The best survey around.

This book represents a really honest and balanced survey of biblically based theology: the only work that compares with it is Alistair McGrath’s introduction published some years ago but accompanied by a reader that samples writings of some of the principalmovers and shakers in the field. This latter work would just as easily serve to amplifyThorsen’s more broadly based survey.

Thirsen includes a brief tour of Christian spirituality, which most serious students would probably view as a separate discipline, so that readers simply wishing to find a complete overview of the conceptual basis of Christianity need look no further than this treatise.

My reservations are, firstly, that this comes from a professor of biblically based systematic theology who rather gives his game away by constantly referring to ‘scripture’ instead of ‘the Bible whereas many theologians and believers would view the cannon as only one of three sources of Christian guidance beside tradition and reason/revelation from the Holy Spitit. My second reservation is that while aThorsen includes a chapter on biblical criticism, his references to the aBible, sound and authentic in themselves, assign equal weight to everything except the book ofRevelations which, of course, does need a bit of special treatment.

Despite these small warnings I am confident that those seriously seeking an introduction to Christian thought and tradition could do no better than to read this audiobook. The reader does a splendid job with a difficult text: American academics are used to references being cited in the text, but in a reading, and especially when there is a whole scroll of citations after the sentence, they do become somewhat tedious to listen to. This reader does the best he can.

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