WHAT ABOUT LIFE AFTER LIFE?
Leo R. Van Dolson, Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, D.C. 20012, 1978, 32 pages, 75 cents.
After hearing himself pronounced dead, a man feels himself moving rapidly through a long, dark tunnel. Then he realizes that he is outside his own physical body, looking at it as though he were a spectator, watching the activities of the doctors around it. Such experiences are being increasingly repeated and reported. Does this describe the perceptions of a person after he is truly dead?
Leo Van Dolson, editor of Life & Health, deals with this important question in a way that gives scientific as well as Biblical answers.
J. R. Spangler
THEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY: BASIC BOOKS FOR THE MINISTER'S LIBRARY
Sakae Kubo, ed., Seminary Student Forum, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, 1977, 57 pages, $2.98.
In 1970 Dr. Sakae Kubo, Charles Sandefur, and Jim Walters edited the first theological bibliography issued by the Andrews University Student Forum. The present work is edited by Dr. Kubo, who until his recent appointment as head of the theology department of Walla Walla College, College Place, Washington, was Seminary librarian and also a professor at Andrews University Theological Seminary. Dr. Kubo's dual experience as a teacher and librarian increases the value of a work such as this bibliography. The faculty of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary also assisted in its preparation.
The bibliography is divided into the following general subject categories: Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, Church and Ministry, Church History, Mission Studies, Theology and Christian Philosophy. Under these general categories are more than 100 subcategories. The present book has about twice as many references as the 1970 volume. Most of the entries carry explanatory notes providing information not usually contained in a bibliographic entry.
Ministers, teachers, and students will find this work helpful, particularly those who do not have access to a major library. The editor also gives addresses of several book dealers who handle out-of-print books.
Nikolaus Satelmajer
DANIEL
Desmond Ford, Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tennessee 37202, 1978, 309 pages, $6.95, paperback.
In the words of F. F. Bruce, who wrote the foreword to this commentary, "it is in the context of the whole Christian Bible and in the light of its New Testament development that Dr. Ford views and expounds the message of Daniel."
And in Ford's own words, "Because of the widespread malaise resulting from the current disease of meaninglessness, many twentieth-century theologians have turned again to the study of apocalyptic that type of prophecy found in Daniel and Revelation which claims to set forth in symbols the divine plan for the world."
In turning to the study of apocalyptic, Ford has produced a detailed and scholarly (yet lucid and readable) commentary on Daniel's fascinating imagery. The first seventy pages deal with such introductory items as the literary structure of the book, its date, principles of prophetic interpretation, and the use of the Old Testament in the New.
The author takes the position that Daniel was written in the sixth century B.C. by the prophet whose name the book bears. In so doing, he says, "we stand where Christ and the New Testament writers stood." Ford summarizes his hermaneutical principles as essentially grammatico-historical exegesis—the traditional approach of and following the Reformation. Yet he is free to admit elements of truth in all the contemporary systems of interpretation, preterism, futurism, historicism, et cetera.
B. Russell Holt
THEISTIC EVOLUTION
Bert Thompson, Lambert Book House, Box 4007, Shreveport, Louisiana 71104, 1977, 235 pages, $4.95, paperback.
Theistic Evolution aims to provide a collection of views and comments that will serve as a reference book on the subject in light of the increasing acceptance of theistic evolution among Christians.
By his comments and through his selection of quotations, the author expresses the viewpoint of a creation of the entire universe within six consecutive twenty-four-hour days and a verbal inspiration of the entire content of the Bible. Strongly worded, emotional language and lengthy quotations from secondary sources, many of which are not suitable as scholarly reference material, characterize the text.
The reader will find a thorough exploration of Scripture-based arguments against theistic evolution, including a detailed treatment of the contradictions between the Creation-week sequence and the standard sequence assumed for evolutionary development. Dr. Thompson has made an important contribution by selecting statements of opinion concerning theistic evolution from prominent nontheistic evolutionists. He gives an extensive treatment of the day-age theory for the days of Genesis 1, a moderate but effective treatment of the theory that there were long ages between the first and second verses of Genesis 1, and a brief discussion of the view most commonly known as progressive creation.
The reader may not find all the arguments against theistic evolution presented in this book to be fully satisfactory, but he will have convenient access to the opinions on the subject that characterize conservative literature.
R. H. Brown
