Category: Book Reviews
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The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and The Human Origins Debate
When I look back at the books I read in seminary, few are as game changing and paradigm shifting for me as John Walton’s Ancient Near East Thought and The Old Testament. It was even for a class, but was recommend by two of my Hebrew professors as a good resource into the cultural background…
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Leisure and Spirituality: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives
In general, I try to keep up with Baker Academic’s Engaging Culture series. In fact, I’m hoping to share more about the titles in that series over the summer. The most recent title is Paul Heintzman’s Leisure and Spirituality: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives. It is, in short, “an exploration of how Christians and the church…
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Summer Reviews: Scripture and Hermeneutics Series
If you read widely in biblical studies, you may have already one or more of the volumes in this stack. At the very least, you’ve probably seen frequent footnotes to a few key volumes, particularly Out of Egypt and Renewing Biblical Interpretation. What you might not be aware of is that Zondervan recently re-released these…
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Blind Spots: Becoming A Courageous, Compassionate, and Commissioned Church
I don’t quite remember when I first learned about psychological blind spots. Probably it was while working on a psychology major, but it might have been in some earlier college reading. The blind spots we may most be familiar with are the literal kind. You may be thinking of that area diagonally behind your…
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Bound For The Promised Land: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan (NSBT)
Once again, I had the pleasure of reading a volume in the IVP Academic’s New Studies in Biblical Theology series and telling you about it. This time, it’s Oren Martin’s lightly revised doctoral dissertation from SBTS, Bound For The Promised Land: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan. As someone who went to three different dispensational schools, this…
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God With Us: Exploring God’s Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible
The last actual class I took as part of my Th.M was an independent study on how to review books. The fruit of that class was these four reviews: In the Beginning Was The Word The Christian Faith The Doctrine of The Word of God Raised With Christ The professor for that study (which was…
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Covenant and Commandment: Works, Obedience, and Faithfulness in the Christian Life
It seems like every few months or so, another title is released in IVP Academic’s New Studies in Biblical Theology series. Even as I work on this review, I’ve already started a more recent work in the series and just noticed that another title is coming this summer. None of this should be construed as…
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Sanctification: Explorations in Theology and Practice
One of my on-going interests in Christian theology is the nature of sanctification. Some of it is no doubt stemming from interest in how to personally grow in grace. A larger part of it though is learning how to best shepherd and disciple others in their personal growth in holiness. Helpfully, I was able to…
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Advancing Trinitarian Theology: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics
For the last three years, theologians have gathered in California for the Los Angeles Theology conference. This past year the focal point was the atonement. The first year, it was Christology. Last year it was the Trinity, and thanks to Zondervan, I’ve the published copy of the papers presented. The opening chapter is by one…
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Atonement, Law, and Justice: The Cross in Historical and Cultural Contexts
Early in his work, Atonement, Law, and Justice: The Cross in Historical and Cultural Contexts, Adonis Vidu notes, “While some excellent monographs have been written, few writers have embraced the task of writing a history of atonement theories” (xiii). In what follows, he doesn’t offer an exhaustive history, but does give a superb overview of the…