Book Reviews

THE AUTHORITATIVE WORD: Essays on the Nature of Scripture edited Donald McKim Eerdmans, USA 1983 270pp. £8.85 ISBN 0 8028 1948 6 distributed by Paternoster Press in the UK

SCRIPTURE AND TRUTH edited D. A. Carson and John C. Woodbridge Zondervan, USA 1983 IVP 1983 446pp. £6.50 ISBN 0 85111 571 3

Donald McKim has compiled a symposium from previously published essays and chapters of books by a varied group of scholars: from conservatives such as F. F. Bruce and G. C. Berkouwer to others of a less conservative outlook such as R. M. Grant and J. D. Smart, all of whom have a positive concern to ask how God speaks in Scripture. The essays are broadly organized into three areas: discussion of the formation of the Scriptures and the canon, with particular emphasis on the NT use of the OT; the doctrine of biblical authority; and current views of authority. The result, with essays and chapters of books appearing out of their original contexts and with a range of authors who adopt different theological positions, is inevitably somewhat uneven and unsatisfac­ tory as a guide to the subject. It is helpful in bringing together a number of useful contribution on different facets of biblical authority and showing how different scholars approach the subject, and it demonstrates that a positive attitude to biblical authority is not the sole preserve of theologians who bear the conservative evangelical label. By contrast, D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge have brought together a set of commissioned essays from a group of conservative evangelicals which reflect some of the issues raised by, or relevant to, the current debate on inerrancy. In the first section, on biblical issues, Wayne Grudem lays again the foundation of the biblical writers' testimony to the nature of Scripture, and Don Carson critically examines the threats which he sees to biblical authority in stress on the diversity in the NT and in the practice of redaction criticism. M. Silva tackles the problems raised by the form of some NT quotations of the OT, and R. N. Longenecker examines the authority of epistles. The second section deals with historical issues, looking particularly at the doctrine of Scripture in some modem theologians (P. E. Hughes), in the church Fathers (G. W.Bromiley), in the Reformation and afterwards (W. R. Godfrey) and in the Princeton theologians (John Woodbridge and Randall Balmer argue against E. Sandeen that the Princeton doctrine was not an innovation). Finally, in the theological section, we have essays by R. Nicole on biblical truth, by P. Helm on the basis for accepting the Bible as the Word of God, and by J. I. Packer on evangelical hermeneutics (with a careful critique of some aspects of the 'New Hermeneutic' and other approaches). The essays in general discuss their themes in depth, and the book is of a much higher quality than some of the recent writing from the same general point of view. One essay which is particularly rewarding is that by Jim Packer, which is marked by a typical shrewdness in discriminating between what is helpful and what is unsound in 246 Book Reviews contemporary writings on hermeneutics, and by a healthy openness in recog­ nizing that we have still much to learn in this area while standing firm in our belief in the infallibility of Scripture. There is perhaps less of this attitude among some other contributors: Don Carson's discussion of redaction criticism, for example, makes sound points against the speculative nature of some theories and conclusions in this area, but seems unduly negative in its overall evaluation of the possibilities in this approach. Striking the balance between defensiveness and openness is a delicate task, but, even if this book is not always completely successful in doing so, it is a very welcome scholarly discus­ sion of the problems of scriptural interpretation and authority.

University of Aberdeen HOWARD MARSHALL

NEW BIBLE DICTIONARY (2nd edition) J. D. Douglas et al. first published in 1962