Ephraim Radner, A Time to Keep: Theology, Mortality, and the Shape of a Human Life (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2016)

Some works are genius because they epitomise a genre, others because they push its boundaries. Ephraim Radner’s A Time to Keep: Theology,Mortality, and the Shape of a Human Life exemplifies the latter. Its content draws upon the biblical, theological, historical, sociological,and philosophical alike. Its style is of a rigorous academic variety,yet breaks free in almost lyrical prose. ‘Academic ode’, perhaps,could serve as an apt name for this type of work, and it is an ode to the ordinary and finite mode of creaturely existence which God has ordained for his people on their journey back to him.