Religion

HUMANITIES 441 your cottage bookshelf for visitors to the lake this summer. Perhaps, even, it may lure you to consider a fishing trip to those famed salmon rivers the author knows so well. Ma-Kee: The Life and Death of a Muskellunge (McClelland & Stewart, pp. 206, $5.00), by David V. Reddick, is an account of the life history of this species of great fish seen as embodied in a single individual that lives in the Kawartha Lakes. There is a great deal of information in the book that will interest both fishermen and naturalists and there are exciting moments throughout. Nonetheless the author spoils his over-all effect by trying to cram too much detailed instruction into his pages. There are a number of stirring black and white illustrations by Geoffrey w. Goss. (R. M. SAUNDERS) RELIGION The Spirit"al History of Israel by J. Jocz (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode [Ryerson Press], 1961, pp. 260, $5.50) is a serious and interesting exposition of biblical theology, from the axiom that the Christian religion is based on revelation, that is, the experienced "hearing" of what God speaks, and that Christian theology is essentially interpretation of this rather than apologetic which starts from concepts and makes no distinction between living religion and correct theology. Dr. Jocz points to the contribution of the prophets as the core of the Old Testament; the function of the priests was subordinate, though not antagonistic: "the Law as now deposited in the Pentateuch is a prophetic document of the first order." This prophetic element is better preserved in Christianity than in Judaism; there is greater unity between the two testaments of the Christian Bible than between the Old Testament and the Rabbinic Literature! This is very fresh and stimulating, and one feels that Dr. Jocz is laying bare the inner logic of the Bible. In places, however, more precise definition and fuller documentation are needed if the argument is to have its full punch. The treatment of the symbolism of Tabernacle and Temple, for example, remains impressionistic rather than convincing. In dealing with the New Testament Dr. Jocz seems to be in too much of a hurry. The discussion of Kingdom and Church rather conspicuously lacks reference to the work of Dodd and Cullmann; and the "dialectic" of the Kingdom-as in history and beyond history, individualist and 442 LETTERS IN CANADA: 1963 social-is made to rest too much on the exegesis of Luke 17: 21. Again, the final chapter on the essential meaning of the goal of redemption is full of suggestion, but leaves the impression that mesmeric phrases ("the conjunctive now," "the dichotomy of history") are being substituted for solid argument. Stuart E. Rosenberg's More Loves Than One (Longmans Canada, pp. 190, $4.50) is sub-titled "The Bible confronts psychiatry." The subtitle is necessary here to prevent the title from conveying misleading suggestions. The book is an outspoke.n and very well-written exposition of the Jewish Bible (Mr. Rosenberg is the Rabbi of the Beth Tzedec Synagogue, Toronto). Love is not mere emotion or mere sexuality, nor does it throw off restraint; it is a "rational enterprise" and related to justice. Its vital role is that it frees us from obsession with self (Eigenwelt ) and makes us "persons-in·community" instead of mass·produced and faceless individuals. The Bible enables us to understand this experience of love as the love of God. "When we truly confront and encounter one another ... we will also find the divine in our own lives." This is not sentimentalism, but serious theology matched with concern for contemporary human problems. In Faith and History in the Old Testament (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press [Thomas Allen], pp. 119, $4.25), Fr. R. A. F. MacKenzie not only throws light on the interaction of faith and event in the experience of the Old Testament people. He sets Israel in its total context of the cultures of the ancient Near East, recognizing dependence and yet bringing out that understanding of her relationship to God which was distinctive of Israel: a God who not only gives but actually promises salvation; who is not simply the power behind natural forces, but a...