Book Briefs: February 28, 1969

Pontius Pilate, by Paul L. Maier (Doubleday, 1968, 370 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Ralph Earle, professor of New Testament, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

During the present decade, interest in Pilate has been revived by the discovery of the first inscription bearing his name. It was found at Caesarea by an Italian archaeological expedition in the summer of 1961. This book, therefore, is particularly welcome, especially since there have been almost no scholarly studies of Pilate in English.

The author, son of the late Dr. Walter A. Maier of “Lutheran Hour” fame, has done a magnificent job. The book is called a biographical novel. But it differs from most volumes in this category by being solidly documented. Evidence is cited from Greek, Roman, or Jewish writers for almost every point in the story. One feels he is reading factual history. And interest is heightened by the fascinating literary style. Here is one professor of history (Western Michigan University) who makes that subject really live—and at least one reviewer found it hard to put the book down and go to bed!

Maier’s exhaustive investigation of Pilate’s life in its historical setting has led him to propose several departures from traditionally accepted views. In the first place, he thinks that the title “procurator” as applied to Pontius Pilate by Josephus and Tacitus is an anachronism. The correct term is that found on the Caesarean inscription—“prefect.” This is what the governors of Judea were called during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. Maier comments: “The New Testament very accurately refrains from calling Pilate procurator, using the Greek for governor instead.”

His most innovative idea is his insistence that Christ was crucified in A.D. 33, not 30. Although there have been scholarly proponents of the later date, the majority opinion in recent years has favored the earlier one. But this made it necessary to say that “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” (Luke 3:1) involved a coregency of Tiberius with Augustus. Maier gives evidence that this was not so; for instance, “coinage in the Tiberian era dates his reign only from the death of Augustus.” He places the crucifixion on April 3 of the year 33.

A third deduction is that Pilate was not the wretch portrayed by a vitriolic Philo but a governor who wanted to be fair. Here, as always, Maier examines the evidence carefully.

As a New Testament teacher whose second love is history, I found Pontius Pilate tremendously rewarding reading, and I was pleased to note that this is the first in a projected series of documented historical novels by this author, I shall await succeeding volumes with eager interest.

Foundation For A Social Ethic

The Just War, by Paul Ramsey (Scribner, 1968, 554 pp., $12.50), is reviewed by Paul B. Henry, research assistant to Congressman John B. Anderson, Washington, D. C.

Paul Ramsey’s The Just War is more than a treatise on the just-war doctrine itself. It is a collection of essays dealing with a broad spectrum of problems relating to the responsible use of politicomilitary power in a nuclear age.

One of Ramsey’s basic themes is that contemporary ethicists have been so concerned with abstract notions of justice that they have failed to recognize that some sort of concrete order is a condition of justice. In response to the quasi-revolutionary theologues who address themselves to the “new man” suddenly “come of age,” Ramsey insists that modern man has in fact regressed to the illusions of past political Utopians: “If there is anything more eighteenth century than the nineteenth it is the mid-twentieth century man in the illusions with which he hopes to operate in politics.”

Ramsey calls for the demythologization of politics and for a return to an essentially Augustinian perspective. “We live in Two Cities, and not in the one world of the City of Man under construction. This puts politics in its place, and frees men for clear-sighted participation in it. Absolutely related to the Absolute, we should be content to be relatively involved in the relative.”

Using such a vantage point for his own political analysis Ramsey examines various church pronouncements on social order ranging from the papal encyclical Pacem in terris to the NCC’s “Appeal to the Churches Concerning Vietnam.” Although he upholds the rights and obligations of the Church to develop political doctrine, he objects to those who seek to transform such doctrine into definitive policy in the name of the Church.

Several essays examine the limits of nuclear war, the particular problems of guerrilla warfare, and the implications of the “aggressor-defender” war hypothesis in relation to the traditional guidelines of the just-war doctrine. An essay on selective conscientious objection to military service provides a superb analysis of recent court decisions on this matter while at the same time bemoaning the American psyche that has willingly accepted as the valid measure of religious belief “the place that the belief occupies in the life of the objector” rather than “the character of the truths believed.” In a “Farewell to Christian Realism,” Ramsey gives his thoughts on the decline of Christian realism as the dominant political philosophy in contemporary American Protestantism.

Several weaknesses make themselves apparent in this volume. First, the book is a compendium of essays and lectures, many of which have been previously published. As a result continuity between chapters is sometimes lacking, and repetition is sometimes quite obvious. Second, Ramsey’s style often becomes labored deadening the impact of what he has to say.

But despite these relatively minor weaknesses, this volume commends itself to all concerned with the problems of Christian social ethics. Many theological conservatives will find themselves in agreement with Ramsey’s criticisms of the activist clergy. But even more, they will find a foundation upon which a more responsible social ethic can be based. Perhaps Ramsey will stimulate some enterprising evangelical scholar to seek to fill that need.

Controversy In New Zealand

God in the New World, by Lloyd Geering (Hodder and Stoughton, 189 pp., 25s.) and Layman’s Answer by E. M. Blaiklock (Hodder and Stoughton, 1968, 160 pp., 21s.), are reviewed by Everett F. Harrison, senior professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

These two volumes are the fruit of the controversy that has been rocking the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. Lloyd Geering, the principal of Knox Theological College, Dunedin, is the man who provoked the tension. Geering holds that scientific conclusions about our universe should be allowed to judge and to alter our views of the Bible and the Christian faith. His book is frank, even blunt, and it serves to draw the lines of debate sharply. There is no special revelation of God, though “God-talk” should be retained lest we fall into the idolatry of humanism. The incarnation is abandoned as mythological, as is the bodily resurrection of Christ, the ascension, and the miracles. Also set aside are petitionary prayer and the hope of heaven. We are counseled to think in terms of a religionless Christianity, one that centers in man and this world, thus avoiding the dangers of mythology and other-worldliness. Geering is pessimistic about the Church as presently constituted: “It is destined to die, and we must let it die. For only then can there be a resurrection of the community of faith in a form relevant to the new world.”

Blaiklock, professor of classics at Auckland University, registers some telling points against his opponent. He demands proof for the allegation that whereas Israel tended to forsake mythology in favor of history, the New Testament writers were influenced by a Judaism that had recently succumbed to mythology from surrounding nations. With reference to the New Testament writings he points out that “those preoccupied with diminishing the historical value of the accounts are prone to push forward the dates [of the documents] to the latest possible time.” This opens the door to questions about the accuracy of those accounts. As to the use made of the documents, he comments, “It never ceases to amaze a Classicist how methods of criticism will be accepted in New Testament studies which would be dismissed as naive or ridiculous if applied to any other ancient document.” He quotes J. B. Phillips’s testimony that after he had read scores of myths in Greek and Latin, he was unable to detect any evidence of myth-making at work in the Gospels.

The idea of theology for a new world may seem challenging to restless minds, but past attempts to make Christianity acceptable to the contemporary outlook by excision or modification or revealed truth have not proved effective. Man remains the same, and his spiritual needs can be met only in terms of the Gospel of Christ.

Answers To Today’S Errors

The Letters of John, by J. W. Roberts (R. W. Sweet, 1968, 182 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Roger Mills, minister, Church of Christ, Bowie, Maryland.

This second volume in the new “Living Word Commentary” covers the three epistles of John. Dr. Roberts, professor of Greek and New Testament at Abilene Christian College, draws readily upon old reliables such as Westcott, Plummer, and “The International Critical Commentary,” as well as more recent studies by Dodd, Barclay, and Stott.

One of the most helpful parts of the book is a discussion of false teachers and Gnosticism that sheds light on some of the points John makes in the epistles. This analysis of early Gnosticism also uncovers the roots of errors taught today in certain cults and isms—the Bible meets today’s errors as well as yesteryear’s.

The letters are well outlined, and paralled scriptural passages are included to enlarge the subject under discussion. Difficulties (such as 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin,” in contrast with 1 John 3:6, “No one who abides in him sins,” and 1 John 5:16, “mortal sin”) are reasonably explained. A note on the term “only begotten Son” as used in the King James Version of First John 4:9 is especially helpful.

Dr. Roberts’s emphasis on the original language clarifies the meaning of many words. His book will not serve as a supply of “snappy” sermon illustrations. Rather, it is excellent source material for serious teaching of John’s epistles.

Book Briefs

Dictionary of the Council, ed. by J. Deretz and A. Nocent (Corpus, 1968, 506 pp., $12.50). A useful guide to the contents of the sixteen official texts promulgated by Vatican Council II. In alphabetical order, it takes up every area, idea, and topic mentioned in the documents and gives the relevant texts from the decrees.

Voice Under Every Palm, by Jane Reed and Jim Grant (Zondervan, 1968, 150 pp., $3.95). The heartwarming story behind the building of ELWA, Africa’s first missionary radio station.

Is It, or Isn’t It?, by E. M. Blaiklock and D. A. Blaiklock (Zondervan, 1968, 83 pp., $2.95). A classics scholar and a medical doctor (who are father and son) join forces to produce this vigorous apologetic for the Christian faith.

The Testament of Jesus According to John 17, by Ernst Käsemann (Fortress, 1968, 87 pp., $3.50). An extremely novel approach to the fourth Gospel that contends that John emphasizes Jesus’ deity at the expense of his humanity. Concludes that John’s Gospel was received into the canon by mistake.

Christ, the Theme of the Bible, by Norman Geisler (Moody, 1968, 128 pp., $2.95). A devotional study that sees Christ as the thematic unity of the whole span of scriptural revelation.

Expository Sermons on the Book of Daniel, by W. A. Criswell (Zondervan, 1968, 123 pp., $3.95). The president of the Southern Baptist Convention offers a series of sermons confirming the historicity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel.

Witnessing Laymen Make Living Churches, by Claxton Monro and William S. Taegel (Word, 1968, 203 pp., $4.95). The story of an effective program of lay evangelism established in some churches in Houston, and a statement of the biblical basis for such a program.

Luther’s Works, Volume 29, ed. by Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen (Concordia, 1968, 266 pp., $6). A valuable addition to the American edition of Luther’s works.

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