William C. PlacherReadings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume 1, Revised Edition: From Its Beginnings to the Eve of the Reformation

This is an excellent selection of excerpts from the original writings and translations of the early Fathers of Christianity from the 1st century through about the 14th century. This is a unique collection of writings and will be very useful for the beginning or advanced student of the development of christian theology.

It was nice to have a collection of readings that weren’t just one paragraph or two. I thought it was put together well. Worth reading if you’re into this kind of thing.

I really enjoyed this. Learned a lot about the early church, the development of the Roman Catholic Church. A must read for clergy.

`Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volumes 1 and 2' edited by William Placher are almost exactly the sort of thing I was looking for when I was planning an `advanced' Sunday School study group examining major commentators on Christian doctrines throughout the last 2000 years. I say almost, because the editing policy which selects small fragments from a large number of documents is really not what I had hoped. A second weakness is that oddly, some major documents were left out.On the first point, an important discussion topic may be the Nag Hammadi documents, their reflection of Gnostic doctrines, and their relevance to Christian orthodoxy of the first 200 years of the Common Era. The editor includes the most important of these Gnostic gospels, the `Gospel of Thomas'. Unfortunately, the editor only sees fit to include a scant 12 out of the 114 verses printed in, for example, Bart D. Ehrman's `Lost Scriptures'. This is not nearly enough to accurately contrast this document with the canonical gospels on all major points such as the nature of Jesus and the Gnostic cosmology story, which is distinctly different from the one early Christians inherited from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament).On the second point, there are important highlights which I really wish would have been included such as the text of Martin Luther's 95 Theses and the writings of Jonathan Edwards on Free Will, especially as the snippet from Augustine is on the subject of Free Will and the topic comes up again in the selection from Blaise Pascal's `Pensees'.On the whole, the book tries to cover all bases, even if that means the coverage is as thin as a leaf of phyllo dough. I would have much rather seen in the section on (Early) American theology less from Joseph Smith (Mormons) and Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (`Transcendentalist') and much more from Edwards, who was easily the very best American philosophical theologian even up to the present day, rivaling even Charles Saunders Peirce for the distinction of most important American philosopher.The one thing that makes these failings even more regrettable is that the generally very good bibliography doesn't give references to complete texts for all sources such as any works of Jonathan Edwards or Soren Kierkegaard for example. I would also argue that some of the bibliographical references are not as strong as they could be, for example, the often criticized `The Gnostic Gospels' by writer for the layman, Elaine Pagals.This pair of volumes remains a nicely inexpensive overview of source documents and a starting point for the study of same, but one could do a better job of providing a good source for all the most important post-canonical writings.

Came as described happy with service

bought for a class

“If we do not learn from the past we are doomed to repeat it.” Good or bad decisions, history is important for us to know and his is the line of thinking that we as a people must have when it comes to history, be it ecclesiastical, national, familial, or cultural. History is important and when we look at why our forefathers wrote, experiences and rebelled against, we see why out world looks like it does today. When one studies ecclesiastical history this is even more true.In Westminster John Knox Press’s new book Readings in the History of Christian Theology (Vol. 2) Revised Edition edited by William C. Placher and Derek R. Nelson the history of the Church is examined though the lense of the written works of prominent scholars and thinkers from the reformation to the present.This one volume examines just shy of 100 important theological works from the church fathers up to but not including the Reformation. When all of these collected works are examined as a unit they represent an important time at the beginning of the Church. When examined as individual works these documents represent a particular branch of Christianity in it’s proper cultural context.Unfortunately due to the immense size of all of these works, for size concerns, each work is edited and much of the discourses are gone. This is a premise problem with the book. A short volume of important original sources must be long if it contains all of the work. While the editors did a commendable job at editing the sources, yet the central tenants of each work remain intact. I therefore would caution those who might think that a work contained in this volume is the full text rather and a highly abridged version, abet done with impeccable precision and intent.This book was provided to me free of charge from Westminster John Knox Publishing in exchange for an unbiased, honest review.Readings in the History of Christian Theology (Vol. 1) Revised Edition© 2015Publisher: Westminster John Knox PublishingPage Count: 220 PagesISBN: 978-0664239336

Good test. Really helped in the class.