p. 11 | Literary Notices

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 17, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 45.

Literary Notices

“The American Standard Revised Bible.” Self-pronouncing, black type, interleaved edition. Thomas Nelson & Sons, 37 East 18th Street, New York.

This edition may emphatically be called the student’s Bible, and the careful student may make it to him a Bible most valuable. Every other leaf is a blank, ruled on both sides, for notes. If the student will take care in the selection of the matter which he places on these interleaves, he will have a “Bible Helps” par excellence. The type of the Bible before us is minion, but, black-faced on the thin, opaque India paper, is very clear. To one not used to them, the interleaves may bother a little at first, but not long. The corners of the thin paper will not crumple and fold so easily. The excellent Standard American Revised Version is now published in every form which the various Bible lovers could ask; it ought to become more popular. It is a revision based on the best Hebrew and Greek texts; it is a more uniform and clearer translation; it is a conservative translation; it presents the general style of our common translation; it replaces words the meaning of which have completely changed, by equally good English terms, such as “sod” by “boil;” “earing” by “plowing;” “astonied” by “astonished;” “prevent” (to go before) by “precede,” etc., etc. It is, all told, the best translation in the English language.

“Our Misunderstood Bible.” By H. Clay Trumbull. Price $1.00. The Sunday School Times Company, Philadelphia.

This book is written especially to clear up some points quite generally misunderstood, as is said in the preface: “Some of these misunderstandings are easily accounted for, and might be easily removed; others are not easily accounted for, yet have prevailed, without being accounted for, from generation to generation.”

One excellent point which the author clears up is that there is no break in God’s plan from the Old to the New Testament. The popular idea is “that law is the religion of the Old Testament, love is the religion of the New.” The author of this book says, “If it could be shown that the New Testament is not consistent with the Old, and that it presents God as of a different spirit from that in which He was revealed in the earlier disclosures of Himself to men, it would be necessary to accept one of these statements as true, and to reject the other as not true.”

Many similar ideas are taken up, carefully reviewed, and the truth of the matter, as seen by the author, clearly stated. There are some things in the book with reference to angels which we can not endorse as Biblical. However, those who desire to have an exact understanding of the Bible will do well to read this little book, as it will give the reader a better knowledge than before he read its pages.

“Christian Science Before the Bar of Reason.” By Rev. L. A. Lambert, LL.D. Price $1.00, postage 10 cents. Christian Press Association Pub. Co., New York.

While this book is written by a Catholic, it is nevertheless an excellent argument against Christian Science from the metaphysical standpoint. In this book Mr. Lambert shows the utter inconsistency of Christian Science, its inconsistency with reason, its inconsistency in language, its inconsistency in denying the personality of God, and claiming to be Christian.

An excellent point made in the book is that Christian Science is pantheistic in that it denies creation. Those who would like a good, fair presentation of the logical difficulties in the way of Christian Science, will be well repaid in their perusal of this book. Mr. Lambert has great skill in meeting skepticism, and has done a good work in arraigning “Christian Science Before the Bar of Reason.”

“The Real God: The Universal Mind and the Divinity of Man.” By J. Herman Randall. H. M. Caldwell Co., New York and Boston. Price 60 cents.

This is a very neatly printed little book. It sets forth in an alluring manner the false philosophy which is becoming so prevalent in these days, utterly denying the great facts of the atonement, and the personal God and Saviour. The author—who, sad to say, is a Baptist pastor—truly says that “there is at the present time, both inside the church and out, a feeling of unrest and dissatisfaction, more or less conscious that they are not getting out of religion all that they might.” But the wise thing to do in such a case as that, is not to turn from the great historic Christianity, but it is to seek for that rest, that strength, that life which can come only through the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason why the unrest is in the world at the present time is

because Christianity has been forsaken. The only real presence that the soul can ever know of God is that which comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The philosophy presented by such books as the one which we have under review, is that which deifies man, leads man to look within himself for that which does not exist, and utterly sets aside the only means by which man can come into possession of the divine Spirit. It is a philosophy which charms only to disappoint.