The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith

[leaving]

I just finished "The Bible Made Impossible" by Christian Smith and it was a great book. Smith argues why Biblicism is not a truly evangelical reading of Scripture and what a better way to read Scripture is.

He outlined the problems with Biblicism very well, they are problems that I had too but when I asked questions I was always shut down quickly for "questioning the Bible". Smith argues that if Biblicism is a correct reading of Scripture then it should be that everyone gets the same answers.

He then gives a great solution, that we need to read the Bible knowing that the Bible is about Jesus, and that Jesus is the central theme. Has anyone else read this book? I very much enjoyed it.

Here's two things I just wrote about this book, as well as Scot McKnight's "The Blue Parakeet" which is excellent also! (Not sure I did justice to either book).

The Bible Story - Part 1

The Bible Story - Part 2

[Darrell]

Quote:we need to read the Bible knowing that the Bible is about Jesus, and that Jesus is the central theme.

This is very, very good.

[Ricardo]

(06-10-2012 04:32 PM)Darrell Wrote:  

Quote:we need to read the Bible knowing that the Bible is about Jesus, and that Jesus is the central theme.

This is very, very good.

No, I'm sorry, I do not agree.

Trying to get Jesus out of the story of Jonah is manipulating a great yarn to try to make it mean something that is not there.

The story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac stands on its own, without trying to pull a Jesus meaning out of it. Same with Jacob fighting the Angel, the walls of Jericho, the story of Moses, the story of Amos and on and on.

I'm not sure I want to take this conversation into an explanation of the Midrashic style in vogue at the time these books were written. Then we have 2nd and 3rd John and Jude which are, well, weird.

One thing is to say "we are including these letters in our collection because we think they were written by people close to Jesus or to the Apostles, and they seemed to have been a blessing to those churches who are circulating them..."

A totally different thing is to try to magically, somehow, claim that all these letters all agree, and all are about Jesus. (I wonder if the "Jesus centered" idea was central in the fight about the Maccabees and the rest of the books not accepted by Protestants, but venerated by three quarters of all Christians out there...