THE BIBLE Twice Denied falls into three parts. The first part begins with a sketch of Luther's interpretation of Paul. Paul's negative anthropology, man's helplessness: "I can will what is right but I cannot do it;" Paul's belief in demonic powers, "we fight not with flesh and blood but with the spiritual host of wickedness, the world rulers of this present darkness;" Paul's insistence that sin is not an act but an invasion, a condition of bondage, "it is no longer I that do it but the sin which dwells within me," or, as the Augsburg Confession defined it, "a disease of origin." Part one ends with the Council of Trent, the Catholic rebuttal to the Augsburg Confession. The response is stunning Luther's interpretation of Paul is confirmed as correct but irrelevant Yes, Paul saw sin as a condition, not an act, but the Curia never accepted Paul as authoritative. Final authority was not in the Bible, but in opinions prevailing in the church. This, the first denial of The Bible was beneficial. It strengthened the conviction of the Reformers. Even their opponents agreed, their view of Scripture was correct They could side with the prophets, "Thus saith the Lord " The second denial of The Bible was by adherents, not opponents. A Lutheran professor insisted that the negative anthropology of Paul, the view of man as helplessly invaded, was archaic and antiquated, had to be set aside. Scripture had to be rewritten. The language and the logic of this second denial were the same as at Trent. But, where Trent spurred the Reformers onward, demythologizing deflated them. The church lost its anchor. Scripture was not rewritten but rejected. The authority of the Bible abandoned. Treasured traditions were forfeit. Protestantism was adrift. The final third of the book begins by citing the damage done by demythologizing, but moves to offer a cure, a pathway to the restoration of the vigor of the original church. Parts of the book rise to the level of Pulitzer Prizewinning prose. Chapter Two, the confrontation of Luther and Tetzel, is dramatic. Chapter Six, Luther's condemnation at Worms, has never before been so touchingly told. The chapters outlining the optimistic anthropology prevailing both at Trent and during the second denial are classic. This book is "A Cure for the Continuing Collapse of Christian Influence," which is the primary problem of our time.

Chaos, not something that you often think of when you think about the Bible. Kallas takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of biblical theology that could "alter all that follows" in Biblical Studies. Kallas begins Biblical Chaos with this explosive paragraph: "The Gospel of John relentlessly and radically reverses the theology of Paul and the message of the synoptic Jesus. The Gospel of John is powerfully and persistently opposed to the basic worldview underlying those earlier New Testament writings. The New Testament is split asunder. The two halves are at odds with each other."

Kallas proceeds to take the reader through this morass to convincingly demonstrate that the New Testament is bipolar in which the earliest books (the Synoptic Gospels and the writings of Paul) exhibit a worldview, a definition of sin, and an understanding of the work of Jesus that is ruthlessly rejected by John and the later New Testament writings. While that assertion is in itself astounding, his conclusions are even more stunning. He contends that the diverse theological contents of the New Testament can only be correctly understood when a reader holds the opposites in tension that are contradictory. Choosing one specific view that is at odds with another specific view leaves one with no truth, while holding the opposites together provides one with accurate biblical truth.

This book was written as a protest against the demythologizing tendencies which characterize so much contemporary theology: it questions the assumption that the New Testament can be understood in terms other than its own. In particular the author is dissatisfied with the interpretation of the miracles that such theology can give. In his submission, a theology which acknowledges, and then fails to take account of, or strips away altogether, the demonological thought-world into which the miracle stories are woven, results in only a partial estimate of their significance. Here the miracles are restored to their context, seen in perspective as historical happenings, and considered in relation to Jesus central theme of the Kingdom.
In this book, written a half century ago, Kallas flew full force into the face of the prevailing way of interpreting the New Testament. While scholarship as a whole was convinced that the New Testament had to be modernized, stripped of its archaic and medieval language or the church would lose it audience, Kallas argued in the opposite direction, insisting that while a rewrite of the New Testament would salvage our audience, we would have nothing to tell them for the gospel would have been emasculated. Fifty years of flaccid flawed pap has proven him right and has demanded a reprint of this his first book.
James Kallas has had an extraordinary life. A veteran of the U.S. Navy at age 14, later one of St. Olaf Colleges greatest athletes, A Phi Beta Kappa key winner, a Fulbright and Rockefeller Scholar, a private pilot; and a former pro football player with the Chicago Bears. He was on the founding faculty of California Lutheran College (now University), and went on to be President of Dana College in Blair NE. It was for his work at Dana that he was knighted by the Queen of Denmark. In this book, written a half century ago, Kallas flew full force into the face of the prevailing way of interpreting the New Testament. While scholarship as a whole was convinced that the New Testament had to be modernized, stripped of its archaic and medieval language or the church would lose it audience, Kallas argued in the opposite direction, insisting that while a rewrite of the New Testament would salvage our audience, we would have nothing to tell them for the gospel would have been emasculated. Fifty years of flaccid flawed pap has proven him right and has demanded a reprint of this his first book. James Kallas has had an extraordinary life. A veteran of the U.S. Navy at age 14, later one of St. Olaf College's greatest athletes, A Phi Beta Kappa key winner, a Fulbright and Rockefeller Scholar, a private pilot; and a former pro football player with the Chicago Bears. He was on the founding faculty of California Lutheran College (now University), and went on to be President of Dana College in Blair NE. It was for his work at Dana that he was knighted by the Queen of Denmark.