Karen Armstrong's
book, The Bible: The Biography (2007), is a historical account of how
the Bible was formed, interpreted, and used by Jews and Christians over the
centuries. Armstrong argues that the Bible is a living document that has been
constantly reinterpreted and applied to different contexts and situations by
its readers. She traces the development of the Bible from its oral origins to
its written form, and from its canonical status to its diverse interpretations.
Armstrong begins by
exploring the origins of the Hebrew Bible, which was composed by various
authors who had different views of God, creation, and society. She shows how
the Israelites did not have a rigid orthodoxy until after the Babylonian exile,
when they began to canonize their scriptures and define their beliefs. She also
explains how the Torah scholars considered themselves as prophets who could
find new meanings in the ancient texts.
Armstrong then
examines how the early Christians used the Hebrew Bible creatively to
understand their experience of Jesus and the Christian community. She describes
how the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE prompted the writing of the
New Testament books, which were also influenced by the Jewish and Greco-Roman
cultures. She emphasizes how the Christians experienced the presence of Jesus
in the study of the scriptures, both old and new.
Armstrong continues by
analyzing how the Jews and Christians developed different methods of exegesis
and interpretation of the Bible after the second Temple period. She discusses
how the Jews created the Talmud and the Midrash, which were commentaries and
stories that expanded and explained the biblical texts. She also discusses how
the Christians developed the allegorical and literal methods of interpretation,
which were influenced by the Greek philosophy and the Roman law.
Armstrong then surveys
the history of the Bible from the medieval period to the modern era,
highlighting the major developments and challenges that affected its
understanding and use. She covers topics such as the rise of monasticism, the
Crusades, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the historical criticism, the
fundamentalism, and the postmodernism. She shows how the Bible has been used
both to inspire and to oppress, to justify and to challenge, to comfort and to
confront.
Armstrong concludes by
calling for a creative and compassionate engagement with the Bible, which she
considers as a sacred and human document that can reveal the divine and the
human realities. She urges the readers to approach the Bible with respect, curiosity,
and imagination, and to apply its teachings to the contemporary issues and
problems. She affirms that the Bible is a biography of God and of humanity, and
that it can help us to discover ourselves and our relationship with the divine.
The APA style
references:
Armstrong, K. (2007). The
Bible: The Biography. London: Atlantic Books.
Sutton, G. W. (2024,
January 9). The bible: The biography—A review. Interdisciplinary Book and
Film Reviews. Retrieved from https://suttonreviews.suttong.com/2024/01/the-bible-biography.html
I used Bing Chat to help with the review.
Quoting Armstrong
Several of Armstrong’s quotes are relevant
to my writing about the psychology of religion including psychology and fundamentalism,
sociomoral conflicts, and evolution. Following is a selection of quotes.
Anger and the Reformers
Even after his great
breakthrough, Luther remained terrified of death. He seemed constantly in a
state of simmering rage: against the Pope, the Turks, Jews, women, rebellious
peasants, scholastic philosophers and every single one of his theological opponents.
He and Zwingli engaged in a furious controversy about the meaning of Christ's
words when he had instituted the Eucharist at the last supper, saying 'This is
my body'.38 Calvin was appalled by the anger that had clouded the
minds of the two reformers and caused an unholy rift that could and should have
been avoided: 'Both parties failed altogether to have patience to listen to
each other, in order to follow truth without passion, wherever it might be
found,' he concluded. 'I deliberately venture to assert that, if their minds
had not been partly exasperated by the extreme vehemence of the controversies,
the disagreement was not so great that conciliation could easily have been
achieved.'39 It was impossible for interpreters to agree on every single
passage of the Bible; disputes must be Conducted humbly and with an open mind.
Yet Calvin himself did not always live up to these high principles, and was
prepared to execute dissenters in his own church. (Armstrong, 2007, p. 173)
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882)
and the End Times
He was convinced, on
the basis of a literal reading of Revelation, that God would shortly bring this
era of history to an end in an unprecedentedly terrible disaster. Antichrist,
the fake redeemer whose coming before the end had been foretold by St Paul,35
would initially be welcomed and would deceive the unwary. He would then inflict
seven years of tribulation, war and massacre upon humanity, but eventually Jesus
would descend to earth and defeat him on the plain of Armageddon outside
Jerusalem. Christ would then rule on earth for a thousand years until the Last
Judgement brought history to a close. The attraction of this theory was that
true believers would be spared. On the basis of a chance remark of St Paul, who
suggested that at the Second Coming Christians would be 'taken up in the
clouds' to meet Jesus* Darby maintained that shortly before Tribulation, there
would a 'rapture', a 'snatching' of born-again Christians, who would be whisked
up to heaven and would thus escape the sufferings Of the end time. (Armstrong, 2007, p. 200)
The Scopes Trial of
1925
The southern states
had hitherto taken little part in the fundamentalist movement but they were
worried about the teaching of evolution. Bills were introduced into the state legislatures
of Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas to ban the teaching of
Darwinian theory. The anti-evolutionary laws in Tennessee were particularly
strict and John Scopes, a young teacher in the small town of Dayton, decided to
strike a blow for freedom of speech and confessed that he had broken the law
when he had taken a biology class in place of his principal. In July 1925 he
was brought to trial. The new American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a team
of lawyers to defend him, headed by the rationalist campaigner Clarence Darrow.
Bryan agreed to support the law. Immediately the trial became a contest between
the Bible and science.
Bryan was a disaster
on the stand and Darrow emerged from the trial as the champion of rational
thought. The press gleefully denounced the fundamentalists as hopeless
anachronisms, who could take no part in the modern world. This had an effect
that is instructive to us today. When fundamentalist movements are attacked
they usually become more extreme. Before Dayton, the conservatives were wary of
evolution, but very few had espoused 'creation science', which maintained that
the first chapter of Genesis was factually true in every detail. After Scopes,
however, they became more vehemently literal in their interpretation of
scripture, and creation science became the flagship of their movement. (Armstrong,
2007, p. 210)
Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is www.suttong.com
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