book review biblical studies what they dont tell yoi Essay

September 23 2013 Brown Book Review Part One: What They Dont Tell You A Survivors Guide to Biblical Studies by Michael Joseph Brown and published by Westminster John Know Press is a book that provides basic information about biblical criticism. Ultimately, it tries to motivate students to engage with the biblical text and contemporary biblical studies by illustrating how to approach academic biblical studies in a different way than which one would approach normal bible study. The book seems to be aimed at students beginning their journey of academic biblical studies and is supposed to be used as a guide to get the most out of ones studies. Part Two: The first†¦show more content†¦Chapter three and four are also rules. Chapter three talks about some rules for understanding biblical scholarship and chapter four talks about some rules for surviving biblical scholarship. I feel that chapter four is more important than chapter three because the topic is discusses is far more important. Biblical scholarship can sometimes be a little harsh on ones own opinions and beliefs and rules or thumb to help survive that are a necessity. The two rules I find to be most important are rules 27 and 28. I feel that they are most important because they discuss the topic of ones own personal faith and how biblical scholarship can sometimes challenge it. Rule 27 basically says that if your faith is not strong enough to go through a little challenging then it could not have really been that strong. An analogy that Brown uses that I really like is that â€Å"unchallenged faith is no better than building your house on sand†( Brown 2000, 142). I really like this analogy because it basically is saying that if your faith is not strong enough to go through a little shaking it will essentially just go crumbling down. I feel that rule 27 and rule 28 really go together because although rule 27 brings up a valid point, just because someone has a bad foundation of their faith, it does not mean