Craig Keener has an interesting approach to the study of the Spirit in both the Gospels and Acts. Rather than doing a complete survey of Spirit in the Graeco-Roman world Keener confined his study to Jewish literature (Rabbinical and Qumramic). This focus was based on his belief that the Gospel writers were highly influenced by Jewish culture and literature. The church became a group that struggled with a concept of the Holy Spirit in a culture that believed the Spirit to be involved in purifying Israel and inspiring prophecy.

Keener began with the assumption that the concept of the Spirit in Judaism was not limited to ecstatic activity, as in other cultures, but prophecy. The canonization of the scriptures indicated the belief that the Spirit was no longer inspiring the leaders of Israel. The Spirit was also believed to be the purifying element that would unite and restore the kingdom of Israel.

Keener then explored three of the Gospels and flushed out this theme of purification and prophecy. In the Marcan account Jesus became the announcement of the kingdom as the church shared in His work, suffering, and miracles in baptism. The emphasis on the power and miracles of Jesus was the writer's attempt to validate early Christian preaching as prophetic and inspired. Matthew's account, following Q and Mark, added to Mark's thesis of the power of the Spirit. The Spirit was also shown as a prophetic agent in the gospel. This is indicated during the revelation at John's baptism, the sending out and authority of the apostles, Jesus as the servant (Matt. 12:17-21), and opposition as blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Keener wrote that the Spirit defined Jesus' mission as God's servant illustrating the prophetic role of the Spirit.

Keener believed that John's focus was the Spirit of purification. The comparison between water and Spirit was examined in the "dialogue with Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, beggar at Bethesda, the blind man washing in the pool, and the feast of Succoth (7:37). True spiritual purification came by the spirit-one who encountered and came to know Jesus. John also indicated that Jesus was the "better purifier" in the stories of the water to wine and living water of Jacob's well.

He also discussed the Spirit in Luke's Pentecost account (Acts 1-2). Keener wrote that the Pentecost event (baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues) was a manifestation of the Spirit's prophetic role in Jewish thought. The differences in Joel 4:1 [MT] (after those days) and Acts 2:17 (in the last days) indicate that the Spirit in Acts came to inspire the church to fulfill their prophetic role. The sharing of material possessions among the Christians and communal lifestyle also indicated that the church was the restored community of Israel. This theme was carried throughout Acts as seen in the preaching of the Christian leaders.

Keener concluded that the Spirit was seen by the Gospel writers as inspiring the church prophetically. This characteristic is evident in the polemic and apologetic character of early Christian preaching. The church was called to share in the suffering of Jesus indicating a "pneumatic experience in the shadow of the cross." The writers also saw the Spirit as a purifier in the church, a Jewish community in crisis. The "True Spirit of God points to Jesus."

I feel that this book is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to study the Gospels, the Spirit, and/or early Christology. I also believe that this book can be read on three levels. First, an initial reading gives one a new or deeper perspective on prophecy, pneumatology, and early church preaching. This is a great introduction for one preaching on the Gospels or Acts. A second reading and study could involve tracing Jewish pneumatology and Old Testament theology to gain a better understanding in teaching the prophetic books with the Gospels. A third reading could involve researching the Rabbinical and Qumram texts in order to do deeper scholarly work. I think that this book is a handy reference, commentary, and historical book for Biblical studies. It has tremendous value for the student, preacher, and scholar. It also speaks to those in the Stone-Campbell Movement-one that has traditionally focused on "inspiration issues" in Christological and Pneumatic studies.

The weaknesses of this book are minor. I noticed that Keener places a tremendous amount of focus on the Rabbinical writings. There is much dispute about the validity, integrity, and date of many of these texts but I think that more research in this area will add to this book. I would also have liked to see Keener develop more of Luke's theology in that Gospel as well as the missionary journeys of Acts.

Keener does an excellent comparison of the view of the Holy Spirit in Judaism, Rabbinics, and the early church. He begins by overviewing the view of the Spirit's work in Rabbinical literature. The literature indicates that the spirit had two functions: purification and prophetic (inspiration). He then approaches three of the Gospels (Matt., Mark, and John) and Acts with the two distinct functions. The role of the Holy Spirit in the Gospels was to indicate that Jesus was the purifier of the Jewish faith and the inspired word of God.

A more detailed review can be read in the Stone-Campbell Journal's upcoming issue.

Ron Clark

The author's step-by-step explanations are great, and the issue coverage superb. The CD-Rom was a disappointment, however, as it contains simply the book text and graphics; I expected sample, working spreadsheets like that found in Benninga's Financial Modeling book. Despite the shortcoming, Holden's book is worth the money.

This is NOT a handy book of spreadsheet templates for use in finance. It IS a book to TEACH you about building spreadsheets for use in finance. The author has built dozens of very useful spreadsheets that he gives you step-by-step instructions on building and WHAT the step is about.

If you build all of the spreadsheets in the book you will gain a great deal of understanding about the subjects covered in the book and will be miles ahead of the calculator-based approach typical in today's classrooms. No professionals use calculators to figure duration or convexity or optimal portfolios, why should you? This is a very needed book and a nice approach to the subject.

I like this version of the book MUCH better than the Fundamentals version. But that is my preference; pick the book that is right for you. They are both very good. I intend to get more in the series.

the book looks pretty good but i was wondering what heppened with the CD that comes with the book, if anyone knows please let me know

This workbook is truly the strongest complement to the classroom. It allows the student to flesh out the theoretical concept while building an important skill set for anyone who wants a career in finance. A wise investment...looking forward to the new titles coming out in the fall!

This book has everthing you would want to know about every ballpark or stadium. This book has the history and pictures of each ballpark.

One of the best books on baseball ball parks anywhere containing the great Mack and Amadee cartoons. Unfortunately, this book is outdated and out of print and a new version of this book is sorely needed. If you can get a copy of this at a used book store, by all means pick this one up. It is a great history book and for all baseball lovers,

Most anthologies are inconsistent, as the quality of the various contributions varies from author to author. "Talking Leaves" is, unfortunately, no exception. While editor Craig Lesley's decision to introduce several new (sometimes unpublished) writers is commendable, there are a few rather mediocre stories or vignettes. Also, I noticed a tendency on the part of Oregon-resident Lesley to slightly favor writers from Pacific Northwest nations. Nonetheless, I would say the vast majority of the contributions are very good, if not excellent, and the variety of styles and apects of Native American life/history it contains is very impressive. The excerpts taken out of novels, something I usually dislike, are fairly good and function well as short stories (i.e. from N. Scott Momaday's "Ancient Child" and James Welch's "Fools Crow"), even though it's still obvious that they are taken from larger works. By far the best contribution is "Aunt Moon's Young Man" by Linda Hogan. The longest story in the book, it is beautifully written and absorbing - I had the impression I had just finished a novel after reading it. Thomas King's "A Seat in the Garden" is also one of the better contributions, and absolutely hilarious. In fact, a nice aspect that comes out of many of the stories is the dry humor or humorous themes, from a white revival preacher's attempt to get a very relectant Indian family to pray with him to an elderly woman's dilemmas with a cheap, noisy new refrigerator. "Talking Leaves" is a good introduction to Native American literature, although it was published almost a decade ago, so it does not include some of the younger writers who emerged in the past few years (most notably Sherman Alexie).

This book was awesome! It was the most enchanting short stories I have ever read. It was marvelous.

My three and four year olds love this story about the night time adventure of one forgotten teddy bear. It has just the right amount of tension, (provided in the form of an owl swooping down to take the teddy bear on an unexpected ride), and resolution (the bear is rescued by a stranger, taken home and then brought back to the park). Getting left behind in the park is something these little ones can easily relate to, and I appreciated both the illustrations and the sweet rhymes that move the story along (without nonsense words). One of their favorites.

We first borrowed this book from the library. My son wanted it read again and again and refused to let me return it to the library. Therefore I have had to buy it for him as it really is his favourite book. He really feels for the bear left alone in the park and it is just scary enough both in text and pictures. The bear is worried,hopeful,brave,scared,assertive,patient, sorrowful,happy,tired and loved all in 24 wonderfully illustrated pages. There is an element of adventure that is present in this book and the other two titles - This is the Bear and This is the Bear and the Picnic Lunch. I would thoroughly recommend all three.

This was a fairly good basic intro book for the issues of God/time and God's knowledge/future contingents. While this issue is usually discussed in philosophical journals and in books which cost an arm and a leg to purchase, Craig has brought the issue to the lay persons and scholars alike.

Before I review this book, it must be noted that I disagree with Craig's position. However, I think that Craig has done a noble job in defending his position, and I respect him for that. If I was able, I would have given Craig's book three and a half (3 1/2) stars for my own disagreements with Craig's overall assertions and some of the misunderstanding Craig had regarding certain philosopher's and their assertions (i.e. Aquinas being one which was mentioned below).

Craig's position in this book is that God is temporal (or omnitemporal) due to relations which occurred with the created universe (relations which were not present w/o creation). Craig argues his point based on several elements. First, Craig believes that God cannot remain untouched by the created order's temporality. In other words, according to Craig, God comes into (so to speak) new relations which were not present without the created universe. Second, Craig believes that once time begins at the moment of creation, God becomes temporal by virtue of His real relation to the temporal world. Third, thus God, at least, according to Craig, undergoes some type of extrinsic change due to this new real relation with the created world. These are Craig's underlying assertions regarding God and time.

Also, in this book, Craig rejects Einstein's interpretation of the Special Theory of Relativity (STR). Note, I did not say that Craig denies STR, rather he agrees with the Lorenzian interpretation of the theory over and against Einstein's interpretation. You can read why Craig believes this, since he details it in several chapters of this work.

I believe Craig's overall assessment of the issues is misdirected and wrong in several areas. First, He univocally predicates to God relations which occur between one human and another. This predication occurs via God's new relations with the universe. However, if God is a necessary being (which I think Craig would agree that God is), then any properties predicated of that Being must be predicated necessarily. However, if God is omnitemporal (as Craig asserts) then these properties must be predicated necessarily. By Craig's univocal predication, he does not predicate of God necessarily as he should. This is so because Craig declares that God "changes" from a being who is eternal to a being who is omnitemporal. This is, via Craig's view, an ontological change in God's nature and this is, I believe, metaphysically impossible. Either God is necessarily eternal or God is necessarily omnitemporal. He cannot move from one state to the other and remain a necessary being.

Another problem I had with this book was Craig's misunderstanding of Thomas Aquinas' assertions about God and real relations. In chapter three (3), "Divine Temporality," part II. "Divine Relations With the World," Craig asserts, "Thomas [Aquinas] escapes the conclusion that God is therefore temporal by denying that God stands in any real relation to the world." This could not be more inaccurate and wrong. Aquinas does not deny that God stands in any real relation to the world. In fact, Aquinas declares just the opposite. Aquinas asserted three types of relations: one where both terms are ideas, one where both terms are real, and one where one is real and one idea. That which is created, according to Aquinas, is really dependent upon God, but God is not really dependent upon the created. Thus, they are related as real to an idea. God knows about the relationship of dependence but He does not actually have it. The relationship between God and the world is very real, but God is not dependent in that relationship. In other words, Aquinas is only denying dependent relations between God and the world, not all real ones. Aquinas treats this issue in the Summa Theologiae, 1a. 13, 7, ad. 2. (Also, for an easy explanation of this issue see Norman Geisler's book titled "Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal" I briefly summarized this position based upon those two works).

Overall, Craig's book is pretty good, but it is wrought with several problems. I appreciate Craig's work to bring this issue to the non-philosopher, so to speak, but I would recommend reading Craig's book in light of Brian Leftow's book titled "Time and Eternity," and Paul Helm's work titled "Eternal God." Both of these books are available here at Amazon.com.

This book is actually a condensation of four of Craig's technical works: Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity; God, Time, and Eternity; The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination; and The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. As a result, some of the issues in this book may remain difficult to those new to the subject, especially the treatments of the Special Theory of Relativity, tensed facts, and the extent of the present. Nevertheless, Craig explains these about as well as could be done in the space available.
The book is divided into five sections. First, he considers arguments in favor of God's being timeless, focusing on those originating from divine simplicity and immutability, relativity, and the incompleteness of temporal life. He concludes that only the last holds any weight. Thomists are likely to find Craig's rather brief dismissal of simplicity and immutability frustrating (W. Norris Clarke has argued that immutability is the best argument in favor of timelessness), but Craig's point remains that we have even less reason to think that God is simple or immutable than we do to think he is timeless.
Section two considers arguments in favor of divine temporality: the impossibility of atemporal personhood, divine relations with the world, and divine knowledge of tensed facts. He rejects the first, but considers the other two to be powerful arguments in favor of God's being temporal.
However, the defender of timelessness still has a way out if he adopts the static theory of time. Thus, Craig devotes the next to sections to the nature of time. In arguments for and against the dynamic conception, he considers the ineliminability of tense from language and our experience of tense. Arguments against include McTaggart's Paradox and the so-called myth of passage. Section four is arguments for and against the static conception: relativity theory, the mind-dependence of becoming, spatializing time, the illusion of becoming, the problem of intrinsic change, and creation out of nothing. Craig concludes that the dynamic conception of time is superior, and thus, God is temporal.
However, this leaves unresolved the question of whether God is temporal without creation. Thus, section five considers arguments for and against the infinitude of the past. Craig makes a very strong case for the finitude of the past. But if time began, how can God be temporal if he never began to exist? There are two options: the first, which Craig argues against, is that temporally before creation, there was an undifferentiated moment, a now with no temporal metric, which was followed by our time with its metric. God existed in this primal before, and now is in our time just like us. The other option is accidental temporalism, the position that God is timeless without creation and temporal with creation. This must not be construed to be saying that God has two phases, a timeless and a temporal, one being temporally before the other. Rather, they are not temporally related to each other at all. Craig gives the analogy of the Big Bang singularity not being before time, but lying on the boundary of time. God's timeless existence may have been something like that.
This is an excellent book, being both thorough and persuasive. Any defender of divine timelessness must attempt to answer Craig's detailed arguments against their position.
In response to the previous reviewer, it must be pointed out that his argument is clearly ridiculous. By no means must we predicate all of God's properties necessarily. This leads to all sorts of obviously false conclusions. For example, God possesses the property of knowing that I will read a book after finishing this review. But if we must predicate that property to God necessarily, then I have no free will. God's necessarily, rather than contingently, knowing that fact requires that I not have the ability to not read that book. If I am free, then God knows that fact contingently. But if he knows it of necessity, then I am not free. Worse, such a position removes God's freedom as well. For example, God possesses the property of being the creator of this universe. But if he possesses it necessarily, then he couldn't have chosen not to create, or to have created a different universe. It is completely theologically unacceptable to say that God could not have created a universe that lacked, say, Pluto, or Alpha Centauri, rather than ours. Thus, if all of God's properties must be predicated necessarily, then that constitutes good grounds for thinking that the concept of God is incoherent. This is not to say that God is not a necessary being. Of couse God is. But being necessary means that God could not fail to exist. In other words, God exists in all possible worlds. But since God is free, he must possess some properties contingently, since there are innumerable possible worlds he could have created.
In conclusion, Craig's position has yet to be refuted. Accidental temporalism wins the day!

"A farcical literary romp which redefines the homoerotic thriller genre."

"Pattillo redefines Christmas literature with his gripping first novel, then blew me away with his emotional story of American pop culture."

This book examines and coveys the creation tales of the Watunna tribe located in tropical rain forest of Venezuela as collected over 15 years by the author. The stories and the descriptions of the story weavers are spell binding. One of the more interesting books I have ever read! See if you can find the connections and similarities between the creation stories of your people and the Watunna!

WATUNNA : An Orinoco Creation Cycle, by Marc de Civrieux, edited and translated from the Spanish by David M. Guss. 195 pp. North point Press, 1980.

I first learned of this book from a review by John Updike, 'Happy on Nono despite Odosha,' which was reprinted in his 'Hugging the Shore' (Penguin Books, 1983, pp.669-75). Normally I don't read much anthropology, and have no particular interest in myths, but Updike's was such an excellent review and got me so excited about this book that I decided to get a copy. It turned out to be the most fascinating compilation of myth I've ever run into, and one with a significant difference.

Rather than being recast in the scholarly prose of your standard anthropologist, the Watunna Creation stories are given to us as they issued from the mouths of the Makiritare themselves, a tribe which lives in the mountainous regions of the upper Orinoco in Southern Venezuela. They were pieced together by French ethnographer, Marc Civrieux, who spent over twenty years visiting the villages of the Makiritare and listening to their vivid and moving myths of the world's creation, and the role their tribe played tribe within it.

The word 'myth' is, of course, a convenient catch-all. In fact it explains nothing. All it does is serve to excuse us from further thought, as does the word 'instinct,' a word which really refers to a kind of intelligence that we do not understand at all. But if even a tiny fraction of what the Makiritare are saying is true - if in fact these stories are not myth, but, as they themselves firmly believe, real history - it would indicate a knowledge of human history that reaches back in time for tens and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years.

But whether 'myth' or 'history,' the Watunna stories are fascinating, and they have been beautifully rendered into English by David M. Guss. Here are a few lines from the opening of the book:

"There was Kahuna, the Sky Place. The Kahuhana lived there just like now. They're good, wise people. And they were in the beginning too. They never died. There was no sickness, no evil, no war. The whole world was Sky. No one worked. No one looked for food. Food was always there, ready. // There were no animals, no demons, no clouds, no winds. In the highest sky was Wanadi, just like now. He gave his light to the people. . . ." (page 21).

Besides a Translator's Preface, and a 19-page Introduction on the history of the Makiritare and the nature of their Watunna, which in its highest form is communicated from the spirit world in a secret language, and is heard only by initiates while in trance, the book also contains a section of eight interesting photographs of the Makiritare people, a detailed 20-page glossary, and two maps. The book, as is customary with North Point Press, is well-printed on excellent paper, stitched, and bound in a glossy wrapper.

If you're looking for something both different and utterly compelling, and if I haven't succeeded in convincing you, check out John Updike's review, because I'm pretty sure he will. He certainly convinced me, and he was right!

A little over six years ago I started to experience as series of very disturbing "interruptions" in a life that I thought had progressed nicely up until that point. Little did I know that M. Craig Barnes had just published a book that would help me greatly in making some sense of it all. I'm glad to have found it.

Any Christian who has suffered a huge interruption in the life that he or she has expected to live will benefit from this book. Like it or not, most of us will be abandoned by many things we value in this life. Even the best things we have our only ours for a time. We stand to lose our material wealth, our health, our livelihood, people we love, and finally our very lives as such. Dealing with this grim reality requires a choice of perspective. We can devote our life's energies to trying to preserve our lives as we want, or hope, them to be. The fear of losing our self-made lives will rule our lives. Inevitably, loss will come. How will you take that loss? If the meaning you find in your life depends on your ability to keep it the way you want it, then the loss may come pretty hard. Alternatively, M. Craig Barnes presents a perspective based on Bible lessons and people's stories which can help us to see and appreciate the sum of our lives as an unearned gift from God.

Gaining this perspective requires a conversion process that goes beyond mental assent to certain doctrines or simple belief. It is when we are abandoned by things we hold most dear that the test of faith comes. Is it real, or is it mostly dependent on our having our lives the way we want them to be? Most of us will have more than one opportunity in our lives to find out. The good news is that, even if we can't have the life we wanted, God can show us a way to want the life we have. Sounds risky (and it is). But, no matter how much we have in this life, we will lose it all some day. Learning how not to worry about losing what we think we depend upon for our peace and security could be a long, uncomfortable process. But if being so focused on "saving" the kind of life we want is making us blind and ignorant to the better kind of life that God wants for us, then it is a risk worth taking. This is not to say that it's good to throw the nice things we have in life away. But I would like to be the kind of person who can lose those things when the time comes without too much regret and also use them (while I have them) to bless others in God's name. This can only happen if I truly believe that my life is the product not of my own will and struggle, but of an intimate and everlasting relationship with God.

This book is a good elaboration on what Jesus means by losing our life when we try to save it and finding it when we lose it for His sake (Matt. 16:25) and what it means to find the pearl of great value (Matt. 13:45). As Barnes says at the end of his book, "People who have a God do not need to become one". This book will help you break the habit of trying to be your own life's savior and enjoy letting God do that for you. If you read this book and want more, I would also recommend Philip Yancey's books "Disappointment With God" and "Reaching for the Invisible God". But don't pass this one up for those. I read this after Yancey's books and gained many valuable insights.

Several years ago as I was in the midst of meticulously charting the expected course of a job change, a wise friend told me: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." "When God Interrupts" by M. Craig Barnes, pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., is the book to turn to in those disquieting moments when it becomes clear the plans we have made -- perhaps staked our futures upon -- have become finally so much dust. In accessible and at times deeply-moving prose it helps the sympathetic reader get beyond the question "Why me, Lord?" that inevitably accompanies such disappointment to a deeper understanding of what it means to worship a God whose ineffable grace is often to refuse us what we insist we want most.

"When God Interrupts" is book of hard contemporary wisdom set firmly within the Christian tradition. It is only secondarily a work of inspiration, although it contains passages that will invariably draws tears of recognition, and it will bring absolutely no comfort to those used to browsing the self-help literature for answers to their problems. It is a book for those who may have labored for years under the illusion that they have somehow taken the measure of God, at last understood His will, and are now ready to accept His reward for all their faith and righteousness. God's silence at the other end of this "deal" can be overwhelming, but for Barnes such moments, and he refers to them here and in other contexts as abandonments, are an invitation, a challenge to finally give to God what He wants most from us: ourselves.

One quotation is sufficient to catch the thrust of the book:

"When we are abandoned by the things we value, when we discover that no matter how much we have gathered we do not have enough, when we realize that even in the currency we value we are very poor, we are ready to start talking to God. Not before. Faith means betting our lives on the grace of God. (page 75)"

This is a book in the tradition of Peter Kreeft's "Making Sense of Suffering" but one that gets substantially closer to the felt experience of living a loss and the painful journey back to a God we may feel -- and perhaps have great justification for feeling -- chose to challenge us where we are most vulnerable and then disappear. Barnes's himself recognizes that these are journeys we may not wish to take, likening us on one occasion to Christ's disciples soundly sleeping through His agony in the Garden of Gethsemani, but once the journey is undertaken, it can, will, must lead to new life. God asks of us everything that we have, and more to the point, all that we are, but in the end He leaves us, and Barnes is entirely convincing on this point, with "a purer form of ourselves(page 157)."