Book Reviews -- By: Matthew S. DeMoss

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 174:693 (Jan 2017)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Matthew S. DeMoss


Book Reviews

By The Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary

Matthew S. DeMoss

Editor

Dispensational Modernism. By B. M. Pietsch. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 272 pp. $74.00.

Pietsch serves as assistant professor of religious studies at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. This is the published version of his PhD dissertation submitted to Duke University in 2011.

Pietsch argues that early dispensational theology was “built upon modernist epistemic foundations. These foundations—what I call dispensational modernism—comprised a pervasive system of attitudes, assumptions, and methods that gave prophecy belief its meaning, traction, and popularity” (p. 2). This method “grew out of popular fascination with applying technological methods—such as quantification and classification—to the interpretation of texts and time” (ibid.). He distinguishes this dispensational hermeneutic from “simply literalism, proof-texting, or conservative retrenchments” (p. 4). Rather, dispensational Bible reading “required explicit use of method: the Bible must be interpreted to ‘unlock’ its true meaning. They held that authoritative biblical knowledge required years of specialized study, study that made use of engineering methods, such as classification, enumeration, cross-referencing, and taxonomic comparison of literary units” (ibid.). He concludes, “The result was a view of the Bible as an internally coherent whole, with a progressive unfolding of meaning, meaning that was located in elaborately coded systems of intertextual relationships, particularly numerical sequences, types and antitypes, literary analogical figures, theological themes, and other intentionally ordered systems” (ibid.).

Pietsch’s book unites exceptional historiography with a brilliant writing style. As one example, he summarizes his claim that dispensationalism is a product of the culture of the time: “The story of dispensationalism rightly begins in these contexts—not with grumpy Irish clerics, but with cookbooks and grocery barons and Sunday school literature. Social changes that invigorated technological modernity and the adoption of engineering values were not mere background to the story, but central sources of dispensational modernism. . . . Dispensationalism emerged out of the primeval waters of engineering and corporate values, amid social and religious transformations” (pp. 42-43). He makes a compelling case for these claims and shows how dispensationalism’s hermeneutical approach grew out of the world in which it was birthed.

One major contribution of this book is Pietsch’s argument that dispensationalism is not grounded in C...

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