Books

Edwin Hamilton Gifford, The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, Nabu Press, 2010. (London: John Murray, 1886. Originally in The Speaker's Commentary, 1881).

This very good but hard to find exegetical commentary from the nineteenth century is now available again in an exact reproduction.

Though I have mentioned the inflation of commentaries, and on Romans in particular, I have to mention these two since they are not in English. The first one is not exactly new since the original dates back to the third century. The second if a full length work in three volumes by Romano Penna in Italian.

Dutton, Edward. Meeting Jesus at University: Rites of Passage and Student Evangelicals. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008.

Evangelical student ministries have been around for decades, yet for the most part they have remained under the radar of critical and scientific work. Dutton’s essay, partly based on a doctoral dissertation in Anthropology of Religion presented at Aberdeen University (Scotland), is therefore a welcome addition to the literature on religion and higher education.

Dutton’s thesis is that university is a rite of passage, a corridor between two stages of life (hence the use of the term liminal, from the Latin limen, corridor). University is “a time when young people have their identities challenged, remoulded and even fundamentally changed as they become adults” (ix). These challenges and changes present an opportunity to mix with people of other social groups but also to join a structured and structuring movement like a Christian Union. The book “will examine the relationship between universities, the intensity to which they are a Rite of Passage, and the evangelical student groups within them.” (ix).

Thanks to an agreement between Google Books and de Gruyter, a good part of my dissertation (written in French) is now available on Google Books.

The complete reference of the book is Erwin Ochsenmeier, Mal, souffrance et justice de Dieu selon Romains 1-3 : Étude exégétique et théologique , Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 155, de Gruyter: New-York, Berlin, 2007, 23 x 15,5 cm. XII, 392 pages. Relié. ISBN 978-3-11-019696-2.

The book is a revised version of my Ph. D. dissertation presented in March 2007 at the Faculté Libre de Théologie Évangélique de Vaux-sur-Seine (France).