Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Book Review: From God to Us by Geisler and Nix

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From God to UsDisclaimer

I was given a promotional copy of From God To Us Revised and Expanded: How We Got Our Bible with the proviso that I would write a review of the book. No stipulations were made as to how I would review the book or what I would write about it. This review is my own reaction to interacting with the material in the book.

Overview

From God to Us is broken down into four major sections with multiple chapters in each to deal with various aspects of the topic in that section. The four major sections are:

  1. Inspiration – How do we know the Bible has authority?
  2. Canonization – How did the Bible come to be accepted?
  3. Transmission – How did the manuscripts get to us and can they be trusted?
  4. Translation – A history of the translation of the Bible.

There is a wealth of information in each section. Anyone who is interested in understanding how the Bible as we know it came to be should take a look at this book. It answers many questions and provides evidence that the Bible can be trusted as a guide for belief and practice.

My Reaction

For me, this book’s primary value is as a reference book, one that I will refer to when I have occasion to respond to questions regarding the transmission of the Bible. For this purpose the book is invaluable with helpful charts and tables with information that speaks in support of the reliability of our Bible text.

Because of the wealth of information, I found it a bit overwhelming to sit and read the book. My difficulty is not because it is not well written (it is) nor because it is hard to understand (it isn’t). For me, reading this book is like drinking from a fire hose, there is too much to take in to do a cover to cover reading. I have to work through the material slowly to take it all in. This was especially true for me in the section on canonicity. But I must acknowledge that for those of a more scholarly nature or with more background in the subject material, this may not be an issue.

One of the things that will be helpful to the reader of this book is the indices in the back of the book. In addition to a subject index, there is also a person index and a Scripture index. The Scripture index I find to be particularly helpful in preparing for teaching on a particular passage of Scriputre, it makes it easy to find the place where that passage is mentioned in the book.

The bottom line

I would recommend that anyone who is interested in apologetics or in understanding the underpinnings of our faith should take a look at this book. It might also be helpful to those who are involved with youth who are questioning their faith or encountering teachers or professors who challenge the accuracy and authority of the Bible. Anyone who must prepare a presentation or teaching on the reliability of our Bible would also find this book invaluable.

I recommend that every student of the Bible should have a copy of this book in her or her library. You won’t regret having it there when questions come up about the reliability of the Bible.

Book Review: Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace

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Cold Case ChristianityA while ago, J. Warner Wallace approached me about doing a review of his book, Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels. I was aware of his work as a result of reading the Cold Case Christianity Blog and was interested in reading the book so agreed to to the review.

Based on my previous exposure, I expected the book to be worth reading and in this I was not disappointed. I especially like the way that Mr. Wallace weaves in stories from his days as a detective to illustrate the principles found in the book.

The premise of the book is that the author, who spent many years as a cold case detective, would apply the lessons learned in investigating old murder cases to evaluating the claims of Christianity.

Here is how the author describes the similarities between investigating cold case murders to investigating the claims of Christianity:

Unlike other lesser crimes, an unsolved homicide is never closed; time doesn’t run out on a murder investigation. My particular agency has dozens of unsolved murders that remain open, waiting for someone to take the time to reexamine them. There are many similarities between investigating cold cases and investigating the claims of Christianity. Cold-case homicides are events from the distant past for which there is often little or no forensic evidence. These kinds of cases are sometimes solved on the basis of eyewitness testimony, even though many years have passed between the point of the crime and the point of the investigation . . . Christianity makes a claim about an event from the distant past for which there is little or no forensic evidence. Like cold cases, the truth about what happened can be discovered by examining the statements of eyewitnesses and comparing them with what little additional evidence is accessible to us.

J. Warner had me hooked right from the start of the book with a story about how a police officer learned to trust his bullet proof vest as a result of a shoot-out with a parolee who did  not want to return to jail. As the story was related in print, the hours that I wasted watching crime dramas through the years finally paid off as I could clearly imagine the scene as it was described in the book.

What I like about the book is that it covers many topics of an apologetic nature in a non-technical way and free of jargon. If any words are used that are particular to the study of apologetics, they are explained in side bars throughout the book. In addition, there are helpful graphics sprinkled throughout the book that help illustrate the ideas being presented.

There are two major sections to the book. The first is called “Learn to be a detective” where Mr. Wallace goes through the process of collecting and evaluating the various bits of evidence for the subject in question. Using his experience as a detective and using real-life stories as illustrations, we learn how to sort through the evidence to determine its value in arriving at a conclusion. In the second section, J. Warner walks us through the process of using those principles to examine the claims of the New Testament.

I have the privilege of being a small group leader for our church. While reading the book, I came up with the idea that it would be a great book for the small group to read and discuss this fall. So, I vetted the book to the members of the group and the unanimous opinion is that we will indeed work through the book this fall.

In addition to use in small groups, I think that this book would be a good recommendation for someone who wants to examine the claims of Christianity. Like Mere Christianity and A Case for Faith, a non-theologian and former skeptic walks us through his journey to faith through examination of the claims of Jesus Christ.

It is a worth while read and a book that will likely spend little time on your shelf since it is likely to be lent out over and over again.

Book Review: The Heart of the Story by Randy Frazee

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I was given an opportunity to obtain a review copy of The Heart of the Story, by Randy Frazee. The title and description of the book interested me so I took advantage of the offer.

The author nearly lost me right from the get-go when he tried to provide perspective on how large the universe is:

“Think about this for a moment, If our solar system was reduced in size by a factor of a billion, the earth would be the size of a grape. The moon would be slightly larger than a basketball.” (p. 26)


The Heart of the StoryI’m not an astrophysicist, but the last time I studied the solar system, the Earth was larger than our Moon. If that has changed, then I missed the press release. Perhaps the author lives in an area of the country where grapes are larger than basketballs?

I’m glad, however, that I pressed on and continued reading. I found the book worth while and the author does a good job of summarizing the movement of God behind the stories in the Bible.

Throughout the book, Mr. Frazee compares the lower story (what we see) with the upper story (the view from God’s perspective). The author reinforces the idea that God is the mover behind all the activities that are recorded in Scripture.

To illustrate the way Randy Frazee uses the upper/lower story idea, I quote from the book where the author discusses the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac:

As we will see later, God was also foreshadowing, in the Lower Story of Abraham and Isaac, the big climax of his Upper Story – the sacrifice of his own Son. As a matter of fact, the hill of Moriah just happens to be the hill of Jerusalem where Jesus will be crucified nearly two thousand years later.” (p. 39)

The book follows the order of the stories in the Bible so someone who is not familiar with the Bible can get a feel for the flow of Biblical history.

This book would be especially helpful to a new believer or someone who is interested in obtaining an overview of the Bible. Mr. Frazee does an excellent job of summarizing some of the major stories / themes in Scripture and setting them in context.

This would be an excellent resource for a discipleship class, the way Mr. Frazee presents the material stimulates thought and would be a good catalyst for discussion. An adult fellowship or small group Bible study would also benefit from working through this book. To work through the chapters in this book in parallel with the Scripture on which each chapter is based would be a profitable study.

The publisher was kind enough to provide a copy of this book for me to give away. Please leave a comment below indicating why you would like to win the copy and I will select a winner at random.

Book Review: The Sky Is Not Falling by Charles Colson

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Book CoverReview

I must say that I’ve had a difficult time writing a review for this book. Not because I didn’t like it (I did like it), not because it isn’t worth reading (it is), but because there are many facets to the critique of 21st Century American and how the Church responds to it.

Mr. Colson makes a good case that if the church would do a better job of living out what we claim to believe, many of the problems facing our society today could be impacted for the better.

The church today faces the challenge of living out and defending the Biblical World on which western culture was founded. Throughout the book, Mr. Colson provides insight as to how we can go about this.

Under the heading Restoring Moral Sanity, Mr. Colson outlines three things that can be done to bring positive change to America. They are:

  1. “Address the urgent need for our lawmakers and judges to pass and interpret state and national laws in conformance with natural law.” Colson makes the case that law “separated from its moral moorings becomes tyranny.”
  2. “Christians must contend for the Biblical worldview in the economic marketplace.” “Scripture endorses concepts like private property, contract rights, rule of law, and the discharge of debts – all essential to free markets.
  3. “Christian must find a new way of communicating the vital necessity of adhering to absolute moral and ethical standards.”

The last chapter in the book describes some examples of individuals and communities of believers who have take seriously the call to live out their faith in radical ways.

This book provides food for thought for anyone who takes seriously the call to live out our faith in a world that is increasingly hostile to belief. Mr. Colson presents what is at stake and provides ideas on how to respond. This book would be good at stimulating discussion in a Sunday School class or book study group.

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