Concordia Theological Monthly
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CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Pleroma and Christology HAROLD A. MERKLINGER The Relationship Between Dogmatics and Ethics in the Thought of Elert, Barth, and Troeltsch EDWARD H. SCHROEDER A Checklist of Luther's Writings in English GEORGE S. ROBBERT Homiletics Brief Studies Book Review Vol XXXVI December 1965 No. 11 BOOK REVIEW All books reviewed in this periodical may be procttred jfOm or through Concordia Pub lishing House, 3558 South Jefferson Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63118. THEOLOGY AND PREACHING (Dogma uation; dogmatics with the understanding of tik und VerkUndigung). By Heinrich Ott; the whole. Parallel to Question 2, all preach translated by Harold Knight. Philadel ing must say three things: the proclamation phia : Westminster Press, 196 5. 156 pages of God's action, the disclosure of man's sit and index. Cloth. $4.50. uation, and the resulting obligation. Inci This German work of 1961 has as its dentally, the strong hold of the gratitude basic purpose to "define, and in part to ex motif on Reformed preaching is here un emplify, the method of dogmatic reflection," folded. The remainder of the volume, in that is, simultaneously to operate with pre the nature of its basic materials, is a useful vious dogmatic positions (in this case the developmcnt of the preaching of sin as rad first 11 questions of the Heidelberg Cate- ical and existential failure in man. True to chis!!!) ZL..'. ______ -'_:t a conversation in it5 llmost random and which the affirmation of present believers discursive in its style. It will be interesting develops new points or view and stresses the to .w~":' ;::; •.'u ":'w .w:~.P.~w ... of the second chief insight of the human being himself. Ott part of the Heidelberg Cal(;chism, "Of Man's expresses his debt to Karl Barth, whom he Redemption," or the equivalent, in keeping succeeded at Basel, and Rudolf Bultmann; with his dictum: "Essentially the preacher Ott regards both as concerned about "the gains spiritual vitality only from his aware genuine summons of the real God to real ness of the forgiveness of his sins." (P. 42) human beings." Theology is there for the RICHARD R. CAEMMERER sake of the preaching. Contrary to Bultmann and Ernst Fuchs and with acknowledgment TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF HISTORY. to Martin Heidegger, Ott believes that the By J. V. Langmead Casserley. New York: ology should be existential encounter and Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1965. ix that "preaching is the heart and soul of and 238 pages. Cloth. $6.00. dogmatics" (the tendency of Barth). Ott The concept of revelation is Casserley's attempts to delineate how the kerygma is first concern in a book which claims only to reflected both in dogmatic work and preach point toward, not to be, a theology of his ing. The yardstick of the dogma should be: tory. "Revelation," he says in the opening can it be preached? Only the first question sentence of his book, "is the basic category of the Heidelberg Catechism provides direct of religious thought." Revelation to him resources for the kerygma in this volume includes both events and their power to call (a summary of atonement and providence); forth reporting and interpreting of their the next ten deal with the doctrine of sin. meaning. "The God who reveals himself in Ott takes occasion to stress, in connection the evcnts of history is at the same time the with Question 1, that all preaching must God who reveals himself in the prophetic discuss the "one self-same thing, the 'one interpretation of the historic events" (p. 7) . comfort in life and in death.''' Preaching Biblical typology is favored by him as a is concerned with the present pastoral sit- genuine historical method. The duty of the 806 BOOK REVIEW 807 historian, using typological historiography, faith of the banned and excommunicated he declares, is the correct ascertaining and Reformer at the Coburg. As second to Lu interpretation of the great persistent histor ther their author occupied a more humble ical themes. position. Casserley climbs far out on the limb when After Luther's death events thrust Me he declares Toynbee's A Study of History lanchthon into the front line of theological as "surely the best thing of its kind that has polemics. In the heat of battle he was appeared since Augustine's City of God." denounced as a collaborator with Rome by His theory of Biblical inspiration is inade some, as a secret Calvinist by others. The quate, although his approach to the Bible question arises: to what extent, if at all, are and Biblical criticism is generally helpful. such criticisms justified? A comparison of He repudiates the phrase faith alolze; how the earlier Loci with those of 1555, here ever, he does not define the nature of faith. made available to the English reader in an He endorses apostolic succession and couples excellent translation, will help him reach it with faith and the liturgy "as the means his own conclusion - one which many will in and through which the Christ persistently doubtless not share with him. reaffirms himself as always contemporary, ~.S Helpful in such a task are Manschreck's the manifestation in history of that which preface and Hans Engelland's introduction, transcend: oJl history" (p.213). He has panicularly the WHer's discussion of the ap help{ ul chapters on the epistemology and proach to tlleology in the older Meland,,;lOil the ontology of history. The work lacks an and in the young Melanchthon. As specific index, a bibliography, and reierences. questions in the interpretation of Melanch CARL S. MEYER thon Engelland names the relation of the acts of God and the acts of men, of justi MELANCHTHON ON CHRISTIAN DOC fication and sanctification, and of predes TRINE. Edited and translated by Clyde tination. 1. Manschreck. New York: Oxford Uni The Editorial Board of a Library of Prot versity Press, 1965. 356 pages. Cloth. estant Thought, of which John Dillenberger $7.00. is chairman, is to be commended for includ As one of the major leaders in the Lu ing this volume in its "collection of writings theran Reformation, Melanchthon in a sense intended to illumine and interpret the his had the misfortune of being second to tory of the Christian faith in its Protestant Luther, whose brilliant supporter he was expression," and the translator-editor is to for 28 years. Luther held the Loci communes be congratulated on a fine achievement. of his young friend, published in 1521 as LEWIS W. SPITZ Lutheranism's first dogmatics, in great es teem, exceeded in importance only by the THE ROMANCE OF BIBLE SCRIPTS Bible. In the Augsburg Confession Melanch AND SCHOLARS: CHAPTERS IN THE thon introduced Lutheranism to the Em HISTORY OF BIBLE TRANSMISSION peror and to the Diet of the Holy Roman AND TRANSLATION. By John H. P. Empire, in a thoroughly Biblical and, to use Reumann. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Pren a modern term, ecumenical document. But tice Hall, 1965. viii and 248 pages. ecumenicity was not in the ecclesiastical Cloth. $5.95. climate of that day, so Melanchthon pro The long history of Biblical translation duced the Apology. Both documents, the has been told many times. General surveys, Confession and the Apology, reRected the however, must often omit some of the in- 808 BOOK REVIEW teresting sidelights of history that make the THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN OR story come alive. Reumann's volume selects RIGHT SIDE UP? By Paul G. Bretscher. certain figures in the long history to de St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, scribe by a sort of case study approach the 1965. 130 pages. Cloth. $2.50. "why, what, and how" of translation. The "Imagine how awkward it would be to motivation for translation is discussed via walk, if suddenly down were up and up the history of the Greek translation of the were down!" Bretscher's intriguing approach Old Testament. The second century after to a study of the Beatitudes quickly becomes Christ serves as an example of textual prob much more than clever. He points out that lems for the translator; Reumann discusses the human eye actually does see everything the work of Jochanan ben Zacchai, Akiba, upside down; it is the optic nerve and the Aquila, Tatian, and Marcion. brain that straighten it all out for us. When The chapter on Luther is used as a case people were fitted with glasses which in study to discuss the method of Biblical verted the image of what was seen before translation. One should add the note on the lens of the eye got in its turn, all the page 82 that the insertion of aUein, "alone," world appeared inverted. "In time we could after "faith" in Rom. 3:28 was not original adjust that the upside-down way in which with Luther as a translator. A number of we see things is right, and everything else medieval versions had already done the wrong." And that - he makes clear - is same. the kind of thing that has happened to men. The rema_ ",ters discus by- The only one ever on earth wbo understood ways in translation. Origen, Jerome, and the situation and who could really see things Johann Jakob Wettstein represent the early right side up was Jesus Christ. And when church and post-Reformation scholars. One He spoke the Beatitudes He gave a clear of the most interesting chapters in the book picture of what the world should really look gives the history of Charles Thompson's like to us if we are seeing it right side up. translation of the Septuagint into English in What is the recommendation - for the early 19th-century Philadelphia.