• Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    “Blue Like Sad”: Robbie Sagers on Don Miller’s New Book

    My friend and fellow traveler Robbie Sagers has written an excellent review of Don Miller’s new book To Own a Dragon. Sagers writes the review for the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (JBMW), but you can read it now on the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s website. Miller’s widely acclaimed book Blue Like Jazz left me wondering about the effects of Miller’s dysfunctional relationship with his father. According to Sagers, this book delves deeply into that subject. I haven’t read the book yet, but Sager’s essay has definitely piqued my interest. When Sagers isn’t out late at night getting folks lost in Harlem, he proves to be an…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    ‘Misquoting Jesus’ in the Washington Post

    Neely Tucker reviews Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus in last Sunday’s Washington Post (click here). Unfortunately, the review takes up some of the tendentious claims that Ehrman puts forth in the book. One such claim is Ehrman’s contention that the variations in the manuscript copies of the New Testament undermine the Christian faith. The Post review writes: Most of these are inconsequential errors in grammar or metaphor. But others are profound. . . [One] critical passage is in 1 John, which explicitly sets out the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). It is a cornerstone of Christian theology, and this is the only place where it is…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    Review of “Where Is Boasting?”

    Simon J. Gathercole. Where Is Boasting: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. 311pp. $32.00. Simon J. Gathercole fires a salvo into the ongoing battle over Paul’s doctrine of Justification and the new perspective on Paul. In Where Is Boasting: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5, Gathercole contends with the growing consensus among Pauline scholars that the Judaism of Paul’s day was not a legalistic religion of merit, but a gracious dispensation of covenantal election. This work represents Gathercole’s Ph.D. dissertation which he wrote under the supervision of James D. G. Dunn, with whom Gathercole is in decided disagreement. Gathercole argues…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    Review of “Blue Like Jazz”

    Shane Walker at 9Marks ministries has reviewed Donald Miller’s popular book Blue Like Jazz. What can I say? The review is devastating and gets at the heart of all that’s wrong with the postmodern ethos in certain sectors of the Emergent church movement. Here’s a teaser from the review: Don wants to invite the reader to authentic Christian spirituality, but he’s not really sure what it looks like. He can only report back what he’s experienced—and it’s been a confusing trip. This means that some of his readers will walk away even more confused, but more resolved to get another tattoo, another piercing, grow those dreads, attend another anarchist protest,…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    Review of “The Face of New Testament Studies”

    Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne, eds. The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. 544pp. $34.99. Eminent New Testament scholars Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne have edited an important volume that introduces the various sub-disciplines of New Testament studies. In The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research, various luminaries of the scholarly guild have contributed essays that give an overview of their respective disciplines and that introduce some of the important voices in those disciplines. There are a total of twenty-two essays, and they are divided into four parts: (1) Context of the New Testament, (2)…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    Review of “Choosing a Bible” by Leland Ryken

    Leland Ryken, Choosing a Bible: Understanding Bible Translation Differences (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005). 32pp. $3.99. This little 32-page booklet is in many ways an extension and abstract of Leland Ryken’s earlier and more comprehensive work, The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation (Crossway, 2002). The booklet consists of three chapters and an appendix. Chapter one asks and answers the question, “How Do Bible Translations Differ from Each Other?” Here Ryken introduces the distinction between dynamic equivalent and formal equivalent approaches to translation. Chapter two sets forth five negative effects of the dynamic equivalent approach. Chapter Three discusses ten reasons why “essentially literal” translations are trustworthy.…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    D. A. Carson Slams the Emergent Church

    Carson, D. A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005. 250pp. $14.99. If you were wondering whether D. A. Carson had an opinion on the so-called “emergent church” movement, wonder no more. In his new book, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications, Carson delivers a biblical and theological wallop against a movement that he argues has been animated by the values of postmodernity. Carson saves what is perhaps his severest denunciation for the very last page of the book, and it packs quite a rhetorical punch against emergent thought: “Damn all the false antitheses to…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    Review of “Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates”

    Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, eds. Justification—What’s at Stake in the Current Debates (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004). ISBN: 0830827811. $23.00. The ten papers appearing in this volume are selections from the conference on Justification held at Wheaton College Graduate school in April of 2003: “The Gospel, Freedom and Righteousness: The Doctrine of Justification.” One would think that a book such as this one, published at the time that this one was, would be all about the current debate over the so-called “new perspective” on Paul. This collection of essays, however, demonstrates that there is much more to the Justification debate than the quarrel about the character of first…