Reviews

To be honest I clicked on this in my library's ebook collection because I liked the cover. I'm also reading Moby Dick right now (review to come) and it was the whales. Also, watching Good Omens has reawakened a long-dormant interest in religion in an academic sense. It's been a while since I interfaced with this kind of stuff, and this book was a breath of fresh air. That the Bible is a patchwork of stories, up for interpretation within a context? That it can be a source of rebellion and compassion and not just a place of guilt and false promises? Maybe not revelatory to some who have been lucky enough to attend liberal churches, but new to me. It makes me think I should read more theology.

Our most sacred stories emerged from a rift in that relationship, an intense crisis of faith. Those of us who spend as much time doubting as we do believing can take enormous comfort in that. The Bible is for us too.

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[The Psalms] invite us to rejoice, wrestle, cry, complain, offer thanks, and shout obscenities before our Maker without self-consciousness and without fear. Life is full of the sort of joys and sorrows that don’t resolve neatly in a major key. God knows that. The Bible knows that. Why don’t we?

samanthas_bookshelf's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

brandidean's review against another edition

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4.0

I’ve heard a lot about Rachel Held Evans but. Or read one of her books. This was good enough that I’ll try others. Really good perspective on how the Bible was written, vrs how we read it. Definitely some great points in it.

beatyjulia's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

brokawkristi's review against another edition

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4.0

3 1/2 Stars (if Goodreads allowed it!)
First let me just say—this is a beautiful book. Whoever did the cover design gets a bunch of stars for making such a pretty book.

I loved this book. There are very few things which I didn’t like and for which I did deduct stars. The things I didn’t like were the “creative retellings” in the chapter openers. They felt unnatural and awkward to me. It was obvious the author was working with unfamiliar mediums. The screenplay version of Job was my least favorite. But these sections are short and only about half of them were truly awkward enough to take me out of the experience of reading.

What I loved: everything else. I love the author’s honesty and her voice. I love how she mixes personal struggle and experience with research from other scholars. I love her obvious joy in the poetry and stories of the Bible and her angst and discomfort with the same parts I am anxious and uncomfortable with. Her take on Paul’s epistles was utterly refreshing. Her acknowledgement of the abused women in the Bible felt like a friend acknowledging my feelings—I felt relieved and loved. Rachel Held Evans has written a book that really does allow us to delight in the gift of the Bible while lamenting the ways it has been weaponized and misunderstood. I have already recommended it to several friends and would love to discuss it in a book club setting.

I also want to add that I appreciate that the author took time to include multiple perspectives and elevated the voices of the marginalized.

*I received an advanced copy of this book for review purposes and these opinions are my own.*

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