When the Bible is read like an ordinary book, human words replace God's Word--with dire religious and social consequences.
When the Bible is read like an ordinary book, human words replace God's Word--with dire religious and social consequences.
Christianity (general)
Most Westerners are alert to challenges posed by Muslim fundamentalism, but few have given much thought to the implications of a similar phenomenon within the Christian communion. Literal readings of sacred texts are dangerous, for those who believe that they can quote the words of God implicitly claim the right to act with the authority of God. Word of God: Words of Men illustrates the abuses to which this leads, surveys discoveries about the composition and transmission of the Scriptures that make literalism untenable, and raises questions for readers of the Bible to ponder as they seek to understand how a work of human hands might function as a vehicle of divine revelation.
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This is a book directed mainly towards an American, Protestant readership and addresses problems of the use and abuse of the Bible in the context of contemporary American social and political affairs. It is nevertheless a thought-provoking survey of the tendencies towards fundamentalism in all faiths or denominations within faiths and European Christians will find the discussion about the relationship between the Bible’s notions of fairness, human dignity and moral behaviour with political and social action in the twenty-first rather than the first century helpful and enlightening. Given the strong and occasionally violent reactions of people who feel that writers ‘offend’ their faith by questioning their actions, it is a brave book to write in what seems to be an increasingly polarized world.
~ Simon Iredale , The Goodbookstall
