2 comments about Letters of Geerhardus Vos.

1. Geerhardus Vos is known as the father of Reformed biblical theology (i.e. the discipline that seeks to do justice to the teaching of the whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation, redemptive history etc). Vos has been very influential to many people, and this is why I wanted to learn a little about the man. When one reads Goldsworthy, Clowney, Ladd, Ridderbos, Gaffin (and virtually all the guys at Westminster Philly), you know you are reading men who are standing on the shoulders of Vos. I am fascinated by these early Princeton and Westminster guys (Hodge, Machen, Warfield, Stonehouse, Murray) and Vos and Van Til in particular. B.B. Warfield regarded Vos as "probably the best exegete Princeton ever had." Unfortunately, Vos was not very well known by anyone. It seems as if he liked it that way. He was born in Holland in 1862, studied under the Hodge brothers at Princeton, and ended up doing his doctorate at the University of Strassburg. His dissertation was an exercise in Arabic textual criticism and the title was "The Struggle and Quarrel between the Umaads and the Hashimites." Don't ask me.
   He is known for emphasizing that "eschatology is the mother of theology." He took the chair of biblical theology at Princeton in 1893. He married Catherine in 1894 and had 4 kids. He liked to take walks and write poetry (part of the book contains several of his poems). He went to a rural town called Roaring Branch for 26 consecutive summers. They had a house there, and he had it moved even further out of the rural town and his neighbors never remember talking to the man or his wife. Geerhardus gets an F for missional living. He seems to have been somewhat anti-social towards those he didn't know very well. He retired to Southern Cali in 1932. He died in 1949 and Cornelius Van Til preached from 2 Cor. 5.1. One interesting fact about Vos's life is that he was around and agreed with Machen who left Princeton to found Westminster Seminary to maintain orthodoxy. No one is sure why Vos stayed.
   This book will be of little interest to most. The biography was interesting to me but it had quite a bit of info on Presbyterian denomenational controversey. I merely perused most of the letters except for some that were written to Machen, Warfield, and Bavinck. While this book may not ever make it to your shelf, I highly encourage the study of biblical theology, but you may not want to start with Vos. His magnum opus was 'Biblical Theology', with 'The Pauline Eschatology,' 'The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church,' 'The Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews,' and 'The Self-Disclosure of Jesus' have also been highly influential. If nothing else, you may want to name your first son 'Geerhardus.'



2. Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949) never achieved fame beyond a small circle of students during his lifetime. Given his brillance, his long career, his clear and prolific writings, his exotic name and his institutional affliation with Princeton Seminary (the most prominent theological school in America at the time) this is just staggering. Fortunately his pioneering work in redemptive-historical work and covenant theology has been rescued from obscurity after his retirement by those who have come to appreciate its value.
   
   Several of Vos' published works remain in print and widely studied. But those who seek to understand the context from which such original work came have long had to consult thin biographical tidbits, mostly found in a handful of libraries. This excellent volume has vastly improved this situation.
   
   The book falls into four sections: 1. A long (65 pp.), very well-crafted biographical essay by James Dennison (who does nothing to temper his admiration for his subject.) Dennison is probably a little more conservative and doctrinaire than Vos.
   2. A 28pp. bibliography.
   3. Typescripts of dozens of letter by Vos. They range from his days applying for admission as student at Princeton Seminary (1883) up to the retirement years in his 80s (some as late as 1946). The majority, however, are 1889-1897. Vos' correspondence displayed here include Warfield, Kuyper, Bavinck, Machen, Ned Stonehouse and an assortment of pastors and former students. Vos is articulate, cultured, lively and concise in virtually every letter. Here we see his wide ranging opinions on German, Dutch and English-language theological works (including early takes on Barth and Bultmann), his original exegesis, his Princeton politics, his warm support of Machen, Frank Stevenson, Paul Woolley etc. after they started Westminister Seminary in 1929 (just three years before he retired from Princeton), his difficult arrangements for Kuyper's history making Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary, etc. He comes off as massively learned, but humble and likeable.
   
   Dennison's footnotes are concise and generally helpful (though in the case of one Seminary board political issue in the late 20s, Dennison fails to give us specific background information). There are some footnote errors, but pretty minor: Chicago Theological Seminary is confused with Univ. of Chicago Div. School at one point. p. 109 lists a Vos MS as located in the "Alumni Alcove" of Princeton Theological Seminary (which hasn't existed in ten years) -- its probably in the Manuscripts Collection of Prinecton Sem., or has a call number. Anyway, these and a few others are pretty minor blemishes on a generally careful and excellent work.
   
   4. Four of Vos' poems.
   
   Even a cursory review of this volume increases one's amazement at Vos' rather unassuming career. HOW? One explanation is that Vos only lectured outside the Princeton campus ONE time after accepting his teaching post there. He simply was not the churchman we would have expected, and as a result his influence was confined to his (often prominent) students and his readers.
   
   P & R has done a really outstanding job packaging this book, as well.

2 comments about Confessions of a Maddog: A Romp Through the High-Flying Texas Music and Literary Era of the Fifties to the Seventies.

1. I had a fun time reading this book by Jay Milner. It's a really great chronicle of the exploits of a renegade group of Texas writers, musicians, artists, and politicos, as well a chronicle of Milner's own life as a novelist, university professor, and journalist.

   Much of the fun in this book takes place in the mid 60s through mid 70s Texas, when Milner's running buddies include folks such as writers Gary Cartwright, Billie Lee Brammer, Larry L. King, and Edwin Shrake, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Dallas Cowboy wide receiver turned novelist Peter Gent, and country music legends Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Kris Kristofferson.

   Since this book is also autobiographical, it would be easy for Milner to embellish the high points of his life, and choose the frames from his internal "home movie" that would be in the book. Yet Milner does no such thing. He describes his life, and the activities surrounding it, with the objectivity of a trained "old school" journalist--either in the middle of a 60s or 70s scene involving sex, drugs, and country rock and roll--or in his honest and thoughtful analysis of what he considered his own inner demons.

   Jay Milner's book is more than just a fun read. It is also a reliable history of a modern, creative period when artistic endeavors coming out of Texas began to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

   "Confessions of a Maddog" is an important work in this regard. I predict that it will be required reading in any college course involving the literature of the southwest for years to come.

   Lee Leatherwood Austin, TX 31 March 01




2. Milner has exceeded himself with this book. His compassionate record of the exploits and traumas of several of his friends as they hone their writing skills is superb. I refer you to page 222 for the most touching prose regarding one's journey up to and into the abyss of the dark night of one's soul. Billy Lee chose to go into the abyss and stay. Obviously Milner chose to take theever so rickety ladder out. His book is testimony to that choice.

No comments about Rudolf Steiner (Continuum Library of Educational Thought).

No comments about Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian.

3 comments about Tundra Teacher: A Memoir.

1. As a writer, Foley has a great voice and puts it to fine use telling tales of his twenty-something to thirtysomething years. Great fun to read for those of use who never had the nerve to actually act on the universal impulse to chuck it all and head off to the frontier.



2. Finally! A real book by a real teacher who speaks like a real person. After reading about Foley's humorous exploits, I will never complain about my difficult classrooms again. Thanks for putting it all into perspective for me.



3. As a fellow teacher, I very much enjoyed "Tundra Teacher." John Foley is a great story teller and has the courage to give voice to what every teacher eventually feels confronted by: self-doubt, frustration and heart-breaking reality. What I like about this book is Foley's ability to lace humor and insight into his difficult teaching situations. Thanks much for this book.

No comments about Pioneer Woman Educator: The Progressive Spirit of Annie Webb Blanton (Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas a&M University,).

1 comments about The Harvard Book, rev. ed: Selections fom Three Centuries.

1. THE HARVARD BOOK is awarded by the Harvard Alumni Association to High School juniors who combine excellence in scholarship with achievement in other fields. The book contains more than 100 short articles about Harvard experiences by a wide assortment of contributors - many of whom are famous writers. The essays cover almost the entire period of Harvard's existence since 1636. Some of my favorites are by Samuel Eliot Morison, William James, John P. Marquand, David McCord, John Reed, John Updike and David Halberstam. The book is easy to enjoy and praise. The quality of the writing is very high.

2 comments about Tutor to the Dragon Emperor: The Life of Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston.

1. I rather enjoyed this biography on Reginald Johnston. Despite what the other reviewer has said (quite funny), I doubt very much that Johnston would have been able to "mandhandle Pu Yi" as he must have been closely supervised by his minders, some of whom were eunuchs and may have had similar tendencies.
   An uninteresting man, with ambiguous tendencies, thrust into the limelight just by rubbing shoulders with the last Emperor, Johnston did write a couple of travel books on China which are probably his more enduring legacy



2. If you want to find out what kind of a brainwashing, low down, good for nothing person Reginald Johnston is like, then you need to read this book. This old cockraoch constantly used the kid emperor for his own needs. Johnston taught the young emperor about homosexuality as Johnston was a homosexual. Johnston should go down in history for a child molester and thief of children.

1 comments about R. L. Moore: Mathematician & Teacher (Spectrum Series).

1. The name of R. L. Moore appears throughout the mathematical literature, primarily for the Moore method of teaching, secondarily for the achievements of his mathematical progeny and thirdly for his mathematical output. Since his output was considerable, this order says something for the significance of the first two. The Moore method of instruction involved no textbooks, no lectures and no conferring between the students. The naïve person would argue that it is inappropriate to refer to it as a method of teaching. However, it did involve a great deal of instructor involvement, largely directing the students by asking appropriate questions and critiquing student work. As would be expected with any unusual teaching strategy, the students who succeeded praised it and those who didn't generally have a negative opinion. The best way to evaluate it is to examine how well his students did in their profession, and in that area, he has no peer. Three of his students served as president of the American Mathematical Society and three others were vice-president. Five of his students served as president of the Mathematical Association of America, which makes him the equivalent of the founder of a political dynasty.
   While Moore was indeed brilliant in his work, he was also very cantankerous. He had strong opinions on many things outside of mathematics, and he did not hesitate to make them known when he felt it necessary. Being a man of the south, he was opposed to many of the liberal trends of the late fifties and sixties, putting his arguments forward in a states rights context. The story of his last years as a professor and how the administration tried to remove him is amazing. There was point/counterpoint, devious manipulation and some of the most obfuscated doubletalk that has ever appeared in an academic setting. Moore was also in the middle of many of the internal political battles that took place at the University of Texas, and some of them had national ramifications.
   R. L. Moore was a powerful figure in the American mathematical community of the twentieth century. He is arguably the most powerful that was not imported, and he was involved in research, training high quality mathematicians and fought many political battles against anyone who disagreed with him. This biography is an honest appraisal of the man and the many ways he impacted the mathematical profession.
   
   Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

No comments about George Grant: Redefining Canada (The Quest Library).