A REVIEW
Long Years of Work by the Late Prof. Herman Feldman and Dr. Roy Ghamberlin, Chapel Director, Result in a Major College Publishing Event
MAY IT NOT be fair to say that the Bible for many is not unlike the old stamp album inherited from grandfather or the illuminated testimonial given father on his 25th anniversary with the old firm,—a relic to be brought out on impressive occasions. The DartmouthBible, on the contrary, places neither a relic nor a traditionally inherited tome on your living room table some time to be "read through." Rather it presents you with a shelf of fascinating volumes, each to be sfelected as your mood suggests. Right at the beginning the very table of contents arrests one. Plain language, not blurred by piety or ecclesiastical tradition, makes the reader want to know more. For example, "Exodus: An Epic of Enslavement and Deliverance." This is the story of half of the world today. "Nehemiah: A Royal Governor Who Built Jerusalem." There you have it in a sentence. "Ecclesiastes: The Reflections of a Kindly Cynic." "Job: The Travail of a Perplexed Sufferer." "Micah: The Champion of the Peasantry."
"Galatians: A Declaration of Christian Independence." "Philemon: An Intercession for a Runaway Slave." These all sound like today's people and today's issues, as indeed they are.
In the editing that follows none of the continuity of a historical developing faith has been lost. Again to the contrary, the succinct prefaces and appropriate "notes' which follow each book only strengthen the continuity. But it is not the continuity of argument or of dogma or of a particular interpretation of Scripture. It is rather like reading Bede in order to understand the songs of Caedmon, the better to anticipate the epics of Milton. Or it is like reading Lunt's History of England the better to enjoy Andrew's Colonial Period ofAmerican History. In short, what has happened to the Bible through intelligent editing is not the publication of one more book about the Bible, but the presentation of the Bible's essential contents in essential order as timely historical and spiritual reading. The editors have not secularized the Bible, nor sacrificed the beauty of the King James Version. They have subtly provided a running commentary before and after each book in such a natural way as to provide information without denying piety, and fact without challenging inspiration.
It so happens that at an early age I became prejudiced against the Old Testament by a dear lady who required that in Sunday School I complete week after week answers to deadly questions about the kings of Israel, most of whom neither then nor since seemed to have too much to do with the main current of the Bible's spiritual story and its relevance for today. All of us have waded through the morass of extraneous local material until, becoming quite weary, we have been unable to enjoy the sweet spaces of faith and hope in between. In The Dartmouth Bible these unimportant passages have been wisely cut so that the grand current of the story flows on in clear perspective and with progress.
Specifically, how this has been competently accomplished catches one in the introduction to The Apocrypha. For instance it tells us how Greek thought worked its way into early Christianity. One feels the process to be human and geographical, holding the interest by its natural development and having no savour of the academic or the cloister. The prefaces are informative, frequently challenging, fearless and are not dominated by the tenets of any religious denomination. They are never obtrusively pedagogical, but treat the matter of each book with obvious reverence for truth, while in no way disparaging tradition.
The titles of the Crucifixion story arrest one. They read like a modern plot. "The Last Hours." "The Plot to Kill Jesus." "The Betrayal and Arrest." The fateful events of those days are not left to be sorted out by the reader but through a careful integration of the texts of the gospels are stated in dramatic keeping. The reader grasps what has happened and what is now happening. He feels it the more acutely because the scene appears in the free air of its natural environment and not to be just the story of a biblical Jesus. Moreover, the editors frankly face the question of the Resurrection evidences, making no attempt to sustain later doctrines. They dare to let the essential faith in Jesus' continuing life, as his contemporaries believed, be presented in the light of our natural questions of today. If faith is stronger in the long run not by the literal acceptance of events but by an appreciation of the quality of the Life and Spirit conveyed, then those responsible for the prefaces and notes have done us all good service. For the former convictions can be knocked down by new evidence. The latter deepen with experience in the truth of Jesus' life.
A controversial subject might be the miracles. They are treated, however, in an undogmatic style calculated to win the confidence of inquirers without letting them down in the essentials of Christian belief. One is also held to this library by the strands of authorship which are kept adroitly connected. Repeated references "back" pick up again what one has read, placing passages in one book easily beside another. So authorship and history are agreeably combined.
If any criticism on the unfavorable side could be made, it might comment on a certain irrelevance in quoting contemporary authorities in the midst of the explanatory matter. The dignity of the Bible itself and the recognized scholarship of the editors might have suggested that references be omitted or at best that marginal references to a bibliography in the back of the Bible be appropriate. But this is a small matter in contrast to a certain "release" which this edition gives to the traditional Bible. Regular Bible readers will be informed by it and miss nothing. The majority of persons who are non-Bible readers, as most of us are, will find a new spiritual activity offered them. They will discover in these books the "old, old story" coming to life in lively, related experience as they search for the Source of our being through the age-long testimony of those who have known Him.
DEAN OF THE CHAPEL, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
