Learning About the Old Testament, A Biblical Theological Introduction, by Allan Harman, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 137 pages, £5.50. This book aims to describe, in brief compass, some of the main features of the Old Testament, and discusses them in terms of the developing revelation that God has given to mankind. Among other matters, the author focuses on God’s covenants – in particular with Noah, Abraham and the Children of Israel – and also on kings and prophets, and the promise of the Messiah.
There is much here that is helpful. The book shows something of the structure of the Old Testament and some of the ways in which the Lord was giving increasing light on His purposes and especially His purpose of sending a Saviour into the world, through whom there could be deliverance from sin and its consequences. For instance, “Isaiah describes very fully . . . the role of the special servant whom God would anoint as His Messiah”.
It is, however, very disappointing to find uncertainty, at least, about the length of the Creation days and doubt about the extent of the Flood. The author’s advice on Bible versions is also unsatisfactory.
13An example of this is in the sketch of Andrew Bonar. A recent historian, Crawford Gribben, has asserted that Bonar’s Pre-millennialism involved him changing his position on the Pope being the Antichrist and making an overt attack on the teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith. (See Crawford Gribben, “Andrew Bonar and the Scottish Presbyterian Millennium” in Crawford Gribben and Timothy C F Stunt, Prisoners of Hope? Aspects of Evangelical Millennialism in Britain and Ireland 1800-1880, Milton Keynes, 2004, pp 196-200). Gribben makes this assertion on the basis of a book Bonar is said to have written entitled, The Development of the Antichrist. The volume has been reprinted in recent years by the Sovereign Grace Advent Testimony Movement, who state plainly that the author of the book is Andrew A Bonar, the biographer of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. Iain Murray points out quite rightly in an endnote (note 15, p 246) that this is incorrect, as are the assertions regarding Bonar that Gribben has based on the book. The author of the volume in question was not Andrew A Bonar but Andrew Bonar Esq, a layman from Leamington.