Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

I received this from Edelweiss and Westminster John Knox Press for an honest review.

No rating given.

I was really looking forward to this commentary on the book of Micah. It's one of my favorite books, and contains one of my favorite verses:

(Micah 6:8) He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

When studying scripture, there are three vital steps that cannot be skipped: Who is writing (the author), who is being written to (the intended readers), and when is it being written (historical context). This is the basis of all proper bible study. Without it, the possibility of gross misinterpretation increases exponentially.

The author starts out immediately in his introduction with the statement that he is going to base his commentary on the book of Micah on his own personal experiences. This goes against the tenets of bible study, and against scripture itself:

(2 Peter 1:20) Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For this reason alone, I can't read or review this book. He's attempting to privately interpret the book of Micah, and no book of the Bible is intended to be read that way.… (mere)

Have you ever spent a blissful few hours on Wikipedia investigating non-canonical Biblical books and decided to read them only to find there are two many to retrace your internet steps? Well, you're not alone. This is the book for you. It covers essentially everything and tells you which books contain the texts. There are a couple of short obscure texts it overlooks, but if you bought the anthologies it recommends you would have them anyway. It also doesn't cover the Ethiopic canon, possibly because very little of it is available in English.

I have knocked off a star because in places lazy writing means the subject and verb of sentences do not align.… (mere)

This is a good introductory overview of those Apocryphal writings that didn't quite make it into the canon of the Bible. The fact that several of these are mentioned in the canonical scriptures lends credence to their authenticity. This book discusses how each of the mainstream faiths with a vested interest in the Bible (Jews, Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians) view these writings. Although these works are not currently seen as being endowed of the the same source of inspiration as those officially canonized in the fourth century, they have nonetheless strongly influenced the evolution and practices of the faithful.… (mere)