Leslie Houlden

Fall and Salvation A Case of Difficulty

to a request from the Editor. He was nagged by a difficulty that focused on the exegesis of a passage of scripture but seemed to involve profound and far-reaching issues for traditional Christian theology, perhaps for any recognizable Christian theology. I confess that I did not immediately leap to accede to the request, not out of sloth but because I could not quite identify with the plain sense of being in a predicament that was communicated to me. I felt that the puzzle put before me was, formally, no doubt

Book Reviews : Unremarkable and Contentious

How to do Biblical Theology (Pickwick Publications, 1995, n.p., pp. xlii + 95, ISBN 1-55635-026-0) consists of a set of five lectures by Peter Stuhlmacher, of Tilbingen, together with a rather long introduction by Scott Hafemann which is in effect an account, dense in style, of Stuhlmacher’s understanding of the classic Lutheran theme of the righteousness of God, seen both in relation to current German academic discussion and in the context of his New Testament theology as a whole. The lectures (which are less dense) outline Stuhlmacher’s idea of the proper way to be a biblical

Book Reviews : Christian Existence in the Pastorals

maintained his long and loving attachment to the Gospel of Luke, and he now presents the fruits of it in this superb study of Christian Character in the Gospel of Luke (Epworth Press [1989], £6.95, pp. 232, ISBN 0-7162-0463-0). This is a fresh and very readable study of the Gospel to discover the characteristics of the Christian according to Luke, which often sheds new light on the relevant texts. Some of the topics are predictable love, wealth, faith, and discipleship but an important part of the book is its study of the contrast provided by ’The Pharisaic Mind’, which is the attitude from which people need to be converted. Beck argues that the difficult question of the structure of the Gospel may be answered at least in part by arguing that the key to the sequence of the material is the thematic treatment of the Pharisees and their attitudes. This

Book Reviews : Pauline Church Development:

Study and Exposition of Genesis’ and not a commentary, it works in much the same way that a commentary would, with four chapters of introduction followed by a section by section study of the text. Ross, who is Professor of Semitics and Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, shows a good acquaintance with the literature, including literary studies such as that of Fokkelmann. The starting point is ’the presupposition that Scripture is revelation’, and the emphasis is upon the theological message of the book.