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Title: The New Chosen People by William W. Klein ISBN: 1-57910-573-4 Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers Pub. Date: July, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: A decent defense of corporate election.
Comment: As a serious Christian, I am strongly convinced that the doctrine of election is a very important and critical biblical concept. Desiring to understand how all the verses used by Calvinist's to support individual election could be interpreted to support a corporate model, I approached Mr. Klein's book with excitement and interest because I am very unfamiliar with the idea of corporate election, and would like to understand it more fully.

That being said, I believe that Mr. Klein's book is an adequate defense of corporate election. Klein established his argument in a straighforward manner by beginning in the Old Testament. He argues that corporate terminology and corporate language abound in the Old Testament. Furthermore, Klein advocates the position that Israel believed that they were chosen as a nation, and that an individual received the promises of God by being a member of Jewish the nation. Klein examines many applicable Old Testament passages to prove that corporate solidarity was the common mentality among the Old Covenant Palestinain Jews.

Once Klein finishes his examination of the Old Testament he briefly moves into Qumran and Rabbinic sources to show that they also adhered to a corporate mindset. After a brief survey of these sources, Mr. Klein delves into the main sources of his study and investigates the New Testament literature. He breaks up his study into convenient groups and scrutinizes each unit as a whole. His studies of the Synoptic gospels, the Johannine literature, the writings of Paul, and finally the remaining epistles are interesting.

The strength of the book resides in it's organization. Klein does an excellent job of organizing his texts into specific groups. Namely, verses that deal with election to a task, election to salvation, appointment of times, and God's call of individuals and nations. This is just a rough representation of how the texts are broken up, but it illustrates how the author went about arranging his texts. Each section provides commentary and exegesis on the relevant verses and there are plenty of verses to comment about. In his New Testamnet survey, Mr. Klein analyzes any verse where any significant elective them is discussed; Definitely a large and challenging job seeing as the New Testament abounds with such verses.

Nevertheless, this book does suffer from a few flaws. The fact that Klein opted for a rapid-fire proof texting approach, rather than a smaller and more considerate study, seriously detracts from this book. Instead of providing some detailed and insightful commentary on just a handful of key verses, the author chooses to provide sparse commentary on each applicable verse. This leaves the reader wanting for more exegesis because the corporate election concept isn't defended to the extent that it should be.

Likewise, Mr. Klein does not handle the traditional Calvinist proof-texts as well as he should have. His exegesis on Romans 9 is very unconvincing and way too brief. These are some of the most important verses that deal with the idea of election, and Klein just breezes by them without giving a through and solid argument for a corporate mode of election by arguing from the text. Furthermore, Klein's reading of Ephesians 1:3-4 is a very unnatural and awkard interpretation. I just don't see how one can argue for the position that Christ is the chosen one being described in the text. There are many other verses that are not treated fairly and considerately and this really subtracts from the book.

After finishing the book, I will admit that I became more familiar with the idea of corporate election, but I am far from convinced of it's validity. Although the book possesses excellent organization and some decent arguments, it fall short where it matters most. Mr. Klein attempts to convince you by throwing numerous examples at you, but when it comes to seriously wrestling with critical texts he falls way short. If this book provided a solid Arminian interpretation for Romans 9, John 6, and Ephesians 1 it would be much more convining. Unfortunately, The New Chosen People fails to do what it's title states; Although Klein argues for the corporate model, he does not thoroughly convince the reader that corporate election is the standard mode of election found within the Bible.