Faith of the Early Fathers on sale - any opinions?

I've had the hardcopy set for many years ... before I first purchased Logos (pre-Verbum).  It was the only affordable work on the Early Church Fathers that was readily available to me.  I still have that set within arms reach of my desk today.  All of the larger sets were cost prohibitive.  Other works long out of print. 

Now we have access many resources in Logos/Verbum - ECF Catholic Edition which you mention, Teachings of the Church Fathers (reprint - Ignatius), Paulist Press' Ancient Christian Writers, CUA's The Fathers of the Church, and the recent, excellent one-volume work by Jimmy Akin - The Fathers Know Best, and some others.

Father Jurgen's Faith of the Early Fathers is an excellent resource - modern translation, selections of common patristic writings, doctrinal index, references accordingly to Migne's PL and PG.

If all you have is Schaff's ECF, this would be a good addition ... IMHO.

Also, please bid on Migne's works.

In addition to the doctrinal index which MJ mentions, I also like the introductory/background information which is provided by Jurgens for many of the authors.

Looking at some of the contents, my concern with it would be that the selection is obviously slanted confessionally. I think it is dangerous and harmful, in any confession, to welcome products that present evidence selectively in order to bolster our confessional slant. Even within any given confession, such a biased hermeneutic cannot be good. Topical guides and indexes to the fathers are useful if they help us track down the whole evidence to make sense of it. There are topical indexes in the church fathers volumes themselves.

This is one of the reasons why overall the tradition based packages make me cringe. I know some people think it is wonderful, but it is a sad commentary on the estate of Christendom when so many people seek to buy products that keep reinforcing their biases (militant self-indoctrination). It is no longer an honest or real quest for truth, but wanting to be told by others that yes, I knew it, I am right (a form of sectarianism), for others, an implied variant of Pilate's statement "and what is truth?" (relativism) hidden behind much-nobler sounding rhetoric. Yes, I know, I digressed into christian discourse site territory... Still a comment on the type of product though. I wouldn't buy.

but it is a sad commentary on the estate of Christendom when so many people seek to buy products that keep reinforcing their biases (militant self-indoctrination)

But isn't this what you are encouraging?

How so? 

That is not a matter of "militant self-indoctrination". It is a matter of pragmatics.

This may be true of you, but your practice is not widely representative. Most people are more interested in defending beliefs they want to cherish (for all kinds of different reasons) than they are in the continual pursuit of truth. In any case, I am interested in your answer to my question above but otherwise, I think it would be wise to drop this topic since it takes beyond forum guidelines. If you want to have a conversation on this though, we can meet on faithlife.com...

1. Do you accept the Bauer thesis of early multiple "Christianities" upon which Orthodoxy was later imposed? (I do not).

I don't know the details of Bauer's view, but the idea of "multiple christianities" would be problematic to me on the face of it.

2. Do you have evidence that the bias you see in the selection is not representative of the orthodoxy of the Oriental Church, the Byzantine (Eastern Church) and the Western Church until the rise of humanism?

Neither nor in the sense that it is irrelevant to the basis of my comments (irrespective of whether you think it "should" be).

If you answer yes to either 2 or 3 you need to present that evidence.

I think my answer above should answer that as well. It is beside my point.

Which leaves question 4 with the implication that unfamilarity with the terminology and organization is the root of your warning

That it may play a role, quite possibly. I have NOT read the book. Perhaps you and others will thus conclude that I am not entitled to an opinion or that it is necessarily suspect to have one. I have not read 50 Shades of Grey either (not implying a comparison at all to the book this thread is about, of course), nor intend to ever to, and I definitely have an opinion against it. I am sure there are those who would think I am not entitled to it.

The point, however, is that I don't care about Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Protestantism, or even for that matter the so-called-but-no-longer-really "Evangelicalism". These are all models that have taken a life of their own beyond their initial and still claimed intentions. It may well be that the cumulative evidence of the Fathers is closer to Roman Catholicism than any of the other groups I mentioned above, that's not my concern. My concern is when paedobaptists, for instance, depict the evidence of the Early Church in a selective way intended to defend paedobaptism rather than as a true historical inquiry. Slanted resources tend to lead people down that road: a general index of the Fathers should be valid and useful for genuine inquiry for whoever of whatever stripe, even from non-Christians. 

I hope it makes my point clearer though of course, you are free to disagree and I have an inkling that you will with at least part of it. And as I write this, let this be clear that I do not claim to be neutral nor necessarily to have it "right". Neutral is a theoretical concept that has no sense. When it comes to morality for instance, what would it mean to be neutral as a sort of opposite to the accusation of having a bias/slant? Hopefully one will reach and endorse some values that will then guide perception and evaluation, but just as hopefully, this will not based on an obscurantist indoctrination, but a genuine and ongoing search for truth, wherever it may lead.

I have said enough to help those that can be helped, that is, who genuinely want to be helped. Moving on.