In 1930, Samuel G. Craig, J. Gresham Machen, and James Schrader founded Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. P&R's initial publication was a 24-page monthly periodical called Christianity Today ("A Presbyterian Journal Devoted to Stating, Defending and Furthering the Gospel in the Modern World").[1][2] The periodical, which featured articles on Christianity and theology, book reviews, sermons, news in the Presbyterian church, and letters to the editor, was published intermittently until 1949. Its name was later adopted, with P&R's permission,[2] by the evangelical periodical Christianity Today, which Billy Graham founded in 1956.
The first two books that P&R published were Oswald T. Allis'sThe Five Books of Moses (1943) and his Prophecy and the Church (1945). Allis, who taught in the Department of Semitic Philology at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1910–29 and who served as editor of the Princeton Theological Review from 1918 to 1929, along with Machen, Robert Dick Wilson, and others, founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929. Allis' books helped to set the standard and direction for P&R's subsequent publications.
In 1957, Charles H. Craig, Samuel's son, took over Presbyterian and Reformed's operations, running it out of his home in Nutley, New Jersey, and using an off-site building for shipping. In 1978, the company moved to its current location in Phillipsburg. In 1982, Bryce H. Craig, Charles' son and a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary, became president. "Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co." was abbreviated to "P&R Publishing" in 1992.
P&R's approximately 700 titles range from academic works that advance biblical and theological scholarship to popular books designed to help lay readers grow in Christian thought and service.
^Albright, W. F. (December 1943). " ". Journal of Biblical Literature. 62 (4): 357–361. doi:10.2307/3262242. JSTOR3262242. This is perhaps the most scholarly defense of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, in its present form, which has appeared in English for several decades.
^Young, Edward J. (1984). An Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 148. Oswald T. Allis in his 1943 The Five Books of Moses wrote a powerful refutation of both the documentary and development hypothesis and entered a strong plea for acceptance of the Mosaic authorship of the first five books of the Old Testament.
^Arp, Robert (2013). 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 786. The ideas in The Genesis Flood made it a best seller that retains its importance for fundamentalist Christians.
