The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiological Theology

October 12, 2011 by Jason Hood

Introducing SAET Reviews (and An Irish Face-off?)

While we have reviewed books in the past on our blog, we’re going to take a new step. Since a number of our SAET Fellows are writing or have written books, we thought it’d be useful to recruit scholars with relevant expertise to interact with SAET texts.

A word about our approach: we’re going to encourage an academic approach to reviews. This means several things, but it at least means (we hope) theological depth and healthy, critical interaction. (For readers not used to this approach: honest disagreement is a sign of respect, and not necessarily an indication that the respective parties are at odds.) Moreover, since we run a blog and not a publication, we can also process responses to reviews, if authors desire that opportunity.

First up is a new book on the preaching of wisdom by Douglas Sean O’Donnell, The Beginning and End of Wisdom: Preaching Christ from the First and Last Chapters of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job (Crossway, 2011).

O’Donnell is a member of the Second Fellowship and Senior Pastor at New Covenant Church in Naperville. He is the author of a number of current and forthcoming books, which you can find (along with a glam photo) at his Amazon page.

Our guest reviewer is Ryan Patrick O’Dowd. (Ironically, these men of impeccable Irish nomenclature share a conservative evangelical Reformed background.) O’Dowd is currently lecturing at Cornell University and is the co-author, with his former colleague and doctoral supervisor Craig Bartholomew, of Old Testament Wisdom Literature: A Theological Introduction (IVP, 2011). We’re grateful for O’Dowd’s thoughtful contribution as our “guinea pig” SAET reviewer.

The differences and agreements in their respective approaches in these texts should become clear in the two-part review that follows.

Categories: Book Reviews | General | Jason Hood