Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 04:12 (Aug 2000)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

By The Members And Friends Of The
Conservative Theological Society
Mal O. Couch, General Editor

The Collected Writings of W.E. Vine 5 Volumes, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1996, Approx. 2250 pp., cloth, $124.99

All Bible teachers are aware of Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, but few knew how much this man did in other areas of biblical instruction. This set is a pleasant and unexpected surprise from an English scholar that many of us have admired over the years. As well, certainly in America, few realized that Vine was a believer in the premillennial rapture of the church, the coming tribulation, and the literal return of Christ to establish the earthly millennial reign.

F.F. Bruce who writes the introduction to these volumes, reluctantly had to admit the above facts about Vine’s eschatological views. He says that Vine was a modified dispensationalist, but in my perusal of these pages, I could not find the modified part of Vine’s dispensational theology. He interprets the entire Bible right-on with a normal and consistent hermeneutic, that comes up with the prophetic doctrines I just listed. Especially in England, Vine certainly had his enemies who were against his views on prophecy. But since he wrote of the return of the Jews to the Land and the re-gathering of the Jews years before that event really began to took place, his amillennial opponents had to think twice when Israel began to be formed as a nation right after World War II.

William Edwy Vine (1873–1949) was born at the time when Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D.L. Moody, and F.B. Meyer were enjoying popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Vine was brought up in a boarding school where his father was headmaster. This background peaked his interest in learning and intellectual matters. At the age of seventeen, even before college, he started to teach at his father’s school. Attending the University College of Wales and eventually London University, he received his M.A. in classics. While courting Phoebe Baxendale, which went on for several years, his reputation as a clear Bible expositor began to grow. Finally marrying, the couple had five children. There union was considered a marriage made in heaven! Continuing as an instructor at the private school even after his father’s death, he began to teach New Testament Greek grammar and write commentaries and dictionaries, both of which are considered today as classics.

Having a heart for missions, Vine became involved in a monthly magazine called “Echoes of Service” that he edited for missionaries and small

independent churches unt...

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