Reading the Bible Badly

How American Christians Misunderstand and Misuse their Scriptures

Karl Allen Kuhn

• Verlag: Cascade Books
• Jahr: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781725267008
• Thema: Theologie & Religion
• Thema: Bibelkritik & -auslegung

Reading the Bible Badly exposes how American Christians misunderstand and misuse the Bible, reading Scripture through "lenses" that distort its true character. As Americans, we often read the Bible's stories and instruction unmindful of their historical and cultural settings, disregarding the testimony of our spiritual ancestors, and finding mostly a mirror image of our own values and selves in Scripture. Some of us insist that the Bible must be the "inerrant word of God," historically factual in every way and doctrinally infallible, and overlook so much of what makes Scripture beautiful and relevant. Others follow a lectionary that dices and splices Scripture into bite-size morsels for Sunday worship, divorces passages from their biblical settings, strikes verses deemed offensive, and undermines the literary artistry that is the lifeblood of Scripture's profound revelation. Many of us read the Bible in fear, warping our witness to Jesus and tragically neglecting Scripture's ever-persistent call to compassion, hospitality, and love. We come to the Bible looking for simple rules that affirm our sense of right and wrong, while missing the point of what Jesus taught about wisdom and true righteousness. Reading the Bible Badly challenges Christians to set aside their misaligned lenses, that they may encounter the Bible more fully and faithfully.

appendix one

The Whole Bible Lectionary (WBL)

What follows is a lectionary designed to engage the biblical traditions in more depth than the current lectionaries most commonly used by American Christians, and Christians around the world. Its goal is to help communities of faith deeply encounter the testimony of their spiritual ancestors as they discern what it means to bear witness to Jesus and God’s reign in their own times and places.

Like the present lectionaries, the WBL rev...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Reading Glasses
• Reading the Bible with Amnesia and Dishonoring Our Ancestors
• Reading the Bible as Inerrant and Making It Much Less Relevant
• Reading the Bible in Fear: The Tragedy of a Broken-hearted Hermeneutic
• Reading the Bible Into Pieces
• Reading the Bible into Stone and Neglecting the Foundation of True Torah
• Reading Culture as Bible and Ignoring the Spirit
• Reading the Bible Well
• The Whole Bible Lectionary (WBL)
• The Biblical Story in Summary
• Bibliography