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defrogAnd so:
A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible by John J. Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is the textbook for a class I’m taking on the Old Testament, so I’m not sure how to rate it fairly, but it counts towards my Reading Challenge – not least because I was reading this when I could have been reading other books in the To Read pile – so here we are. Anyway, as the title suggests, it’s a short overview of every book in the Hebrew Bible, to include some key writings from the Apocrypha. The overview includes the historical background and context for each book, who wrote and edited what, and what various theologians and scholars have said about them in terms of historical accuracy (or lack thereof), spiritual meaning, literary value and truthiness.
So in that sense, it’s been very educational. I do like history, and it’s interesting to see how many of these stories parallel myths and legends from nearby cultures, and how Hebrew theology was shaped over time. If nothing else, it shows how the Hebrew Bible was edited and cobbled together over the centuries, which explains why a lot of it is repetitive and inconsistent from a strictly narrative point of view. There is also some basic commentary about the nastier parts of the OT (you know, genocide, misogyny, etc) and how they don’t read well in 2024. Anyway, I came away with a far better understanding of the OT and how it relates to the New Testament.
The Day the Revolution Began: Rethinking The Meaning of Jesus' Crucifixion by Tom Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve never read Tom Wright (a.k.a. N.T. Wright) before, apart from a weeklong daily meditation on The Lord’s Prayer, which I found interesting. But anyway, he comes highly recommended in the circles I currently cavort in. I was gifted this book by a good friend of mine, and the title alone made it look like something that could get me stopped by the police if I read it in public here in Hong Kong, so I couldn’t really ask for a better starting point. To be clear, it’s not that kind of revolution – although, near the end of the book, Wright almost makes it sound like it is, in a way. In any case, the “revolution” he has in mind is the revolution of love that began with Jesus’ death on the cross. More than that, though, Wright is also essentially calling for a revolution in the Christian church in how we think about the true meaning of the cross, what actually happened, how it changed everything and why it’s so important – because, in his view, mainstream Christianity has gotten it horribly wrong.
It's a complex argument to sum up in a paragraph, but in essence, Wright argues that the standard atonement theology we’ve all grown up with (i.e. Christ died for our sins so we could all go to Heaven) is a gross distortion of how the original Christians understood what happened when Jesus was crucified. Wright pushes back against the “penal substitution” theory that seems to portray Jesus’ death as pacifying an angry God to save us – which doesn’t fit well with the belief that Jesus also fully embodied God’s love for us and wants us to do likewise. Wright goes through the gospels, Paul’s writings and key parts of the Old Testament in massive detail to explain how the Church needs to rethink what sin actually is, and how the cross freed us from it, which he believes can radically change how the Church engages with the world in a positive way.
I’m drastically oversimplifying it, but that’s the basic gist. And the fact that it took me a few months to get through it speaks both to the fascinating ideas Wright throws in here and the detailed complexity of his argument. Which is amazing, since this is one of Wright’s general audience books, rather than his academic theology books. I don’t have the theological knowledge to critique his theology here (and plenty of people have done that online), but I do think he's on the right track. For me, it mainly goes a bit off the rails at the end when he starts suggesting how the modern Church can actively live out our intended vocation as image bearers of God’s love, which makes a few assumptions I don’t agree with and could, despite Wright’s best intentions, very easily be as abused as the atonement theology Wright wants to correct. If nothing else, it’s livened up my Bible study class, which is always a good thing, as is anything that makes the orthodoxy rethink its assumptions. Bring on the revolution, then.
View all my reviews
Talkin’ ‘bout a revolution,
This is dF
A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible by John J. CollinsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is the textbook for a class I’m taking on the Old Testament, so I’m not sure how to rate it fairly, but it counts towards my Reading Challenge – not least because I was reading this when I could have been reading other books in the To Read pile – so here we are. Anyway, as the title suggests, it’s a short overview of every book in the Hebrew Bible, to include some key writings from the Apocrypha. The overview includes the historical background and context for each book, who wrote and edited what, and what various theologians and scholars have said about them in terms of historical accuracy (or lack thereof), spiritual meaning, literary value and truthiness.
So in that sense, it’s been very educational. I do like history, and it’s interesting to see how many of these stories parallel myths and legends from nearby cultures, and how Hebrew theology was shaped over time. If nothing else, it shows how the Hebrew Bible was edited and cobbled together over the centuries, which explains why a lot of it is repetitive and inconsistent from a strictly narrative point of view. There is also some basic commentary about the nastier parts of the OT (you know, genocide, misogyny, etc) and how they don’t read well in 2024. Anyway, I came away with a far better understanding of the OT and how it relates to the New Testament.
The Day the Revolution Began: Rethinking The Meaning of Jesus' Crucifixion by Tom WrightMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve never read Tom Wright (a.k.a. N.T. Wright) before, apart from a weeklong daily meditation on The Lord’s Prayer, which I found interesting. But anyway, he comes highly recommended in the circles I currently cavort in. I was gifted this book by a good friend of mine, and the title alone made it look like something that could get me stopped by the police if I read it in public here in Hong Kong, so I couldn’t really ask for a better starting point. To be clear, it’s not that kind of revolution – although, near the end of the book, Wright almost makes it sound like it is, in a way. In any case, the “revolution” he has in mind is the revolution of love that began with Jesus’ death on the cross. More than that, though, Wright is also essentially calling for a revolution in the Christian church in how we think about the true meaning of the cross, what actually happened, how it changed everything and why it’s so important – because, in his view, mainstream Christianity has gotten it horribly wrong.
It's a complex argument to sum up in a paragraph, but in essence, Wright argues that the standard atonement theology we’ve all grown up with (i.e. Christ died for our sins so we could all go to Heaven) is a gross distortion of how the original Christians understood what happened when Jesus was crucified. Wright pushes back against the “penal substitution” theory that seems to portray Jesus’ death as pacifying an angry God to save us – which doesn’t fit well with the belief that Jesus also fully embodied God’s love for us and wants us to do likewise. Wright goes through the gospels, Paul’s writings and key parts of the Old Testament in massive detail to explain how the Church needs to rethink what sin actually is, and how the cross freed us from it, which he believes can radically change how the Church engages with the world in a positive way.
I’m drastically oversimplifying it, but that’s the basic gist. And the fact that it took me a few months to get through it speaks both to the fascinating ideas Wright throws in here and the detailed complexity of his argument. Which is amazing, since this is one of Wright’s general audience books, rather than his academic theology books. I don’t have the theological knowledge to critique his theology here (and plenty of people have done that online), but I do think he's on the right track. For me, it mainly goes a bit off the rails at the end when he starts suggesting how the modern Church can actively live out our intended vocation as image bearers of God’s love, which makes a few assumptions I don’t agree with and could, despite Wright’s best intentions, very easily be as abused as the atonement theology Wright wants to correct. If nothing else, it’s livened up my Bible study class, which is always a good thing, as is anything that makes the orthodoxy rethink its assumptions. Bring on the revolution, then.
View all my reviews
Talkin’ ‘bout a revolution,
This is dF
