The Prophet Joel

By Arno Clement Gaebelein

Foreword

Of all the prophetic writings the Book of Joel has, perhaps, suffered most at the hands of modern writers. The destructive critics assert that Joel wrote after the Babylonian captivity of Judah, and even after the reconstructive work of Ezra and Nehemiah. In Joel as in Daniel they confront the alternative, either of allowing the predictive and therefore supernatural character of the book as a Divine revelation of the future, or of finding a naturalistic interpretation which eliminates inspiration. If Joel wrote in the time of Joash, then, incontestably, he was inspired. But that, to quote Welhausen, "Would be to surrender our dearly bought scientific method." To preserve the "method" the unanimous voice of antiquity, of Jewish scholarship, and of the most cogent internal evidence, are ruthlessly set aside !

It is, therefore, matter for sincere gratitude that in our day a writer whose knowledge of the whole body of predictive truth, and its inter-relations, has taken up this great portion of the Word of God for sane, reverent and adequate treatment. Having had the privilege of reading the advance sheets of this book, I count it a privilege to commend it to believers everywhere, and an honor to be thus associated with its publication.

C. I. SCOFIELD.