If Not Empire, What?: A Survey of the Bible

by Berry Friesen, John K. Stoner

In this thoughtful and systematic exploration, Friesen and Stoner understand the Bible to be an extended argument about life, love and power. In the various biblical texts, this argument presents two versions of the Hebrew god, one who aligns with kings and the religious establishment, the other who makes a fool of kings and aligns with everyday people. Through discussion of each biblical text, the authors highlight how this argument plays out in the history of the Israelites, the prophetic attempts to articulate an alternative to the nation-state, the life and teachings of Jesus, and the multi-ethnic community that emerged after Jesus' death. Written in a popular style, the book serves as a concise and sometimes irreverent introduction to the entire Bible while demonstrating its immediate relevance to the problems of violence, insecurity and injustice. Through frequent quotations of scripture, the reader is encouraged to recognize the imperial worldview as the source of what most threatens Earth's future and to imagine an alternative to top-down rule by powerful elites. Although written primarily for readers who view the Bible as literature, the book reflects the authors' faith and provides a fresh reading for people who regard the Bible to be much more than literature. This attempt to respect both approaches is facilitated by a discussion of seven assumptions held by biblical writers, but likely not held by modern readers. With these assumptions in mind, the reader is better prepared to make sense of texts that are not only very old, but also highly relevant to decisions we must make about whether we will continue to place our faith in the empire's answers.

354 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2014

Reviews

[Orion · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good book, good alternate perspective at times, but poorly implemented.

Most of it's more salient points are not made with enough evidence to back them up, so the authors present them as questions: "Might this passage be say this??" It reminds me of the wisdom that, if a newspaper headline is phrased as a question, the answer is probably "No."

Beyond this, they cherry pick which parts of the Bible they consider worthy of inclusion based entirely on how well the passage comports to their thesis. They commit the one error that Ellul cites in Biblical scholarship: if a passage does not comport to their thesis, they ask "Yea, did God really say?"