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kyladenae94's review against another edition
5.0
i wish this book had focused just a bit more on the concurrent growth & change in jewish approaches to scripture, instead of so heavily centering christian approaches in the second half, but i also understand why that happened so. a very good overview, overall, of the history as we understand it of biblical composition, redaction, and translation.
dionisiomulone's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
The author has written an outstanding book, which analyzes, discusses, and puts into perspective subjects which are more often than not contentious. The author does so with an impeccable respect for the sources and does his best to properly understand them in their language and their context.
I am reticent to give the book a 5 star review for one reason in particular. The book’s main focus is the relation of Jewish and Catholic and Protestant Christians scholars, communities, believers, and leaders to the Bible, their reactions, thoughts, and discussions around the text, and what can be inferred or deduced from their sources. As is, the book is lacking in the perspective from Eastern Orthodox communities, and other non-Catholic and non-Protestant forms of Christianity. This is notorious in the section which regards bible studies in the Middle Ages, which does not discuss the discussions and interpretations of Europe’s Greek east. The author states that knowledge in the Greek language made a comeback in the renaissance, but makes no mention to the fact that all those texts in the Greek language had been preserved by a monastic tradition which goes back to the early days of Christianity.
The book is, despite the former, highly educational, precise, and rigorous. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
niallgoulding1's review against another edition
slow-paced
1.0
I'm baffled by this book's exceptional reviews. Clearly I'm missing something. This was the most disappointing and painfully dull read of my entire life. I went in with great expectations and assumed this book would add colour and life to my understanding of the Bible (grew up in a Catholic world; now agnostic so approaching this solely out of curiousity). Where I expected something that took us through the structure, the lost context, allusions, tropes, contradictions etc instead this is obsessed with academic minutiae about how many writers were involved. Wouldnt recommend this to my worst enemy
emmacook's review against another edition
4.0
Phew, what a marathon of a book. Took a long break in the middle, to digest and read some other things, but glad to have read this! V. rational, hugely detailed and informative, lots of new insights into the bible and its origins which were fascinating.
tajeip's review against another edition
5.0
If ever you have interacted with a theologically motivated argument in support of a certain position, you will probably have come across a biblical citation as evidence for the claim. One thing you might notice in that is how oblique these biblical references tend to be. For instance, the entire institution of the papacy and the overwhelming power it wields are based on the single following line:
"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
The Catholic interpretation is that the church and papacy are the "rock" Jesus describes, hence legitimating its power in the practice of Christian believers. While this is a possible allegorical interpretation of the passage, it does not really strike us as the most likely meaning of the text nor its intended message. This is the phenomenon that this book seeks to explain, by way of detour through the entirety of biblical history and interpretation.
The first problem the author accounts for is the problem of genre. The Bible, despite being seen as a set of instructions on Jewish and Christian practice, is not a list of laws. Most of it is narrative, concerning the travails of Israel and the prophets (Old Testament) or Jesus (New). In the best cases, it is hard to extract concrete prescriptions from narrative text, and this problem is compounded in the Bible's multiplicity of narratives. The NT presents particular problems in this regard. It is easy to forget that the NT is kind of a frame narrative: one level are the recorded sayings of Jesus, and another is the prose description of the events given by the author. There is evidence, the author argues, that early Christians viewed only the former as important, and would quote the sayings of Jesus in the NT but not the text of the NT itself (sort of like a History SBQ where the author of an interview is the person being quoted not the one who conducted the interview). The modern churches, however, have canonised both of these narrative levels, which is an interesting departure from early Christian practice.
The second problem is that the Bible is not an entirely rigorously self-consistent text. The most famous example of this is in the question of how a believer is saved: whether through faith alone (Luther and subsequent Protestants) or through faith and good works (Catholics). The book of James in the OT seems to endorse the Catholic position, whereas Paul's letters to the Romans in the NT argue for the Protestant stand. Similarly, the various letters of Paul seem to offer different views on the question of the trinity which is now central to Christian belief: in contrast to the orthodox trinitarian position, some letters show a subordationist tendency, which holds that Christ the Son is subordinate to God the Father, while others express an adoptionist view, which suggests that Jesus of Nazareth did not become the son of God until the point of crucifixion. The clearest example of this incongruity is the four canonic gospels accepted by all Christian denominations. The gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John all claim to be authoritative accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, but differ in clear and important ways (John, for instance, claims that Jesus made multiple trips to Jerusalem where the prior three account for only one).
These two problems lead the author to claim that Christianity is not exclusively a scriptural religion. There are many key church doctrines that cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, or are found in such a tangential way as to seem suspect. The doctrine of the trinity, for instance — which holds that God is one entity in three co-equal persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — receives only two mentions in the entire NT (in Matthew and John), and both are widely agreed to be subsequent additions by medieval authors not present in the original text.
The author's argument on non-scripturality, however, is importantly not an indictment of Christianity (or Judaism). Plenty of religions are non-scriptural, finding basis for their faiths in tradition and custom, rather than (solely) in holy texts. The author merely argues that Christianity needs to recognise itself as such. In fact, at the time of the writing of the NT (c. 2nd century AD), non-scripturality was seen as a strength, and it was believed that Jesus' sayings were more important than the writings of the OT precisely because they were not captured in those books. Fundamentalist claims to practise Christianity sola scriptura (according to scripture alone) are thus untenable and problematic.
One other section of the book I found interesting discussed the differences between Jewish and Christian approaches to the OT. Often, it is thought that the two faiths agree on the OT, with Christianity simply "adding on" the NT, but this view is highly misleading. For one, Jews tend to see the OT as a historical record, which documents the life and times of the Israelite kingdoms and prophets, thus forming the national literature of Israel. In contrast, Christians tend to strongly allegorise the OT. One particularly striking example is from the Book of Psalms:
"Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (Psalms 137:8-9)
This, quite clearly, is a denunciation of Babylon by the Israelites (between whom there was strong enmity because of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem) and Judaism regards it as such. Christian writers, however, have never quite been comfortable with the implication of infanticide the Psalm suggests, and thus read it in an allegoric mode. To Christians, Babylon represents the Devil, and its infants, the seeds of sin, which must be dashed against the rock (Jesus) before they grow in evil. This highly metaphorical reading of the OT is carried through several other places, replacing the rather more literal Jewish interpretation.
Jews and Christians also differ on the overall meaning of the OT and which parts they emphasise. Some key Christian stories, such as that of Adam and Eve, are present in the Jewish Hebrew Bible, but not given nearly the same level of importance (hence why Judaism does not preach the doctrine of original sin which Christianity derives from this story). Similarly, Christians tend to see the OT as a prediction of the coming of Jesus which the NT fulfils, while Jews see the messianic prophecies as remaining unfulfilled. Christians likewise see the OT as having an overall thematic message — of sin, hope and redemption — while Jews do not read any overall meaning from the text. Finally, while Judaism sees the books of the OT as being part of a clear hierarchy, with the Torah (the first five books) as primary, the books known as the Prophets as secondary, and the Writings as tertiary, Christians make no such distinctions and see the whole of the OT as equally important. Functionally, then, the Hebrew Bible and Christian OT might as well be seen as separate works in the way they are interpreted.
If that very long and slightly meandering review sort of obscured the point, this is a very good book which I would highly recommend.
"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
The Catholic interpretation is that the church and papacy are the "rock" Jesus describes, hence legitimating its power in the practice of Christian believers. While this is a possible allegorical interpretation of the passage, it does not really strike us as the most likely meaning of the text nor its intended message. This is the phenomenon that this book seeks to explain, by way of detour through the entirety of biblical history and interpretation.
The first problem the author accounts for is the problem of genre. The Bible, despite being seen as a set of instructions on Jewish and Christian practice, is not a list of laws. Most of it is narrative, concerning the travails of Israel and the prophets (Old Testament) or Jesus (New). In the best cases, it is hard to extract concrete prescriptions from narrative text, and this problem is compounded in the Bible's multiplicity of narratives. The NT presents particular problems in this regard. It is easy to forget that the NT is kind of a frame narrative: one level are the recorded sayings of Jesus, and another is the prose description of the events given by the author. There is evidence, the author argues, that early Christians viewed only the former as important, and would quote the sayings of Jesus in the NT but not the text of the NT itself (sort of like a History SBQ where the author of an interview is the person being quoted not the one who conducted the interview). The modern churches, however, have canonised both of these narrative levels, which is an interesting departure from early Christian practice.
The second problem is that the Bible is not an entirely rigorously self-consistent text. The most famous example of this is in the question of how a believer is saved: whether through faith alone (Luther and subsequent Protestants) or through faith and good works (Catholics). The book of James in the OT seems to endorse the Catholic position, whereas Paul's letters to the Romans in the NT argue for the Protestant stand. Similarly, the various letters of Paul seem to offer different views on the question of the trinity which is now central to Christian belief: in contrast to the orthodox trinitarian position, some letters show a subordationist tendency, which holds that Christ the Son is subordinate to God the Father, while others express an adoptionist view, which suggests that Jesus of Nazareth did not become the son of God until the point of crucifixion. The clearest example of this incongruity is the four canonic gospels accepted by all Christian denominations. The gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John all claim to be authoritative accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, but differ in clear and important ways (John, for instance, claims that Jesus made multiple trips to Jerusalem where the prior three account for only one).
These two problems lead the author to claim that Christianity is not exclusively a scriptural religion. There are many key church doctrines that cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, or are found in such a tangential way as to seem suspect. The doctrine of the trinity, for instance — which holds that God is one entity in three co-equal persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — receives only two mentions in the entire NT (in Matthew and John), and both are widely agreed to be subsequent additions by medieval authors not present in the original text.
The author's argument on non-scripturality, however, is importantly not an indictment of Christianity (or Judaism). Plenty of religions are non-scriptural, finding basis for their faiths in tradition and custom, rather than (solely) in holy texts. The author merely argues that Christianity needs to recognise itself as such. In fact, at the time of the writing of the NT (c. 2nd century AD), non-scripturality was seen as a strength, and it was believed that Jesus' sayings were more important than the writings of the OT precisely because they were not captured in those books. Fundamentalist claims to practise Christianity sola scriptura (according to scripture alone) are thus untenable and problematic.
One other section of the book I found interesting discussed the differences between Jewish and Christian approaches to the OT. Often, it is thought that the two faiths agree on the OT, with Christianity simply "adding on" the NT, but this view is highly misleading. For one, Jews tend to see the OT as a historical record, which documents the life and times of the Israelite kingdoms and prophets, thus forming the national literature of Israel. In contrast, Christians tend to strongly allegorise the OT. One particularly striking example is from the Book of Psalms:
"Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (Psalms 137:8-9)
This, quite clearly, is a denunciation of Babylon by the Israelites (between whom there was strong enmity because of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem) and Judaism regards it as such. Christian writers, however, have never quite been comfortable with the implication of infanticide the Psalm suggests, and thus read it in an allegoric mode. To Christians, Babylon represents the Devil, and its infants, the seeds of sin, which must be dashed against the rock (Jesus) before they grow in evil. This highly metaphorical reading of the OT is carried through several other places, replacing the rather more literal Jewish interpretation.
Jews and Christians also differ on the overall meaning of the OT and which parts they emphasise. Some key Christian stories, such as that of Adam and Eve, are present in the Jewish Hebrew Bible, but not given nearly the same level of importance (hence why Judaism does not preach the doctrine of original sin which Christianity derives from this story). Similarly, Christians tend to see the OT as a prediction of the coming of Jesus which the NT fulfils, while Jews see the messianic prophecies as remaining unfulfilled. Christians likewise see the OT as having an overall thematic message — of sin, hope and redemption — while Jews do not read any overall meaning from the text. Finally, while Judaism sees the books of the OT as being part of a clear hierarchy, with the Torah (the first five books) as primary, the books known as the Prophets as secondary, and the Writings as tertiary, Christians make no such distinctions and see the whole of the OT as equally important. Functionally, then, the Hebrew Bible and Christian OT might as well be seen as separate works in the way they are interpreted.
If that very long and slightly meandering review sort of obscured the point, this is a very good book which I would highly recommend.
iina's review against another edition
4.0
Looooong but good!
I listened to this on audio — at double speed — and still spent a good couple of weeks getting through this. Granted, this may not be the sexiest of topics…
As for the book itself, I really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the exact angle I thought. I was under the impression this would cover things like the various councils/meetings/whatever who once upon a time quarrelled over what to include in the Bible and what not, but this focused more on the various books within the Bible, their history, the different interpretations of the books Judaism and Christianity share, translations, etc… so slightly different, perhaps better, angle.
Fundamentalists: get mad, you won’t agree with most or any of this book.
Everyone else (if interested): would recommend.
I listened to this on audio — at double speed — and still spent a good couple of weeks getting through this. Granted, this may not be the sexiest of topics…
As for the book itself, I really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the exact angle I thought. I was under the impression this would cover things like the various councils/meetings/whatever who once upon a time quarrelled over what to include in the Bible and what not, but this focused more on the various books within the Bible, their history, the different interpretations of the books Judaism and Christianity share, translations, etc… so slightly different, perhaps better, angle.
Fundamentalists: get mad, you won’t agree with most or any of this book.
Everyone else (if interested): would recommend.
ronald_schoedel's review against another edition
5.0
I decided to read this book upon hearing it recommended on a BYU Maxwell Institute podcast, as my church is in its quadrennial year-long reading of the Old Testament. The last few years of scripture reading for me have been one of rediscovery after learning about biblical literary genres and what that means for the actual text of the Bible.
Coming from a rather fundamentalist Christian background before becoming LDS, I am familiar with a lot of the arguments in fundamentalist Christian circles in favor of the Bible being inerrant and the only correct way to understand any of it is to be perfectly literal. I’m also quite familiar with the (mostly confined to North America and UK) minority (but not too small) segment of Christianity that believes the 1611 KJV is the literal God-dictated word of God, more so than the underlying Greek and Hebrew texts, and thus inerrant and in no further need of refinement or retranslating. This belief is fairly common in American Baptist churches, for example. If one falls into these camps, one will find this book extremely frustrating and such a one will likely label it heretical.
But if you’ve ever wanted to know how the Bible came to be, how it’s been interpreted over the years, and how Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Old Testament have developed, this book is well worth the couple dozens of hours of reading. I rather enjoyed the Audible version read by Ralph Lister (a British book by a British author [Oxford professor and Church of England priest] ought to sound British!). The subtitle of the UK original edition (“A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths”) better captures the intent of the book, than the US title (“A History of the Bible: The Story of the World's Most Influential Book”), as much is said about the various faith traditions and their relationships with the scriptures.
This is useful in that the Jewish understanding of what Christians call the Old Testament turns out to be significantly different to any Christian reading thereof. Christians often assume Jews believe pretty much the same thing but are just waiting for the real messiah to manifest. Truth is Judaism sees the Hebrew Bible (OT) much differently, often because the modern Christian understanding of the OT is read backwards into it, with a belief in the Jesus Christ of the New Testament first and then attempting to figure out how the OT text supports those Christian beliefs.
I particularly appreciated learning about the canonization process of both testaments and the methods scholars used for determining the original texts that would make their way into canon. His explanations of the genres of the various books of the Bible and how they would’ve been understood by the earliest believers illuminates a lot and can help a lot of modern Christians rectify the seeming contradictions between known truths and so-called orthodoxy. For example, a world billions of years old versus young earth creationism: believing in salvation through Jesus doesn’t need you to also believe the universe and everything therein was literally manufactured from nothing in the space of 144 hours. Neither Jews nor early Christians took a literal reading of either of the two different creation stories in Genesis to be literal history and neither should 21st century Christianity.
The Rev Prof Barton helped me to put into coherent order in my mind lots of different ideas I’ve picked up in my studies of the Bible over the last dozen years or so. He also helped me to understand various others’ views of scriptural interpretation, which I believe is valuable from the perspective of finding commonality and community with other Christians outside our own faith tradition or community.
Coming from a rather fundamentalist Christian background before becoming LDS, I am familiar with a lot of the arguments in fundamentalist Christian circles in favor of the Bible being inerrant and the only correct way to understand any of it is to be perfectly literal. I’m also quite familiar with the (mostly confined to North America and UK) minority (but not too small) segment of Christianity that believes the 1611 KJV is the literal God-dictated word of God, more so than the underlying Greek and Hebrew texts, and thus inerrant and in no further need of refinement or retranslating. This belief is fairly common in American Baptist churches, for example. If one falls into these camps, one will find this book extremely frustrating and such a one will likely label it heretical.
But if you’ve ever wanted to know how the Bible came to be, how it’s been interpreted over the years, and how Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Old Testament have developed, this book is well worth the couple dozens of hours of reading. I rather enjoyed the Audible version read by Ralph Lister (a British book by a British author [Oxford professor and Church of England priest] ought to sound British!). The subtitle of the UK original edition (“A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths”) better captures the intent of the book, than the US title (“A History of the Bible: The Story of the World's Most Influential Book”), as much is said about the various faith traditions and their relationships with the scriptures.
This is useful in that the Jewish understanding of what Christians call the Old Testament turns out to be significantly different to any Christian reading thereof. Christians often assume Jews believe pretty much the same thing but are just waiting for the real messiah to manifest. Truth is Judaism sees the Hebrew Bible (OT) much differently, often because the modern Christian understanding of the OT is read backwards into it, with a belief in the Jesus Christ of the New Testament first and then attempting to figure out how the OT text supports those Christian beliefs.
I particularly appreciated learning about the canonization process of both testaments and the methods scholars used for determining the original texts that would make their way into canon. His explanations of the genres of the various books of the Bible and how they would’ve been understood by the earliest believers illuminates a lot and can help a lot of modern Christians rectify the seeming contradictions between known truths and so-called orthodoxy. For example, a world billions of years old versus young earth creationism: believing in salvation through Jesus doesn’t need you to also believe the universe and everything therein was literally manufactured from nothing in the space of 144 hours. Neither Jews nor early Christians took a literal reading of either of the two different creation stories in Genesis to be literal history and neither should 21st century Christianity.
The Rev Prof Barton helped me to put into coherent order in my mind lots of different ideas I’ve picked up in my studies of the Bible over the last dozen years or so. He also helped me to understand various others’ views of scriptural interpretation, which I believe is valuable from the perspective of finding commonality and community with other Christians outside our own faith tradition or community.