Chapter six places the accounts of the patriarchs in Egypt in the matrix of the civilization of that land. The last two chapters, cov ering linguistic and chronological matters, are somewhat more tech nical. The final chapter presents conclusions and e v a lu a t io n s . These can be very unsatisfactory at times, because the author ap pears to side with more liberal approaches to the material, but at the same time keeps himself in check within the permitted lim its of his church’s doctrine. His remarks on occasion relative to fundamentalism are unwarranted and often invalid. T h e Di v i d e d K in g d om by Charles F. Pfeiffer (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 117 pp.) is the fifth in a series which is planned to be a comprehensive study of OT history. The area covered here is the period from 922 B.C., the date of Solomon’s death, to 587 B.C. when the Ju dean kingdom fell to Nebuchad nezzar. The author writes with a fine historical sense, good res umes of the history of the sur rounding nations of the period, and with a constant eye to the main thrust of Israel’s redemp tive history. We await with con fidence the remaining volumes in this series. For some years Inter-Varsity Press has b een is s u in g solid works on Biblical themes geared to the collegiate and graduate levels. K. A. Kitchen’s Ancient Orient and the Old Testament (Inter -Varsity P r e ss , Chicago, 111., 191 pp.) correctly shows how in the past century there has been great growth in the areas of an cient Near East research and OT study, but unfortunately indepen dent of each other. Now there must be a correlation. From such a comparative study, he is con vinced that the once-honored prin ciples of OT study in the 19th century are not valid. The struc ture of the OT as we have it can stand. The author has read wide ly in his field, and his conclusions are forceful.
author writes from a declared conservative position theological ly and with clarity stylistically. His translations of OT passages are vivid and forceful. The re viewer wonders why the author feels compelled to make large con cessions to non-conservative posi tions. One must admire the cov erage given the dominant themes of the OT in such limited space. Some books are important all out of proportion to their size. Such is the volume (The Bible and the Origin o f Man, Alba House, Staten Island, N.Y., 85 pp.) by the late Flemish Jesuit Jean de Fraine. The author ad dresses himself to three prob lems: the age of humanity, the evolution of the human body, and monogenesis. The aim of the work is to show how far a Catholic may go in determining the ques tions just posed without doing violence to the Biblical texts prop erly interpreted. His conclusions on these problems are as follows: First, the age of man is not asked nor indicated in the Bible. Second, the question of the evolution of the human body must allow room for the creative activity of God and His providence with regard to “evolutionary development.” Third, th e r e is no conclusive proof to e x c lu d e monogenesis. The reader will revel in the inci sive thinking of the writer, but he will doubtless find himself in disagreement with the author on all three areas of his discussion. Father Ig n a tiu s Hunt (The World o f the Patriarchs, Pren tice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 178 pp.) undertakes to deal with the background material of Genesis 12 to 50. The author is not primarily concerned with a commentary on the text, but with geographical, historical, religious, and archaeological data that may illuminate th e pa tr iarcha l ac counts and set them in a truer perspective than th e laym an usually enjoys. The first five chap ters of the work treat the geog raphy, the nations, the culture, and religious beliefs in vo lv ed .
er was interest higher in this portion of the Word of God. Works on the Old Testament are so numerous and cover so many phases of the subject, that no one student can hope to master all the facets of this great literature. Thus it behooves those of us who believe in the inspiration of the Old Testament, who accept its doctrines as God-given, who real ize its unique witness to the com ing Saviour, to determine as nev er before to emphasize this part of the revealed truth of God. Our Lord was speaking of the Old T e s tam en t when He sa id : “Search the scriptures . . . these are they which bear witness of me . . .” (John 5:39). T h e s t r e a m of Old Testament works, which began some dec ades ago with the revival of in terest in this portion of the Word of God, continues unabated. The books published cover a wide range of areas in the Old Testa ment field, and for the most part contribute illuminating insights into the background of the Old T estam en t p e r s o n a lit ie s and events. Because of the limitations of space, only nine books will be treated. In his A n Historical Survey of the Old Testament (The Craig Press, Nutley, N.J., 349 pp.) Eugene H. Merrill has given us the result of teaching classes in introduction to college students. Without apology he takes the or thodox approach to the Old Testa ment, holding clearly to the in spiration of the Scriptures. Along with the historical background of the books, the author has outlined the Old Testament books begin ning with the prophets. The writ er makes good use of his sources. Perhaps too large an amount of space is given to paraphrases of the Biblical text. Jacob M. Myers (Invitation to the Old Testament, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 242 pp.) p resen ts a layman’s guide to the major religious mes sages of the Old Testament. The
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