THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST:
The End or the Beginning
By Mark Dunman
New Wine Press. 198 pages. £10.99
ISBN 978 1 905 991 310
Mark Dunman, a retired science teacher, has written this book to unfold the ‘Mystery of Christ’s Second Coming in language that most Christians can understand.’
He makes a very good point that too many Christians do not look clearly at this topic because there are so many differing views, yet it is an area the Bible deals with in some detail, so clearly it is important we do! In the book he focusses on the millennium of Revelation 19. This colours everything he says, sadly a little too much.
From the start, Dunman’s approach to Scripture is unhelpful. He describes it as a ‘literal’ view of Scripture, which assumes a literal understanding unless you really can’t take one. So, for instance, where apocalyptic literature is deliberately pictorial in its nature, he is always looking for a literal meaning and therefore runs into trouble.
Bold assumptions
He makes some bold assumptions that are plainly wrong. For instance, he says that the church is not mentioned in Revelation 4–19 despite, for instance, the reference to the great multitude in Revelation 6.9 from every tribe and nation. There are serious deficiencies in his view of Revelation, missing that John is to write down what ‘you have seen, what is now and what will be later’ (Revelation 1.19).
Speculation
The book is littered with speculation (which, to his credit, he does admit), but this only serves to further obscure the details of the Scriptures. Unfortunately, he also misrepresents unfairly views that are contrary to his, leaving an unsuspecting reader with a lopsided grasp of the topic being discussed.
He is clearly passionate about his subject, but there are far better treatments of it that both agree and disagree with his conclusions.
It is a subject we need to be clear on, but this book won’t help you.
