Status Updates From Whose Bible Is It? A Histor...

When the invention of printing was combined with the zeal for biblical doctrine in Reformation theology and with the zest for literary and historical knowledge of the Bible in Renaissance humanism, the combination was responsible for an intellectual explosion and a scholarly revolution. Biblical scholarship as a field of study, indeed as a profession unto itself, came of age through the printed book.

More than any leading Christian thinkers int he preceding thousand years, Reformation theologians identified themselves as, first and last, biblical theologians. The "sacred page" of which Thomas Aquinas had been a "Master" now became the central focus in a way and to a measure that it never had before.

With the sacred text of the Tanakh in a language that was increasingly unintelligible to the worshiping congregation, Jewish liturgical practice had to resort to the use of Aramaic paraphrase and translation, known as Targum (meaning "translation"), which also became part of the normative tradition.

Using this as my testing ground for reading methods taught in How to read a book by Mortimer J Adler. This has slowed my reading, but my reading is much deeper. This book seems marketed as a contemporary history of the bible, but it is pretty complex, and deals with a lot of history & philosophy. If anything, it shows that the history of the bible is something more complex than what 300 pages can do justice.

I have been reading this on and off on audio for a few months as a background comfort read since I know alot about theology & the Bible, but I was often getting lost or would quit paying attention. So, I decided to restart this book by reading it traditionally. This book has a lot more going on than I thought. It looks like contemporary writing, but it's actually serious scholarship. The first chapter is brilliant!