Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Books read in 2016: No. 61 -- How We Got the Bible

by Neil R. Lightfoot

Started: Dec. 2
Finished: Dec. 6

Notes: My guess is I'll be familiar with at least the basics of this information, and I'm skeptical of many Christian non-fiction books as they too often (for my taste) focus on evangelism instead of history, but one can always hope.

Mini review: I was pleasantly surprised with this one. I expected it to be more about the politics and groups that went into defining what we know today as the Holy Bible, such as the Council of Trent, etc., but all of that was only mentioned in passing. No, most of this was about archaeology and historical record, taking several looks at various manuscripts that have come down to us over the ages, the Dead Sea Scrolls being one of the most recent discoveries. Of course there was a Christian slant here, but I felt the author did a pretty good job at remaining objective when discussing the relative historical and religious worths of the different manuscripts. Also, the author did a good job at keeping the writing interesting without writing down to the audience but also without becoming too over-the-top intellectual, taking a nice middle approach.

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