What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything

by Rob Bell

Overview

Instant New York Times Bestseller

Rob Bell, the beloved author of Love Wins and What We Talk About When We Talk About God, goes deep into the Bible to show how it is more revelatory, revolutionary, and relevant than we ever imagined—and offers a cogent argument for why we need to look at it in a fresh, new way.

In Love Wins, Rob Bell confronted the troubling questions that many people of faith were afraid to ask about heaven, hell, fate, and faith. Using the same inspired, inquisitive approach, he now turns to our most sacred book, the Bible. What Is the Bible? provides insights and answers that make clear why the Bible is so revered and what makes it truly inspiring and essential to our lives.

Rob takes us deep into actual passages to reveal the humanity behind the Scriptures. You cannot get to the holy without going through the human, Rob tells us. When considering a passage, we shouldn’t ask "Why did God say . . .?" To get to the heart of the Bible’s meaning, we should be asking: "What’s the story that’s unfolding here and why did people find it important to tell it? What was it that moved them to record these words? What was happening in the world at that time? What does this passage/story/poem/verse/book tell us about how people understood who they were and who God was at that time?" In asking these questions, Rob goes beyond the one-dimensional question of "is it true?" to reveal the Bible’s authentic transformative power.

Rob addresses the concerns of all those who see the Bible as God’s Word but are troubled by the ethical dilemmas, errors, and inconsistencies in Scripture. With What Is the Bible?, he recaptures the Good Book’s magic and reaffirms its power and inspiration to shape and inspire our lives today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062194268
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	820,531
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Rob Bell is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and spiritual teacher. His books include Love Wins, How to Be Here, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Velvet Elvis, The Zimzum of Love, Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and Drops Like Stars. He hosts the weekly podcast The Robcast, which was named by iTunes as one of the best of 2015. He was profiled in The New Yorker and in TIME Magazine as one of 2011’s hundred most influential people. He and his wife, Kristen, have three children and live in Los Angeles.

Hometown:

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Date of Birth:

August 23, 1970

Place of Birth:

Lansing, Michigan

Education:

B.S., Wheaton College, 1992; M. Div., Fuller Seminary, 1995

Table of Contents

Introduction: Twenty-Five Years In 1

Part 1 There's Something More Going On Here

1 Moses and His Moisture 9

2 Somebody Wrote Something Down 19

3 Stoners and Swingers 25

4 Who Paid Jesus's Bills? 33

5 Anakephalaiossathai 39

6 The Importance of Altitude 47

7 Smoking Firepots 55

8 And the Fat Closed In Over the Sword 65

9 The Thing About Pearls and Pigs 71

10 Turning the Gem 79

11 Larry in the Airport 83

Part 2 The Nature of That Something

12 Flood 91

13 Fish 97

14 Son 107

15 He Had No Idea What I Was Talking About 113

16 All That Violence 119

17 Do What to Our Whats? 125

18 Give It Up for Sidon! 133

19 He Can't Even Say His Name 139

20 The Whole Melchizedek Thing and Why You Love It and Know It's True 145

21 So How Did Jesus Read the Bible? 151

22 The Sheeeeeeeet Factor 163

23 All Things Are Yours 169

24 The Human and the Divine 183

Part 3 Where That Something Takes Us

25 Babel 193

26 Two or Three Kinds of Apocalypses 199

27 The Book of Revelation, of Course 203

28 Why Americans Often Miss the Major Themes of the Bible 211

Part 4 The Questions That Always Come Up

29 Why Are There All Those Genealogies? 221

30 Why Is Leviticus in the Bible? 229

31 What About All Those People Falling Over Dead? 233

32 Did Jesus Have to Die? 241

33 What About Predestination? 247

34 What About All That Wrath? 255

35 What About Sin? 259

36 Is It the Word of God? 263

37 Is It Authoritative? 269

38 What About the Contradictions? 273

39 Is It Inerrant? 279

40 Is It Inspired? 283

41 What's the Best Question to Ask When You're Reading the Bible? 289

42 What's the Worst Question to Ask When You're Reading the Bible? 293

43 What's the Other Best Question to Ask When You're Reading the Bible? 299

Part 5 Endnotes

A Note About the Subtitle 309

A Disclaimer About This Book 311

A Thousand Thanks 313

Books About the Bible That Will Blow Your Mind 315

A Note on Crowing and Changing 319

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2017
Bell (Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived), a sometimes controversial but undeniably popular author, speaker, and pastor, has written an introduction to the Bible that is one part biblical theology and interpretational principles and one part spiritual travelogue. Intermixing exegetical wisdom with reflections on life, spirituality, and the universe’s abundance of divine prompts and promises, Bell shares why and how readers might encounter the Bible in a whole new way by considering the relevance of its lessons to daily life as well as to larger life decisions. Bell is an expert in reading Scripture and known for cracking open the context, language, and background of both familiar and obscure Bible stories, but his work can still come off as shallow and glib. Despite not being an in-depth theological treatise, this popular presentation prompts readers to see the Bible as a thoroughly human production meant to elicit questions and connection rather than provide firm answers or theological foes. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Rob Bell is at it again. Love him or loathe him, the theological provacateur says it’s time to rethink the Bible.”  — Relevant

“With pastoral prodding, Rob Bell helps us see that scripture is a masterpiece of penetrating subtleties crafted by ancient authors with a transformative vision for humanity. Bell reminds us that the Bible is neither simple nor mundane, but worthy of our full attention.” — Peter Enns, author of The Sin of Certainty and host of The Bible For Normal People podcast

From the Publisher

With pastoral prodding, Rob Bell helps us see that scripture is a masterpiece of penetrating subtleties crafted by ancient authors with a transformative vision for humanity. Bell reminds us that the Bible is neither simple nor mundane, but worthy of our full attention.

Peter Enns

Rob Bell is at it again. Love him or loathe him, the theological provacateur says it’s time to rethink the Bible.” 

Relevant

Rob Bell is at it again. Love him or loathe him, the theological provacateur says it’s time to rethink the Bible.” 

Relevant