The Badly Behaved Bible : thinking again about the story of Scripture by Nick Page
Hodder & Stoughton, 2020 £10 260 pages
ISBN 978 1 473 686 212 Also available on Kindle
Nick Page is a well known author with over 80 books to his credit.
He has been called ‘God’s most dangerous writer’.
The quotation from William Blake at the front of this book is apt – ‘Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read’st black where I read white’.
Interpretation is certainly an important feature of serious Bible study but, as Blake suggests, interpreters don’t always agree, as the history of the church plainly tells us.
Nick Page has much more to say about the Bible than mere matters of interpretation.
His approach is down to earth, facing difficulties face on and his writing, always accessible and enjoys the occasional flash of well placed humour.
In 10 chapters he travels over much familiar ground and some not so familiar, treating challenges and difficulties in the Word of God with common sense and the authority lent by scholars, fully acknowledged in the notes at the end of the book.
This book is well worth reading as a stimulus to thinking.
As Nick Page himself says, ‘Reading the Bible – it’s a bit like going to the dentist’.