Abstract
The fact that this is the third edition of Professor John Rogerson’s Introduction testifies to its ongoing usefulness, and enables him to take full account of recent scholarly research. It is a concise and immensely accessible guide, with the material divided throughout into clearly written sections. The author often uses helpful charts, and includes maps, a glossary of technical terms and a comprehensive bibliography: omitting the classic work of James Barr on Fundamentalism, but adding his own frequent contributions to biblical studies.
Rogerson deals synoptically with a wide range of the relevant subject matter, covering the nature, origin and composition of the Bible, and ending with three valuable and perceptive investigations of its canon (intriguingly associated with the concept of power), study and use. The opening chapter on ‘What is the Bible?’ embraces a fascinating survey of Study Bibles, and sensitively probes the doctrinal stance of such translations as the New International Version and the New Jerusalem Bible.
This book is so much more than a recitation of well-known facts. Importantly, it addresses the purpose of the biblical documents, as well as the process of their assembly. Rogerson never appears daunted by the extent and complexity of his material, although he does admit that his approach to it is necessarily cautious and selective. He is constantly aware of the ethical, as well as theological and pastoral issues that are raised along the way, and he is unafraid to tackle allied practical and contemporary questions, such as capital punishment and reproductive rights. In the chapter on ‘The Use of the Bible’ we are presented with apposite, and indeed very sensible, views on the topics of fundamentalism, liberation theology and feminist criticism.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Professor Rogerson seems entirely at ease with his treatment of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, but less so in relation to the New Testament. Some would find his dating of the Gospels and 2 Peter debatable, for example, and I would firmly assign Revelation to an earlier first century period than he does. Is not the point of Philemon, moreover, that Paul was hoping for the slave’s return? And can it be true that both Testaments are ‘silent’ on the fate of individuals after death (p. 75)? Labels such as ‘conservative’, ‘evangelical’ and even ‘clergy’ are notoriously slippery, and I use different spellings for the word ‘dissension’ and the name of the German scholar Kϋmmel.
Rogerson’s work will surely continue to provide such readers as theological students with a compact but illuminating lead into the biblical world, as well as introducing a wider audience to the way in which its rich themes of law, prophecy and grace belong together.