Saturday, July 10, 2010

Coming Soon from Baker Academic - Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume

So you've heard of the great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck but you've been a bit intimidated by his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics.  Well, I've got some good news for you.  Coming next April (It'll be here before you know it!) is a one-volume abridged edition.  Here's the catalog description:
"Herman Bavinck's four-volume Reformed Dogmatics is one of the most important theological works of the twentieth century. The recently completed English translation has received wide acclaim. Now John Bolt, one of the world's leading experts on Bavinck and editor of Bavinck's four-volume set, has abridged the work in one volume, offering students, pastors, and lay readers an accessible summary of Bavinck's masterwork. This volume presents the core of Bavinck's thought and offers explanatory materials, making available to a wider audience some of the finest Dutch Reformed theology ever written."
Here's what just a few have said about the four-volume edition:
"Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics has been the fountainhead of Reformed theology for the last hundred years. It is by far the most profound and comprehensive Reformed systematic theology of the twentieth century. The reader will be amazed by Bavinck's erudition, creativity, and balance. Bavinck is confessionally orthodox, but he recognizes the need to rethink the traditional formulations from Scripture in the context of contemporary discussion. I hope these volumes will have a large readership and will bring forth much theological and spiritual fruit."--John M. Frame, professor of systematic theology and philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary
"Bavinck's Dutch masterwork was the Everest of which the textbooks by Louis Berkhof and Auguste Leoerf were foothills and Berkouwer's studies in dogmatics were outliers. Like Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards, Bavinck was a man of giant mind, vast learning, ageless wisdom and great expository skill. Solid but lucid, demanding but satisfying, broad and deep and sharp and stabilizing, Bavinck's magisterial Reformed Dogmatics remains after a century the supreme achievement of its kind."--J. I. Packer, professor of theology, Regent College
"Arguably the most important systematic theology ever produced in the Reformed tradition. I have found it to be the most valuable. English-speaking theology throughout the 20th century until now has been singularly impoverished by not having at its disposal a translation of Bavinck's Dogmatiek in its entirety. The appearance of these volumes will be an incomparable boon for generations of students, pastors, teachers, and others, serving to deepen understanding and enrich reflection in both historical and systematic theology."--Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., professor of biblical and systematic theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
Now consider this:  The four-volume edition has 3,008 pages; the one-volume has 976.  The four-volume costs $179.99; the one volume $59.99.  Don't let anything else hold you back.  Throw that loose change in a jar marked "Bavinck" and come April you'll have enough for Bavinck and a burger.   

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) succeeded Abraham Kuyper as professor of systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1902.

John Bolt (PhD, University of St. Michael's College) is professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, where he has taught for over twenty years.