Product Description

*Are the original manuscripts reliable?
*What about other holy books?
*Isn’t the Bible sexist?
*What about all the wars?
*How can I know?

Sensitively yet convincingly, Amy Orr-Ewing addresses issues that represent hurdles to believing the Bible.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61571 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Fiona Campbell; New Wine; January 2006
Amy has a great way of communicating truth in a logical and authoritative way.

Margaret Daniels; Methodist Recorder; December 2005
... a thoroughly satisfying examination of situations with which the author has had to deal.

John Benton; Evangelicals Now; May 2006
This book does an excellent job of answering the kinds of questions about the Bible which bother contemporary seekers.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic way in for the Lay theologian
I found this an excellent and inspiring read. Some sections were just astounding - particularly the section on the historical consistency of Scripture and the accuracy of copying and translation across the centuries (the book is more exciting than that sounds!).

I respect the comments of the amazon reviewer Oliver Lea regarding the depth of the book and I am not enough of a scholar to tackle his other points, but this book is (in my opinion) meant to be a nice slim volume to give the lay theologian a way into deeper issues of the Bible and not a universally exhaustive discussion. The book excels in that brief.

I gave it four stars instead of five because I felt the chapter on God-ordained war was uncharacteristically weak and there was some question-dodging going on.

Otherwise, a tremendously well-written book that tackles difficult questions with eloquence and rigour!

Worth a look
I bought this having seen the Orr-Ewings give seminars at a conference, and zipped through it in an afternoon. The first few chapters are very pleasing in that they answer questions with depth and intellectual skill. The arguments are not philosophically watertight (for example, they fail to acknowledge that even someone who denies that words have objective meaning may yet admit that they have a subjective, utilitarian meaning), but will no doubt satisfy the target audience.

The treatment of the New Testament canon is excellent - though could have been reinforced perhaps by a mention of the Muratorian Fragment.

Very disappointing was the brief treatment on the Old Testament canon, which not only failed to recognise that there was actually NO fixed Jewish canon until the council of Jamnia in 90AD, but also amounted more or less to a blind-side attack on the Roman Catholic inclusion of the Deuterocanon. Her spurious claim that the Deuterocanonical books were not recognised by the Early Church is a little shocking given her credentials, and the same afternoon I read her book I was casually able to find a dozen patristic references to Deuterocanonical books.

I also felt that her portrayal of Islam was a little too unsympathetic. A Muslim could too-easily accuse her of being selective in her presentation of their teachings. I say this even though I ultimately agree with her conclusions in this chapter.

Overall a worthwhile read, but not quite up to what I'd expect from an Oxford licenciate.

Good introduction to the subject
The trustworthiness of the Bible is under attack as never before. But much of the distrust is based on false assumptions about it's history, origins and purpose. At 116 pages, this is only an introduction to the subject, but she deals with most of the big questions I have heard put against the Bible. Highly recommended for giving to friends who question whether the Bible can be trusted to offer anything to us today.