• Complain

Rob Bell - What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything

Here you can read online Rob Bell - What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2017, publisher: HarperOne, genre: Religion. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Rob Bell What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
  • Book:
    What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    HarperOne
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2017
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Rob Bell, the beloved author ofLove WinsandWhat We Talk About When We Talk About God,goes deep into the Bible to show how it is more revelatory, revolutionary, and relevant than we ever imaginedand offers a cogent argument for why we need to look at it in a fresh, new way.
InLove Wins,Rob Bell confronted the troubling questions that many people of faith were afraid to ask about heaven, hell, fate, and faith. Using the same inspired, inquisitive approach, he now turns to our most sacred book, the Bible.What Is the Bible?provides insights and answers that make clear why the Bible is so revered and what makes it truly inspiring and essential to our lives.
Rob takes us deep into actual passages to reveal the humanity behind the Scriptures. You cannot get to the holy without going through the human, Rob tells us. When considering a passage, we shouldnt ask Why did God say . . .? To get to the heart of the Bibles meaning, we should be asking: Whats the story thats unfolding here and why did people find it important to tell it? What was it that moved them to record these words? What was happening in the world at that time? What does this passage/story/poem/verse/book tell us about how people understood who they were and who God was at that time? In asking these questions, Rob goes beyond the one-dimensional question of is it true? to reveal the Bibles authentic transformative power.
Rob addresses the concerns of all those who see the Bible as Gods Word but are troubled by the ethical dilemmas, errors, and inconsistencies in Scripture. WithWhat Is the Bible?,he recaptures the Good Books magic and reaffirms its power and inspiration to shape and inspire our lives today.

Rob Bell: author's other books


Who wrote What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

.... try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

Contents
Landmarks

To begin with, a bit about where this book comes from.

When I was in my early twenties, I gave my first sermon. I was hooked. I decided right then and there that I was going to give my life to reclaiming the art of the sermon.

I loved giving sermons.

I still do.

More than ever.

And sermons, I understood at that point, are something you give from the Bible. So I went to seminary, and I studied Greek and Hebrew (the two languages the Bible was originally written in), and I studied history and hermeneutics and exegesis and form and textual criticismall so I could give better sermons.

Eventually I got a job in a church, and I started giving sermons weekly. And then one day something happened that changed everything.

I had just given a sermon, and I was standing around afterward talking to people when a man named Richard walked up to me and said,

You missed it.

What? I asked him. What did I miss?

He then proceeded to rattle off a seemingly endless list of things that were happening in the story from the Bible that I had just given a sermon about. Background and hints and meaning and innuendo and humor and tension and history. The more he went on, the more I realized how right he was: I had missed it.

And then he said,

You know, Jesus was Jewish.

What? Jesus was Jewish? I said. I imagine youre laughing at this point because thats so obvious, and yes, I did know that Jesus was Jewish. But not like Richard knew it. Something about that one obvious line set off an explosion within me.

Richard went on to say that Jesus lived in a first-century Jewish world of politics and economics and common stories and inside jokes, and the more you knew about that world, the more he and his message would come to life. Richard began dropping by my office with photocopied articles by people Id never heard of explaining mikvahs and taxation rates and ketubahs and who Shammai was and who Hillel was and why that matters. Richard introduced me to friends of his who invited me to eat with them while they would discuss and debate and laugh and riff on the Bible for the sheer joy of it. And they knew their stuff. It was staggering. I could barely keep up. They would point out insightful political commentary or subversive poetry or discrepancies in the text that were actually on purpose because the writer was doing something really clever just below the surface. Theyd take a verse or story Id heard people talk about, and theyd start discussing it and turning it on its head and pointing out all the depth and surprise and power I hadnt noticedit was like music they were dancing to.

This is in the Bible? I found myself continually asking. How did I miss this? It was like the Bible went from black and white to color, from two dimensions to three, or nine.

Gradually what I was learning began to make its way into my sermons and, more significantly, into my life.

And once you see, you cant unsee.

And once you taste, you cant untaste.

People started coming up to me after my sermons, sometimes visibly upset, asking,

How come Ive never heard any of this?! This makes so much more sense! This is so much more dangerous and interesting and provocative and timely and progressive and poetic and convicting and funny...

Over time I began to realize that what was happening wasnt just that I was learning new things about the Bible but that I was reading the Bible in a different way. A way that I hadnt been exposed to. Until now. And now there was no going back.

Which is why Ive written this book: I want to help you read the Bible in a better way because lots of people dont know how to read it. And so they either ignore it, or they read it badly and cause all kinds of harm.

Some people see the Bible as an outdated book of primitive, barbaric fairy tales that we have moved beyond. And so they ignore it, missing all of the progressive and enlightened ideas that first entered human history through the writers of the Bibleideas and ideals we still fall far short of, ideas and ideals that are still way ahead of our present consciousness and practice.

And then there are the folks who talk about how important and central and inspired the Bible is but then butcher it with their stilted literalism and stifling interpretations, assuming that it says one thing and if you just get that one thing, then youve read it well.

But you, I want you to read the Bible in a whole new way.

Picture 1

A few thoughts before we get rolling here.

First, the Bible isnt a Christian book. I say that because many people have come to understand the Bible as a book for a certain group of people to claim and own and then help them divide themselves from everyone else. But the Bible is a book about what it means to be human. And we are all, before anything else, human.

So if youre reading this preface wondering if this is another one of those religious books thats going to try to sign you up and convert you at the end, or its going to have all kinds of insider language for those in the know, this isnt that book. This is a book about a library of books dealing with loss and anger and transcendence and worry and empire and money and fear and stress and joy anddoubt and grace and healing, and who doesnt want to talk aboutthose?

Second, you dont have to believe in God to read the Bible. In fact, as youll see in these passages, the Bible is filled with people wrestling and struggling and doubting and shouting and arguing with this idea that there even is a god, let alone some sort of divine being who is on our side. If you have a hard time swallowing the god talk youve heard over the years, greatthis book is for you, because these are exactly the kinds of things the writers of the Bible are dealing with in their writings.

Third, this book is all over the place. Seriously, were going to jump from topic to topic and story to story and theme to theme, moving from poetry to history to parable to questions and rants. I did this on purpose.

There is an arc, a trajectory to this book. I am trying to take you somewhere specificbut with countless twists and turns. Ive arranged this book this way because this is how the Bible is. Yes, it does have an intentional arrangement to it, but there are so many moments when you find yourself thinking, Where did that come from?

Ive been reading and studying and exploring and rereading and rethinking and giving sermons from the Bible for twenty-five years, and I find it more compelling and mysterious and interesting and dangerous and convicting and helpful and strange and personal and inspiring and divine and enjoyable than ever.

So you can relaxtheres a good chance youre going to enjoy this.

And you may even find yourself thinking,

How did I miss this?

In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 34, we read that Moses

was a hundred and twenty years old when he died,

yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.

A fairly straightforward verse, correct? Moses was old... and then he died.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything»

Look at similar books to What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything»

Discussion, reviews of the book What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.