How to Read the Bible
By the end of the first century CE, these three parts—the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings—had become the Bible of ancient Judaism, its “sacred scriptures,” that is, writings believed to be divinely inspired and thus having a special authority. For Jews today, they are simply the Bible. Modern scholars often use the term Hebrew Bible to distin
... See moreMichael Coogan • The Old Testament: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
If even the most authoritative teaching, the most sacred text, leads to dehumanization, to humiliation, to harm, then we must reject it. The Bible itself shows us how to do this. . . . [The rabbis] worked to align the text with their moral understanding. And in doing so, they gave us permission—no, an obligation, to do the same. . . . Our role in r
... See moreDavid P. Gushee • After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity
interpretation, but it is by no means the final stopping place. The Bible is more than a collection of unrelated parts. The Holy Spirit moved the biblical writers to connect their words, sentences, and paragraphs into a literary whole in the normal way that people use language to communicate. Just imagine how a document would appear if the sentence
... See moreJ. Scott Duvall, J. Daniel Hays • Grasping God's Word
