These three volumes, published by the Adventist Forum over eight years, tackle one of the core issues in Adventism: creation, and beyond that, how the Genesis 1‒11 origin narratives could, and should, be read in the context of our current “Gutenbergian” and post-Hubble worldview, now relying heavily on our literacy and understanding of scien…[Read more]

Matthew J. Korpman “holds four bachelor degrees in Theology, Archaeology, Philosophy, and Screenwriting” and “is currently pursuing his Master of Arts in Religion at Yale Divinity School” (back cover of the book). He is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church; his four B.A. degrees were all received from La Sierra University. He has “recent…[Read more]

Barry J. Beitzel is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Trinity Evangelical School in Deerfield, Illinois. He has a special interest in Near Eastern geography. He also has authored The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (Moody Press, 2009). The present work with its interest in geography falls into a similar category. This…[Read more]

The editors of the volume at hand – a professor of Old Testament exegesis and theology and a professor of theology and Christian philosophy both at Andrews University – undertook the job of editing fourteen papers written by twelve educators of the Theological Seminary of Andrews University into one volume as an answer to the challenge of Last Gen…[Read more]

Professor Mark Thomas of Oxford University, who is one of the editors of the series in which Tihomir Lazić’s book Towards an Adventist Version of Communio Ecclesiology: Remnant in Koinonia is published, has high praise for it: “The book is a groundbreaking and highly original piece of work that seeks to bring the distinctive ideas of Seve…[Read more]

Die Lektüre dieses Werkes1 hinterlässt im Rezensenten eine gewisse Ambiva-lenz. Auf der einen Seite liegt hier ein Beitrag zum Adventismus vor, an dem in künftigen Studien zur Thematik nicht vorbeigegangen werden wird: Zum ersten Mal wird hier aus einer Außenperspektive, aber mit dem tendenziell sympathischen Blick eines ethnographisch ges…[Read more]

The Subversive Sabbath, as the subtitle indicates, is mostly a semi-popular and pastorally written book which aims to suggest to readers the surprising power Sabbath observance can bring to busy 21st century Christians. “How is the Sabbath subversive?,” asks the author, and answers by effectively giving the gist of the book: “Sabbath is an alter…[Read more]

The author is a Baptist pastor with Italian roots and a well-known writer on both sides of the Atlantic in the realm of Christian spirituality. The book cover itself announces his success with the large heading “more than 500,000 sold,” raising both curiosity as well as concerned German eye brows wondering about the modesty of the author and…[Read more]

Editorial to Spes Christiana 31.2

The book of Revelation has always enjoyed great interest in Adventist circles and has often been the subject of detailed study. Many scholarly studies and articles on the theology of the last book of the Bible have been written, but thorough Adventist exegetical commentaries following the biblical text verse by verse are rather rare. The new…[Read more]

Tonstad was invited to write a 398-page commentary on Revelation in the Paideia Series on the New Testament is a further step in this development of SDA contributions. From the Foreword to this series we read that “the primary focus remains on the text and not its historical context or its interpretations in the secondary literature” (p. x). Tha…[Read more]

1919 is one of the significant dates in Seventh-day Adventist history. In this year, an important conference took place of the denomination’s leaders and theology and history teachers. However, the (incomplete) transcripts of the conference disappeared in the archives of the church’s headquarters and were not unearthed until the 1970s. Soon the…[Read more]

Die Frage, wie Adventisten sich gegenüber den Forderungen des Militär-dienstes verhalten sollen, wurde während der gesamten Geschichte der Sie-benten-Tags-Adventisten kontrovers diskutiert. Zwei wesentliche Ursachen können dafür benannt werden: 1. Einerseits existiert in den Vereinigten Staa-ten eine Berufsarmee, die nur im besonderen Krie…[Read more]

Nathan Brown’s book was written as a companion volume to a recent set of Sabbath School study guides (third quarter 2019). It is thus divided into thir-teen chapters each of about eight pages. As such, it is directed towards a popular readership within the church. The sequencing of the chapters is not particularly logical and not, one suspects, w…[Read more]

Editorial preface to Spes Christiana 31.1

Millions of Bible verses are shared on Twitter every year. This article examines the Bible on Twitter, by looking at Bible verse images produced by three organisations: Faithlife/Logos Bible Software, Dutch Bible Society, and Graceway. I examine the way these three organisations mediate the Bible on social media. The outputs of these companies…[Read more]

This study attempts to find and describe a leadership style for a church organization that matches the needs and expectations of the generation called “Millennials.” Lessons are drawn from the work-place where employing entities have had to adapt to the strengths, weaknesses, demands and expectations of a generation that carries particular cul…[Read more]

The article firstly deals with church authority in general and with the way this is understood and functions in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. All church authority is delegated authority, and the church’s authority is always subject to God and the revelation in his Word. The Adventist governmental structure has not always sufficiently r…[Read more]

To what extent can the Bible, the Christian message, and especially the ministers, as their public representatives, have an impact upon our post-modern society? As public role models of God’s pathos, some leading biblical prophets demonstrated a strong conviction nourished by the basic texts of Israel’s heritage. Consequently, they stood firm for…[Read more]

Adventist ethics is an evolving field that, thus far, has lacked comprehensive theoretical grounding. Publications in this academic area fall into six major categories that reflect the importance of the Bible, denominational tradition, and cultural contexts; however, meta-ethics of an Adventist kind is yet to be developed. Therefore, this article…[Read more]