Donald E. Gowan Theological Studies Collection (4 vols.)

This book is an introduction to a difficult and crucially important period in the history of the Jewish people, the time between the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. and the second, futile revolt against Rome which ended in 135 C.E. It is the result of a dozen years’ experience in teaching a course called ‘The Intertestamental Period’, but the book itself does not and cannot bear that name. The traditional period “be­tween the Testaments”, from c. 400 B.C.E. to the birth of Christ does, indeed, correspond to a gap in the history told in the Protestant Old Testament canon and the New Testament, but there are no sound historical grounds for treating those 400 years as a separate period. There are indeed turning points in the history of the Jews which provide logical times at which to begin and end. An era clearly ended with the fall of the Judean monarchy in 587 B.C.E. and another one began in 135 C.E., after which Jerusalem ceased to be the center of Jewish political existence for many centuries. Despite the radical changes which occurred during the intervening centuries, which are often called the period of the Second Temple, if we are to deal with any part of it from a historical perspective it seems we must begin with the exile and end with the second war with Rome, and thus the limits of this book have been set.

The story to be told is long and complex and the attempt has been made to organize the book in such a way as to simplify without distort­ing (if that is possible). The approach is historical throughout; the history of each subject will be traced as far as that is possible, but topics are treated individually, rather than subsuming them into a long and detailed historical narrative, and Part One provides a survey concen­trating on political history as essential background for what follows. It is more than just background, however, for there is much that we can learn about ourselves and our own times from the study of this period, and so I have offered an interpretation and not a mere chronicle. In another effort to be helpful to the reader, care has been taken to identify disputed issues and to present varying points of view, but without get­ting bogged down in the technical discussions which can be found in the items noted in the bibliographies.

What does the Bible say about forgiveness? It is a major subject in Scripture, but it has been strangely overlooked by biblical scholars. Forgiveness is the amazing way that alienation can be healed and guilt assuaged, and there is an extensive literature on the subject, written largely by psychologists, pastoral counselors, and philosophers, but until now anyone searching those many books for a thorough treatment of the Bible’s message would have been frustrated. Now in a clear and concise form, Donald E. Gowan has offered a survey of all that the Bible says about this crucial subject-from Genesis to Revelation.

Donald E. Gowan offers new insights into what may be the Old Testament’s earliest treatment of the problem of suffering: the book of Habakkuk.

“That small, obscure part of the Old Testament tucked away somewhere in the middle of the minor prophets,”—as Gowan put it—Habakkuk has been a middle child of too many Bible students’ non-attention. Yet Gowan makes no claim that this book should be more central than it has been. Instead, he shows his own personal, pastoral, and scholarly involvement with this powerful tract.

After an introductory chapter, the author examines each of Habakkuk’s three sections. Gowan offers his own translation of the text, applying a critical approach, and providing a decisive commentary.

Gowan compares the first section’s dialogue between the prophet and God (Habakkuk 1:1–2:4) with other Old Testament dialogues about God’s justice. He also discusses God's response, “But the just shall live by faith,” as a meaningful answer to Habakkuk’s questions.

While the “woe-oracles” of the second section (Habakkuk 2:5-20) have not seemed very important in the past, Gowan shows how they form a mock funeral dirge sung in advance of a great tyrant's death. He then applies this insight to the problems of tyranny and liberty today.

The psalm (Habakkuk 3) which concludes the book is discussed in terms of Israelite traditions, theophany, faith, and history. The central focus is placed on Habakkuk’s striking personal statement concerning the ability of the man of faith to live through suffering joyfully. Recognizing the relationship of our suffering to that of Christ, Gowan concludes The Triumph of Faith in Habakkuk by drawing together relevant themes from Habakkuk's time and Jesus’s experience.

For a long time, we have been complaining about the kind of exegesis which stops short once a detailed and careful historical critical analysis of a text has been made, as if that were all that an interpreter of Scripture was supposed to provide for those who are concerned about what the Bible has to say to them. At the same time, Biblical scholars and others as well have protested the kind of theology and homiletics which does not take exegesis seriously. The study which follows is an effort to respond to these complaints and to offer something more complete. It attempts to put together in one book a study of a Biblical theme which moves from the technical work of exegesis to theological affirmations, and in places to the border­line of homiletics. To many it may thus appear to be a mixed genre; parts of it seem properly to belong in technical journals and monographs while other parts seem to belong to a more popular realm of religious literature, directed toward pastors and laymen. That may be what it is, but my effort has been to produce a new genre in which the work of the interpreter of Scripture appears as a totality. Since I have not consciously been following a previous model this attempt may not prove to be satisfactory, but I believe the effort, at least, needs to be made. An inspiration for the works if not a model, has been found in the expository writings of George Adam Smith, which were remarkably successful in their day in combining technical exegetical work with the affirmation of what these texts mean to a person of faith.