Reading The Bible (Again and Again and Again)

I recently finished reading Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again For the First Time and then saw this information from the Barna Group on Bible reading. Admittedly these are two different voices within the Christian community. In fact, there are times when one questions whether or not Borg truly is a person of faith, I will decline from making my judgment call on that and allow God to sort that out with Borg directly. Borg is however a brilliant Biblical scholar, although he is definitely shaded by his own biases and preconcieved notions of faith, religion, and spirituality. He is the type of scholar that conservatives are scared of, liberals don't think he's liberal enough, and he seems to go either way with moderates depending on what side of the bed they woke up on that day. The book is a good read, mostly free of scholar jargon. Borg's intention is to help people who have dismissed the Bible reclaim it, at least on some level.


My biggest concern was the broad brush strokes he paints people and their view of the Bible. He argues that there are two groups, the fundamentalists and people like him. I however would propose a third group, which seems to include most people in ministry and academia that I know who profess faith in Jesus Christ, let's call them informed Christians. These are people who hold steadfastly to the Bible as the word of God, but also acknowledge that their are some things that the Bible has no intention of addressing, because after all it is a book about God's revelation of himself to his chosen people and the ups and downs of that relationship.

All that to say that, Borg's book offers some challenges for people on both sides of the theological debate about the Bible.