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doi: 10.1017/S0009640708000711 John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation: Calvin's First Commentaries. By R. Ward Holder. Studies in the History of Christian Traditions CXXVII. Leiden: Brill, 2006. x + 318 pp. $125.00 cloth.
While no one would dispute that the credo "sola scriptum" underpinned much of sixteenth-century Protestant reformers' theology, modern scholars still have much to learn about how these reformers specifically approached, understood, and preached the Bible. R. Ward Holder's important new book, John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation, helps remedy the situation, offering a close and perceptive examination of Calvin's commentaries on the Pauline epistles. While these specific commentaries make up a relatively small portion of Calvin's biblical commentary, Holder argues convincingly that any study of Calvin's approach to Scripture must begin with his writings on the Pauline epistles (produced between 1540 and 1551) because Calvin directed his first efforts at biblical commentary toward these texts. Holder wants to establish the underlying "principles and rules" (11) that guided Calvin's work on the Pauline epistles, and makes the altogether reasonable point that if scholars wish to explore whether Calvin's approach to Scripture changed over time, we must first establish his initial methods. Toward that end, Holder calls upon...