• Summary
• Full Review
• Our Rating of this book

Summary

Recommended

Book Description:
"The Old Testament is God's biography, the story of his passionate encounters with people and also a prequel to the story of Jesus. This book explores the sometimes shocking and cryptic writings in an effort to know God better."

Spurred by our recent review of Warren's Purpose-Driven Life, a reader asked us to look at this popular Christian work to see if there were any similar "crimes" of anachronism present. Okay, good news: There are some, but not serious. I'm talking mostly nitpicky details that won't affect Yancey's main points: 1) we need to appreciate the OT more, because 2) it has a lot of valuable insights for today.

Yancey surely has a problem pinpointed about ignorance of the OT in American churches: He sees rightly that we have a decontextualization problem (while missionaries in places like Africa say that people there relate to it very well!) and because of this, we end up missing out on a rich source of information about our religious roots. He tries very hard to contextualize portions of the OT for us, and in some cases succeeds (as when he reads Psalms more as personal prayers, exemplifying reactions, as opposed to doctrinal treatises); in other places, the attempt to contextualize fails (as when he depicts Moses thinking Deuteronomy needs warnings in it just to make an impression, as opposed to it being a normal part of an ancient suzerainty treaty -- 96) and in at least one case becomes absurd (as he inserts dialogue from The Prince of Egypt into an explanation of Moses' actions before Pharaoh! -- 83). His explanations would have been bettered by more scholarly contextualization in many cases (as his explanation of the "cursing Psalms" [134] would have been better informed by knowledge of ancient Oriental methods of imprecation, and his explanation of Ecclesiastes, by knowledge of ancient documents of this type, and his explanation of NT use of OT prophecy [186], by the principles here). I also find questionable Yancey's use of such writers as Jack Miles, who have no respect for God in the bulk of their writings.

Consequently, The Bible Jesus Read is not a book we recommend for serious students or for mature Christians. It will serve well enough, with cautions, for those who are young in faith and want to repair an ingrained attitude that views the OT as written in a foreign language.