Barbara Pitkin has been a diligent scholar of John Calvin through her always perceptive writings. Now we greatly benefit from Pitkin's labors in this very helpful volume on Calvin's historicizing approach to scripture. This book is important because it examines Calvin's interpretation of the Bible through his “historicizing approach to scripture.” Pitkin's chapters explore “the varied ways that Calvin's sense of history past and present permeates and shapes his engagement with the biblical text” (2). Calvin interpreted various parts of scripture not only with a concern for scripture's historical context and meanings but also with a desire to interpret scripture faithfully in light of his understandings of the nature of history and what was a proper way to read and interpret the past.

Pitkin provides a rich picture of Calvin's exegetical activities and his working hermeneutic that took shape in an era when attitudes about the Bible as an historical source were in the process of making dramatic shifts. Pitkin notes that “heightened scrutiny of sources, debates, over university curricula and religious institutions, and an explosion of new information all contributed to a climate of interpretive chaos that absorbed the attention of many of Calvin's contemporaries—and of Calvin himself” (3). Medieval and late medieval Christian exegesis displayed a growing appreciation for scripture's grammatical, literal, or historical sense, which accorded well with the growing evangelical reforming movements of Calvin's time. Calvin's contact with scholars of the French school (mos gallicus) who wrote significantly about the disciplines of history (e.g., Calvin's law professor, Andrea Alciato) were beneficial in Calvin's early commentary on Seneca's De Clementia. This carried through as Calvin later wrote about Christian theology in his Institutes and polemically as he defended the work of reform in Geneva. All these dimensions were operative as Calvin, year in and year out, lectured on the Bible and preached numerous times a week through biblical books.

Pitkin does not see Calvin as a forerunner of modern historical biblical criticism but rather as occupying a “mediating position in this larger transformation of worldview” (5). Calvin was concerned with the historical sensibility of understanding the original contexts of scripture; but he also had a concurrently deep appreciation for what people in his own time and place needed to appropriate from the biblical message. This interplay of past and present was expressed in the ways Calvin interpreted the different biblical genres—narrative, prophecy, poetry, legal materials, and doctrinal teaching—as well as whether the biblical texts were Old Testament or New Testament. A varying configuration of the relation of past and present occurred for Calvin in relation to these factors. Sometimes, original historical context was of lesser usefulness (as in interpreting Daniel); sometimes, the space between the biblical past and present-day Geneva was nearly indiscernible (as in interpreting John's or Paul's theology).

Calvin's consciousness of history and his attempts to navigate biblical texts emerge in Calvin's interpretive work on distinctive biblical books, figures, or themes. Overall, “Calvin strove to uncover God's intention for his people in the remote past and across the ages” (223). Pitkin's masterful chapters illustrate the “multifaceted character and expansive impact of Calvin's sense of history on his reading of the Bible” (5–6). Calvin sought to relate the letter of scripture to spiritual meanings that would instruct and edify his readers as Christians in his contemporary context.

Pitkin takes us through a series of “case studies” that follow the chronological trajectories of the order in which Calvin's published works progressed. Thus, she moves from Calvin's works on Paul and John through his commentaries, lectures, and sermons on Old Testament materials: Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, the Mosaic Harmony, and Sermons on Second Samuel. We see Calvin working to interpret biblical texts as he seeks to relate original context and setting to the needs of his own age. Throughout, Calvin assumes “the sacred history related in scripture is connected to the present through God's providence” (223). There is a unity of sacred history to which scripture testifies and which is experienced in the lives of later believers. For Calvin, “the proper way to use the ‘sacred histories’ is to draw sound doctrine from them,” and this included instructing believers on how to live, strengthen their faith, and serve God (225). Only sacred history can do this—not “profane” history. Historical accounts in scripture set down and seal God's words through the instrumentality of writing.

Pitkin shows throughout her chapters how Calvin's exegetical contexts reflected his use of exegetical traditions as well as his intellectual milieu—particularly humanist scholarly trends—as well as his contemporary social, cultural, and political contexts. Pitkin notes distinctive features of Calvin's biblical exposition as: continuous exposition and lucid brevity; the mind of the author and the literal sense; the authority of Paul and the role of exegetical tradition; and the scopus and unity of scripture (see 6–30). In varying ways, these features continue to emerge.

What Pitkin uncovers in each chapter from Calvin's exegesis is a “nuanced insight into his understanding of the Bible as a historical document and source. For Calvin the Bible is the record of God's communications to his people, which he willed to have written down over time as the normative foundation for the teaching and collective life of future generations” (221). Scripture's “primary goal is not to offer an account of the past for its own sake, but rather to provide a selective record of God's dealing with humanity in the past so as to guide his people in the present” (221–222). A biblical interpreter must use “all available tools, including extrabiblical and even non-Christian ones, in order to understand the contexts of the biblical history” (222). Calvin used the image of the “mirror” to “encourage his readers and auditors to find illumination of their own situation in the biblical past” (223). Above all, Calvin's interpretations aimed “to console his readers and auditors that all history is in God's hands and ultimately meaningful” (226).