Content area
Full Text
Matthew A. Elliott. Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006.301 pp. $19.99.
In this ambitious book, Matthew Elliott seeks to reorient the way we think about the relationship between emotion and the NT. In order to accomplish this goal, Elliott proceeds by assessing common psychological, social, and biblical assumptions about emotion. His analysis of these assumptions draws on material from various fields of scholarship, making his study refreshingly inter-disciplinary.
The first half of Elliott's book establishes the framework for the claims he makes in the second half. His first chapter reviews various theories of emotion and establishes a definition. He highlights the two main categories for theories of emotion: non-cognitive and cognitive. The non-cognitive theory of emotion, which has been the dominant theory for some time, sets reason at odds with emotion. Elliott, following recent research in psychology, sees the logical inconsistencies with this theory and adopts a definition in...