A Couple of Book Purchases

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bookslover

Puritan Board Doctor
At a church library sale, I picked up a couple of interesting things:

1. A first edition (published in 1884) of George N. H. Peters's massive (3 volumes, 2,051 pages of text, 206 propositions) defense of non-dispensational premillennialism, The Theocratic Kingdom. As you know, Peters (1825-1909) was a Lutheran. I'm guessing that his magnum opus didn't win him many friends in the Lutheran world of his time, who were mainly amillennialists.

2. The Theology of St. Paul by Fernand (or Ferdinand) Prat. This is a 2-volume, 996-page description and defense of Paul's doctrine. Prat (1857-1938) was a French Jesuit, and the English translation (published in 1946) is of the 11th French edition (volume 1, 1926) and the 10th French edition (volume 2, 1927). The two volumes were originally published in 1908 and 1912, respectively. There are things we disagree with Roman Catholics about, of course, but this is, by all accounts, a classic set.

Both sets were cheap: only $15 for the Peters set, if memory serves. Hard to know which one to start with.
 
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A first edition (published in 1884) of George N. H. Peters's massive (3 volumes, 2,051 pages of text, 206 propositions) defense of non-dispensational premillennialism. As you know, Peters (1825-1909) was a Lutheran. I'm guessing that his magnum opus didn't win him many friends in the Lutheran world of his time, who were mainly amillennialists.
Were you aware that about October 9, 1909 he changed his view and became an optimistic Amillennialist? :p
 
I've started reading Volume 1 of the Prat set (originally published in 1908). Prat has no trouble going after all those 19th-century German liberals, with all their doubts about the authenticity of Scripture, etc. For example:

"All these weavers of theories plainly exceed the limit of their prerogatives. The role of theologians is not to substitute themselves for the Apostle, or to imagine what he ought to say, or what they would have said in his place, or to try to find out how he arrived at his conception of the supernatural world, supposing that he is moving in the domain of the unreal and the chimerical. If anything is certain, it is that Paul is neither an Hegelian nor a Kantian. We must take him as he is. He would not recognize himself in the reconstructions of his thought, which are as elaborate as they are arbitrary. What anathemas would he not have fulminated against these unworthy interpreters of his work, he who wrote to the Galatians: "The Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ"! (p. 35)

I'm only 38 pages in, but I'm enjoying it already.
 
At a church library sale, I picked up a couple of interesting things:

1. A first edition (published in 1884) of George N. H. Peters's massive (3 volumes, 2,051 pages of text, 206 propositions) defense of non-dispensational premillennialism, The Theocratic Kingdom. As you know, Peters (1825-1909) was a Lutheran. I'm guessing that his magnum opus didn't win him many friends in the Lutheran world of his time, who were mainly amillennialists.

2. The Theology of St. Paul by Fernand (or Ferdinand) Prat. This is a 2-volume, 996-page description and defense of Paul's doctrine. Prat (1857-1938) was a French Jesuit, and the English translation (published in 1946) is of the 11th French edition (volume 1, 1926) and the 10th French edition (volume 2, 1927). The two volumes were originally published in 1908 and 1912, respectively. There are things we disagree with Roman Catholics about, of course, but this is, by all accounts, a classic set.

Both sets were cheap: only $15 for the Peters set, if memory serves. Hard to know which one to start with.
I'm not familiar with the second book. But that's a nice find with Peters. It was more recently republished by Kregel but it appears to be out of print again, although it is available digitally, including Logos. (I have the Kregel set, but it is in storage!) You're quite right that it didn't win him any friends within Lutheranism.

It appears that you've been interested in this one for a while. https://puritanboard.com/threads/the-theocratic-kingdom.101319/

As noted in the previous thread, the description of this as "dispensational" is anachronistic and inaccurate, although dispensationalists have greatly appreciated this work. But anything more "robust" (especially regarding Israel) than the "historic" premil Ladd is erroneously deemed "dispensationalism" today.
 
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I've started reading Volume 1 of the Prat set (originally published in 1908). Prat has no trouble going after all those 19th-century German liberals, with all their doubts about the authenticity of Scripture, etc. For example:

"All these weavers of theories plainly exceed the limit of their prerogatives. The role of theologians is not to substitute themselves for the Apostle, or to imagine what he ought to say, or what they would have said in his place, or to try to find out how he arrived at his conception of the supernatural world, supposing that he is moving in the domain of the unreal and the chimerical. If anything is certain, it is that Paul is neither an Hegelian nor a Kantian. We must take him as he is. He would not recognize himself in the reconstructions of his thought, which are as elaborate as they are arbitrary. What anathemas would he not have fulminated against these unworthy interpreters of his work, he who wrote to the Galatians: "The Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ"! (p. 35)

I'm only 38 pages in, but I'm enjoying it already.
I like his tone. Hot fire!
 
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