Leon Morris on Apocalyptic

The following book is now available on-line in PDF:

Leon Morris, Apocalyptic, 2nd edn. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans / Leicester: IVP, 1973. Pbk. ISBN: 0851113125. pp.128.

Thanks to the kind permission of the Leon & Mildred Morris Foundation I am pleased to be able to rescue this helpful little book from obscurity and make it available to a new generation of students. As Leon Morris writes in his preface:

This little book is not meant to be a profound or original contribution to a difficult subject. It is written out of two convictions: the one, that apocalyptic is an important part of the background of the New Testament, the other, that it is not well understood by the average student. Indeed, I fear that the average student would be hard put to it to give more than one or two characteristics of this kind of literature. I have written accordingly to help him get the picture. Recog­nizing that experts in apocalyptic differ widely among them­selves and that there are many points of uncertainty, I have tried to show what are the generally held opinions and what are the controverted areas. This then is simply an intro­duction to a very important but little understood part of the background of the New Testament.

Charlie (C.F.D.) Moule dies at age 98

I was saddened to read today in The Telegraph of the death of the Reverend Professor C.F.D. Moule. I correspondended briefly with Prof. Moule last year after contacting for permission to use his Ethel M. Wood lecture, which is mentioned in Telegraph obituary:

Rev. Canon C.F.D. Moule, Man and Nature in the New Testament. Some Reflections on Biblical Ecology. The Ethel M. Wood Lecture delivered before the University of London on 9 March 1964. London: The Athlone Press, 1964. Pbk. pp.22.

I am sure that he would not mind me sharing the contents of his second letter of 7th July:

Dear Mr Bradshaw,

Thank you for your letter of 5 July and for taking the trouble to follow-up my remark. I that that of all my books there are 3 I would venture to think not to have been superseded and out-dated; but, on further reflection, I believe that two are in fact in print. (My uncertainty and vagueness are due to the fact that, at 97 1/2, I am severely restricted in movement and almost bereft of books, and so unable to check up on the facts; but perhaps you may have means of ascertaining details.)

(1) The Origin of Christology (C.U.P.,? 1977; out of print).

(2) The Birth of the New Testament, 3rd revised edition (A. & C. Black [or perhaps another publisher, A. & C. Black puvlished 1st & 2nd editions]), about 1981. In print.

(3) The Holy Spirit went out of print from its original publishers, but was re-issued about 4 or 5 years ago by other publishers, using, I think, simply photographic reproduction.

If any of this is worth following up, I hope you might find the information, one way or another; and perhaps you will kindly let me know any proposal you may have.

Yours sincerely,

Charlie Moule

P.S. My concern for the Origin of Christology is that I am not aware of another book which assembles so much detail to refute the popular but (I believe) totally worthless theory that a ‘high’ Christology was reached by the enthusiastic exaggerations of imagination. I try to show that a ‘high’ Christology already existed in our earliest datable source, St. Paul, and is reflected also in sunsequent, but still early, sources.

In my reply, after speaking with his publishers, I was able to reassure Professor Moule that his books would be in-print for many years to come.

I feel privileged to have been able to exchange these brief letters with him.

Professor Moule’s article on the Holy Spirit is available on-line here:

C.F.D. Moule, “The Holy Spirit in the Scriptures,” Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Biblical and Theological Essays. London: SPCK, 1998. Hbk. ISBN: 0281051399. pp.119-131. = The Church Quarterly, 3 (1971), pp. 279-87.

A Visit to London’s Evangelical Library

Last Saturday I was able to spend the best part of the day at the Evangelical Library near Baker Street Station in London. Founded in the 1930’s by Geoffrey Williams the library holds over 80,000 books, plus numerous journals and periodicals. It was this collection of journals that prompted me to renew my membership after an interval of around 15 years and make the trip into the city centre.
I have to say that I was both impressed and slightly saddened by the experience. It was wonderful to be able to search through the journal room, buried deep within the library, which contains thousands of bound journal volumes, many dating from the 1800’s. The picture to the right and below left show the journal room. What saddened me was that such a great resource seems to be greatly under-used. Many of the recent journals I looked at seemed never to have been opened before. Like many Christian institutions the library appears to run on a shoe-string and does not have the resources to replace its ailing photocopier. Indeed the copies it produced were so poor that I bought a small scanner to work on my laptop computer and took that along. I am looking forward to spending another Saturday exploring the journal room later in the year. During the day I was able to scan quite a number of articles which will be appearing on-line in due course.
If you live within travelling distance of London I would highly recommend a visit. The library also offers a useful postal service for those who live further afield. Such resources deserve our support and should not be allowed to fall into disuse.