This chapter begins another section of the book, two chapters on the Beatitudes. Bailey immediately offers another structural outline. First, there is Luke’s version, laid out in couplets that match ABCD,ABCD — positive blessings and then negative woes. Sandwiched in the middle is an extended comment on facing persecution for the sake of following Jesus….
Month: April 2024
JTMEE: Chapter 4
This chapter begins with a summary of Herod as a complex man. Ethnically Arab (Nabatean), he was born into the Idumean kingdom after Hyrcanus had forcibly converted them. He married into the Hasmonean family to seize the throne of Judea. His first language was Greek, and his politics were quite Roman. As a younger man,…
JTMEE: Chapter 3
I must admit this chapter troubled me just a little. Bailey praises someone I believe caused more trouble than good, Desmond Tutu. Let’s be honest: There was certainly nothing wrong with ending apartheid. It was what came with it that dragged South Africa back toward the Stone Age, and Tutu had a hand in that….
JTMEE: Chapter 2
I’ll start with a personal note. Because of the time I’ve spent counseling others, along with reading and interacting with Christian Manosphere blogs, I can safely conclude that my wife is a rare treasure. She’s like an alien creature untouched by mainstream feminist culture. She is morally mature and I’ve never had to play headgames…
JTMEE: Chapter 1
I’ve long complained that we have loaded down the Gospel narrative with a massive weight of nonsense mythology. Because we want to entertain children with fantasies, we make the Christmas story far more than what it actually was. Bailey takes an ax to junk. Working from Luke 2:1-20, he reminds us how the added nonsense…
A Different View of Christ
To me it looks like I’ve done these books in the right order. We are following the subject into deepening complexity. Our next book review is Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey (2008 InterVarsity Press, ISBN 13:9780830825684 paperback). Henceforth, I will abbreviate that to JTMEE. The author lived in the Middle East…
Reevaluate Your Favorites
Let me suggest an exercise, something we each should do for ourselves. On of the most useful points raised in the book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes was the fundamental flaw of personalizing everything in the Bible, a sort of religious solipsism. When it comes to Bible exegesis, my first encounter with Charismatics was like…
Misreading Scripture: Conclusion
This book was written for western minds. Naturally, it is structured the way westerners think. The mere presence of practical application is a uniquely western concern. This is often noted by non-western Christians. We like systems, lists, steps in sequence. We struggle to process gestalt thinking that isn’t concrete. In the end, one cannot simply…
Misreading Scripture: Self 03
The authors hammer on one of my pet peeves. If you scan back over the literature of western Church History, it seems nearly every generation was convinced that they lived in the Ends Times. During my own lifetime, it started with Hal Lindsey, then the Left Behind series, and now any number of similar hucksters…