Rob Bell’s Bible

That Rob Bell speaks so often in theaters rather than in churches may say as much about the controversial nature of his views on Christianity as it does about his popularity. Many churches would hesitate to invite him in. And they might not be large enough to hold the crowds.

Bell views things just a little differently than most Christians, whether of the mainline variety, evangelicals or fundamentalists. That makes him difficult to pin down.

Reading his 2017 book What Is the Bible? makes him no easier to pin down, but it may cause one to realize that pinning him, or anyone else (including God), down may be the wrong objective. One of the last statements he makes in the book is this: “Do your best to read it (the Bible) without any ideas about God entering the picture.” Read it with an open and clear mind. Pay attention to every detail. Discover the real story behind the story and why it is important. Embrace the truth wherever it is found. Bell doesn’t say so, but perhaps we should read people in the same way.

Bell sees the Bible as a library of literature in many forms, written over a period of many centuries, that somebody thought important enough to preserve and combine. Before we can know its importance to us today, the object of most Bible study, we should know why it was so important to those who wrote it down in the first place, he argues.

He views the Bible as a record of the development of a new way of perceiving God. At one time the favor of gods was won through animal sacrifice, even child sacrifice. That’s why Abraham seems so calm when he is about to sacrifice Isaac. Gradually these attitudes change through the Old Testament. Then in the New Testament comes the sacrifice of Jesus. The cross may make little sense to people of today, but it did to the people of that time. Thus Bell suggests trying to get into the minds of those who wrote it all down and were the first to read it.

This is exciting stuff, probably not a phrase often used for a book about the Bible.