The, Bible Jesus Read

This is a great boom that attempts to answer tough questions about the Old Testament.
I had avoided the Old Testament for a lot of the reasons he states, but he helps explain them and bring them to life.

An excellent writer, Yancey puts together a challenging, informative look at the Old Testament. The book covers Job, Psalms, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes and the Prophets. Like Yancey's other books, this one delves into the intellectual struggles that Christians have with God and His word, the Bible. It is obvious that the author has spent incredible time and thought into these "problems" facing Christians and even the credibility of Christianity. And though these struggles are namely intellectual, rarely do they exclude the emotions as the Old Testament reveals. Job, like us, didn't understand why he was suffering. He didn't understand why bad things happen to good people and vice versa. Certainly a loving, caring God wouldn't allow his children to go through such trials and hardships. Yancey doesn't offer any hard and fast answers, but does a great job of showing how these struggles are common to even Old Testament heroes, and in the end we need to rest in God's goodness. God allowed the hardship in Job's life to prove his faith; essentially God was showing Job off.

In the other chapters of the book, Yancey discusses similar issues to those faced in the book of Job. The last chapter recaps the book and offers a philosophical answer to all the "why" questions that crop up in our faith as Christians, the answer lies in the redeemer of the world, who hasn't yet redeemed this earth completely yet. Our final answer to life should be the cry of Job, who like us, didn't have a lot of answers to the tough questions. This was his cry, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on this earth."

Yancey is a great author in many ways, but I especially appreciate his humility and realness in his writing. He doesn't ever settle for clichés which regularly pepper Christian writing. He isn't out to make himself the hero of every example and story, and often he does the opposite, he makes himself the goat of his stories. Also characteristic of Yancey's writing is strict adherence to the Scriptures. This book especially shows the value the author puts on the authority of God's Word and the importance of using the Bible in life.

The title is somewhat misleading. Rather than a comprehensive analysis of "The Bible Jesus Read", that is, the Old Testament, the author deals with certain books of the Old Testament. And if you know Philip Yancey from his previous writings, you know that he will concentrate on the more difficult, disturbing, seemingly negative parts of the Old Testament. To me, that is one of Yancey's strengths. He takes an unflinching look at reality, not an idealized vision of what everyone thinks life in God is supposed to be. And here is what life with God really looked like to people such as Job and the teacher from Ecclesiastes. In the chapter on Psalms, he deals especially with the imprecatory, or "cursing" Psalms, which seem difficult to reconcile with later Christian teachings on forgiveness and loving one's enemies. The chapter on the prophets is helpful concerning how to generally interpret them. In the final chapter, Yancey points out how the increasing absence of God (according to the Hebrew arrangement of the canon) is designed to increase the spiritual hunger that anticipates the coming of the Messiah.
Previous reviewers have indicated that, in their opinion, this is not one of Yancey's stronger books. I believe, with the exception of one chapter, this book is as strong and interesting as any book he has written. Unfortunately, I had to rate it short of 5 stars because of the chapter on Deuteronomy. Portions of that chapter were taken from the companion booklet to the animated feature "The Prince of Egypt", and thus follows the storyline of the film and not the actual biblical storyline. The whole tone of that chapter just does not fit in a book such as this. If I wanted to read the flowery, overblown recounting of the storyline of the movie, I would have purchased it separately. If you get past the dross, there are valuable insights to be gleaned, but the dross shouldn't be there in the first place. Otherwise, this is an exemplary book.

I am so ashamed of myself because before reading this book I had been quite proud of having read many spiritual books and the whole Bible four times. However, I still failed to realize that the title of the book simply meant the Old Testament, and that I was very ignorant of the Old Testament.
Back to the book itself. The author had expressed that he would like modern christians to re-balance their interest between the Old and the New Testaments, when most of us had certainly put our time on the later one, if we had read it at all. Afterall, Jesus did read and always quote from it. In this respect, I doubt whether his objective can be served because I really think those who had read the Old Testament twice could appreciate the insights that the author had observed and the majority had neglected. The fact that the author had focused only on Job, Deuteronomy, Psalm, Ecclesiastes and the books of the prophets as a whole made it an ordinary Bible commentary instead of the other Yancey works with clear central themes. Nevertheless, this book is still up to the average but still outstanding Yancey standard, perhaps except the part on Deuteronomy, which some other reviewrs shared the same not so positive opinion with me. Anyway, I would strongly recommend this book to all Christians, preferably if one had read the relevant books in the Old Testament at least once.
As usual in all my reviews, I would like to copy and paste some messages for your reference. Hope they would help you to better understand the goodness of the book.
""Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." We usually interpret that commandment in a narrow sense of prohibiting swearing," said Webber, who then proceed to expand its meaning to never live as though God does not exist. Or, stated positively, Always live in awareness of God's existence. ...Any key to living in such awareness must be found in the Old Testament. pg 29
The Old Testament gives clues into the kind of history God is writing. Exodus identifies by name the two Hebrew midwives who helped save Moses'life, but it does not bother to record the name of the Pharaoh rulng Egypt. First Kings grants a total of eight verses to King Omri, even though secular historians regard him as one of Israel's most powerful kings. In his own history, God does not seem impressed by size or power or wealth. Fiath is what he wants, and the heroes who emerge are heros of faith, not strength or wealth. pg 32
At root, Job faced a crisis of faith, not of suffering. ...At such times we focus too easily on circumstances - illness, our looks, poverty, bad luck as the enemy. We pray for God to change those circumstances.....When tragedy strikes, we too will be trapped in a limited point of view. Like Job, we will be tempted to blame God and see him as the enemy.... I hesitate to write this because it is a hard truth, one I do not want to acknowledge: Job convinces me that God cares more about our faith than our pleasure.....In a message to Ezekiel God includes Job in a list of three giants of righteousness. The other two mentioned, Noah and Daniel, learned faith in the midst of a massive flood and a den of lions. pg 63/64
God did not condemn Job's doubt and despair, only his ignorance. pg 70
Bear it up; keep smiling; suffering makes you strong, say some spirtual advisors - but not the psalmists. They do not rationalize anger away or give abstract advice about pain; rather, they express emotions vividly and loudly, directing their feelings primarily at God. pg 122
Many psalms convey this spirit of "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief," a way of talking oneself into faith when emotions are wavering....For the Hebrew poets, God represented a reality more solid than their own whipsaw emotions or the checkered history of their people. They wrestled with God over every facet of their lives, and in the end it was the very act of wrestling that proved their faith. pg 123
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless. T.S. Eliot pg 154
Ecclesiastes insists that the stones we trip over are good things in themselves: "He has made everything beautiful in its time." Yet by assuming a burden we were not mean to carry, we turn nudity into pornography, wine into alcoholism, food into gluttony, and human diversity into racism and prejudice. Despair descends as we abuse God's good gifts; they seem no longer gifts, and no longer good. pg 159
Unless we acknowledge our limits and subject ourselves to God's rule, unless we trust the Giver of all good gifts, we will end up in a state of despair. Ecclesiastes calls us to accept our status as creatures under the dominion of the Creator, something few of us do without a struggle. pg 160
Why read the prophets? There is one compelling reason: to get to know God. The prophets are the Bible's most forceful revelation of God's personality. pg 180

This book is not an analytical commentary, nor does it spend itself on technical matters of literary or form criticism. It is not written for the sake of theological precision, or hair-splitting on controversial issues. Rather, Yancey has chosen here in TBJR to focus on certain aspects of the Old Testament books of Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets because these seem to speak most profoundly to his own spiritual pilgrimage. He explains in the preface that he wants to write about them "personally and subjectively" because they address his own "doubts and struggles, not because I expect these books to teach me the secrets of life." As in his other great writings (especially Disappointment With God), he lets us know early on that the insights he will be sharing are not only the fruit of profound scholarship, but are practical, applicable truths that have been ground out in the crucible of experience.
I have often wished I'd stumble across a charged-up flashlight as I groped through some darker passages of the Old Testament... in TBJR I felt as though I were handed that flashlight quite a few times. For brevity's sake I will mention only one of many instances; simple, yet significant. In the chapter on Psalms, Yancey points out that "the psalms do not theologize." They are rather to be likened to a sampling of spiritual journals written by several people, expressing diverse and even contradictory emotions and opinions. Though I've studied theology for years, I'd never reflected (adequately) on the simple fact that the intended audience for the psalms was not other people, but God! Therefore, they must be read in an entirely different way than one would read the Epistles or other didactic books.
In my opinion, Yancey is the most INTERESTING and accessable Christian writer of our time, and I even find myself often judging other writers by how "Yanceyesque" they are. Even so, the best way to truly appreciate the depth of Yancey's work, is (ironically) to set his stuff aside from time to time, and read the ACTUAL Bible that Jesus read, which is after all, the source of his own inspiration.

The Old Testament stands as an enigma to post-modern Western culture. Although it contains a highly relevant message, it is wrapped in the customs, wars and seemingly endless geneologies of an ancient people.
This brings us to author Philip Yancey who, like most people (Christian, or otherwise) had an aversion to the Old Testament. This continued until a writing assignment required him to read the books, songs and prophecies in-depth bringing the overall message of the Old Testament front and center to him.
The Bible Jesus Read is by no means a complete survey of the Old Testament. Yancey picks Job, the Psalms, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiates and the prophets and gleans some basic themes form each in a powerful essay format. But it is a great read!
The author brings up the most common questions that the layman has about the Old Testament (Why does the God of the Old Testament seem so unlike that of the New? etc.) and recounts his personal reflections on them. While he never provides a cut-and-dry answer to any of the questions presented, the journey of personal reflection is what really elightens. You will come away with a better appreciation of what the Old Testament has to offer and have some misconceptions resolved.
The Bible Jesus Read is a triumph for the author. It takes an extraordinarily difficult subject that many people aren't interested in at all and turns it into an immensely enjoyable reading experience. I was in a condominium in Colorado after an exhausting day of skiing when I was given this book by a friend. Although I was tired and was planning on hanging out and watching a movie with some friends, I was glued to the book. By the time I had to go to bed, I had practically finished the book! It is truly a joy to read and has sent me on a search to devour as many of the author's books as I can.

Like others have noted, the title for this book is slightly misleading. It does not really talk about how the Old Testament was read when Jesus walked the earth. Instead, the author focuses on a handful of books from the Old Testament to show their relevance, and what they can teach us.
As expected, Yancey's writing is excellent, but the results are slightly mixed. The two strongest chapters are on the book of Job, and the Psalms. The chapter about Deuteronomy is misplaced, in that it does not fit well with the other chapters. The style is much different, and it is more heavy on drama, than with substance. The two chapters which are good, but not great cover the book of Ecclesiastes and the Old Testament Prophets.
The thing I enjoy most about Phil Yancey's writings is that he is honest, and makes me take a harder look at my own Christian walk, and the questions/challenges that I face. Given that fact, I recommend this book for anyone looking for a contemporary look at the some books of the Old Testament. This first half of the Bible is often overlooked by many Christians, and is full of many books which give you a much deeper view of who God is, what he thinks of us (His creation), and what His plans are for this world. Those facts alone should prompt us to read His word, all of it.

This guy is pretty amazing. He asks really tough questions of God. He doesn't approach God from an "evangelical, everything is wonderful in Jesus" approach. Instead it's "Life is hard and it has no good answers sometimes". These are the questions I would ask if I were honest enough with myself and God

He then comes up with some pretty incredible insights. His approach seems to be that our doubts and problems are not too big for God. It's just that God's ways are not our ways a lot of times.

One side note is that he tends to offend so called "religious" people. The only way to God is through Christ period. This is at the core of what he talks about. This book does not talk about good people going to heaven. It talks about people who have given their lives to Christ going to heaven. These can be two very different things and that can bug people at times

The basic premise of The Bible Jesus Read is that modern Christians make a mistake by ignoring the Old Testament in favor of just focusing on the New. In doing so we are giving ourselves an incomplete picture of who God is. The Old and New Testaments are meant to go hand in hand. Using Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the books of the prophets, Yancey shows that when we ignore the Old Testament we completely miss out on many vital aspects of the character of God. You cannot truly understand God without seeing him through both the Old and New lense.
Not as earth-shaking as his previous work, What's So Amazing About Grace (that book changed my life), but an important and thoughtful read -- especially the sections on Job and Ecclesiastes. And any book that can make the minor prophets come alive deserves to be recognized. Four Stars.

Loved going through the psalms with Yancey and other portions - he just brings out all the thoughts I've had while trying to "get into" the Psalms. He takes you along his journey,a style of teaching, writing, and preaching I realize I love.

If you've been into Christian studies for very long, then you know Philip Yancey is a name to pay attention to, and this is no exception. Some Christians find themselves engaged in arguments with other believers who think only the New Testament is important. Once they read this book they will be able to win the argument, that the Old Testament is as much Jesus' story as the New, and that the Old Testament is relevant for today's people. Although I was disappointed that Mr Yancy did not discuss the earlier Septuagint translation that Jesus would have read, as opposed to the Massoretic we read, nonetheless, I found it an instructive book. It is well complemented by the accompanying study guide and video set. His lessons are laid out in a logical order that is easy to follow, but it is not dumbed down either.

Many Christians today (me included!!) forget that the Old Testament is what Jesus, the disciples, and all other Jews at the time were familiar with. The Old Testament books were the writings that people used to get closer to God, measure their worthiness as believers and show respect to his Word: until Christ came, as God's ultimate gift and salvation for man.
I know a lot of Christians that think it's hard to get really excited about the Old Testament and it can be hard to pull a lot of relavence from it; especially with the beauty and wonder of the New Testament books and letters. A read through Yancey's "The Bible That Jesus Read" helps you position it in your mind and get you fired up to dive into the OT.
I gave this book as a gift to my grandfather and he found many new insights and takes on the Old Testament. It even led him to spend more time with it! This is a man who has been in the Bible for 50 years, and it means that we can all learn more.
Peace!

Yancey begins this book by stating that many Christians are ignorant of the Old Testament, tend to ignore it, and that our spiritual lives could be enriched by a greater appreciation of the Old Testament. He then proceeds to outline his understanding of various Old Testament books and groups of books: Job, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and The Prophets. This is not an academic work, nor is it really a meditative book. It is a highly readable work that I would suggest using as a bible study aid with the goal of enriching one's spiritual life.
Yancey never ceases to amaze me with his spiritual insights -- especially given that I am a self-styled "liberal" and he is a self-styled "evangelical." This book is yet another very worthwhile read by this truly excellent Christian author.

There's currently a stigma that surrounds the Old Testament confusing us to believe that it is boring or irrelevant to modern Christianity. Quite frankly, this is something that we need to deal with. Why? Because it's an issue hindering us and we need to face it. and we have done poorly thus far.

That's the reason why I started reading Philip Yancey's "The Bible Jesus Read". It targets the topic of a stale and troublesome Old Testament that believers struggle to read. And to say that this book has helped my Bible reading or my view of the Bible is understatement.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the Old Testament. But I really only enjoyed parts of it. Yancey quotes Oswald Chambers on page 9 saying, "the Psalms teach you how to pray; Job teaches you how to suffer; the Song of Solomon teaches you how to love; Proverbs teaches you how to live; and Ecclesiastes teaches you how to enjoy." But I wonder, what are we to do with the other 34 books? How are we to enjoy those?

I wrote an in-depth review of this book with excerpts given. You can read more here: [...]. Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section as well.

Courtney

I have enjoyed reading Philip Yancey's books over the years, but this is not one of his better ones. Like others, I feel the chapter on Deuteronomy is melodramatic and erroneous (not to mention boring.) Although the title is "The Bible Jesus Read", this is not a scholarly attempt to discuss the Hebrew or Greek scriptures available to Jesus during his lifetime, and only selected sections of the Old Testament are examined. On the other hand, the chapters on the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the Prophets are sparkling with helpful literary allusions, exegesis, and insight. They achieve the author's goal of making the Old Testament a little easier to understand for the general reader. If you haven't read a Philip Yancey book before, try one of the others first, such as The Gift of Pain, Where is God When it Hurts, or Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. If you have wanted to do more reading of the scriptures (either for literary or spiritual purposes) and need some helpful guides, this book - along with the NIV Student Bible compiled by Philip Yancey and Tim Stafford - will be a good companion.

This book is indeed a very good Old Testament introduction. Most people, even long time christians, never read the OT because it is long, tedious, and contains things that offend our modern ears.

For this reason and more I recommend this book - it takes a snapshot of five books, with an introduction and a conclusion to wrap it all up. If you go on to read the OT, great, if not, you will have at least a good overview in 1-2 days. The chapter on Ecclesiastes is especially eye opening. Well done Mr. Yancey!

For about ten years, I have preached at many churches and found an amasing amount of indifference to the message of the Old Testament. It amazed me that those who claimed to be followers of Jesus could so indifferent to the part of the Bible which reveals His coming, His identity and His mission. Sadly, this attitude is common among many. The Old Tesament doesn't have the message of salvation, they say. That's not only desperately mistaken, it doesn't give proper credit to the
Lord for how He would reveal His perfect revelation of Himself! Finally, in his unmistakably introspective style, Philip Yancey has set the record straight. He seems to reach into the mind of the Lord to show us how the Jewish Scriptures were a vital part of Jesus' life and His earthly ministry. He shows his readers how Jesus, who dwelt with the knowledge that the Old Testament spoke openly of Him, reached out to the people of His day and became for them a fulfillment of those Scriptures. This book is a must for not only the theologically trained, but also for the layman who looks for understanding of how the Old Testament is relevant to his or her own personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Yancey once again hits the mark and challenges me like no other in this startling honest book of one person struggling with some of the most difficult books of the Old Testament. Written in such a way that even the most committed Christians will have a hard time not being challenged by its content and Yancey also wrestles with many of the same questions the secular world has in regards to this puzzling book. A must read!!!

I find it difficult to understand the Old Testament. It just seem so ancient that at times it does not speak to me. Let this book, "The Bible Jesus Read" open your eyes to a different and fresh insight into an important part of God's revelation. Philip Yancey takes you through the books of the OT with "some sort of summary", point out details you might have missed (if you "fast read" it like I do, there must be more than a few) and suggest a different -and I should say, easier- way to appreciate it. This is not a commentary or a study guide but perhaps one side of the conversation when two believers yearning to get to know God more talk about the "good old book".

Yancey makes a bold apologia for the Old Testament. Appropriately naming it "The Bible Jesus Read," he reminds Christians that the Hebrew Scriptures is the sourcebook of their own faith. It is the "Scriptures" to which Jesus referred when He said, "The Scriptures say...." Avoiding complex surveys and background studies, the author leaves that to the experts; instead he examines the several types of writing one finds in the Hebrew Scriptures. He sees them as a testament to God's dealings with people and of the human response to God in a world that is fully reflected in the pages of the sacred text.

One of the best spiritual writers of day, Philip Yancey rates up there is Kathleen Norris and Lauren Winner for clarity and integrity.

another pretty good book by yancey. this one is a little unique in that it discusses some main books in the old testament. i think this is frequently overlooked and sometimes even omitted from Christian living. the gospels are certainly important but there is still a lot to learn from the old testament.

It is important that we realize that Jesus used, what we call, the Old Testament as His Scripture, not the New, since it had not been written yet. It shows that a good understanding of the OT is essential to a full understanding of the new. I recommend it to any serious Christian.

All Yancy's books are well-written and thought provoking, and this one is no exception. However, I had a real problem with Yancy's statement that Africa is the most aggressively Christian continent in the world, yet is a country that suffers inexplicably because God allows the good and righteous to suffer. This is simply not true. While I agree that Christians suffer as much as anyone else, famine, disease and suffering in Africa are due largely to violence, rampant AIDS and despotic military leaders.

Yancey did a nice job of discussing the difficult books of the Old Testament. He brought up perspectives of these books that caused me to take a longer look at these sections of the Bible. I enjoyed his outlook and as always he challenges me to grow my faith.

It fascinates me how fundamentalist Bible-thumping literalists can believe that THIS Old Testament GOD is an unconditionally loving, forgiving, God for me to love and worship:
God gives power to Samson to kill 30 men for their clothing, to give as a party prize for answering the riddle at his party. Judges 14:11-19. This is like kids killing their peers for their Nikes.
70,000 died for David's sins of not taking the census in a manner pleasing to God. I Chron. 21:14.
Uzza touches the ark in order to steady it when the oxen pulling it stumbled, for which the impatient God kills him. I Chron 13:9-11.
God delights in dashing to death, childrens' heads against the pavement (Psalm 137.9, Isaiah 13:5-19, 13:3, 13:18)
The O.T. is full of instances where God was the biggest violator of his own commandments. To this, Yancy writes, "These were the "sometimes shocking, often cryptic divine writings, baffling, even offensive to the modern mind" (words from the jacket). I was hoping The Bible Jesus Read would explain the type of God who had the behavior of Hitler or Saddam Hussein, the vengeful, jealous, murderous, angry, temper-tantrum, chosen people, tribal, war-monger God, who sprays his RAID on his creation. I was very disappointed, Yancy wrote in his preface, "With some regret (yes with this reviewer's also), I will avoid discussing many of the difficulties and stumbling blocks people encounter in the Old Testament. For example, it contains some six hundred pages of explicit violence, many of them linked directly to God himself. How do we reconcile that with the nonviolence preached by God's Son Jesus? I am tempted to drop everything and deal with these issues, but that would make for a very different book. This is not a book of argument or apology, rather, one of self-discovery. Besides, many authors far more qualified have taken up these issues in great detail."
Yancy does deal with some of the ungracefulness of the God in the O.T. in his What's So Amazing About Grace, but who are these authors he speaks of? Can anyone tell me?
It took me about 3 months to get through The Bible Jesus Read, while I found What's So Amazing About Grace, and Yancy's other books far more captivating and enlightening, I am still trying to figure out why this one wasn't. Perhaps even Yancy can't make the O.T. less boring and relevant for me. Maybe because much of the book is filled with musings and ramblings such as "We may never figure out the toes and horns of Daniel's beasts, or the intricacies of Revelation 12. But if only we could believe that our struggle really is against principalities and powers, if only we could believe that God will prove himself trustworthy and set right all that is wrong, if only we could demonstrate God's passion for justice and truth in this world...." P. 195. "The psalms started to sound boring and repetitious. Why, I wondered, did the Bible need 150 psalms? Wouldn't fifteen suffice to cover the basic content? I struggled through..." p. 111.
Yes, I STRUGGLED through his STRUGGLINGS. Yancy was being honest with his musings, but I found such passages hard to get through, they didn't enlighten me more about the O.T. and he rambled and rambled. Maybe I am too impatient, just like the O.T. God was with his "sinners", his "UNchosen people", and his "Uzza's".

Phillip Yancey's book "The Bible Jesus Read" is incredibly misleading in both its title and its premise, and Yancey makes this clear from the very start, in his preface, as already quoted by another reviewer. It's disappointing that this is what passes for Bible scholarship or Bible study these days. Yancey is not really very interested in the Hebrew scriptures or texts that Jesus might have read or encountered or studied in his own lifetime some two thousand years ago, and Yancey says as much in his preface, though not in so many words.

In the first place, Yancey either excludes, discards, or simply ignores many of the important Hebrew religious materials of that era, such as the Halakha and the Targum, (I apologize in advance if I misrepresent these Hebrew works, I mean no offense, I do not claim to be a scholar of Hebrew or Aramaic texts, which gives me just as much a right to speak on the subject as Mr. Yancey) which may have begun as commentaries on Hebrew scripture but eventually came to hold virtually as much weight and authority in the lives and behaviors and attitudes of the Jewish culture of that day as the central Hebrew religious texts which Christians now refer to as "The Old Testament." We might think of these writings as intended to create a "buffer zone" of human thought and behavior around the core Mosaic commandments, to help devotees prevent themselves from even incidentally violating any religious commandments and admonishments. However it is a matter of fact that Jesus occasionally referenced these other works, and strongly objected to the over-codification of religious faith as it had become in that era, as the priests had taken on more and more authority in writing such commentaries and enforcing extra-Biblical edicts. I had hoped from the title that Yancey would be discussing these kinds of things, which would be much more interesting than the book Yancey has actually written. That Yancey is not interested in discussing these works is not particularly unusual within modern evangelical Christianity, but it demonstrates his lack of curiosity in those religious texts which Jesus must have been familiar with, and indeed became notorious for speaking out against. To demonstrate ignorance of these crucial Hebrew religious works, which became as sacred as the canonical Christian scriptures, is to demonstrate ignorance of the concerns of Jesus' entire immediate audience, and much of what Jesus notoriously spoke out against. He did, after all, get in a bit of trouble for it.

Lastly, Yancey promises to suck all the fun and candor out of a lively study of Judeo-Christian scriptures, as such, by warning in his preface that he will be avoiding any of the "controversial" scriptures ("600 pages"), by which he explains that he means those scriptures which are "dark" or "violent," because, as he excuses himself and his exclusion, then his book might be longer. Apparently, that just wouldn't do. Why does he arbitrarily choose to slim down his volume in this manner, as opposed to excluding, for example, all scriptures having to do with weather and natural disasters, or all scriptures having to do with women, or all scriptures having to do with livestock and pastoralism?

What could possibly be gained in an examination of the scriptures Jesus might have read, in avoiding categorical subject matter that is deemed overly "controversial" by the faint-of-heart author? Should we conclude that Jesus would have similarly avoided "controversial" topics of the day? Much to the contrary, as we know! Is Yancey insinuating that because such topics might be too "dark" for the modern reader, they would have been been similarly "controversial" in Jesus' day? It would seem in fact that the Jewish people might have been particularly proud of their own violent and warlike histories and chronologies, given the fact of their contemporary military and economic oppression under the iron heel of the Roman empire. It is a matter of historical record and Biblical record that the Jews did not recognize Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah, because they were specifically anticipating a military leader/warrior who would lead them in successfully overthrowing Roman military and political oppression.

More to the point, the "controversial" violence of the Old Testament is not simply the record of an era of violence, but a testament to the centrality of violence to the early Abrahamic faith, committed either by Jehovah himself, angels in his employ, or by the faithful Hebrews themselves under divine mandate, according to their own self-aggrandizing scriptures, however factual they may or may not be.

My disappointment with this book goes far beyond the author's poor choice of title, or a failure to live up to his own premise. Yancey pardons himself for his ignorance and selectivity by saying that he is just an author, not a scholar or an academic, while he offers no excuses for his notable lack of curiosity regarding his chosen topic (does he consult with the most well-versed scholars he can find? No. Does he offer opposing interpretations? Nope.), ensuring that his book will bear very little resemblance to any reality, which is apparently not within the scope of his objectives. At best he is being intentionally misleading, for any of his readers who are actually curious regarding the Bible that Jesus read, and he is making a mockery of Bible study and scholarship.

In asking, What would Jesus read, Yancey begins with the premise that the Bible should be treated like a fairy tale, like William Goldman's "good parts version" of S. Morgenstern's (nonexistent) classic "The Princess Bride." How is this any different than the way modern evangelicals already regard their own scripture? Yancey is doing little more than feeding the literary equivalent of more junk food to an already dangerously diabetic religious constituency, decrepit in their intellectual integrity, their knowledge of their own religious texts increasingly cursory and overly credulous. Rather than shining a light in the darkness, Mr. Yancey is going around the library and turning off the lights. This is the worst book by Yancey that I have yet encountered. It is misleading, and avoidable, for anyone that wants to learn more about Jesus, the Old Testament, or the scriptures as Jesus might have known them.

As a side note, there are not actually any passages in the New Testament that can confirm or deny that Jesus wasn't illiterate. In fact it is very likely that a carpenter and/or a fisherman from that era would have been totally illiterate, unless being the Son of God means never having to learn how to read. In other words, it is never mentioned that Jesus knew how to read, only that he was apparently very familiar with the scriptures and the study of contemporary religious texts, as they were read often aloud in that era. There is the well-known passage where Jesus is said to have drawn in the dirt with a stick, but it does not specifically say that he was writing; and also scholars conclude that this passage, which is a very fascinating story in and of itself, was inserted some decades or centuries later, most likely by scribes or copyists, as the language and vocabulary of that particular passage do not coincide the rest of that particular Gospel whatsoever. It's entirely possible that Jesus never actually read "the Bible" for himself, but I find this much more excusable on Mr. Yancey's part as a bit of poetic license.

A true Christian teacher teaches the principles of the Holy Bible -- both the good and the bad. False teachers teach only what people want to hear. Yancey is like a false teacher. He doesn't want to teach anything that makes people uncomfortable -- such as the Holy God of the Bible ordered King Saul to annihilate all the Amalekits -- women, children, disabled included! This is our God! The God of the Bible we worship. If anyone has problem with the genocidal God of the Bible whom we worship as our God, then he can go to Hell. He will go to Hell because he doesn't believe in the God of the Bible who ordered King Saul to kill women, children, and the disabled.