Reading Scripture As The Word Of God: Practical Approaches And Attitudes, by George Martin

I read this book, which is a volume from my landlord’s library, for a specific purpose. A member of my congregation came to me with a request for help regarding some of the questions one of her daughter has about issues concerning the authority and authenticity of the Scriptures, about which she has been influenced by a father who holds to strongly anti-Catholic beliefs concerning the New Testament and various “hidden” or “suppressed” books of the New Testament. As it turns out, this book was not particularly helpful in dealing with such questions, not least because it happens to have been written by a Catholic writer. While this book was not entirely worthless as a read about the authority of the Bible, it falls short of an ideal book on several grounds–which I will discuss shortly–and demonstrates the unfortunate reality that when we are dealing with books about the Bible, it is hard to give proper credit to the Bible itself and all too easy to write out of our own ideas and theories about the Word of God rather than letting the Bible be the judge of our thoughts. None of us, alas, is immune to that tendency, not least those who write about the Bible in the hopes of making a living from it.

This book consists of about 200 pages of writing in ten chapters that are organized into three larger parts. The first part of the book consists of the author’s thoughts on reading the Bible, which include chapters on reading (1), understanding (2), listening (3), and praying (4) about the scriptures one is reading. Overall, the author appears to recommend generally Catholic Bible translations as well as commentaries and has a higher opinion of contemporary textual criticism about the Bible than appears to be warranted, though the author manages to stay within generally accepted bounds when it comes to scripture. After this the author talks about the word of God as coming in the words of man (5), which leads the author to have a rather low view of scriptural inspiration that nevertheless emphasizes the lack of coercion in the way that God spoke to prophets and others, before looking at God as the one who speaks (6), and also that it is the Church and not isolated believers who listen (7). If the author’s view of scriptural authority is lower than it ought to be, at least the author has a high regard for the role of the church and involvement in a religious community. The last part of the book discusses abiding in the Word, with a discussion about continued reading (8), some problems of interpretation (9), and the power of the Word (10). The book then ends with a short conclusion.

In general, it is clear that the author writes as a Catholic, and this colors his view of the Bible, as one might expect, in generally harmful ways to a proper view of scriptural authority. The author’s beliefs in the Trinity lead him to view the Bible and the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ in a particular way springing from his beliefs about the Bible rather than what the Bible itself actually says. Similarly, his beliefs in progressive revelation also spring from his Catholic perspective. If the author makes it a point to proclaim that someone who seeks to follow God must obey Him, at the same time this is hedged about by a lack of specifics as to which commandments present the heaviest difficulties for believers–like the Sabbath, which is completely ignored, predictably, by the author, despite its prominence within the Bible. When we read what people have to say about matters that are of high importance to them, as the Bible is to believers, what we end up reading is not so much about the Bible itself but about people’s thoughts and beliefs about the Bible, which may or may not be correct. This book is a mixed bag, and that is due to the mixed nature of the Bible as far as Catholic doctrine and practice are concerned.