Critical Review of Books in Religion (1988–1998)

Critical Review of Books in Religion contains eleven years of book reviews, spanning more than 5,000 pages. Most of the important scholarly works on religion published between 1985 and 1998 (and some published earlier) are reviewed in these pages. This is the period when Anchor Bible Dictionary, many volumes of Word Biblical Commentary, and a number of other influential works were published and reviewed. Works from both liberal and conservative perspectives are included.

Critical Review of Books in Religion is the precursor to Review of Biblical Literature, also available from Logos. Published by a cooperative effort of Journal of the American Academy of Religion and Journal of Biblical Literature, this set of books is most often found on the shelf of a seminary library. We are bringing these thousands of book reviews to your hard drive because their value to biblical studies is enormous.

Book reviews are one of the most helpful tools available when doing serious research. What better way to get a quick overview of a work, a research topic, or even a subfield, than to skim through book reviews? Quality book reviews, written by knowledgeable reviewers, take into consideration other literature in the field and thus help make connections between ideas, authors, lines of research, and even related disciplines. They also help to identify an author's position or orientation; for example, is a particular Bible commentary dispensational, covenant, amillenial, postmillenial, does the author accept or reject JEDP, date a prophetic book early or late?

This product contains the entire series of Critical Review of Books in Religion, which was printed annually from 1988-1998. Each volume contains a handful of lengthy review articles, between 150 and 300 brief (1-3 page) book reviews organized by subject, and a listing of translations, new editions and reference works. The final volume in the series contains review articles only.

The 1994 volume, for example, begins with two review articles on the Anchor Bible Dictionary—10 pages evaluating the dictionary's treatment of the OT and the Ancient Near East and 10 pages evaluating its treatment of Early Christianity, Judaism, and the Greco-Roman World. The authors of these articles are well-qualified to comment on the individual ABD entries in question and provide an opinion as to whether they are balanced, thorough, and comprehensive. Particularly strong entries are noted.

The 1994 volume also includes reviews of more than 300 books, grouped into areas of academic interest such as Biblical Studies, Comparative Studies, History of Christianity, Judaism, Philosophy of Religion, etc. This is where much of the "conversation" within the discipline takes place!

Book Reviews Help You...

• Make wise purchases, whether print or electronic. Don't buy that expensive print book on Jewish inscriptions until you've read a review. Maybe it's not the best book on the subject for your needs. With more than 9,000 titles available for Logos Bible Software, the same principle applies...the more you can read about a title the better informed your decision will be.
• Learn about the books in your library. Book reviews can help you learn about what's in your library (both digital and print), whether you have 200 books or 2,000. The more you know about the books, the more effectively you can use them.
• Learn about the books that are not in your library. When an author references a book you don't own or haven't heard of, you can find out in a matter of seconds whether it's been reviewed and get a synopsis from the review.
• Explore research questions or sub-disciplines that are new to you. While browsing book reviews, you can learn something about the figures and seminal works in the area of Latin American liberation theology, medieval Judaism, or the psychology of religion.
• Identify authors for further reading. The frequent name-dropping in critical book reviews makes them an excellent resource for identifying additional authors to read on a particular subject.