Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 213 pages
- Published by: Westminster John Knox Press May 1988
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0664240585
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0664240585
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Book Dimensions:
8.8 x 6 x 0.5 inches
- Weighs: 12 ounces
Product Description
The author begins with a decisive transition, the Reformation of the sixteenth century presenting selections from works of the significant Protestant and Catholic thinkers.
Reader Reviews`Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volumes 1 and 2' edited by William Placher are almost exactly the sort of thing I was looking for when I was planning an `advanced' Sunday School study group examining major commentators on Christian doctrines throughout the last 2000 years. I say almost, because the editing policy which selects small fragments from a large number of documents is really not what I had hoped. A second weakness is that oddly, some major documents were left out. On the first point, an important discussion topic may be the Nag Hammadi documents, their reflection of Gnostic doctrines, and their relevance to Christian orthodoxy of the first 200 years of the Common Era. The editor includes the most important of these Gnostic gospels, the `Gospel of Thomas'. Unfortunately, the editor only sees fit to include a scant 12 out of the 114 verses printed in, for example, Bart D. Ehrman's `Lost Scriptures'. This is not nearly enough to accurately contrast this document with the canonical gospels on all major points such as the nature of Jesus and the Gnostic cosmology story, which is distinctly different from the one early Christians inherited from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament). On the second point, there are important highlights which I really wish would have been included such as the text of Martin Luther's 95 Theses and the writings of Jonathan Edwards on Free Will, especially as the snippet from Augustine is on the subject of Free Will and the topic comes up again in the selection from Blaise Pascal's `Pensees'. On the whole, the book tries to cover all bases, even if that means the coverage is as thin as a leaf of phyllo dough. I would have much rather seen in the section on (Early) American theology less from Joseph Smith (Mormons) and Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (`Transcendentalist') and much more from Edwards, who was easily the very best American philosophical theologian even up to the present day, rivaling even Charles Saunders Peirce for the distinction of most important American philosopher. The one thing that makes these failings even more regrettable is that the generally very good bibliography doesn't give references to complete texts for all sources such as any works of Jonathan Edwards or Soren Kierkegaard for example. I would also argue that some of the bibliographical references are not as strong as they could be, for example, the often criticized `The Gnostic Gospels' by writer for the layman, Elaine Pagals. This pair of volumes remains a nicely inexpensive overview of source documents and a starting point for the study of same, but one could do a better job of providing a good source for all the most important post-canonical writings.
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