Overview

ECPA 2017 Christian Book Award Finalist Does the Bible need to be saved?Over the course of the centuries, Bible scholars and publishers have increasingly added ""helps""—chapter divisions, verses, subheads, notes—to the Bible in an effort to make it easier to study and understand. In the process, however, these have led to sampling Scripture rather than reading deeply. According to author Glenn R. Paauw, the text has become divorced from the Bible's literary and historical context, leading to misinterpretation and a ""narrow, individualistic and escapist view of salvation."" Rather than being a culture-shaping force, the Bible has become a database of quick and easy answers to life's troubling questions. But these deficiencies can be corrected by engaging in what the author calls ""big readings.""In these pages Paauw introduces us to seven new (to us) understandings of the Bible as steps on the path to recovering one deeply engaged Bible. With each ""new"" Bible presented, deficiencies in how we currently interact with the Bible are explored, followed by recommendations for a new practice. The Bible's transformative power is recovered when we remove the chains Christians have applied to it over the centuries. The Bible does not need to be saved because of any defect in itself, but because we have distorted and misread it. Saving the Bible from Ourselves provides students of the Bible a new paradigm for reading and living the Bible well.

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Glenn Paauw has written a serious and compelling book on the Bible. The tone of his writing is puckish enough to keep us turning pages for more. After identifying our lazy readiness to reduce the Bible to convenient 'scripturettes, ' Paauw guides us to a way to the adult work of serious engagement with the Bible. When the Bible is taken with such seriousness, it will indeed serve to refresh and revive the missional energy of the church. His argument is propelled by the deep conviction that gospel alternatives are on offer for the bold, alert and passionate who engage the biblical text beyond our narcoticized habits of reading. --Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary

Well-written, thought-provoking, and bold. --David Mundt, CBA Retailers + Resources, May, 16, 2016 As someone who has participated in creating a Bible translation and a study Bible, I found Paauw's arguments thought-provoking and convicting. . . . This is a great book for anyone who is interested in thinking deeply about our engagement with the Bible and how it could be improved. --Elliot Ritzema, Bible Study Magazine, November/December 2016

As someone who has participated in creating a Bible translation and a study Bible, I found Paauw's arguments thought-provoking and convicting. . . . This is a great book for anyone who is interested in thinking deeply about our engagement with the Bible and how it could be improved. --Elliot Ritzema, Bible Study Magazine, November/December 2016

As someone who has participated in creating a Bible translation and a study Bible, I found Paauw's arguments thought-provoking and convicting. . . . This is a great book for anyone who is interested in thinking deeply about out engagement with the Bible and how it could be improved. --Elliot Ritzema, Bible Study Magazine, November/December 2016

Author Information

Glenn R. Paauw is vice president, global Bible engagment, at Biblica and a senior fellow at the Institute for Bible Reading. A native of Colorado, Glenn loves to climb the state?s 14,000-foot peaks and to cycle the back roads of the Front Range.

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