Friday, March 04, 2005

Review of Dunn Festschrift

Today's Church Times carries a short review (its books reviews are always too short) of the Festschrift for Jimmy Dunn:

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS: Essays in honour of James D. G. Dunn
By Graham N. Stanton, Bruce Longenecker, Stephen C. Barton (editors)

Review by Leslie Houlden

There is no list of contributors, though I suppose that one could get that from the publisher's website. The introduction to the review is good enough to quote:
IF any general readers find their way to this book, they will not find much in the way of lightheartedness. Only one example, in fact. In 1958, we learn, the late Ulrich Simon, then teaching at King’s College, London, was asked by a student, “Dr Simon, what is a Festschrift?” He was answered: “When you are old, and have lost all interest in your subject, they give you a book of essays about those things concerning which you no longer wish to know.”

Anyone acquainted with James Dunn, to whom this book of essays is given by friends, colleagues and admirers, to mark his recent retirement from his Durham chair, will not for a moment suspect that his interest in the study of the New Testament risks imminent decay.
One thought occurs to me about the book itself, which I have not yet seen. It is a book edited by three British (-based) scholars about another British scholar. Could they not get a British publisher for it?

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