Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien | Book Review

★★★★

4 Stars | Adult | Non-Fiction | Christian |

What goes without being said

The authors of this book do their best to explain that as Westerners we have natural biases when reading scripture since our culture is so different from that of the biblical world and those of our Eastern brothers and sisters. Discussing the things we grew up with that “go without being said,” versus “what goes without being said” in eastern and biblical cultures.

I can see why some reviews say that the authors are just beating up on white males in our western society. This was a challenging read and pissed me off as well in multiple chapters, BUT the difference between my reading and possibly some other reviewers is that my church did this as part of a biblical study to help us understand the bible better and the “context” it was written in. Our pastor was there to help us understand what the authors were trying to say and, in my case, helped me to no longer want to smack the authors with their own book or accuse them of doing what they just told the readers to not do. Even with this frustration, I was taught quite a bit. I’d say maybe a third of the book “went without being said” for me already, specifically the anthropological side of things, while the rest was either fascinating to learn about or irritating, but either way I learned something.

Even with the knowledge gained, the reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 was because of two things. The way this book is written, the authors will say I, (Randy) or I, (Brandon) throughout the entire book, which helps us to know who is speaking or being spoken about, but it gets irritating rather quickly. The other reason is that I cannot recommend reading this book by yourself. There is so much here that can easily be misunderstood. The authors themselves cover this point in their conclusion stating, “that being aware of a misreading is half the battle…but the other half is because we are reading alone. The worldwide church needs to learn to study Scripture together as a global community.” (pg. 216)

This an excellent book to really dig into theological study but should be “read together."

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