book reviews 245

Dale C. Allison, Jr. Night Comes: Death, Imagination, and the Last Things. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016. Pp. 184. Pbk. $18.00. ISBN: 9780802871183.

In Night Comes, Dale Allison provides a highly readable, deeply thoughtful dis- cussion of the complex issues of Christian eschatology. Allison is known by most as a historical scholar, but here he steps beyond that identity and writes as a theologian in conversation with other theologians, philosophers, and scientists, as well as the biblical text. The broad range of voices across Western history is impressive and there are comprehensive footnotes and an index at the back of the book. Allison does not only engage thinkers of diverse fields and historical periods objectively, but he speaks as a Christian who struggles with these questions himself. After telling of a serious car accident that left him bargaining with God for his life, he reflects on the sense of failure that arose when he realized that his Christian faith did not seem to matter when death came calling. “Three-and-a-half decades later, I remain full of questions. At the same time, I’ve drawn a few conclusions with which I’m almost comfort- able. In the end, my study has . . . brought consolation. I like to think that, were death to return tomorrow, I’d be more composed” (p. 13). The foundation for the book comes from Allison’s contribution to the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary. The book, which Allison describes as “a miscellany, a book of thoughts,” retains the more informal style of the lectures (p. ix). While this description fits the personal tone Allison employs, the book is more carefully organized and scholarly than the phrase admits. The short book consists of six chapters. The first, “Death and Fear,” raises the ques- tions inherent in the human existential crisis of death and considers the effect of scientific breakthroughs and constantly evolving cultural constructs on this crisis. Allison insists that death is not only a question central to all human thought, but also to Christianity. “Christianity is, at its birth at least, a proposi- tion about death: ‘God raised Jesus from the dead.’ Moreover, one of the rea- sons the faith won antiquity is that it brought psychological liberation to many haunted by death . . . What good is a religion whose chief promise resolves nobody’s problem?” (p. 9). The second chapter, “Resurrection and Bodies,” is the most scholarly and theologically dense. While some will consider parts of this discussion “unedi- fying and superfluous” minutia (p. 21), Allison insists that it does matter since Christians all over the world recite the Apostle’s Creed and its state- ment of belief in the resurrection of the body. While engaging the longstand- ing debate between defenders of bodily resurrection and those who uphold

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/18712207-12341338 246 book reviews the ­immortality of the soul, Allison, touches upon scientific and Christian materialism and its current challengers, as well as neurobiology and physics. Ultimately, Allison declares himself “agnostic” on the subject, although he most clearly distances himself from the materialist perspective (p. 37). This chapter introduces the reader to Allison’s flair for integrating scholarly, pasto- ral, and personal voices into conversation on highly complex ideas. In “Judgment and Partiality,” Allison asks, “why, despite the numerous bibli- cal texts, are most mainstream pulpits mum about eschatological judgment?” (p. 47). In answer to this question, he discusses how changing cultural norms, such as a diminishing sense of personal responsibility for actions, and clas- sic theological beliefs, such as justification by faith, have siphoned away any meaningful concern with final judgment from the thought of many Christians. In this chapter, Allison presents one of his more interesting, but also contro- versial, viewpoints. Claiming support from Christian theologians as well as other religious traditions, scientists and accounts of near-death experiences (NDE’s), Allison discusses what he calls the “life review” as a way to make sense of the concept of a final judgment (pp. 54-62). By life review he means the common experience at the time of death when one sees one’s life flashing before one’s eyes, clarified as a review of one’s life in all its joyful and painful honesty, a personal experience of wrongs, leading the deceased to full insight into their life. But he is still cautious. “I wish to be clear: I’m neither insisting that the life review is there because God put it there nor confidently equating the experience with divine judgment. My discussion is rather a way of fum- bling toward some constructive analogy or useful parable” (p. 61). He seems more certain when he argues that divine justice should not be placed on par with the impersonal justice of secular systems of justice. “The divine court, on a Christian view, must be radically different. For the judge isn’t the detached enforcer of some inflexible law. The judge is rather the author of the parable of the Prodigal Son; and as shepherd and savior, as advocate and physician, he’s wildly biased in favor of all the defendants” (p. 67). Chapter four takes a step back from discussion of distinct aspects of the end times and considers the broader question of how one should approach escha- tological questions, if this is even advisable. The chapter title, “Ignorance and Imagination,” gives away Allison’s perspective that while humans must recog- nize the limits of their knowledge of the end times, the impact on this earthly life of their conception of a heavenly life is too significant to leave unexam- ined. Allison earnestly rejects absolutism here, whether absolute claims about the nature of life after death, or the absolute rejection of such hope. Yet his pas- sion for the importance of eschatology for is absolute. He recognizes and responds to the three most common arguments against escha-

Horizons in Biblical Theology 38 (2016) 235-252