Book Briefs: July 21, 1978

Understanding The Message Of Job

Job, by Francis I. Andersen (InterVarsity, 1976, 294 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Elmer B. Smick, professor of Old Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

Here is an up-to-date, scholarly, and yet practical commentary on Job. Its greatest strength comes from the author’s understanding of the languages and culture of the Ancient Near East. He is a highly qualified semiticist, who has accomplished the difficult task of joining fine scholarship and practical Christian piety. Too often they never meet. The comments are broadly evangelical. What one thinks of the theology of the author will depend on his own perspective. Andersen’s theology is not systematic. He does not hesitate to criticize the Reformed doctrine of original sin and in doing so sounds like he would champion the cause of Pelagius over Augustine. And yet, with Job, he rejects the Pelagian views of Eliphaz. Andersen claims that such a doctrine as total depravity “if permitted to deny any possibility of goodness in human conduct must contradict the premise of the book of Job that its hero was a ‘blameless and upright man’ (1:1).” On the one hand the book itself makes clear that “blameless and upright” does not mean “sinless.” Even Job’s protestations of innocence and his negative confession (chapter 31) only relate to his present suffering. Job admits he is a sinner in 7:20 and Andersen comments on this. On the other hand only the most extreme Reformed theologian would deny any possibility of goodness in human conduct. Depravity in man is his complete tendency to sin, to rebel against his Creator. Reformed theologians assert the view of a continued though marred image of God in man. Is it true that Job had nothing to repent of? Andersen will not admit to any self-righteousness in Job or any real repentance even in 42:2–6. All have sinned so God is not unjust in any suffering he allows Satan to inflict. Job was not suffering for any immediate sin and in that sense was innocent. Although Job did not curse God as Satan predicted, he came very close. Andersen’s statement that Job needed no repentance is annoying in the light of the many unfortunate things Job says, even suggesting that God is an unjust bully (chapter 9). For this Job did repent (42:1–6) but in it all his relationship with the Lord was genuine while the counselors mouthed the truth in empty clichés without love for God or Job.

Andersen does not hesitate to present his evangelical position forthrightly. The doctrines of the person of Christ and his substitutionary atonement come through clearly. Is the author a universalist? His language is ambiguous. Without doubt he handles the problem of human suffering with great empathy and understanding. He states that Job, not the counselors, sees God as truly sovereign. God may give or retrieve his gifts at his pleasure but the counselors want to put God in a box and make him predictable. Interestingly, Andersen, who attacks some aspects of Reformed theology, has no trouble with the sovereignty of God. Sometimes he uses the language of a hide-bound Calvinist, who might use words that imply that God is the author of evil. Andersen criticizes Eliphaz for “binding God to certain rules” in order to “safeguard God’s morality.” He says, “To bring God under obligation to a morality beyond His will is a threat to His sovereignty, especially when it is a man who thinks he knows what that morality should be.” Such a view must be balanced with a proper emphasis on the unity of God’s revealed truth. He has revealed a good deal of what his morality is and he does not contradict himself. The book of Job doesn’t answer the problem of evil by teaching that God creates it. It leaves it unanswered. The closest we can get is God’s permitting Satan to touch Job. Andersen sees that Job’s task in the dialogue is to “normalize,” that is, “find the rightness of his relationship with God as it is ‘now’ (6:3)” (p. 124). He sees this as the key to the understanding of the book that Job, through his suffering, is brought to understand that the highest wisdom is to love God for himself alone. Job does not know why he is suffering and is never given a rational answer. Although the reader understands the role of Satan, this is never revealed to Job. Andersen is on target in seeing that the theology of the comforters was a correct theology as far as it went—a man reaps what he sows. But Job’s was a special case and their platitudes did not apply. Job’s suffering was not punitive. So all their fine theology instead of helping him simply added to his pain.

He repeatedly attacks stoicism and Manichaeism as dehumanizing philosophies with the claim that the Puritan tradition had some degree of infection from these heresies. He is to be commended for correcting any failure to allow for the full expression of human emotion that has been stifled to a great extent in western Christendom. Jesus’ tears and the full vent of his emotions are likened to Job’s, but the analogy must not be carried too far or we find ourselves with a pelagian soteriology at least for the Old Testament. Such a view would destroy the theological unity of Scripture and the unity of the covenant of grace that the Apostle Paul took such pains to present in Romans and Galatians. The book of Job can be used as a basis for forming a theology only after a proper hermeneutic is employed. So it may be unfair to talk about Augustinianism versus Pelagianism if based on this or that passage of Job outside the total context of the book and the whole of the Old Testament especially as interpreted by that divine commentary, the New Testament.

Andersen’s knowledge of the languages and literature of the ancient Near East enables him to provide many insights and interpret difficult passages that critical scholars have formerly emended or deleted. A valid form of textual criticism is practiced with deftness and caution. This commentary is unique in its sensitivity to the poetic form so prominent in Job. There are many original insights showing the drive toward symmetry in larger units of literature including the entire format of the book. The ABA pattern of Prose-Poetry-Prose of the Prologue, Dialogue, Epilogue has often been noted. But Andersen sees a good deal more than this and considers it a mark of the artistic integrity of the book. Whole units of literature covering a few verses or several chapters display a beautiful chiasm. For example the speech of Eliphaz in chapters four and five show an ABC-D-C’B’A’ pattern. In this case he may be seeing more than is there, but he is to be commended for his sensitivity to this important feature of Semitic poetry, which others have overlooked.

The idea that the Old Testament contains a dozen creation stories is a questionable way of expressing a richness of figurative language that had its roots in various creation accounts. To say the figure of Yahweh laying the foundation of the earth like that of a house (38:4–6) is a creation story simply carries the figure too far. Andersen puts to good use the demythologizing principle used by the Hebrews, though he appears to believe it was sometimes left incomplete. For example, the language used of the Canaanite gods is used for the Hebrew angels. But who is to say when this is only partial. The same principle should be applied to the creation language whether in Genesis or elsewhere in the Old Testament.

Finally it is not the policy of the series of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries of which this is a part to print the text. This makes them less expensive but in this difficult book the text would have aided the reader in what is otherwise too involved to follow. The problem surfaces, for example, in the attempt to explain to the reader how a simple change in vowels would clarify the text of 3:10.

Despite some theological reservations I find this one of the most helpful commentaries ever written on the book of Job.

Filmstrips

Winston House (430 Oak Grove, Minneapolis, MN 55403) offers Introducing Judaism in four parts. After a brief historic glimpse the viewer is introduced into the life of a big, modern American Jewish synagogue. After a tour around the synagogue, one goes on to the Sabbath, the Life Cycle, and the Festivals. This filmstrip demonstrates the strong social and cultural cohesiveness of Judaism. Moving beyond the centrality of the synagogue into the mainstream of American life is the problem treated in Shtetl to Suburb: The American Jew by Multi-Media (Box 5097, Stanford, CA 94305). “Shtetl” is the term for a self-imposed Jewish ghetto, an American creation. Unlike the European ghetto from which there was no escape, the shtetl was the Jewish immigrants’ response to the American encounter and was paralleled by other groups. Unfortunately the filmstrip reinforces the stereotype of advanced education and entry into the professions as hallmarks of Jewish life in America. It could have given a larger sympathetic overview of what it means to be a Jew.

Encore Visual Education (1235 S. Victory Blvd., Burbank, CA 91502) offers five filmstrips on Israel’s Land and People. Basically aimed at the upper elementary grades, it is meant for classroom use. However, if the introductory “Picture Glossary for Israel” is omitted, the other four filmstrips can be used for older groups as primers on geography, economy, kibbutzim, and Israelis. The series, though secular, is informative and can be coordinated with any church’s efforts to increase its understanding of Israel.

An unusually fine series on literature is offered by Thomas S. Klise Company (Box 3418, Peoria, IL 61614) and two representative filmstrips are Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in The Mariner’s Sad Wisdom, and a survey of the contributions of Graham Green in Greene’s Sinners. Produced for the discriminating reader, these filmstrips delve into the religious roots and implications of literary artists. Both written and narrated by Thomas Klise, himself a novelist of recent celebrity (The Last Western), viewers will not readily agree with his commentary. Some will think Klise reads too little orthodoxy into Coleridge, and too much into Greene, and vice versa. Evangelical literati may doubt the relevance of orthodox Christianity at all, especially in regard to Greene. This series features choice art and a narrative of subliminal depth. Evangelicals should be challenged to produce a comparable series on Milton, T.S. Eliot, Alan Paton, Dostoevski, and the brilliant circle of the English Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, et al).

The value of The Eucharist: Bond of Love from Alba House (Canfield, OH 44406) is to help dispel Protestant notions that the Roman Catholic Mass is either unintelligible or excessively ritualistic. It presents a modern Roman Catholic understanding of the Eucharist as Christ given to the world through persons, rather than stressing miraculous changes in wafers and wine.

DALE SANDERS

Portland, Oregon

Helping People With Problems

Effective Biblical Counseling, by Lawrence J. Crabb (Zondervan, 1977, 191 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Frances J. White, coordinator of counseling concentration, Wheaton Graduate School, Wheaton, Illinois.

With the local church in mind Crabb presents a model of counseling. He wants to provide a biblically sound theoretical and practical base for persons in a local church who work with deeply troubled people. These helpers, classified as Level III counselors, are trained not only to encourage (Level I counselors) or exhort (Level II counselors) but also to enlighten. To enlighten means to help the counselee change his faulty beliefs to health-producing biblical ones. This process is the basis of what Crabb calls effective biblical counseling.

He starts by defining the goal of biblical counseling as promoting Christian maturity. To him this involves: “(1) immediate obedience in specific situations and (2) long range character growth” (p. 23).

In chapter two the author does a good job of explaining four approaches to the relationship of secular theories of counseling and biblical truths. The first is to totally divorce the two (“Separate But Equal”). The second is to mix the common insights of the two (“Tossed Salad”). The third is to completely disregard secular insights (“Nothing Buttery”). The last, adhered to by Crabb, is to integrate into a Christian model those secular insights and techniques that can withstand the scrutiny of Scriptural truth, thereby arriving at a position where discovered and revealed truth are compatible (“Spoiling the Egyptians”).

The second division discusses personal needs, motivation, and personality structure. The need for personal worth, which was lost with the Fall, is our basic drive, with security (love) and significance as primary roads to worth. According to the author, satisfying these needs motivates people. A person must consciously replace faulty beliefs with biblical ones to develop a new pattern of behavior and to free himself of such debilitating emotions as anxiety, resentment, and guilt.

Crabb develops his counseling strategy from this perspective. He proposes seven stages for a counselor to follow. Once the problem stemming from faulty feelings (Stage I), behavior (Stage 2), and thinking (Stage 3) are identified, the way is opened to teach correct biblical thinking to arrive at a “renewed mind” and spiritual maturity. He concludes by strengthening his thesis that the local church has the resources to counsel people.

Crabb knows that he has “grossly oversimplified” the methods of a counselor. He limits his book to an overview of the counseling model. Yet he is obviously aware of the skills that could make or break a successful counseling process. His failure to deal with the variables that complicate, short-circuit, or prolong the counseling process increases the danger among paraprofessionals of becoming dogmatic. The popularized terminology, charts, and explanations of personality structure, also increases this risk. A complementary book to deal with specific methods could minimize this danger, as well as being a valuable contribution to the “Level III counselor.”

A second area that could be misleading is that of the goal of counseling. All counselors want their patients to reach maturity. However, Crabb should have mentioned the need and legitimacy of working toward intermediary goals on the road to maturity.

Certain issues are inherent in this sort of book. For example, Crabb thinks that as the body life concept gains momentum, the deeply rooted problems of individuals begin to surface. He says that they can be effectively treated by a Level III counselor (six months to a year of weekly two-and-one-half-to three-hour classes) as the individuals function in the milieu of the particular body of believers with whom a trusting, warm relationship has already been established. Current research supports his thesis. In this context Crabb considers the role of the professional to be to train Christians in local churches whose gifts lie in counseling and to provide backup resources when necessary. Whether there is full accord with his ideas or not, simply the number of problems and often formidable expense of professional help accentuates the need of training lay people. Professional Christian therapists should join Crabb in developing conceptual frameworks, working models, and strategy plans for their application. Otherwise, amateur methods could result in a regression of the growing positive attitude toward seeking needed help.

A further issue stems from the author’s strong cognitive orientation. “The order is invariant: first the facts (a renewed mind), then the faith (doing what the facts suggest), and then the feelings (the facts become experientially and subjectively real).” Does Scripture support primarily a cognitive orientation of therapy or is cognition one of the many characteristics of man? This raises such questions as possible pluristic models that address all known aspects of the characteristics of man. In short, aren’t several models possible provided they accede to revealed truth wherever conflict arises? Books such as this one encourage Christian therapists to think through, modify, correct, and enhance their own philosophical presuppositions with their implications for counseling strategies.

Facing Sickness

Make Your Illness Count, by Vernon J. Bittner (Augsburg, 1977, 126 pp.,$3.50 pb), and God Speaks Through Suffering, by T. B. Maston (Word, 1977, 95 pp., $3.25 pb), are reviewed by Karin Granberg Michaelson, Sojourners Fellowship, Washington, D. C.

The account of Paul’s thorn in the flesh, the story of Job, and countless other examples in Scripture have often been taken to imply that illness and suffering are sent from God to serve a creative purpose in the lives of individuals which only God knows and intends. These two books approach illness from a different vantage than do the many books that testify to healing.

T. B. Maston, a retired professor of Christian ethics at Southwestern Baptist seminary writes movingly from his own experience with suffering, the lifelong handicap of his son Tom. His is no glib equating of suffering with God’s will. He lets God be God and leaves room for mystery in the Christian life—for painful unanswered questions. Perhaps most importantly he focuses on the uniqueness of his family’s situation, doesn’t try to include all situations of suffering, and raises the question, what will we let God do for us and through us because of our suffering. He attributes the existence of pain and-suffering to the price we pay for human freedom. Although he does not share an openness to prayers for healing of even congenital defects, his is not a stoic, pagan response of resignation. Rather it is the response of his particular faith; God speaks in sickness and in health. If we can listen we will always be comforted and find meaning.

Vernon Bittner is a well-known figure in clinical pastoral education, a chaplain and pastor familiar with sickness and suffering. In his book he utilizes many case histories from both his parish and hospital experiences. He explains that for many people illness becomes a wasted opportunity for growth and service. Bittner does not assume that God’s ordinary intention is toward wholeness and healing. For him God’s healing power is the power given to accept our suffering. Like Maston, prayer for release from suffering, or specifically prayer for healing, seems to be no part of his particular perspective.

I wished that Maston and Bittner were more open to an exploration of the special healing power available to the church. Lacking is the conviction that God’s will can be seen as dynamic, not static, a force that always calls the Christian to greater faith and hope, regardless of the outcome of individual suffering. Absent is the belief that the faith and hope to pray for healing need not be fundamentally opposed to that faith and hope which accepts what is given.

Briefly Noted

LOOKING FOR ADDRESSES and other information on denominations and specialized religious organizations takes a lot of time. Doctrinal emphases or historical ties need to be known but frequently are not readily discernible. Two recent reference tools will therefore be welcomed by journalists, scholars, pastors, and the curious. Libraries should add them to their reference collections. A Directory of Religious Bodies in the United States by J. Gordon Melton (Garland [545 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022], 305 pp., $21) alphabetically lists more than 1,200 “primary religious bodies” (also known as denominations, churches, sects, and cults) with their addresses; then he groups them into several families and subfamilies. Far more numerous and elusive than denominations are the groups that are either subdivisions of denominations (such as the seemingly endless Roman Catholic orders) or that are independent and have specialized roles, such as Youth for Christ or Scripture Press. More than 1,500 of this kind of “secondary” agency are listed in a Directory of Religious Organizations in the United States of America, compiled by the staff of the publisher (Consortium Books [Box 9001, Wilmington, NC 28401], 553 pp., $62.50). There is little overlap between the two directories. Both tasks are mammoth. Melton’s directory, though not without flaws, is much more comprehensive than the Consortium product. Moreover, the latter would have done better to have the organizations in one alphabet instead of arbitrarily dividing them into nine categories. But there is a single-alphabet index and this should be consulted first. The brief descriptions accompanying each entry are helpful. (By the way, Consortium is soon to issue two large volumes in which Melton tells more about the denominations that he has listed and classified in his directory.) Although the prices seem steep, anyone who has spent time and money trying to chase down data on religious groups will know their value.

ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN fill twelve large, well-illustrated volumes of about 150to 175 pages selling for $5.95 each. They have been issued as the Can, Make, and Do Books by the Creative Resources division of Word. Joy Wilt is the principal compiler. The series is rich with ideas for anyone who works with children. Four volumes are devoted to activities for the five senses, three give tips about puppets and props, two concentrate on how to make costumes, and games, seasons and holidays, and rhythm and movement each take a volume. The ideas are creative, practical, and seemingly endless. Daycare centers, Sunday schools, and elementary schools should buy this set.

CHURCH TREASURERS, here’s a major book for you: Complete Handbook of Church Accounting by two Manfred Holcks, a father and a son, both accountants (Prentice-Hall, 300 pp., $17.95). The authors are experts on church money matters and the book is full of forms and tables that accompany a comparatively readable text.

Although billed as a practical book, Regarding Religious Education (Religious Education Press [1531 Wellington Rd., Birmingham, AL 35209], 181 pp., $6.95 pb) by Mary Cove and Mary Mueller concentrates on the theory behind Christian education and how it relates to practice. Topics include teaching for living and dying, the prophetic role of religious education, and teacher development.

Periodicals

The long-awaited Old Testament Abstracts has now appeared with the February, 1978, issue. There are to be three issues/year for a subscription price of $11. (Write OTA at Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064.) The first issue has classified abstracts of 314 articles from scholarly journals of diverse theological orientation. There are also about 100 abstracts of books.

A bimonthly magazine for Christian women, which says it “will try to bridge the gap between Moody Monthly and Ms,” was launched with the March–April issue. Its title is Free Indeed and for subscriptions (at $8/year) write Box 261, Kutztown, PA 19530. The thirty-two-page first issue includes a variety of articles, such as ones on Jesus and women in Luke, Dorothy Sayers, and establishing financial credit.

World Evangelization is a quarterly news bulletin and prayer calendar from the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. Write for a sample to P.O. Box 1100, Wheaton, IL 60187. From the same address, for one dollar each, one can obtain the first two Lausanne Occasional Papers, on evangelizing “homogeneous units” and on the Gospel and culture.

A growing problem to which Christians are far from immune now has a scholarly quarterly journal of its own. The Journal of Divorce is under secular auspices, but many seminaries will want it as a resource for their pastoral counseling courses. The first issue was Fall 1977. Subscriptions are $18 for individuals, $35 for libraries. Write Haworth Press, 149 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

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