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Robert Musil is one of the least widely read of the great European modernist writers, yet his work occupies a distinctive place in twentieth-century intellectual culture. His fiction is neither conventionally religious nor militantly anti-religious. It explores the spiritual exhaustion of modern civilisation, the collapse of moral certainty, and the persistent human longing for transcendence …
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Anthony W. Bartlett’s Seven Stories: How to Study and Teach the Nonviolent Bible (third edition; n.p.: Hopetime Press, 2026) offers a bold reinterpretation of Jewish and Christian Scripture, bringing together historical-critical scholarship, literary sensitivity, and the anthropological insights of French semiotician René Girard. Bartlett claims that the Bible is a progressive revelation that exposes the deep structures …
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Sheona Beaumont, The Bible in Photography: Index, Icon, Tableau, Vision (London: T&T Clark, 2024). 227pp. ISBN 9780567706539 Reviewed by Dr Rod Benson Women grinding wheat at Ramallah, Palestine, early twentieth century. Photo: public domain. In this book, British academic Sheona Beaumont explores the photographic representation of biblical narrative through the lens of twentieth-century cultural criticism. …
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Justo González, The Bible in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022). 186pp + indexes. ISBN 9780802881748 Reviewed by Dr Rod Benson When Christians and people of other or no faith ask me questions about the Bible, they typically don’t ask why I regard the Bible as trustworthy, or why I shape my life on …
John Calvin, The Doctrine of Election (trans. from the French by Robert White; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2022). 224pp + indexes. ISBN 9781800402652 Reviewed by Dr Rod Benson The biblical doctrine of election is fraught with controversy. The reasons for this are not hard to discover: there is, firstly, an apparent tension between determinism …
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