Review: Dispensationalism and the History of Redemption: A Developing and Diverse Tradition

Dispensationalism and the History of Redemption: A Developing and Diverse Tradition by D. Jeffrey Bingham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I compare this book to my immense Theology Journal Bundle on logos bible software, I appreciated so much more the immense effort put in to consolidate the essays of the various theologians (and the subsequent editing and arranging into an easy-to-follow sequence). Having completed a position paper for a Systematic Theology 3 module on a millennial view, I did not eventually subscribe to the dispensational view. And yet I thoroughly appreciate the systematic and comprehensible flow of the content in this book. I had a terrible time trying to search and then organise the various essays sifting through decades of journal articles. But the editors have done all the hard work for me here!

Often I felt that the essay writers were on the defensive, (perhaps very much aware of the various criticisms on the dispensational view in modern theological scholarship) but eventually it seemed that the positive matter (substantives) were provided as much as the negative matter (rebuttals). Sections of the book I enjoyed were the introductory essay (Chapter 1), the history of dispensationalism (Chapter 3). Students and lecturers of the Eschatological topics in Systematic Theology would find "Dispensationalism and views of redemption history" (Chapter 9) especially useful; although the findings slant toward one millennial view, the broad overview of the others provide a quick and handy introduction.

Finally, no matter which millennial view you hold, Eugene Merrill's "God's Plan for History Prior to Christ" (Chapter 5) and Darrel Bock's "God's plan for history: the first coming of Christ" (Chapter 6) are excellent essays that teachers and preachers would find extremely useful in equipping their flocks in various topics - Biblical Theology, Covenant Theology and perhaps even Old Testament Introduction. Scholars too should enjoy the refreshingly light read of these two chapters, especially after having attempted to read through scholarly works with overly technical and complex treatises of such-and-such millenial views.

I received this book from the Moody Publishers Newsroom program for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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