Book Talk

[Page 126]

     My good personal friend and brother, Alger M. Fitch, has brought out a most interesting volume which will contribute much to restoration movement lore. The title is "Alexander Campbell: Preacher of Reform and Reformer of Preaching." The book makes full use of some manuscripts of Alexander Campbell which were found in a trunk in Australia during the 1960's. They had been taken to the "land down under" by Julian Barclay, a grandson of Campbell, and they were presented to the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville at the World Convention of Churches of Christ at which I spoke in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

     Alger, who is currently professor of New Testament in Northwest Christian College, Eugene, Oregon, has done a great deal of research as to the methods of Campbell and has written a fascinating book. I read it with a great deal of interest and derived a lot of information from it. It certainly is not a dry tome, and it contains an excellent bibliography. I was especially interested in the fact that it brought out Campbell's keen distinction between gospel and doctrine. I hope that all lovers of our history will read the book. It is $3.95 per copy.

     The New English Bible is getting a great deal of attention in the religious press just now. I have been eagerly awaiting this translation of the old covenant scriptures in our day and I have been reading the Psalms and the Prophets with a lot of genuine interest. The book helps to make the prophets come alive. The rendering of Isaiah 7:14 is "a young woman" instead of "a virgin." In my book called "Simple Trusting Faith" I show why I believe this is the only correct translation of this passage unless one wants to come up with two virgin births. I shall not say more about it here because I covered it at great length in my own volume. But I am getting a lot of good out of this new version and to me it is well worth the $8.95 that it costs. Apparently the sale has been rather phenomenal since the volume came from the press.