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A review by wordrevel
A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths by John Barton
4.0
Initial thoughts: Lots of food for thought in this book. Since I listened to the audiobook, I feel I got more of an overarching understanding of the author's arguments. For the depth of information and to be able to further research and verify his claims, I will need to obtain a printed (or ebook) version of it to re-read and annotate as I go along again.
My most salient takeaway is that it's important for us to figure out what constitutes historical accounts, what are moral instructions of sorts, what is many to be prophecy and what was written as an allegory when reading the Bible. These aren't always immediately evident though, which also explains why Protestant (and across these denominations too), Catholic and Jewish approaches to biblical texts vary so much. Definitely worth looking more into to better understand the different interpretations.
My most salient takeaway is that it's important for us to figure out what constitutes historical accounts, what are moral instructions of sorts, what is many to be prophecy and what was written as an allegory when reading the Bible. These aren't always immediately evident though, which also explains why Protestant (and across these denominations too), Catholic and Jewish approaches to biblical texts vary so much. Definitely worth looking more into to better understand the different interpretations.