David Sanford (1)

Disappointing. Ostensibly appropriate for college students--at least they are featured in the mock dialogues that set up the issues the authors take on--but the answers and insights given wouldn't satisfy any college student who thinks about this stuff for more than ten minutes. The authors simply assert that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. While I didn't expect a full on discussion of the documentary hypothesis, I certainly wasn't looking for such a simplistic position that doesn't even acknowledge the complexity of the issue. The apparent contradictions in parallel accounts are also summarily explained away. No discussion of tensions, of the phenomenon of differences between eyewitness accounts. And to top it all off, the actual Bible study plans that are offered aren't anything special. I didn't need to buy this book to get another "Read the Bible in a year" plan. The reading plan that emphasizes biblical characters and the one that focuses on "the highlights" of each book may have merit--but I was definitely hoping for more. I've only glanced at the sections that give their approach to principles of application. Some of it looks okay, and some of it is clearly simplistic. For example, they offer a chart that differentiates between commands "to obey," commands "not for me," and commands that are "out of date." So, looking at the Pentateuch, the authors identify a number of command that are "not for me," and "out of date." It gives the impression that we don't need to even bother to figure out the spirit of the commands. Just because we don't worry about not gleaning to the edges of our fields doesn't mean we can just say, "Ah, that command's not for me!" and move on.
There may be some useful stuff in this book, but the simplistic approach to complex issues, cheesy stories with stilted dialogue used to set up the issues, the questionable application principles, and the lack of creative approaches to actually reading the Bible make this book not worth your time.… (altro)