a first-term Eutychus can’t be too careful. The percipient Pepys can be cited, though. “While we were talking,” he wrote, “came by several poor creatures carried by, by constables, for being at a conventicle.… I would to God they would either conform, or be more wise, and not be catched.”

But catched assuredly will be those guilty of offenses which cannot be hid. Like long hair. Declared a Fifth Avenue barber: “People don’t trust a guy with a lot of hair when they’re doing serious business.” Maybe his commercial instinct was talking; it’s hard to get a guy sold on an idea when his living depends on a flat rejection of it.

Just over a year ago a judge sent a fourteen-year-old boy to a detention center for “psychiatric examination to discover why he will not conform.” The youngster’s heinous crime consisted of a refusal to get his hair cut when commanded by his school principal. Fortunately the shaggy one’s dad resented this brand of harassment, and to avoid further legal action he sent his son to school in England. To my knowl edge he has not yet formally applied for political asylum.

The best is yet to be. An English friend whom I consulted on the matter solemnly assured me that the boy would be safe with them so long as he does not try to go to church.

Ins And Outs

I just finished Harold O. J. Brown’s statement on the complexities of the Christianity-establishment issue (Jan. 31). His arguments were extremely convincing. I find myself greatly encouraged by the high level of insight in his well-stated position. But as I read, one question continued to pose an obstacle to my full embracing of his views.…

Dr. Brown’s essential concern is to avoid “domesticating” the Church by a too close identification with the “outs” who want “in.” However, it seems to me that the truly radical questions are not those of social position, but rather of the issues proposed by those who speak from the positions. If the “outs” are out because their issues are God’s issues, and God is “out,” then what could be more “domesticated” than to remain silent?

Aptos, Calif.

Tense Of Forgiveness

The article on priestly absolution (Jan. 31) was totally one-sided.…

In regard to Matthew 16:16–19, Oscar Cullmann in Peter presents at least equal evidence as did Mantey, and Cullmann came to a different conclusion than did Mantey. Cullmann also found references in the writings of the early Church to Peter.

No matter how the tense of the verbs in Matthew 16:19 are translated, the fact remains that God’s will for the forgiveness of sins is done on earth and is valid in heaven.

Arcadia, Ind.

Those Membership Rules

I have one comment on Norman L. Geisler’s article, “Let’s Drop Unbiblical Rules for Church Membership” (Jan. 31). It is “Amen!” EUGENE LINCOLNThe Sabbath Sentinel

Berrien Springs, Mich.

I’m going to make it a point this week to scrounge you up a new subscriber, to replace one of the many you’ll surely lose as a result of your bombshell on looser standards of church membership.

Too many of us have assumed that Luke’s point in the Council of Jerusalem narrative was to assure us Peter didn’t act like a pope.

Assoc. General Secretary

The Pennsylvania State

Sabbath School Association

Harrisburg, Pa.

I don’t know how to explain … my disgust at that appalling and tasteless article by Mr. Geisler.…

He seems to believe that membership in the church is equivalent to membership in the kingdom of God. There are many people who though they belong to the church will never even see the kingdom of God.…

The real church is a part of that great truth witnessed to by Peter: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The ones who follow Jesus and base their entire hope, faith, and action upon this assertion are the only and complete manifestation of the church.… So Mr. Geisler can fill the church he belongs to with whatever unregenerates, social drinkers, and harlots that he wishes to, but he has no power to square-dance or waltz them into the true church or the kingdom of God—because it is a spiritual building open only to the qualified.

Philpot, Ky.

Toward Christian Revolution

The editorial, “A Better Way to Confront Poverty?” (Jan. 31) left this reader with much to be desired. It seemed to discourage, for example, the use of government grants as a means of doing good works. The Church can use TV, radio, the press, and other “secular” sources but not available government funds? The government is making funds and other resources available for our cities. The Church should somehow seek to use these means in the propagation of the Gospel. The editorial also seemed to indicate the Church shouldn’t try to usher in social revolution. I’m not for social without Christian revolution but where is the true evangelical penetration as it existed when Wesley’s Gospel resulted in social reforms and a social revolution?.… The many existing problems of society statistically are concentrated in our urban areas. If evangelicals fail to take the Christian social ethic seriously, as America’s cities go, so goes America.

Wenham, Mass.

Decision In Denver

Words cannot express how deeply moved I was at John Montgomery’s stirring call to arms (Current Religious Thought, Jan. 17). He has expressed the deep forebodings that many of us have had for years. Truly, the Missouri Synod faces her hour of decision at Denver, and those still loyal to her historic doctrinal position had better speak and act now or forever save their breath.

Grace Lutheran Church

Victoria, Tex.

Please give equal time to this view of a silver jubilarian: Missouri is returning to the position of its official standard, the Lutheran Confessions, after having been narrower than these in some respects.

Mount Calvary Lutheran Church

Lake Arrowhead, Calif.

Montgomery might also have mentioned among his examples illustrating “unionistic indifferentism” … that Oswald Hoffmann, “Lutheran Hour” speaker is chairman of the forthcoming United States Congress of Evangelism (of which Billy Graham is honorary chairman) and that Missouri Synod pastors often pray together with other non-Missouri pastors. Such would never have happened in the good old days for which Montgomery longs.

New Haven, Conn.

Inner-City Mission

In “The Inner City: An Evangelical EyeOpener” (Jan. 3), you gave a summary of the work of evangelicals in the inner city.

We appreciate the reference to the work of the American Sunday-School Union. However, while the inner-city ministry of American Sunday-School Union is relatively new to the 150-year old missionary society itself, it is important to note that we have had missionaries in the city of Philadelphia for more than five years.…

Today there are four missionaries serving in Philadelphia, including two Negroes, a Korean, and a white man.

Executive Vice-President

American Sunday-School Union

Philadelphia, Pa.

Every evangelical finds himself confronted with the danger of slipping into the ever-hardening attitude of the Pharisee while every theological liberal is confronted with the dangers inherent in the “doctrine” of the Sadducees. These dangers, present in all generations, are perhaps greater today than ever before, as the lines between “conservatives” and “modernists” are being drawn more clearly.

Of the Pharisees our Lord said, “In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Matt. 15:9), while to the Sadducees, questioning him about the resurrection of the dead, his reply was, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29).

Evangelicals need very much to be warned of the dangers of pharisaism, with its legalism and its negative approach to the Christian faith, and I will write on this another time. For now I am thinking of the growing evidence that many in the major demoninations who hold positions of great power are not far removed from the Sadducees of our Lord’s time.

The chief characteristic of the Sadducees was a type of religious rationalism that denied the realm of the supernatural with its angels and spirits and wholly rejected the doctrine of the resurrection. As has been said by such men as Machen, “Eliminate the supernatural and the miraculous and there is no such thing as Christianity.” How we need to stress this today.

Without the supernatural there is no such thing as the virgin birth, the miracles, the atonement, the resurrection, or prayer. Indeed, eliminate the supernatural and there can be no God, no incarnation of God in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and, of course, no Holy Spirit.

In other words, the minute one begins to tamper with God’s supernatural being and his manifestations in supernatural and miraculous ways, he is tampering with the foundational realities of the Christian faith.

The advances made by science stagger the imagination. The Apollo 8 triumph, for instance, has added another dimension to the marvels of modern scientific achievement. But never let us presume to conform God to the limitations of human achievement, for man discovers only what God has created and the laws of the universe that are a part of that creation.

The growing tendency to eliminate the supernatural, or the miraculous, in connection with the Christian faith is one that cannot be countenanced by those who hold to the nature and validity of that faith. Our faith is based, not on man-made dogmas and opinions, but on a divine revelation, supernatural in its nature and miraculous in its effect.

Wherever the natural is substituted for the supernatural or the miraculous nature of the work of the Holy Spirit held in question, effective Christian witness dies. Tragically, we see death in many areas of the Church, because there are those who limit God by their own limitations while they talk and work in terms compatible with those of the secularists and materialists.

The current pressure to secularize the Church is the result of a confusion over both its nature and its message. The need is not to make the Church popular with the world but to show the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives, and the miracles that take place in the life of one who has had this experience with the living Christ.

Believing neither in the actuality of the Holy Spirit as a Person nor in the supernatural effect he has in the lives of those who have gone through the supernatural experience of being “bom again” (a biblical term that is very unwelcome among many modern Sadducees), many are projecting an image of the Church that is tied to man rather than to God, and to secular activities without reference to this miraculous change.

The modern Sadducee considers himself a realist, in tune with the world and committed to the discoveries and advances of science. The Christian is indeed a realist, but he knows that his faith is based in a supernatural person and that this destiny has no reference to, nor can it be affected by, anything man can do.

I have recently studied intensively the records of the early Church as found in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul, James, Peter, and John. The Church began in unlikely soil and was confronted by overwhelming obstacles, but not once did the Apostles seek to identify it with the existing social order. It was a supernatural organism existing in a naturalistic world. Its members expected and experienced multiplied evidences of the miraculous character of their faith—faith that changed men and revolutionized the social order, not by secular activism but by the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Church and individual Christians lose their effectiveness as they go the way of the secularist. They also lose the warmth and the light that characterize persons and groups who have had an encounter with Christ.

As was true in our Lord’s day, so today the Church is suffering from those who “know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.” To a tragic number of “Christians” the Bible is a closed book. Regarding it as no longer relevant to this scientific age, they close their minds to its supernatural message and the miraculous effect it has on those who take it as spiritual food and divine wisdom. Furthermore, never having experienced the power of God in their own lives, they ignore its availability for themselves and for those to whom they minister.

Recently, at a student conference dominated by men with a new concept of the mission and message of the Church, a student complained that during two days there had not been one prayer. From the leader he received this reply: “I am sorry that you have not been praying. Everything we do is prayer—cleaning your teeth or any other activity.”

What price secularization!

The Church—and individual Christians—need to rediscover that we are dealing with a supernatural God. Let him speak: “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it a chaos, he formed it to be inhabited!): I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:18).

The view of this world from the Apollo 8 capsule was an awesome and thrilling sight to behold. Let the Sadducee stop and remember that we are dealing with the Creator of the universe, the magnitude and complexity of which staggers the mind. This should certainly bring us to our knees in worship.

L. NELSON BELL

The almost overwhelming flow of religious books continues to pour forth from the publishers. It appears that 1969 will be another banner year, certainly insofar as quantity is concerned. The following list is prepared from information provided by the publishers and is intended to give the reader an overview of the religious publishing field as well as to call his attention to individual volumes that may be of particular interest to him.

Topics that have been in the spotlight during the past year—ecumenics, social issues, situation ethics, the nature and authority and mission of the Church, the historical roots of the Gospels—continue to be priority items.

Evangelical readers will be delighted at the prospect of further works from such outstanding writers as S. Barton Babbage, G. C. Berkouwer, F. F. Bruce, Vernon Grounds, Carl F. H. Henry, J. W. Montgomery, Leon Morris, Bernard Ramm, Francis Schaeffer, J. R. W. Stott, and Cornelius Van Til.

Although we will be able to judge the quality of this year’s crop only as the books begin to appear, we have indicated with an asterisk the volumes that publishers consider their most significant religious publications.

AESTHETICS, ARCHITECTURE, MUSICCONCORDIA: Organ Handbook by H. Klotz and Christian Art in Africa and Asia by A. Lehmann. FUNK AND WAGNALLS: *Churches of the Holy Land by G. Bushnell, O.F.M. HARPER & ROW: Environmental Man by W. Kuhns. HERALD: The Mennonite Hymnal. JOHN KNOX: The Now Generation by D. Benson. MACMILLAN: The Two Hands of God by A. Watts and The Anthem in England and America by E. Weinandt and R. Young. PRINCETON: Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins by A. Grabar. WORD: Seekers after Mature Faith by E. G. Hinson and In Search of Balance by V. M. Kott.

APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCEABINGDON: Openings for Marxist-Christian Dialogue edited by T. Ogletree, and Science, Secularization, and God by K. Cauthen. BAKER: Conflict and Harmony in Science and the Bible by J. Sears and Therefore Stand by W. Smith. BETHANY: Twentieth Century Prophecy: Jean Dixon, Edgar Cayce by the Christian Research Institute. BRUCE: Future of Man by E. Bianchi. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: *The Religious Significance of Atheism by A. MacIntyre and P. Ricoeur. CORPUS: The Reasonableness of Faith by D. Allen and Responsibility in Modern Religious Ethics by A. Jonsen. EERDMANS: Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World by D. Sayers. GOOD NEWS: *Conquest of Inner Space by L. Dolphin, Jr. HARPER & ROW: Evolution: The Theory of Teilhard De Chardin by B. Delfgaauw, Identity and Difference by M. Heidegger, A Place to Stand by E. Trueblood. HARVARD: Early German Philosophy by Beck and Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources by P. Courcelle. HERDER AND HERDER: Love Alone by H. Urs von Balthasar, Faith and Reflection by H. Dumery and Hearers of the Word by K. Rahner. INTER-VARSITY: *Death in the City by F. Schaeffer, Philosophy and the Christian Faith by C. Brown, and Runaway World by M. Green. JOHN KNOX: Fifty Key Words in Philosophy by K. Ward. MCGILL UNIVERSITY: Standing and Understanding by S. Frost. MACMILLAN: A Search for God in Time and Memory by J. Dunne, The Historian and the Believer by V. Harvey, and On Death and Dying by E. Ross. MOODY: Protestant Christian Evidences by B. Ramm. OXFORD: New Essays on Religious Language edited by D. M. High. PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED: Organic Evolution and the Christian Faith by J. B. Davidheiser, Education in the Truth by N. De Jong, Christian Theory of Knowledge by C. Van Til, and Zen-Existentialism by L. S. Chang. SCRIBNER: Integral Humanism by J. Maritain and Existence and Love by W. A. Sadler, Jr. SHEED AND WARD: The Death in Every Now by R. Ochs, S.J., Christian Anthropocentrism by J. Metz, and Logic: The Art of Inference and Prediction by D. Kane, O.P. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Religious and Anti-Religious Thought in Russia by G. Kline, Philosophy by K. Jaspers. WORLD: Humanism and Christianity by M. D’Arcy. ZONDERVAN: The Faith of a Scientist by G. Glegg, Where Is History Going? by J. W. Montgomery, and The Vacuum of Unbelief by S. B. Babbage.

ARCHAEOLOGY BAKER: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible by C. Pfeiffer (revised reprint), Babylon and the Bible by G. Larue, and *Baker’s Pictorial Introduction to Biblical Archaeology by B. Boyd. KNOPF: Historical Archaeology by I. Hume. WORD: An Archaeologist Looks at the Gospel by J. Kelso.

BIBLE COMMENTARIES, DICTIONARIES and TRANSLATIONSABINGDON: Young Readers Dictionary of the Bible. BAKER: Exposition of Daniel by H. Leupold. BEACON HILL: *Beacon Bible Commentary, Volume I. BROADMAN: The Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume I: Genesis and Exodus, and Volume VIII: Matthew and Mark. CORPUS: Dictionary of the Council, edited by J. Deretz and A. Nocent. EERDMANS: *Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume VI by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, Obadiah: A Critical Exegetical Commentary by J. D. W. Watts, and Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume III edited by C. Carter. FORTRESS, HERDER AND HERDER: Taizé Picture Bible, adapted from the Jerusalem Bible. HERDER AND HERDER: New Testament for Spiritual Reading edited by J. L. McKenzie. MACMILLAN: Four Prophets by J. B. Phillips. MOODY: Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah by G. Luck. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: *Translating for King James edited by Ward Allen. ZONDERVAN: *The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Atlas by E. M. Blaiklock et al.

BIBLICAL STUDIES, GENERALABINGDON: If Man Is To Live by B. Currin, The Bible and History edited by W. Barclay, and Taking The Bible Seriously by L. Keck. AUGSBURG: In Search of Ultimates by W. Streng, The Bible Speaks Again by the Dutch Reformed Church, and Creation, Fall, and Flood by T. Fretheim. BRUCE: Questions about Jesus by J. Hichl. CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE: The Lord’s Prayer: The Living Word by R. Snowden. CONCORDIA: Earth with Heaven by R. Kaemmerer. EERDMANS: New Testament Development of the Old Testament by F. F. Bruce. HERDER AND HERDER: On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus by J. Martin. SCRIBNER: The Growth of the Biblical Tradition by K. Koch. WESTMINSTER: The King and the Kingdom by W. Barclay. WORD: The Bible, the Supernatural and the Jews by M. Phillips. ZONDERVAN: The Bible—the Living Word of Revelation by M. Tenney et al., Holy Bible: The New Berkeley Version (revision), and All the Trades and Occupations of the Bible by H. Lockyer.

BIBLICAL STUDIES, OLD TESTAMENTABINGDON: Amos and Isaiah: Prophets of the Word of God by J. Ward. CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE: A Man Just Like Us by H. Fife. DOUBLEDAY: Jews, Justice and Judaism by R. St. John and The Worship of Israel: A Re-assessment by W. Harrelson. EERDMANS: The Prophet of Israel by H. Ellison and Proverbs—Isaiah 39 by A. Cundall. FORTRESS: Luther and the Old Testament by H. Bomkamm and The Theology of the Book of Ruth by R. Hals. HARPER & ROW: Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament by T. Gaster. HARVARD: *From Shadow to Promise by J. Preus. JOHN KNOX: Tradition for Crisis by W. Brueggemann and A Guide to the Prophets by S. Winward. JUDSON: Contemporary Old Testament Theologians by R. Laurin. LOIZEAUX: *The Prophecies of Daniel by L. Strauss. MOODY: An Introduction to Old Testament Prophets by H. Freeman, The End Times by H. Hoyt, The Jew and Modern Israel by M. Lindberg, and Prophecy of Ezekiel by C. Feinberg. PAULIST: Bibletime Series by M. Bouhys. SHEED AND WARD: Path to Freedom: Christian Experiences and the Bible by J. Corbon. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: A Rigid Scrutiny: Critical Essays on the Old Testament by I. Engnell. WESTMINSTER: Isaiah 40–66, A Commentary by C. Westermann. WORD: Psychology in the Psalms by M. Inch.

BIBLICAL STUDIES, NEW TESTAMENTABINGDON: The Deeds of Christ by H. Bosley, Mark the Evangelist by W. Marxsen, and Interpreting the Gospels by R. Briggs. AUGSBURG: Handbook to the New Testament by C. Westermann. BEACON HILL: That Ye Sin Not by N. Mink. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS: The New Testament Church by E. Ferguson. BROADMAN: The Practical Message of James by H. Colson and Studies in the Epistle of James by A. Robertson (reprint). CONCORDIA: The Books of the New Testament by H. Mayer. CORPUS: I Saw a New Earth: An Introduction to the Visions of the Apocalypse by P. Minear. EERDMANS: Jesus and the Twelve by R. Meye and Studies in the Fourth Gospel by L. Morris. FORTRESS: What Can We Know About Jesus? by Bornkamm, Hahn, and Lohff and The Beginnings of Christology by W. Marxsen. HARPER & ROW: An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament by H. Conzelmann and The New Testament Speaks by Barker, Lane, and Michaels. HERALD: The Christian Way by J. Miller. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: Is It I, Lord? by Uleyn. INTER-VARSITY: Philippians by B. Boyd. JUDSON: Paul and Philippians by J. Berkeley. KREGEL: Behold, He Cometh! by H. Hoeksema. PRENTICE-HALL: The New Testament Themes for Contemporary Man by R. Ryan, C.S.J. REVELL: Hidden Meaning in the New Testament by R. Ward. SCRIBNER: Saint Paul by C. Buck and G. Taylor. SHEED AND WARD: The Gospel Parables by E. Armstrong. TYNDALE: Contemporary Commentaries (Mark) by R. Wolff and Greatest Life Ever Lived and Promises of Jesus, both by K. Taylor. WESTMINSTER: According to John—The New Look at the Fourth Gospel by A. M. Hunter. WORD: *The Children’s New Testament translated by G. Ledyard and The Hope of Glory by M. Loane. ZONDERVAN: Plain Talk on John by M. Gutzke, John the Baptist by M. Loane, and Jesus—Human and Divine by H. McDonald.

BIOGRAPHYEERDMANS: Captive to the Word (Martin Luther) by A. S. Wood. HARPER & ROW: The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by M. Bosanquet. HARVARD: Coleridge and Christian Doctrine by Barth. HERDER AND HERDER: Pentecost Comes to Central Park by R. York. JUDSON: Axling, A Christian Presence in Japan by L. Hine. REVELL: I Remember, I Remember by L. Glenn with C. Smith. SCRIBNER: Erasmus of Christendom by R. Bainton. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist, 1837–1899 by J. Findlay, Jr. WARNER: Giants Along My Path by D. Oldham. WORD: God Owns My Business by S. Tam, as told to Ken Anderson, and The Gutter and the Ghetto by D. Wilkerson. WORLD: Richelieu by D. P. O’Connell. ZONDERVAN: M. R. DeHaan—The Country Doctor Who Went Global by J. Adair, Not Made for Defeat—The Authorized Biography of Oswald J. Smith by D. Hall, and By Life or by Death (Viet Nam martyrs) by J. Hefley.

CHURCH HISTORYABINGDON: Preaching in American History edited by D. Holland. AUGSBURG: The Lutheran Free Church by E. Fevold. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Peter in Rome: The Literary, Liturgical, and Archaeological Evidence by D. O’Connor. CORPUS: The Church as Enemy: Anticlericalism in Nineteenth Century French Literature by J. Moody. DOUBLEDAY: The Last Years of the Church by D. Poling. EERDMANS: The Early Christian Church by H. Chadwick. FORTRESS: Jewish Christianity by H. Schoeps, Patterns of the Reformation by G. Rupp, and Luther’s Works, Volume 42. HARCOURT, BRACE AND WORLD: The Counter Reformation by A. G. Dickens. HARPER & ROW: The Catholic Reformation by J. Olin. HERDER AND HERDER: The Reformation in Germany by J. Lortz. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: Pre-Columbian American Religions by Krickeberg and The Roman Catholic Church by McKenzie. JOHN KNOX: The Churchmanship of St. Cyprian by G. S. M. Walker. JUDSON: Baptist Successionism by W. M. Patterson. MACMILLAN: The Oxford Conspirators by M. O’Connell. MOODY: MBI—The Story of Moody Bible Institute by G. Getz. OXFORD: The Story of the General Theological Seminary by P. M. Dawley and The First Christian Century: Certainties and Uncertainties by S. Sandmel. PRINCETON: Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300–1140 by K. Morrison. SEABURY: Can’t You Hear Me Calling?, by L. Carter. STANFORD: The Fathers of the Latin Church by H. von Campenhausen, translated by Manfred Hoffman. YALE: Development of Christian Doctrine by J. Pelikan.

DEVOTIONALABINGDON: Daily Readings from the Works of Leslie D. Weatherhead edited by F. Cumbers, The Person I Am by G. Asquith, and Trails and Turnpikes by C. Price. AUGSBURG: Safe in His Arms by H. Wislöff. BAKER: Devotions for Children by M. Larson, We Need You Here Lord: Prayers from the City by A. Blackwood, and A Very Present Help by D. Elliot. BEACON HILL: Lift Up Thine Eyes, a compilation from Come Ye Apart. BETHANY FELLOWSHIP: Reigning with Christ by F. J. Huegel. BROADMAN: The Faces of God by S. Schreiner. CONCORDIA: Hosanna in the Whirlwind by O. P. Kretzmann, and God Is No Island by O. Hoffmann. FORTRESS: Uncovered Feelings by H. Brokering. INTER-VARSITY: Ten Great Freedoms by E. Lange, The Greatness of Christ by J. Paterson, This Morning With God, Volume II edited by Carol Adeney. JOHN KNOX: Moving the Earth—for a Song by M. Gaillard, JUDSON: The Cross in Hymns by F. Rest, My Window World by E. Whitehouse, and Faithlifters by J. Lavender. KREGEL: Fully Furnished. The Christian Worker’s Equipment by F. Marsh and The Structural Principles of the Bible by F. Marsh. LIPPINCOTT: So Who’s Afraid of Birthdays? by Anna B. Mow and Prayers to Pray Wherever You Are by J. Struchen. LOIZEAUX: Living Wisely: A Devotional Study of the First Epistle to the Corinthians by J. Blair and Sins of Saints by H. Lockyer. MOODY: Spiritual Maturity by J. Sanders. PAULIST: That Man in You by L. Evely and Before the Deluge by S. Moore and A. Hurt. REVELL: Eight Keys to Happiness by W. Hamby and Trustful Living by C. Holtermann. TYNDALE: When You Pray by H. Lindsell, and Words Fitly Spoken by D. G. Barnhouse. WARNER: Devotions You Can Lead by R. Swisher and God in My Family by D. Haskin. WORD: Sprint for the Sun by L. D. Young, A Man Talks With God and Earth, Moon, and Beyond both by B. Parrott. ZONDERVAN: Sourcebook for Mothers by E. Doan, New Every Morning by P. Howard, God Still Speaks to Women Today by Eugenia Price, and Guidance by God by J. H. Jauncey.

DRAMA, FICTION, POETRYAUGSBURG: What Did Jesus Do? and Chancel Dramas for Lent by W. A. Poovey. BEACON HILL: Going on Seventeen by M. F. Boggs and Joy in the Morning by K. B. Peck. BROADMAN: Drama for Fun by C. McGee, Ironing Board Altars by M. A. Bohrs, and Return to Heroism by R. A. Johns. CONCORDIA: Never Underestimate the Little Woman by C. Start. EERDMANS: “Contemporary Writers in Christian Perspective” series—Marianne Moore, by Sister Therese. Spender, MacNeice, Day-Lewis by D. Stanford, C. S. Lewis by P. Kreeft, and Evelyn Waugh by P. Doyle. FORTRESS: Dark Side of the Moon by P. Naylor. HARPER & ROW: The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Stone and Other Fables by M. Boyd and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven by G. Freeman. HERALD: The Outside World by L. E. Bender. Night Preacher by L. Vernon, and Lucy Winchester by C. C. Kauffman. KNOPF: In the House of the Lord by R. Flynn. LIPPINCOTT: New Moon Rising by Eugenia Price. MACMILLAN: False Gods, Real Men by D. Berrigan. MOODY: Lost City by C. E. Gruhn and Then I Am Strong by F. Arnold. REVELL: Favorite Christian Poems compiled by D. T. Kauffman. WARNER: Egermeier’s Bible Story Book (a new revision) by E. Egermeier and A. Hall. WORD: No Man in Eden by H. L. Myra. WORLD: Are You Sure You Love Me? by L. W. May. ZONDERVAN: Beside Still Waters by P. Michael and The Fragmented, The Empty, The Love by P. Bard.

ECUMENICS, INTER-FAITH DIALOGUEABINGDON: John Wesley’s Letter to a Roman Catholic edited by M. Hurley, S.J. and Methodism’s Destiny in an Ecumenical Age edited by Paul M. Minus Jr. AUGSBURG, PAULIST: *Luther: Right or Wrong? by H. J. McSorley, C.S.P. and Church in Fellowship, Volume II by P. E. Hoffman and H. Meyer. BROADMAN: Meet the American Catholic by P. Scharper. BRUCE: Forms of Christian Life by F. Schlosser. FUNK AND WAGNALLS: Men of Dialogue: Martin Buber and Albrecht Goes edited by E. W. Rollins and H. Zohn. HARPER & ROW: Phenomenology of Religion by J. Bettis and Attitudes Toward Other Religions by O. Thomas. JOHN KNOX: Power Without Glory: A Study in Ecumenical Politics by I. Henderson. MACMILLAN: The Christian-Marxist Dialogue by P. Oestreicher. PAULIST: Dare to Reconcile by J. O. Nelson. SHEED AND WARD: The One Bread by M. Thurian and Reconciliation: The Function of the Church by E. C. Bianchi. ZONDEVAN: Ecumenicity, Evangelicals and Rome by J. W. Montgomery.

ETHICAL, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, CULTURAL STUDIESABINGDON: Young People and Their Culture by R. Snyder, The Church and the New Generation by C. E. Mowry, Black Power and Christian Responsibility by C. F. Sleeper, The Young Adult Generation by A. J. Moore, and The Dialogue Gap by T. J. Mullen. AUGSBURG: Modern War and the Christian by R. Moellering. BAKER: Make Up Your Minds! Challenges for Young Christians by J. D. Baumann and Who’s Out of Focus by D. R. Seagren. BEACON HILL: Pilgrim’s Progress, a paraphrase by J. K. Grider, Share My Discoveries by K. Johnson and We Also Build by E. Lewis. BROADMAN: One Plus One Equals One by K. Arvin, Persons in Crises by R. Hudson, and Christian Communicator’s Handbook by F. A. Craig. BRUCE: The Gospel According to Madison Avenue by R. Hutchinson, Quality of Life by C. P. Kindregan, and New Morality or No Morality edited by R. Campbell. CONCORDIA: Ethics and Social Responsibility in Business by H. Gram, Crime in American Society by R. Knudten, and Power Structures and the Church by D. Schuller. CORPUS: Nonviolent Direct Action: American Cases—Social-Psychological Analyses edited by A. P. Hare and H. H. Blumberg and *Controversy: The Birth Control Debate 1958–1968 by A. Valsecchi. DOUBLEDAY: Catholic Education Faces Its Future by N. G. McCluskey, S.J., TheAbortion Decision by D. Granfreld, O.S.B., and Catholics and Divorce by R. G. Carey. EERDMANS: They Dare to Hope: Student Protest and Christian Response by F. Pearson and Black Reflections on White Power by S. Tucker. FORTRESS: God’s Basic Law by K. Hennig and Children—Choice or Chance by K. Wrage. GOOD NEWS: Sex Through the Looking Glass by L. Dolphin Jr. and C. E. Gallivan. HARPER & ROW: College Ruined Our Daughter by W. Shrader and The Search for a Usable Future by M. Marty. HERALD: The Church and the Single Person by F. Bontrager, World Hunger by C. F. Bishop, Soldiers of Compassion by U. A. Bender, and The Problem of Nationalist in Church-State Relationships by J. E. Wood Jr. HERDER AND HERDER: Lovers in Marriage by L. Evely and From Faith to Fantasy by W. Kuhns. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: Politics of the Gospel by Paupert. JOHN KNOX: War and Moral Discourse by R. B. Potter, Freedom City by L. Howell, *The Liberated Zone by J. P. Brown, and Disturbed About Man by B. E. Mays. JUDSON: The Black Vanguard by R. Brisbane, Cybernetics and People by C. Hall, and *Ashes for Breakfast by T. J. Holmes. KNOPF: The Divine Order by H. B. Parkes. LIPPINCOTT: Christian Ethics by D. H. C. Read. MACMILLAN: A Punishment for Peace by P. Berrigan, The Catholic Case for Contraception by D. Callahan, On Not Leaving It to the Snake by H. Cox, *The Delta Ministry by B. Hilton. MOODY: Christian Etiquette by D. Martin and Come for Coffee by M. Wise. OXFORD: College Talks by H. F. Lowry, edited by J. R. Blackwood and Religion and Social Conflict edited by R. Lee and M. E. Marty. PAULIST: Catholicism U. S. A. by G. H. Tavard, A.A. and Catholic Pentecostals by K. and D. Ranaghan. PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED: Commission versus Creation by F. N. Lee and Communism and the Reality of the Moral Law by J. Bales. REVELL: We’re Holding Your Son by G. R. McLean and God’s Turf by B. Combs. SCRIBNERS: The Religious Experience of Mankind by N. Smart and The Judgment of the Dead by S. G. F. Brandon. SEABURY: *Violence: Reflections from A Christian Perspective by J. Ellul, Civil Disobedience and the Christian by D. B. Stevick, and Black Theology and Black Power by J. H. Cone. SHEED AND WARD: “Move Over”: Students, Politics, Religion by F. Carling and Alienation, Atheism and Religious Revolution by T. F. O’Dea. TYNDALE: *Birth Control and The Christian, a symposium by the Christian Medical Society. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Myths and Symbols: Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade edited by J. M. Kitagawa, and *The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion by M. Eliade. WESTMINSTER: China—Yellow Peril? Red Hope? by C. R. Hensman and Theology and the Church in the University by J. Hartt. VANDERBILT: Controversy in the Twenties edited by W. B. Gatewood Jr. WARNER: Cry Over Me by J. Testerman. WORD: Seven Who Fought by W. Crook and The Cutting Edge compiled by H. C. Brown Jr. WORLD: Still Hungry in America, text by R. Coles and All to the Good: A Guide to Christian Ethics by R. B. and H. D. McLaren. ZONDERVAN: The God-Players by E. Jabay, The Compulsive Christian by D. Mason, Love in Action by W. Becker, The Urban Crisis by D. McKenna et al., The Lord Is My Shepherd But … by B. Jurgensen, The Vacuum of Unbelief by S. B. Babbage, Where Is History Going? by J. W. Montgomery, Guiding Teenagers to Maturity by J. H. Waterink, Learning for Loving by J. Burton, and Purple Violet-Squish by D. Wilkerson.

LITURGY, WORSHIPABINGDON: Bless This Mess and Other Prayers by J. Carr and I. Sorley, Prayer and the Living Christ by F. S. Wuellner, Look at Us, Lord! by R. M. Haven, Liturgies in a Time When Cities Burn by K. Watkins, and Reality and Prayer by J. B. Magee. BRUCE: Prayer and the Creative Christian by D. J. Foran. HARPER & ROW: The Centering Moment by H. Thurman. SEABURY: Word and Action edited by J. Kirby.

MISSIONS, EVANGELISM, CHURCH OUTREACHABINGDON: A Church Truly Catholic by J. K. Mathews, Include Me Out! by C. Morris, and The Theology of the Christian Mission edited by G. H. Anderson. AUGSBURG: Anutu Conquers New Guinea by A. C. Frerichs. BAKER: The Little General: The Story of J. T. Bach by T. Watkins, Jr. BEACON HILL: Christ’s Evangelistic Imperatives by E. S. Colaw, and Entering the Kingdom by G. F. Owen. BETHANY: *Current Mission Trends compiled by M. Mardock. BROADMAN: The New Times by A. McClellan. CONCORDIA: The Holy Infection by P. Bretscher. EERDMANS: The Spread of Christianity: A Bibliography by K. S. Latourette, Church Growth in Sierra Leone by G. W. Olson, Understanding Church Growth by D. McGavran, Repaid A Hundredfold by C. Leonard, Our Guilty Silence by J. R. W. Stott, Post-Christianity in Africa by G. C. Oosthuizen, and Jesus and His Nice Church by E. J. Richter. FORTRESS: Reviving the Local Church by D. Ernsberger and The Renewal of Preaching by D. J. Randolph. GOOD NEWS: Where the Action Is by D. Hillis. HARPER & ROW: Hammered as Gold by D. Howard. HERALD: Learning to Understand the Mission of the Church by E. Waltner and Evangelization and Social Responsibility by V. C. Grounds. JOHN KNOX: The Quality of Mercy by J. Steensma. JUDSON: The Reconciling Community by O. Tibbetts. MOODY: Footsteps to Freedom by L. Keidel and Beyond Combat by J. M. Hutchens. PAULIST: Modern Mission Dialogue: Theory and Practice edited by Pro Mundi Vita. REVELL: Dry Bones Can Live Again by R. E. Coleman and How In the World? by C. E. Johnson. WARNER: Go Man, Go, by F. Gardner, Carroll Dale Scores Again by D. Harman and C. Dale, and The Total Life by M. Crimm. WORD: House by the Bow Tree by R. Seamands, Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution by P. Rees, Doctor in An Old World by H. Raley, Christianity in Communist China by G. Patterson, Struggle For Integrity by W. Knight, and Neither Black Nor White by D. Shipley. WORLD: Take It to the People by H. E. Mumma. ZONDERVAN: By Life or by Death by J. C. Hefley and Heartcry for Revival by S. Olford.

PASTORAL THEOLOGYABINGDON: Stability Amid Change by G. Harkness, Pastoral Authority in Personal Relationships by S. Southard, Ferment in the Ministry by S. Hiltner, The Multiple Staff Ministry by M. T. Judy, and The Impact of the Future by L. E. Schaller. BEACON HILL: Making Prayer Dynamic by G. Cove. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS: *Preaching to Modern Man by F. Pack and P. Meador, Jr. BROADMAN: When He Calls Me by W. W. Warmath and Has God Called You? by H. Barnette. BRUCE: The Priesthood in Crisis by J. J. Blomjous, Contemporary Pastoral Counseling by E. Weitzel, The Priest as Manager by J. Deegan Jr., and Authority and Institution by James Drain. EERDMANS: The Contemporary Preacher and His Task by D. W. Yohn. FORTRESS: Ministering to Prisoners and Their Families by Kandle and Cassler and Counseling the Childless Couple by Bassett. HERALD: *Meditations for the Newly Married by J. Drescher, After High School—What? by A. Beechy, and several additions to the “Hospital Pamphlet Series.” JOHN KNOX: In Quest of a Ministry by J. P. Love. JUDSON: Strategic Planning for Church Organizations by R. Broholm, The Deacon in a Changing Church by Thomas, and The Pastor Deals with Crucial Human Situations by Oates and Lester. KREGEL: Last Words of Saints and Sinners: The Art of Dying by H. Lockyer. MACMILLAN: A Church Without Priests? by J. Duquesne. PAULIST: Priesthood and Ministry by R. J. Bastian and A Handbookfor Lectors by W. M. Carr. PRENTICE-HALL: Introduction to Religious Counseling: A Christian Humanistic Approach by R. P. Vaughan, S.J. REVELL: Kindlings by I. Macpherson and Man, Have I Got Problems by D. Wilkerson. SEABURY: Up From Grief by V. Kreis and A. Pattie and Demands on Ministry Today by G. W. Barrett. SHEED AND WARD: *Religious Values in Counseling and Psychotherapy by C. A. Curran and The In-Between: Evolution in Christian Faith by M. McMahon and P. A. Campbell. WARNER: Marriage in Perspective by H. Streeter. WORD: The Centrality of Preaching in the Total Task of the Ministry by J. Killinger. WORLD: Creative Churchmanship by D. W. Bartow and Church Politics by K. R. Bridston. ZONDERVAN: The Challenge of the Church by S. M. Lockridge.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATIONABINGDON: Cycles and Renewal by W. M. Ramsey, Christian Education in Local Methodist Churches by J. Q. Schisler, and Christian Word Book by J. S. Hendricks et al. BETHANY FELLOWSHIP: Happy Moments with God by M. Anderson. BROADMAN: Leading Dynamic Bible Study by R. A. Pierce. BRUCE: The Human Dimension of Catechetics by A. McBride, For Adult Catholics Only by T. W. Guzi, S.J. and Living, Loving Generation by D. and R. Lucey. CONCORDIA: Power Beyond Words by Johamann. HAWTHORN: The Fourth R: What Can Be Taught About Religion in the Public Schools. HERDER AND HERDER: Faith and Spiritual Life by Y. Congar. HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON: To Build a Church by Morse. INTER-VARSITY: Encounter with Books edited by Harish Merchant. JUDSON: Knowing the Living God by R. Hazelton and Discussion Starters for Young People, Series Two by A. Billups. PEGASUS: *The Politics of Religious Conflict: Church and State in America by R. Morgan and Religion, The State and the Schools by J. M. Swomley Jr. WARNER: “Foundations” series on church-school administration and teaching pre-elementary, elementary, youth, and adults. WORD: Biblical Sunday School Commentary, 1970.

SERMONSABINGDON: The Journey That Men Make by J. Armstrong, We Dream—We Climb by D. N. Franklin and The Wind of the Spirit by J. S. Stewart. AUGSBURG: The Call of Lent by J. G. Manz and What Did Jesus Do? by W. A. Poovey. BAKER: 150 Brief Sermon Outlines edited by C. Zylstra and 600 Sermon Illustrations by W. J. Hart. BEACON HILL: The Rich Treasures in Life by D. M. Parish. BIBLICAL RESEARCH PRESS: The King and His Kingdom by R. Lemmons. CONCORDIA: The Bitter Road by J. H. Baumgaertner. FORTRESS: How Modern Should Theology Be? by H. Thielicke. JUDSON: Dialogue Preaching by Thompson and Bennett. KREGEL: Easy-to-Use Sermon Outlines, Revival Sermon Outlines, and Evangelistic Sermon Outlines, all by C. R. Wood. REVELL: Where Now Is Thy God? by J. W. Hamilton and Sermons for Today edited by A. H. Chappie. E. J. WORD: God’s Everlasting “Yes” by I. T. Jones and The Spirit in Conflict by W. Warmath. WORLD: A Word in Its Season by A. H. Silver. ZONDERVAN: Preaching at the Palace by W. A. Criswell, Simple Sermons on Heaven, Hell and Judgment by W. H. Ford, The Preeminence of Christ by J. H. Gwynne, and Last Things by H. L. Eddleman et al.

THEOLOGYABINGDON: Contours of Faith by J. Dillinberger, His End Up by V. Eller, Perspectives on Death by L. O. Mills, *Sense and Nonsense in Religion by S. H. Stenson and Contemporary Continental Theologians by S. P. Schilling. AUGSBURG: A New Look at the Apostles’ Creed by G. Rein, Berdyaev’s Philosophy of Hope by C. S. Calian, and Interpreting Luther’s Legacy by F. W. Meuser and S. D. Schneider. BAKER: Tongues, Healing and You! by D. W. Hillis. BEACON HILL: Personal Renewal Through Christian Conversion by W. C. Mavis and Mother Goose’s Gospel by E. Wells. BROADMAN: The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Thought by D. M. Roark, Why I Preach that the Bible Is Literally True by W. A. Criswell, The Second Cross by J. M. Carter, Faith that Works by B. J. Chitwood, and Signs of the Second Coming by R. G. Witty. BRUCE: Spectrum of Catholic Attitudes edited by R. Campbell, Understanding the New Theology by Cooney, O.S.B., and Contemporary Protestant Thought by P. J. Curtis. CORPUS: The New Obedience: Kierkegaard on Imitating Christ by B. R. Dewey, The Church in the Theology of Karl Barth by C. O’Grady, and Man Yearning for Grace: Luther’s Early Spiritual Teachings by J. Wicks. DOUBLEDAY: The Crisis of Faith by F. Sontag. EERDMANS: Life in One’s Stride: Dietrich Bonhoeffer by K. Hamilton, The Creative Theology of P. T. Forsyth edited by S. Mikolaski, The Sacraments by G. C. Berkouwer, The Problems of Religious Authority (essays by E. J. Carnell) edited by R. Nash, All Things Made New by L. Smedes, and Henry James, Sr., and the Religion of Community by D. W. Hoover. FORTRESS: Theological Ethics Volume II: Politics by H. Thielicke, An Exodus Theology by G. Wingren, and Sacra Doctrina by P. E. Persson. HARPER & ROW: Faith and Understanding by R. Bultmann, Religion and Change by D. Edwards, An Apology for Wonder by S. Keen, What Is Religion by P. Tillich, and Do We Need the Church? by R. McBrien. HARVARD: St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Odyssey of a Soul by R. J. O’Connell, S.J. and King Alfred’s Version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies by T. A. Carnicelli. HERALD: We Believe by P. Erb. HERDER AND HERDER: Man’s Condition by W. C. Shepherd and Kerygma and Dogma by K. Rahner and K. Lehmann, JOHN KNOX: Bench Marks by J. Farkas, Sören Kierkegaard by R. L. Perkins, Alfred North Whitehead by N. Pittenger, and Christian Doctrine by S. C. Guthrie Jr. LIPPINCOTT: The Promise of Kierkegaard by K. Hamilton, The Promise of Buber by L. Streiker, and The Promise of Bultmann by N. Perrin. MACMILLAN: Christus Victor by G. Aulén, New Theology No. 6 by M. E. Marty and D. G. Peerman, and Mahayana Buddhism by B. L. Suzuki. MOODY: Existentialism and Christian Belief by M. D. Hunnex, *Faith at the Frontiers by C. F. H. Henry, and Law and Grace by A J. McClain. OXFORD: The Christian New Morality: A Biblical Study of Situation Ethics by O. S. Barr and The Knowledge of Things Hoped For: The Sense of Theological Discourse by R. W. Jenson. PAULIST: New Ways in Theology by J. S. Weiland, Do You Believe in God? by K. Rahner, and A New Approach to Faith and Doctrine by G. Baum. PEGASUS: Christianity and Paradox by R. W. Hepburn. PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED: Warfield’s Shorter Works edited by J. Meeter. SCRIBNER: Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective by G. Kaufman and Religion, Revolution, and the Future by J. Moltmann. SCRIPTURE PRESS: *The Bible and Tomorrow’s News by C. C. Ryrie. SEABURY: History as Myth: The Import for Contemporary Theology by W. T. Stevenson and Death by M. McC. Gatch. SHEED AND WARD: Is Original Sin in Scripture? by H. Haag and God and Man by E. Schillebeeckx. STANFORD: Theology and Meaning: A Critique of Metatheological Skepticism by R. S. Heimbeck. WARNER: A Responding People by G. Newberry and The Soul Under Siege by J. E. Massey. WESTMINSTER: The Whole Man, A Study in Christian Anthropology by R. G. Smith, The Church Is Not Expendable by G. B. Noyce, and Theology and the Kingdom of God by W. Pannenberg. WORD: Jesus and the Kingdom (reprint) by G. E. Ladd. WORLD: Morality Without Law by W. F. Ewbank. ZONDERVAN: Fundamentals of the Faith edited by C. F. H. Henry, Systematic Theology by J. O. Buswell III, The Devil—Our Adversary by J. D. Pentecost, and Beliefs That Are Basic by H. Shannon.

The past year was a publishing record-breaker, especially for significant works in English on the Old Testament. The 118 titles to be mentioned here far outshine the sixty-one selected as worthy of note during 1967. Those that are marked with an * reflect a high view of the Scriptures. Here they all are, then (including a few of last year’s that came in too late for mention then), arranged in five categories. The twenty chosen as the year’s best are numbered.

Reference Tools

1. For sheer usefulness, especially for Americans who find it difficult to keep abreast of British publications, the nod for a reference work must go to G. W. Anderson’s editing of the 1957–66 annual book lists of the Society for Old Testament Study, in A Decade of Bible Bibliography (Blackwell, 1967). Each year’s books are divided into twelve categories, and there is an index of authors. Harvard Library’s six-volume Catalog of Hebrew Books shows the catalog cards for its 40,000 books in Hebrew (especially rabbinics). Three specialized Bible dictionaries appears in 1968: W. Duckat’s Beggar to King: All the Occupations of Biblical Times (Doubleday), and H. H. Rowley’s handy Dictionary of Bible Personal Names and Dictionary of Bible Themes (Basic Books). Harper & Row’s Illustrated Family Encyclopedia of the Living Bible has fourteen volumes.

Biblical Setting

2. The year’s best work on HISTORICAL BACKGROUND was K. Katz, et al., From the Beginning: Archaeology and Art in the Israel Museum (Morrow). With attractive design and sixty-four full-color plates, it depicts this institution’s progress since its founding in 1963 and includes a survey of artifacts from the early Stone Age to the Crusades. Also on historical background were: L. Keylock’s translation of Egypt and the Bible (Fortress), by P. Montet; and Letters from Mesopotamia (University of Chicago, 1967), by L. Oppenheim, mirroring official and private life from Sargon in 2300 to Persian times. Old Babylonian Letters and Economic History, by W. F. Leemans (Brill), presents other such documents, plus additions to the author’s 1960 volume on foreign trade in Babylon. Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings of E. A. Speiser (University of Pennsylvania, 1967), edited by J. J. Finkelstein and M. Greenberg, offers thirty-six of Speiser’s articles plus a complete biography of 152 articles he wrote. Pertaining to a later period are J. B. Peckham’s The Development of the Late Phoenician Scripts (Harvard), covering the eighth to first centuries B.C.; and S. K. Eddy’s The King Is Dead (University of Nebraska), on the resistance to Hellenism that appeared in the former Persian Empire from 334 to 31 B.C., much being due to native theologies of kingship.

3. A third book of the top twenty represents more distinctively BIBLICAL BACKGROUND: Y. Aharoni and M. AviYona, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 176 pages, but, would you believe, 262 maps—especially of battles and also of commerce and economic resources—plus pictures, translations of ancient sources, and chronology! The narrative attempts to be objective but generally neglects conservative views. From a more Bible-trusting approach are M. T. Gilbertson, *Uncovering Bible Times: A Study in Biblical Archeology (Augsburg), and. J. L. Kelso, *Archeology and the Ancient Testament (Zondervan), twenty-seven chapters covering Adam to Malachi. As an illustrated archaeological history comes A. Jirku’s The World of the Bible (World).

4. Selected as best for specific BIBLICAL HISTORY is P. R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration (Westminster), with thorough documentation of sixth-century B.C. Hebrew thought. Though under literary sources for the exile he includes much that evangelical scholars would place elsewhere (e.g., P, the Deuteronomic history, and Second—but not Third—Isaiah), Ackroyd’s opening up of one of the less appreciated Old Testament periods is welcome. A paperback by B. Rendtorff, Men of the Old Testament (Fortress), traces out history through the lives of such figures as Abram, Moses, and Joshua, at least as far as the oral sources about them were understood in later times. Other publications, in historical order, include: a translation of A. Parrot, Abraham and His Times (Fortress), holding to JEDP but also asserting that Genesis is “anchored in history”; the first three volumes in J. Rhymer’s series, “The Bible in History”—(1) Abraham, Loved by God, (2) Isaac and Jacob, God’s Chosen Ones, and (3) Moses and Joshua (Hastings), all by Henri Gaubert and all readable and well illustrated; H. Rolston, Personalities Around David (John Knox), twenty-four of them, plus David himself; E. W. Heaton, The Hebrew Kingdoms (Oxford, Volume III of the “New Clarendon Bible”); and Jacob Myers, The World of the Restoration (Prentice-Hall, “Backgrounds to the Bible” series), down to Alexander, with commendable archaeological notes.

Introductory

5. On GENERAL INTRODUCTION, a landmark volume, since it includes a full discussion of inspiration, canon, and also text, is N. L. Geisler and W. E. Nix, *A General Introduction to the Bible (Moody). Significantly, it distinguishes between the twofold canonization of the Old Testament law and prophets and its threefold categorization into Law, Prophets and Writing. It is comprehensive on the modern versions, both foreign and English. Among new English versions, one must note R. S. Hanson, The Psalms in Modern Speech (Fortress), negative in its critical introductions but interesting in its attempt to preserve Hebrew meter and to encourage readings by cantors and choirs; and K. Taylor, *Living Lessons of Life and Love (Tyndale), a paraphrase of Ruth, Esther, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Another title related to general introduction is the reissue, now in paperback and with a slightly changed title, of H. F. Vos, editor, *Can I Trust the Bible? (Moody), nine chapters by eight evangelical scholars on such topics as science, text, canon, and historicity.

6. The year’s top selection on TEXT alone is S. Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford), supplementary to, but by no means a replacement of, H. B. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (reprinted by Ktav in 1968). Jellicoe’s is the first major post-Qumran study of the ancient versions and is perhaps the most important Old Testament book of the year. After surveying modern editions and the scholarly situation, it presents a much needed book-by-book analysis of the entire Greek Old Testament. More specialized are the works of J. D. Shenkel, Chronology and Recensional Development in the Greek Text of Kings (Harvard); and J. D. Purvis, The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (Harvard), in which he proposes a late second-century B.C. origin for the Samaritans as a distinct sect, as shown by comparing their Pentateuchal text with those at Qumran. Not to be slighted are Ktav’s reprints of J. W. Etheridge, The Targum of Onkelos (1862); S. Frensdorff, Massora Magna (1876); and E. Levita, Massoreth Ha-Mas-soreth, with the Introduction of Jacob Ben Chayyim to the Rabbinic Bible of 1525.

7. In the area of comprehensive SURVEY AND SPECIAL INTRODUCTION, 1968’s outstanding volume is unquestionably G. Fohrer’s Introduction to the Old Testament (Abingdon), which includes a significant discussion of literary form (Formgeschichte) before each major part: history, poetry, wisdom, and prophecy. The criticism is radical (e.g., Chronicles “completely distorts the history of the monarchy”), but the bibliographies are superb. Less ambitious critical surveys, all Roman Catholic, include: J. Jensen’s paperback, God’s Word to Israel (Allyn and Bacon); G. A. Larue, Old Testament Life and Literature (Allyn and Bacon), a textbook in beautiful format and “without strong theological bias”; N. Lohfink, Christian Meaning of the Old Testament (Bruce), stressing its enduring “inerrant” aspects as opposed to its more “marginal” matters; How Does the Christian Confront the Old Testament?, by P. Benoit et al. (Paulist; Volume 30 of “Concilium: Theology in the Age of Renewal”), with nine articles by Catholic scholars, mostly European, and seven more on the sacred writings of other religions; and Wellsprings of Scripture (Sheed and Ward), by J. M. Ford, a survey that brings out the types of biblical literature.

8. The year’s leading SPECIAL AREA INTRODUCTION is unquestionably H. E. Freeman, *An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets (Moody), with 133 pages on prophetism, followed by book introductions that react well with critical problems and take up such issues as Hosea’s marriage (literal), Isaiah 7:14 and Daniel 9:25 (specifically Messianic), Joel-Obadiah (ninth century), and Daniel’s seventieth week (futurist). Other particularized studies are: M. H. Segal, The Pentateuch: Its Composition and Its Authorship and Other Biblical Studies (Oxford), anti-Wellhausen but still with post-Mosaica; E. W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Fortress, 1967), on trends since 1900, with the conclusion that it must be a seventh-century product based on earlier traditions; and W. H. Whybray, The Succession Narrative: A Study of Second Samuel 9–20, First Kings 1–2 (Allenson), in which the public events are held to be historical, but the private, imaginative—a historical novel, for political purposes, based on the wisdom movement, with Egyptian influence.

9. Whybray thus serves to introduce FORM CRITICISM: that never-never land of Old Testament study: not that the study of literary forms as related to the Bible may not be helpful—witness Kitchen’s and Kline’s defense of Deuteronomy, because of its second-millennium covenant form—but that most of today’s proliferating Formgeschichte seems aimed at creating new alternatives to the Bible’s own teachings about its composition and validity. If then a ninth in the year’s top twenty books be assigned to this area, it would be Koch’s general study, The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method (Scribner), with definitions and examples, embracing oral traditions and the characteristics of Hebrew poetry. Specific studies include: R. Clements, Abraham and David, Genesis 15 and Its Meaning for Israelite Tradition (Allenson, 1967), which explains Genesis 15 as the result of successive warpings by cultic transmission, political propaganda, and priestly reconstruction; E. Nielsen, The Ten Commandmentsin New Perspective (also Allenson), with a similar traditio-historical approach; G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Wilderness (Abingdon), which explains how the “murmuring motif” must have arisen out of conflicts between the divided kingdoms of Israel; L. Bronner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha (Brill), which sees these as wonder tales designed to expose the inadequacy of Baal worship; and, really the granddaddy of Formgeschichte, H. Gunkel’s The Psalms, A Form Critical Introduction (Fortress, 1967), old (1930), but the first time in English for this basic study of the Gattung, or form.

10. A particularly fruitful area in 1968 has been SURVEY OF THE PROPHETS, with top billing going to S. J. Schultz, *The Prophets Speak (Harper & Row). Based on the “unreconstructed (by negative criticism) text” of the Old Testament, it first defines the prophetic movement and its themes and then takes up the individual prophets. See also: J. C. Reid, *We Spoke for God (Eerdmans, 1967), vivid first-person retellings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and six of the Minor Prophets (but not Ezekiel, Daniel, or Zechariah?), a companion volume to his We Knew Jesus; H. Staach, Prophetic Voices of the Bible (World), the personalities and messages of the Minor Prophets; S. Winward, A Guide to the Prophets (Hodder and Stoughton; due for release in the United States by John Knox in 1969), their historical settings and their teachings applied to today; G. von Rad, The Message of the Prophets (SCM, from the German of 1967), a simplified version of part of Volume II of his 1966 Old Testament Theology; and the new edition of R. B. Y. Scott, The Relevance of the Prophets (Macmillan), completely updated after twenty years.

Commentaries

11–12. Two of 1968’s top Old Testament books belong with WHOLE BIBLE commentaries. As anticipated last year, the Old Testament portion of *The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, edited by C. W. Carter (Eerdmans), is now out, at least Volumes I (Parts 1, Pentateuch, and 2, Historical) and II (Poetry). With ASV text and double-column notes for each paragraph, it is a tool for the minister or teacher. Also, with the appearance of Volume II (Historical Books), the *Beacon Bible Commentary (Beacon Hill) is now almost complete, lacking only the first volume. Evangelical Calvinists will find little to consider theologically distasteful in either of these major commentary sets. The same cannot be said, however, for I. Asimov (a science and science-fiction writer), Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Volume I, Old Testament (Doubleday), with its outmoded chronology, dependence on JEDP and the Anchor Bible, and discoveries of residual polytheism (e.g., in Gen. 3:22 and 11:7). Nor can it be said of R. E. Brown, J. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy, editors, The Jerome Bible Commentary (Prentice-Hall), by fifty Roman Catholic professors of the United States and Canada, with their “assured results of literary and historical criticism” (e.g., JEDP).

13. Among commentaries on the PENTATEUCH, attention focuses on F. D. Kidner’s *Genesis in the new “Tyndale Old Testament Commentary” (Inter-Varsity). The warden of Tyndale House here maintains the unity of Genesis as opposed to “rival traditions competing for credence”; and, while some may question his suggestion of the book’s final editing under Samuel (rather than Moses) or his noncommittal attitude toward evolution, all will here recognize 224 pages of solid evangelical interpretation. Leviticus and Numbers, by N. H. Snaith, first volume in the new edition of the “Century Bible” (Nelson of London, 1967), on the other hand, is just as obviously JEDP, à la Noth or Von Rad, but with helpful rabbinic references. R. Clements, God’s Chosen People: Deuteronomy, A Commentary (SCM) has a topical arrangement, with stress upon theology, history, and the canon.

14. Top rank among the HISTORICAL BOOKS likewise goes to Tyndale, *Judges-Ruth (Inter-Varsity), by A. E. Cundall and L. Morris, respectively. Emphasis falls on exegesis, with critical questions generally limited to the introductions and footnotes. Judges is seen as complementary, not contradictory, to Joshua and as dependent upon a Mosaic Pentateuch. Ruth has a verse-by-verse treatment, with its Davidic date and place in the canon well presented. Three paperback series are these: (a) from England, the “Scripture Union Bible Study Books” (Eerdmans), popular paraphrases for daily reading; in Joshua-Second Samuel, H. L. Ellison assumes considerable freedom on the order of events and in First KingsSecond Chronicles, I. H. Marshall designates the latter’s figures as “incredible”; but J. S. Wright, *Ezra-Job, maintains Scripture’s full validity; (b) the “Bible SelfStudy Series” (Moody) presents practical lessons with maps and charts, with I. L. Jensen serving as reviser for *Joshua, *Judges and Ruth, *First and Second Samuel, *First Kings with Chronicles, and *Second Kings with Chronicles; and (c), in the “Shield Bible Study Series” (Baker), R. G. Turnbull, *The Book of Nehemiah, is primarily homiletical and topical. A more ambitious series, designed as a family resource, is the new “Concordia Commentary,” a seven-year, twenty-seven-volume project, with RSV text and an easy-reading narrative commentary, on paragraphs. R. Gehrke, First and Second Samuel (Concordia), which is one of the three initial volumes in the series, speaks on the one hand of verbal inspiration but on the other of “stories” and “varying traditions … shaped by a later temple liturgy.”

15. In 1966, M. Dahood’s first volume of the Anchor Bible Psalms won a top listing on the POETIC BOOKS, and again in 1968 his contribution, Psalms, II:50–100 (Doubleday), ranks as one of the leading twenty, again for its effective use of parallel Ugaritic data. Other commentaries and interpretations of the poetic books include: H. Kent’s paperback, *Job Our Contemporary (Eerdmans), with existential relevance, but a little harsh on Elihu; P. S. Sanders, editor, Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Book of Job: A Collection of Critical Essays, ten essays dating from Peake in 1905 through Toynbee’s myths and philosophy in 1934 to recent studies; R. Guardini, *The Wisdom of the Psalms (Regnery), with comments on thirteen selected psalms, exhibiting a German Catholic’s concern for liturgy; and I. L. Jensen, *Psalms (Moody, “Bible Self-Study”) and H. L. Ellison, The Psalms (Eerdmans, “Scripture Union Bible Study”).

16–17. It’s rare to get two solid, evangelical commentaries on the same Old Testament book in one year, but 1968 did, in the category of PROPHETS: H. C. Leupold’s * Exposition of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39 (Baker) follows the format of his previous “Expositions”—detailed notes on each paragraph—and the late E. J. Young’s *The Book of Isaiah, Volume II (Eerdmans), covering chapters 18–39, continues this pilot publication in the “New International Commentary on the Old Testament,” with a similar approach. In fact, this was something of an Isaiah year, among the also-rans being: J. L. McKenzie, Second Isaiah (Doubleday, “Anchor Bible”), on chapters 34; 35; 40–66, and with a liberal perspective (he states, for example, that the idea of the Suffering Servant as a historical figure in the future “is defended by no one today except in a few fundamentalist circles”); F. W. Bennett, * Christian Living from Isaiah (Baker), practical, with 7:14 and 9:6 firmly Messianic; C. T. Francisco, Isaiah (Baker, “Shield Series”); J. L. Green, God Reigns: Expository Studies in the Prophecy of Isaiah (Broadman); I. L. Jensen, *Isaiah-Jeremiah (Moody, “Bible Self-Study”), and P. H. Kelley, Judgment and Redemption in Isaiah (Broadman). Other commentaries on the prophets were: N. Habel, Jeremiah and Lamentations (“Concordia Commentary”); W. Brueggemann, Tradition for Crisis: A Study in Hosea (John Knox), in which Hosea is seen as an interpreter of the Mosaic covenant (with post-Mosaic modifications) rather than as an innovator; J. K. Howard, * Among the Prophets: Amos (Pickering and Inglis, 1967; Baker, 1968), background and a commentary with practical relevance; and T. M. Bennett, The Book of Micah (Baker).

Teachings

18. In the area of WORDS, a first-of-its-kind volume is J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford). Employing Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian, and Ugaritic, Barr traces out lexigraphical history and degrees of agreement. In the same category are P. Ackroyd and B. Lindars, editors, Words and Meanings: Essays Presented to David Winton Thomas (Cambridge), fifteen of them, including B. Albrektson on the syntax of Exodus 3:14 and O. Eissfeldt on Old Testament renamings; and B. Hartman, et al., Hebraische Wortforschung [word investigation] in Honor of Walter Baumgartner (Brill, 1967, Vetus Testamentum Supplement XVI), including G. R. Driver on Hebrew homonyms and two studies on “believe” in Genesis 15:6.

19. On matters of more extensive INTERPRETATION, the recommendation goes to J. J. Davis, *Biblical Numerology (Baker), who recognizes the abuse of this subject by cranks and proceeds to classify and define principles for interpreting numbers: only the 7 shows any degree of symbolic use, in Scripture, he says. Also appearing in 1968 were: J. P. Lewis, *A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Brill), more of an anthology than an evaluation; M. G. Kline, *By Oath Consigned (Eerdmans), on circumcision as an ordeal sign; evangelist C. E. Autrey’s paperback, * Renewals Before Pentecost (Broadman); H. M. Orlinsky, The So-Called ‘Servant of the Lord’ and ‘Suffering Servant’ in Second Isaiah (the title speaks for itself) and, with N. H. Snaith, Isaiah 40–60: A Study of the Teachings of the Second Isaiah and its Consequences (Brill, 1967, together forming Vetus Testamentum Supplement XIV), the “Servant” being originally only Jehoiachin’s exiles; H. J. Van Dijk, Ezekiel’s Prophecy on Tyre (Pontifical Biblical Institute), on its unfulfilled predictions; and O. Plöger, Theocracy and Eschatology (John Knox), explaining by radical criticism how the prophetic spirit came to be lost in Maccabean (Daniel) apocalyptic.

20. Finally, in the broader field of THEOLOGY, the year’s twentieth choice book is C. J. Vos, *Women in Old Testament Worship (Judels and Brinkman, Holland), which proposes that, except for the priesthood, women participated equally with men and suggests (?) that they may serve as teaching ministers today. Other important studies include: J. S. Chesnut, The Old Testament Understanding of God (Westminster), a nontechnical work that defines the covenant as “man’s making an agreement with his God” (!) and finds Christology in the Old Testament “only by a strained exegesis”; R. C. Dentan, The Knowledge of God in Ancient Israel (Seabury), an unoriginal survey of the Old Testament’s central idea that God acts in history; W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (Doubleday), a historical analysis of these two contrasting faiths; E. M. Baxter, The Beginnings of Our Religion (Judson), unreconstructed liberalism that fails to find much difference between the two; R. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Ktav, 1967), similar, hypothesizing considerable polytheism in the Old Testament; R. S. Kluger, Satan in the Old Testament (Northwestern University, 1967), with a stress on Jungian psychology, and presupposing that the spiritual equals the mythological; J. Plastaras, Creation and Covenant (Bruce), on creation and other doctrinal themes in Genesis-Exodus (the Bible is considered primarily Israel’s religious literature, though with something important to say today); J. Jocz, The Covenant (Eerdmans), in which a systematic theologian finds the critically reconstructed covenant doctrine as the key to revelation and to the unity of Scripture; H. H. Rowley, Worship in Ancient Israel (Fortress, 1967), which includes the temple, sacrifice, prophets, and psalmody, all with excellent documentation; and N. W. Porteous, Living the Mystery (Blackwell, 1967), a reprint of twelve articles (1948–67) on God’s maintaining the Jewish community by his presence, as men obey him.

In the field of Old Testament, at least, 1968 was a “year for the books”!

Last year’s book survey had cause to complain that 1967 was a lean year for the New Testament interpreter. This time there is cause to rejoice, for 1968 was a year of plenty, both in quantity and quality.

Worthy of first mention is once again the latest volume in the English translation of Kittel’s wordbook. Thanks to the indefatigable labors of Geoffrey Bromiley, volume five takes its place on the shelf in the growing treasury of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Eerdmans). By now it is superfluous to praise this massive work, or to commend it to the alert student and pastor; just the announcement of publication should be enough to send him scurrying to the bookstore. This volume covers the Greek words whose initial letter is xi, omicron (in full), and pi (in part). Thus we are given full data, in typical Kittel style, on such important words as hodos (way); oikos (house, with cognate forms such as the verb to build); homologeo (to confess); hoplon (weapon: this article is much wider than the single word; it passes on to consider all the New Testament terms that deal with militia Christi and will prove especially useful in the study of Ephesians 6); horao (to see: here again the article extends its scope and takes in all the New Testament words of vision with their various nuances); orge (wrath), given a worthy treatment that does not bypass the theological issues of God’s wrath; parabole (parable); parakletos (where the rendering “advocate” is preferred to clarify our appreciation of the Holy Spirit’s office); pater (father, with excellent studies of family life in Judaism and New Testament teaching, and of the rich seam of truth of the divine fatherhood). But the longest article is also the best. In cooperation with Zimmerli, who contributes on the Old Testament side, J. Jeremias reproduces the lines of his cogent study on pais theou (servant of God) and with a wealth of erudition tells probably all there is to know about the meaning of Isaiah 53 and its background in Jewish and New Testament theology. The picture of Jesus as the suffering Servant is sketched in bold relief in this fine essay. One further observation on this volume: for the first time in the encyclopedia use is made of the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is one sign that post-World War II volumes are now being translated.

The past year has been a good one for the study of the Gospel of John, with at least three significant books expounding the deep themes of the “spiritual gospel,” as Clement of Alexandria aptly named it. High on the list of these commentaries, in this or any year, must be R. Schnackenburg’s The Gospel According to St. John (Herder; Burns and Oates [for some books mentioned in this survey we list both an American and a British publisher]). This commentary in a projected multi-volumed coverage of the entire Gospel consists of a long introduction and an exegesis of chapters 1–4. Its treatment is all that an ideal commentary should be; it is marked both by an extensive knowledge of the relevant literature (and there is enough to fill a library) and by a depth of penetration and exegetical skill. The label “magisterial” would not be out of place. But the real significance of Schnackenburg’s work is that it offers for the first time a viable alternative to Bultmann’s commentary, which also is being translated into English. Throughout his pages and particularly in a number of excursuses, Schnackenburg is in running debate with Bultmann, preferring to maintain, with powerful reasons to support his case, that John is to be understood on an Old Testament—Jewish background rather than a Hellenistic-Gnostic.

The other titles on the shelf marked Johannine are J. N. Sanders, The Gospel According to St. John (Harper & Row; Black), and E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus (SCM). The former is a work published posthumously and edited and completed by the author’s former pupil, B. A. Mastin. It stands in the characteristic British tradition of sober exegesis and a high regard for gospel history; therefore the commentator’s verdict on authorship will hardly be expected, for he offers in all seriousness the novel view that the evangelist John is none other than John Mark, writer of the second Gospel and composer of the Revelation. There are obvious difficulties with this identification, not least the problem of how the varying styles of writing are to be accounted for. The second book from a post-Bultmannian scholar is novel in a far more thoroughgoing fashion. Indeed, his conclusion (if it had any semblance of plausibility) would give most readers a violent trauma. Käsemann holds that the Johannine Christ is scarcely a human figure at all. He is presented as a God who walks on the earth but whose feet are two inches off the ground all the time. The evangelist has succumbed to heretical thinking that denies the Lord’s true humanity, and offers his Gospel as a protest against orthodox, catholic Christianity. The logical outcome of Käsemann’s argument, which has a fragile base indeed, is that the fourth Gospel was received into the canon by mistake, “by human error and divine providence.” Any attempt to understand John’s Gospel that leads to this monstrous conclusion is suspect from the start.

Our preference for a more straightforward way of looking at John must not pre-empt discussion of other New Testament books that pose testy problems. Here we think of Ephesians, judged by many Christians to be the high-water mark of the Pauline letters. The liturgical cast of this epistle has long been appreciated; both its language and style are in keeping with the idea that it is not a pastoral letter sent out to meet a local situation but a prose-poem dedicated to the theme of Christ in his Church. Now a Canadian scholar draws the inference that it is not a letter at all but a joining together of a eucharistic prayer and a sermon based on a discourse taken from the liturgical readings of the Feast of Pentecost. The combination of these elements of early worship suggests to J. C. Kirby in his Ephesians: Baptism and Pentecost (SPCK) that the document we call Ephesians finds its natural setting in a baptismal service. This is suggestive, but not all the evidence falls into the pattern.

Another recent effort to reopen a part of the New Testament closed for some time is made by A. T. Hanson. In Studies in the Pastoral Epistles (SPCK) he tries to use these letters to throw light on a dark-tunnel period of Christian history between the death of Paul and Bishop Ignatius. Some of his exegetical findings are worthwhile, but the overall thesis of a second-century dating of the epistles runs into serious trouble.

Finding the most likely “life-setting” of the New Testament documents is an occupational hobby of some scholars, who eagerly seize upon such letters as Second Peter and Jude for this purpose. Not so with E. M. B. Green, whose Tyndale commentary on these epistles (Eerdmans) brings the series almost within sight of completion. Green offers a stout defense of the letters’ authenticity and unity, and gives a careful review of the debate before opting for a conservative conclusion. His explanatory notes on the text well maintain the proven value of this unpretentious series of commentaries.

A commentary with a wider field to cover is that by C. K. Barrett on The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Harper & Row; Black). Last year’s survey was hesitant about this author’s attitude toward gospel history; no such reserve need be injected into a commendation of this major work on the liveliest of all Paul’s letters. The commentator has a judicious comment on each problem text and, with a touch of distinction visible again and again, brings to life the Corinthian situation and the inspired apostle’s handling of it. A first-rate piece of work, this book makes us impatient for Barrett’s promised commentary on the companion espistle.

Two large offerings on the life and teaching of Paul have appeared this year, but unhappily neither of them would merit a place among the great books on the Pauline shelf. E. W. Hunt calls his treatment Portrait of Paul (Mowbray). It follows conventional lines marked out by traditional Anglo-Saxon scholarship and breaks new ground only by proposing that its subject may be described in musical terms. Paul’s message is likened to the movements of a symphony. Brahms’s First Symphony is in mind, with its musical representation of the victory of good over evil. But even more addicted to the textbook approach to Paul and his doctrine is L. Cerfaux’s The Christian in the Theology of St. Paul (Chapman). This final product of a recently deceased Roman Catholic scholar crowns the exegetical work of a lifetime, coming as the last member of a trio of books on Christ and the Church in the apostle’s thought and experience. Its chief usefulness will be as a repository of biblical verses rather than as a new insight into Paul’s life and labors. For some fresh insights we need to turn to Paul and Qumran (Chapman), edited by J. Murphy-O’Connor. This composite volume performs the valuable service of making available in English some scholarly articles that in recent times have appeared in learned journals in French and German. They have a common interest in seeking to throw light on Paul’s teaching from the data of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Pauline themes they illumine are central and decisive, such as justification by faith, mystery, the link between Ephesians and the Qumran texts, and truth. The claims made are advanced cautiously, and the book is marked by sobriety and sound judgment.

Discussion of the historical Jesus has not been much furthered in this year’s list. The Catholic writer X. Léon-Dufour has found a translator for his book now available as The Gospels and the Jesus of History (Collins). Though based on an erudite French treatment, this version makes few claims as a technical work of theology. But it will fill a space as a popular assessment of modernday trends from a conservative stance within the Catholic Church. Telltale signs of the author’s adherence are seen in his attitude to the pre-Synoptic tradition with a reliance on oral testimony, and his support of the quest of the Jesus of Galilee. Three supplementary books may be mentioned as they touch upon the very matters that are highlighted in Léon-Dufour’s book. The authorship of Matthew’s Gospel and its claim to apostolic authority are much to the front in the classic Catholic solution of the Synoptic problem. Liberal Protestants and form critics take an opposite and skeptical view. Now, in a highly competent and detailed study, R. H. Gundry seeks to have a second look at the matter. The Use of the OldTestament in St. Matthew’s Gospel (Brill) will do much to enhance the reputation of conservative scholarship in an area where it has a congenial contribution to make, namely, textual analysis and appraisal. Gundry examines the 148 Old Testament references in Matthew and discusses their textual affinities. An upshot of his treatment is the submission that the Apostle Matthew may well have been responsible for collecting the Lord’s words and be the author of the gospel book that bears his name. Another younger American scholar, Douglas R. A. Hare, in The Theme of Jewish Persecution of Christians in the Gospel According to St. Matthew (Cambridge) builds on the contrary assumption that this Gospel reflects the theological interest of an unknown Christian at a time when the Church and the synagogue had parted company. His distinctive thesis that Matthew’s Gospel came out of a situation in which the mission to Israel had failed and the Jews were treated as rejected by God founders on such a verse as 23:39 and is almost incredible.

A book that touches a nerve center of apostolic Christianity is not to be overlooked because it is small. Otto Betz in his What Do We Know About Jesus? (SCM) turns to the witness of the Qumran scrolls as well as to that of the Synoptics to face the issue, Was Jesus simply a man who knew himself to have a divine commission, who could represent God himself but without any particular office such as Messiah-Son of God? Betz’s response to this deep question does not share the agnosticism of much modern gospel study.

A logician takes a close look at some of the cherished presuppositions of gospel study in H. Palmer’s The Logic of Gospel Criticism (Macmillan). In a difficult but rewarding essay he subjects the four disciplines of textual, documentary, source, and form criticism to some perceptive analyses and comes up with surprising results. The overall impression of his book is a fresh understanding of the gospel writers, who cannot be properly evaluated if we persist (as many form critics do) in viewing them as “telegraph operators, camp-fire raconteurs, or Boy Scouts standing in a line.” In an indirect way Palmer contributes to the demise of a literary and form criticism that sees the evangelists as mere collectors of an anonymous tradition or the faceless men of an ecclesiastical school. He supports the latest vogue in gospel study, which is dignified by the descriptive tag Redaktionsgeschichte (“editorial history”); if this term seems mystifying, one can find a whole treatise devoted to its meaning in J. Rohde’s Rediscovering the Teaching of the Evangelists (Westminster; SCM). This volume, based on a dissertation in East Germany, is little more than a summary of current research in a field largely in the hands of German scholars, so its value is mainly one of transatlantic communication. But Anglo-Saxon scholars have not been slow to catch on, and already we are able to greet a study of John the Baptist from the standpoint of “editorial criticism” that takes seriously the claim of the evangelists as historians and theologians in their own right. W. Wink surveys what may be known of the Messianic herald in John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition (Cambridge). The bridge between John and Jesus is well established in this interesting study, and fresh direction is given on the road back to the historical figures of the gospel narrative.

Two introductions to the New Testament may be bracketed only for convenience, for they have little in common. W. Marxsen’s Introduction (Blackwell) looks at the documents through Bultmannian spectacles and finds traces of an omnipresent Gnosticism at every turn of the page. A valuable corrective is at hand, however, in R. McL. Wilson’s Gnosis and the New Testament (Blackwell). Much more durable is the contribution of Oscar Cullmann in his popular survey, The New Testament (SCM). Although offered only as a sketch, it does a remarkable work of mediating the results of a “middle of the road” scholarship to a wide audience and refuses to surrender to either a blind obscurantism or the latest critical novelty. A postscript locates the genius of the New Testament in the conviction that through the historical events of Jesus of Nazareth, the past, present, and future are gathered up in a story of salvation that “has Christ as its meaning and apex.”

Among other published titles are:

GENERAL. Christian History and Interpretation, a Festschrift for J. Knox, edited by W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and R. R. Niebuhr (Cambridge); Soli Deo Gloria, a Festschrift for W. C. Robinson, edited by J. M. Richards (John Knox), and The Pattern of New Testament Truth, by G. E. Ladd (Eerdmans).

THE GOSPELS. The Beginning of the Gospel (Mark), by C. F. Evans (SPCK); The History of the Synoptic Tradition (revised and corrected ed.), by R. Bultmann (Blackwell); An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (third ed.), by M. Black (Oxford); Jesus in the Church’s Gospels, by J. Reumann (Fortress); Jesus and the Power of Satan, by J. Kallas (Westminster); History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, by J. L. Martyn (Harper & Row); The Open Heaven: Revelation of God in the Johannine Sayings, by W. H. Cadman (Blackwell); According to John, by A. M. Hunter (SCM); and Gospel According to St. John, by J. Marsh (Pelican).

PAUL. Theology and Ethics in Paul, by V. P. Furnish (Abingdon); Paul’s Concept of Inheritance, by J. D. Hester (Oliver and Boyd); Another Jesus: A Gospel of Jewish-Christian Superiority in Second Corinthians, by D. W. Oostendorp (Kok); and First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, by R. P. Martin (Scripture Union).

THE EARLY CHURCH. More New Testament Studies (mostly reprints), by C. H. Dodd (Manchester University Press); and The Resurrection of Christ, by S. H. Hooke (Darton, Longman and Todd).

THEOLOGY. The Significance of the Message of the Resurrection for Faith in Jesus Christ, edited by C. F. D. Moule (SCM); The Pre-existence of Christ, by F. B. Craddock (Abingdon); An Introduction to the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, by W. Schmithals (SCM); and The New Temple: A Study of the Church, by R. J. McKelvey (Oxford).

The year 1968 was a fruitful one, particularly in historical and historico-theological studies. Choosing twenty works that for different reasons seem especially significant has been difficult. Those selected are not quite the same as the twenty best evangelical books, of course, nor the twenty with the widest public appeal. On the other hand, the value of a book for an esoteric coterie of specialists is not the only criterion.

1. Corpus Reformatorum, by H. Zwingli, Volume XCIII, 2, Numbers 20–22 (Verlag Berichthaus). This first work is admittedly specialized. It is the continuation of the Zwingli writings in the great Reformation series that set out many years ago to give definitive editions of the great reformers. The Zwingli set was incomplete at the outbreak of World War II and since then progress has been slow. Yet the work goes on, and the high standards of the earlier volumes are being maintained. Unfortunately there is little hope of an English translation, but it is most important that these writings from the final years of Zwingli’s ministry be readily available in this form.

2. John Cotton on the Churches of New England, edited by L. Ziff (Harvard). Another writer of whom much is heard but whose works have been less accessible than they deserve is the Puritan John Cotton. This reproduction of original texts is very welcome, and Cotton emerges as a more significant writer than many second-hand studies and extracts would suggest. The importance of the early New England period, both politically and ecclesiastically, needs no further emphasis.

3. Religious Issues in American History, edited by E. S. Gaustadt (Harper & Row). The year was a good one for those interested in religious and secular relations in American history. This collection of eighteen paired texts provides further documentation, with introductory material by the editor. Scholars and publishers today seem to have caught the importance of making primary materials available both for their own sake and for that of giving basic information, and readers unaccustomed to handling such materials might well begin by sampling this kind of collection.

4. From Sacred to Profane America, by W. A. Clebsch (Harper & Row). As though to offer a commentary on the previous selection, Dr. Clebsch has written a fascinating study of the way in which, at certain points, the sacred affected the profane, but in so doing spent itself. Clebsch draws his own conclusions, but perhaps the real warning is that secularization may easily leave us with nothing to secularize. In a postlapsarian world (Thielicke), a prophetic ministry, like any other, needs constant renewal.

5. The Cambridge Platonists, edited by G. R. Cragg, and Ferdinand Christian Baur, edited by P. C. Hodgson (Oxford). The fifth selection is a double-header, since it is hardly possible to exclude either of these two additions to the series the “Library of Protestant Thought.” This excellent series of documents (translated where necessary) begins where the “Library of Christian Classics” leaves off. One may find out here what Baur actually said, what he was after, what is good and bad in his contribution, and how it is reflected in theology today.

6. Works of John Owen, Volumes 8, 9, 10, 16 (Banner of Truth Trust). Everybody knows about the Puritans, but who reads them? Perhaps their works have been hard to come by, but that excuse is no longer valid in view of these new editions. Or perhaps it is difficult to get through to their style and thought. This comes only by trying; the rewards are at least commensurate with the effort, far more so than in the case of many of our even more unintelligible modern authors.

7. Liberal Protestantism, edited by B. M. G. Reardon (Stanford University Press), in the series “Library of Modern Religious Thought.” Before leaving the extensive field of sources we should note this useful volume of extracts from the greater liberals, including Ritschl, Hermann, and Harnack. Some will welcome this book for the support it may give resurgent liberalism, but the real point is again that exact presentation replaces second-hand portrayal, and a proper assessment of the good and the bad may thus be made. An alternative or companion volume is the Harper Torchbook The Liberal Era, and by way of counterblast see The American Evangelicals, 1800–1900, both from Harper & Row.

8. The Byzantine Empire, II, edited by J. M. Hussey (Cambridge), Volume IV of the “Cambridge Medieval History” series. Through the years this series has shown its worth, and the current revision will undoubtedly extend its usefulness. This volume has quite a few sections dealing with religious aspects of the Byzantine world. This world may seem chronologically and geographically remote, but the matters dealt with are by no means dead or irrelevant. Who dares say that the Balkans and the Eastern Orthodox churches are of no interest to us?

9. The Early Vasas, A History of Sweden 1523–1611, by M. Roberts (Cambridge). Talking of remoter areas reminds us of another excellent study that fills in what is for many a very skeletal outline, that of Swedish history during the crucial Reformation period. Since the Scandinavian countries are small it is easy to overlook the important role they played at this juncture, their contribution to the making of modern America, and the pivotal place of the Lutheran Church of Sweden in the ecclesiastical world today. This very good work fills a real need.

10. Sacramentum Mundi, An Encyclopedia of Theology, Volumes I and 11, edited by Karl Rahner (Herder and Herder). From the Roman Catholic world comes one of the great productions of the century, the new encyclopedia that has been in preparation since Vatican II and is published in French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish as well as English. Among the renowned contributors are Rahner, Küng, Baum, and Schillebeeckx. What can one say of a work of this kind? It is an encouraging reflection of the new trend, sets the pace for comparable evangelical work, gives tremendous emphasis to the Bible, and yet also gives evidence that the new look contains at least the sinister possibility—may it never be more!—of becoming a new modernism.

11. Dictionary of Biblical Theology, edited by X. Leon-Dufour (Chapman). This, too, is a Roman Catholic work, a single-volume dictionary published some years ago in French and now made available in English. It offers a less expensive and more compendious alternative to Sacramentum Mundi with a particular reference to biblical themes and with all the grace and clarity of French style. The articles are refreshingly biblical, though the irreformability of Roman Catholic definition casts a long shadow at some points.

12. An Introduction to the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, by Walter Schmithals (SCM). For those who find it hard to read or understand Bultmann’s own works but are suspicious of tendentious representations, this translation of Schmithals’s work is a handy guide. Schmithals is a former pupil and not entirely unbiased. Yet his aim is correct and orderly presentation rather than evaluation. He writes in order that general students may make their own judgment on the basis of solid information instead of engaging in naïve applause, misdirected application, or ill-informed condemnation. He performs this task admirably, and an alert student will come away with far better reasons for the necessary repudiation of Bultmann’s theology.

13. What’s New in Religion?, by Kenneth Hamilton (Eerdmans). Why one must make this repudiation, though not just of Bultmann, is clearly and trenchantly shown in this new little book by Professor Hamilton. In it he tackles the new theologies and moralities of such men as Robinson, Tillich, Cox, and Fletcher. To thorough knowledge he adds an understanding that enables him to expose the vital weaknesses of the neologies, and to both he adds an entertaining style that makes him readable and strengthens rather than weakens his plea for a true theology.

14. The Reality of Faith, by H. M. Kuitert (Eerdmans). Another effective reply to current neologies is the work by the professor of ethics at the Free University of Amsterdam. Kuitert rightly grasps the essential objectivity of Christianity, yet also sees that this does not mean a handling of Christian doctrines merely as metaphysical truths. The objectivity is that of history, the history that of God at work among men. Hence theology is a pointing to reality. It also involves doing as well as believing and speaking. The book thus becomes more than a reply. It is a positive statement to lead us beyond the false dilemmas of the last few centuries.

15. Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals, by R. F. Evans (Seabury). Heresies are stubborn. This is especially true of Pelagianism, which perhaps enshrines man’s most deep-seated resistance to the Gospel. Yet Pelagius is better known for what became of his teachings than for what they initially were. This fresh investigation, the first in a series, is thus a timely one that should interest historians, dogmaticians, and indeed all Christians. It helps to get the picture in clearer focus. It also brings the focus on the British (and American!) heresy that finds representatives in almost every theological group.

16. The Christian Understanding of the Atonement, by F. W. Dillistone (Westminster). The year was not very rich in dogmatic studies. The atonement, however, rightly continues to claim attention, and Dr. Dillistone has made a scholarly and thoughtful contribution in his latest book. In some sense all works on the atonement are disappointing; who can grasp its fullness? Hence it is easy enough to find defects in this new study. Yet God’s reconciliation is so full that there is something to learn from every positive discussion. Although perhaps no one will agree with all that is said, no discerning reader should leave this work without some profit.

17. John Knox, by Jasper Ridley (Oxford). In biography, too, the year was a poor one. Jasper Ridley, however, has added to previous books on Ridley and Cranmer this full-scale account of the Scottish reformer John Knox. Ridley is an experienced historian who has been able to dig up some new materials, check out previous biographies, and make new suggestions, all within the compass of a well composed and well written narrative. His greatest weakness is a lack of dogmatic flair or training, which reduces the value of the theological exposition and evaluation, so important in relation to the reformers. But the work is worthy of attention as a straightforward biography.

18. The Theses Were Not Posted, by E. Iserloh (Chapman), and Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, by K. Aland (Concordia). Some historians have a curious taste for debunking the dramatic in history, and the nailing up of the Ninety-five Theses, now an integral part of Hallowe’en for Protestants, has recently been relegated to the other world of the vigil by Dr. Iserloh. Good Lutherans, who have already had troubles with the inkpot, cannot allow this to happen to the Theses too, and the doughty champion K. Aland has come forward to defend a real posting. (So far the composition has not been challenged.) All quite entertaining, but one fears for the burning of the papal bull—a bad precedent in these days of university disturbances.

19. The Lord’s Day, by W. Rordorf (Westminster). Pastorally this study of Sunday deserves attention for its methodology, its solidity, and the essential—if to some people unwelcome—soberness of its findings. Rordorf sees that proper practice depends on a proper basis, and his work is devoted mainly to biblical and historical study. The greatest weakness is the failure to bring together the themes of worship and rest in the discussion. Rordorf then shows what proper observance involves on this foundation. Those who defend a cavalier treatment of the Lord’s Day by sophistries about Law and Gospel or cultural diversity might do well to read a work of this kind. Those who sense its inadequacies might provide the theological basis for the position they commend.

20. New Oxford Dictionary of Music, Volume 4: The Age of Humanism, edited by G. Abraham (Oxford). Church music is an important pastoral field, and almost all Christians are affected or interested in some way. This is a good reason for musical education among organists and pastors who insist in having a hand in musical selection. A series like the “New Oxford Dictionary” is an important tool in this regard, especially in so far as it deals with church music. It might even help to provide basic material for the education of congregations, whose appreciation at least can surely outrun their capabilities. This is a primary work for “choirs and places where they sing.”

In conclusion brief note may be made of some other significant 1968 works. Among documents are The Antinomian Controversy, edited by D. D. Hall (Wesleyan University), and The Beginnings of Dialectical Theology, edited by J. M. Robinson (John Knox). Historically W. H. C. Frend writes with his usual distinction on Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Doubleday), Gordon Donaldson handles the Scottish Kings, and C. G. Bolam et al. present The English Presbyterians (Allen and Unwin). Institutional problems engage J. Pelikan in Spirit Versus Structure (Harper & Row) and H. Küng in Structures of the Church (Notre Dame). An important book is that of E. Schillebeeckx on God—The Future of Man (Sheed and Ward). J. Jocz of Toronto has a new and stimulating study of The Covenant (Eerdmans). H. Küng has put together some of his lecture material in Truthfulness (Sheed and Ward), while J. Knox is still worrying about Myth and Truth (Carey Kingsgate). A tribute of interest to evangelicals is paid in The Philosophy of Gordon Clark, edited by R. H. Nash (Presbyterian and Reformed). The problem of anti-Semitism has produced two informative studies, one on The Vatican Council and the Jews, by A. Gilbert (World), the other on The French Enlightenment and the Jews, by A. Hertzberg (Columbia University). Pastors will find much food for thought in the original essays of O. Hartman on Earthly Things (Eerdmans), and for Roman Catholics K. Rahner digs into The Theology of Pastoral Action (Herder and Herder). Finally, Roman Catholic uneasiness about papal infallibility has found amazingly open expression in Francis Simons’s book entitled Infallibility and the Evidence (Templegate): the amazing thing here is that this Roman Catholic bishop in India does not think the evidence provides any true support for infallibility. The increasing quantity, the vigor, and the quality of Roman Catholic publications are among the most striking features of this whole field of theological literature today. It is a challenge to liberal Protestants to turn their talents back to serious theological work in place of the dominant neologizing, and to evangelical Protestants to address themselves to the task of producing a comparable body of historical and theological writings—partly in harmony, partly in dialogue, and partly still in tension, with their Roman Catholic counterparts.