Customer Reviews

A Geerhardus Vos Anthology: Biblical and Theological Insights Alphabetically Arranged

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The over-used phrase "father" of one movement or another, is tossed around often with little regard to history or even whether or not the particular movement is important enough to even deserve a "father." However, in the case of Geerhardus Vos, the term "father of Reformed Biblical Theology" is both historically accurate and the movement he birthed is indeed significant.

In 1891 the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary asked that a professorship of biblical theology be created and in 1894 Vos began a tenure at Princeton that would last until his retirement in 1932 (Vos, Caspar Wistar Hodge, and William Park Armstrong were the three conservative faculty members who, for various personal reasons, did not resign from Princeton to join the newly formed Westminster Theological Seminary after the reorganization of Princeton in 1929).

Vos brought the discipline of "Biblical Theology" to both Princeton and Reformed theology despite the concerns that it, according to Benjamin Warfield, that "it came to us wrapped in the swaddling clothes of rationalism, and it was rocked in the cradle of the Hegalian recasting of Christianity" (Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1996], 137). Warfield, however, was both a supporter and close friend of the somewhat shy and self-styled "mystic" and who, along with C. W. Hodge, had given the impetus that led to the formation of the professorship that Vos filled.

Vos' writings were not particularly influential during his lifetime, because as Olinger states, "liberals dismissed his writings while his conservative brethren did not understand them" (2). Because Vos also shied away from the larger denominational and church matters, focusing on duties at the seminary, he was not widely known outside the academic world. However, through his students, notably Ned Stonehouse, John Murray and Cornelius Van Til; Vos' concepts and constructs in Biblical theology enjoyed a wide hearing to generations of students at Westminster. In recent years his works have enjoyed a significant resurgence, particularly, in this reviewers observation, among the younger generation of Reformed pastors and students.

The author has produced an eminently readable and practical introduction to the works of Vos. The introductory chapter (1-27) serves as an excellent window into his life and works. The anthology itself is a series of excerpts from his writings arranged in alphabetical order by topic (the topical categories are listed in the front matter). Each excerpt is clearly identified allowing a deeper examination of the material by the reader. The editor has included a clear list of abbreviations of Vos' works, and a detailed bibliography, but a complete bibliography of Vos' writings would have been a useful addition.

While we recommend this work as a survey of Vos; there was also a sense of dissatisfaction with the overall concept of the book. Vos simply is not the type of author whose works lend themselves well to the "sound bite" approach taken in anthologies. However, significant quotes such as, "Once the sense of allegiance to the Word of God as the old authoritative rule of faith as become weakened, or, while still recognized in theory has ceased to be a loving force in the mind of believers, then the hope of return to the truth once forsaken is reduced to a minimum" (308), will hopefully serve both as an inspiration and a warning to a new generation.

Vos' writings are detailed and tightly wound both in logic and argumentation, grounded in the redemptive-historical hermeneutics of Reformed Theology. His works in Biblical theology, from a thoroughly inerrantist position, was ground-breaking and provocative; and whether or not one agrees with either his methodology or conclusions, interaction with Vos demands deep reading not light skimming of interesting quotations.

Still, this work opens the door to the works of one of the most original thinkers in the Old Princeton tradition, one whose influence some 70 years after his death is perhaps greater than during his life.

Reformed Theologian Sinclair Ferguson on A GEERHARDUS VOS ANTHOLOGY

Perhaps even a non-American can risk a baseball analogy:the editor of this volume stands at the plate with two strikes against him. The first is that it is an anthology, and these are rarely satisfying. The second is that it is a Geerhardus Vos anthology. One might hazard a guess that even the home fans have already turned against him! But to the delight of home fans and even visitors, Danny Olinger hits a game-winning home run with A GEERHARDUS VOS ANTHOLOGY. Simply put, it is a "must have."

How can Vos's Dutch-American theological prose (still dense, despite the best efforts of his editor-son, J.G. Vos) possibly be reduced to an anthology without distortion? Only because the editor's enviable familiarity with the Vos corpus, and his willingness to devote time to mining these jewels, unite in a book that can be turned to again and again with enormous profit.

Two things in particular stand out. First, these selected quotations (ranging from a sentence or two to half-page paragraphs) allow Vos's insights to stand outin all their inherent power. Geerhardus Vos's original writings are demanding reading for theological students, never mind for those without academic training. That is partly a stylistic matter, but mostly it is a matter of the weight and profundity ofhis thought. He takes most readers into rivers of biblical theology in which they are unaccustomed to swimming. For some, the depth of the water and the speed of the current prove too much. Against that background, the value of this anthology lies partly in the way Vos's "big ideas" are highlighted and stand out in bold relief. The reader can absorb them slowly, one by one, as it were, and reflect on them before moving on. this creates the appropriate Vosian Velcro strips in the mind that then make it easier to grasp the whole of his thought when we turn to various works in their entirety.

The second outstanding feature reminded this reviewer of the comment that the young J. Gresham Machen made following a sermon preached by Vos in the Princeton Chapel. He described Vos as having a larger "bump of reverence" than some of his colleagues.(Was it also that this that Professor John Murray found so compelling about him?) This deeply reverential spirit--no false dichotomy between the deepest and most complex expressions of theology and a sense of wonder, faith, and love for the triune God--saturates these pages. Clearly Dr. Vos wrote in a spirit of awe, thrill, and intellectual spiritual pleasure as he gazed believingly on the realities of biblical revelation that he sought to convey in his lectures, sermons, and books. That is why this book belongs not only on the study desk, but equally on the bedside table. But if you keep it in the latter place, remember that it is a (legal!)stimulant.

The value of this anthology is enhanced by the editor's twenty-seven page introduction to Vos's writings and by the clear identification of each quotation. A GEERHARDUS VOS ANTHOLOGY is really a remarkable piece of work. Danny Olinger has placed us in his debt by labor of love in editing it, and the publisher has enhanced this with an attractive book that is pleasant to read.