Book Review -- By: Anonymous
Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 17:4 (Fall 1974)
Article: Book Review
Author: Anonymous
JETS 17:4 (Fall 1974) p. 243
Book Review
Prophetic Problems, with Alternate Solutions. By Clarence E. Mason, Jr., Chicago: Moody Press, 1973. Pp. 251 and Scripture index. $4.95. By J. Barton Payne, Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
Among the conflicting claims of today’s prophetic interpreters, the need is obvious for a volume that fulfills the promise held out in the above title: of bringing into focus major problem areas and of weighing, with judiciousness, the merits of major alternative approaches to them. After almost half a century as Professor of Bible Exposition at the Philadelphia College of Bible, Dr. Mason is certainly qualified. His opening admonition, “Never be afraid to change,” and his testimony about “many changed positions from what I was taught” (p. 8), encourage further optimism. His subsequent insights—for example, on the importance of distinguishing fulfilled prophecies from those yet to be fulfilled (p. 204), on the indistinguishability of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God (103) and of the day of Christ, of God, and of the Lord (p. 147), and on Revelation 1–11’s reiteration in chapters 12–22 (233)—all suggest an awareness of Biblical options that could benefit the entire evangelical community.
But such potential remains unrealized. For though “the writer is a great believer in free discussion [ this must be] among those of the premillennial dispensational viewpoint” (143). Dogmatic affirmations, without a hint of alternative possibilities, begin with such broad matters as insistance upon double fulfillment (the “virgin” in Isa. 7:14 is both Isaiah’s first wife and Mary the mother of Jesus, p. 50), millennialism (12), the postponed kingdom (89) with a parenthesis church unforeseen in the OT (79, 97, 210), and an end-time 70th week of Daniel (= the tribulation, 135, 150, 179). They continue on down to such specific claims as these: that the sermon on the mount is not to the church but to millennial Jews (90, 92), that the times of the Gentiles begin with Nebuchadnezzar (16, 166), and that the beast out of the sea of Rev. 13:1–10 must mean “the revived Roman empire of the west” (170, 185, 218). All “non-dispensationalists” are automatically equated with those who deny the earthly kingdom and hold only to a spiritual rule (127). Even within the family of C. I. Scofield, Mason’s goal is not so much to present alternative solutions as to promote his own predilections: thus, to equate Egypt with the king of the south in Dan. 11:40 is “a colossal mi...
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