Overview
"This book is an attempt to figure out something about what it is that we do -- I and the multitude of other Bible readers in this country -- when we say we read the Bible." -- Ann Monroe Ann Monroe was not brought up reading the Bible. She was well into adulthood when she started reading it on a regular basis. Even then, she was not sure she liked what she read, but she was hooked and couldn't stop. This book is her attempt to understand all the various ways Americans read the Bible. She approached this project as would any experienced journalist (Monre is a former staff writer for the Wall Street Journal), which is to say she interviewed an assortment of biblical scholars and blended their insights in with her own observations and life experiences. Monroe's conclusion is that the Bible was never meant to be an easy book to read. Writes Monroe: "The Bible, read faithfully, is never going to be entirely clear, entirely manageable, or entirely safe. Like the God it describes, it is itself a mystery: baffling, evasive, sometimes frightening, and charged, like a thundercloud, with a truth that can be recognized, but never explained." By the end of the book, it becomes clear that the author understands her own attraction to the Bible with less authority than she understands the book's attraction to humanity as a whole. There is truth galore in this interesting book, but it is not necessarily easy to find. It's like the Bible, in that you take away from it what you put into it. -James L. Dickerson for A Closer Look
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780664221416
- ISBN-10: 0664221416
- Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
- Publish Date: June 2000
- Dimensions: 8.72 x 5.77 x 0.85 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.9 pounds
- Page Count: 216
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