How to Read the Bible and Still Be a ..., John Dominic Crossan
How to Read the Bible and Still Be a ..., John Dominic Crossan
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How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian
Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation

Author: John Dominic Crossan

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Unabridged: 8 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/23/2020

Synopsis

Many portions of the New Testament, introduce a compassionate Jesus who turns the other cheek, loves his enemies, and shows grace to all. But the Jesus we find in Revelation and some portions of the Gospels leads an army of angels bent on earthly destruction. Which is the true revelation of the Messiah—and how can both be in the same Bible?

How to Read the Bible and Still be a Christian explores this question and offers guidance for the faithful conflicted over which version of the Lord to worship. John Dominic Crossan reconciles these contrasting views, revealing how different writers of the books of the Bible not only possessed different visions of God but also different purposes for writing. Often these books are explicitly competing against another, opposing vision of God from the Bible itself.

Crossan explains how to navigate this debate and offers what he believes is the best central thread to what the Bible is all about. He challenges Christians to fully participate in this dialogue, thereby shaping their faith by reading deeply, reflectively, and in community with others who share their uncertainty. Only then, he advises, will Christians be able to read and understand the Bible without losing their faith.

About John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan, emeritus professor at DePaul University, is widely regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time. He is the author of several bestselling books, including God and Empire, The Historical Jesus, The Birth of Christianity, and Who Killed Jesus?. John lives in Minneola, Florida.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Howard on January 20, 2016

Justice v Judgement I am a Christian; however, I have struggled most of my adult life with the dichotomy of God as described in the Bible. On the one hand we have the loving creator God who gave us everything and whose son preached love and nonviolence. On the other hand we have the avenging God of t......more

Goodreads review by James (JD) on July 04, 2015

Hands down the most provocative title of a book that I'll read this year, Crossan here is focused on the Bible's bi-polar approach toward violence. Two singular examples anchor his argument. First, there is the example of Jesus whose "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem four days before his crucifixion f......more

Goodreads review by Adam on March 20, 2015

Crossan is one of those scholars who is unspeakably brilliant and endlessly frustrating in equal measure. This book ends up being quite typical in that respect. His thesis is that Jesus is the measure of the Bible; it is Jesus that shows us what is accurate and inaccurate everywhere else, and in tha......more

Goodreads review by Catrina on October 30, 2020

I enjoy the way Crossan approaches biblical issues but this book was DEEP and I don’t have the right scuba certifications to join him. The summary of the book’s analysis is essentially, “love and justice MUST go hand-in-hand.” I can get on board with that message but feel like I had to slog through......more

Goodreads review by Orville on May 01, 2018

Crossan performs his expected thorough and clear, readable analysis of the streams of thought that seem to portray two different portraits of God in the collection of documents over several centuries that now constitute what we call the Bible. Crossan's book was originally published in 1989 and may......more

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