I read this book on vacation and I must admit I was disappointed. Silly me. I thought we were reading the book "The Good Book" which came out several years ago by Gomes, an eminent Biblical scholar. This author admits that what he brings is a fresh perspective (i.e., ignorance) and I already had plenty of ignorance of my own. I did get hopeful about halfway through when he did some contrasting with his experience in an Episcopalian school situation (suggesting that we could get some cross-cultural commentary) but closer examination makes it obvious that the Good Book he has in hand is only the Jewish Bible and he doesn't vary from that. I guess this wasn't my choice and I don't normally "do" blogs so perhaps my comments are more pessimistic than warranted. Anyway, he was inspired to read the Bible by the story of Dinah and I must admit that is the story which inspired me to read The Red Tent and then Queenmaker, both of which kept me fascinated.
So perhaps we have something in common.
Sharon
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Like Sharon, I read this book while on vacation. I must say as well, it was not my first choice either. It seems to me that Plotz is overly concerned with prostitutes, rape, violence, and sex in general. Is it a guy thing? At any rate, I did resonate with his observations at the end about arguing with God. If God made us rational and questioning,then it must be OK to question. The appeal of the book comes from the fresh interpretation of one who makes no pretenses of being a scholar. That in itself may be reason enough to read it.
ReplyDeleteMary Diboll
So Sharon checked out the book she thought she was reading, "The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart" by Peter Gomes, and called my attention to this paragraph:
ReplyDelete"Bible study actually involves the study of the Bible. That involves a certain amount of work, a certain exchange of informed intelligence, a certain amount of discipline. Bible study is certainly not just the response of the uninformed reader to the uninterpreted text, but Bible study in most of the churches has become just that--the blind leading the blind, or, as some caustic critics of liberal Protestantism would put it, the bland leading the bland. The notion that texts have meaning and integrity, intention, contexts, and subtexts, and that they are part of an enormous history of interpretation that has long involved some of the greatest thinkers in the history of the world, is a notion often lost on those for whom the text is just one more of the many means the church provides to massage the egos of its members. (p 12)