R.K. Harrison (editor), “Major Cities of the Biblical World”

This 1985 book includes as authors Peter Craigie, Edwin Yamauchi, and John Wilkinson. At least some of the entries (by city) are by believers; maybe they all are (Thomas Nelson publisher). An interesting approach:  Lots of secular history and archaeology, in addition to the Bible itself. There is much that corroborates the historicity of the … [Read more…]

William Griffin, “Clive Staples Lewis: A Dramatic Life”

This is a scene-by-scene/each-year-a-chapter biography by a Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Macmillan editor.  I wasn’t really ready for another Lewis biography, having just finished The Narnian (in February 2012, discussed elsewhere on this site), so I just read the introductory material and chapter 1 (“1925”) and then all that piqued my interest from the index entries.

C.S. Lewis, “Letters to an American Lady”

First of all, note that these are letters not to Joy Davidson, but to another American lady.  She’s a Southerner, older and frequently ill, which prompts Lewis to say that, though he has been critical of Britain’s welfare state, he likes the fact that everyone there has free healthcare — though he recognizes it means … [Read more…]

John Lawler, “C.S. Lewis: Memories and Reflections” (with a foreword by Walter Hooper)

As the title indicates, the book is divided between the author’s personal memories of Lewis (his teacher) and his own reflections on Lewis’s writing (more his fiction and academic writing than his apologetics).  He is a Lewis fan, but the trouble with the “reflections” (the “memories” are fine) is that they assume a just-read familiarity … [Read more…]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Life Together”

My favorite points from it:  Be thankful for our fellow Christians, that we are not physically alone in our faith.  Those psalms that we feel we should not pray for ourselves, we can pray through Christ (for example, the imprecatory psalms, or those claiming innocence).  Oetinger arranged psalms “according to the seven petitions of the … [Read more…]

Ravi Zacharias, “Jesus among Other Gods”

I found this book to be uneven:  Some parts seemed to me to be unpersuasive and/or insufficiently rigorous, but there were some good parts, too. The book doesn’t really critique other religions in great detail, but it does do so to a degree.  Page 190 n.5 is a good statement of Islam’s narrow origins and … [Read more…]