Who on Earth is God?
Making Sense of God in the Bible
Who on Earth is God?
Making Sense of God in the Bible
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9780567472434
Number of Pages: 264
Published: 23/10/2014
Width: 14 cm
Height: 21.6 cm
How should we understand the God of the Bible? How do we make sense of God's apparently changing character in the Bible theologically? God is not obvious - unlike all the animate and inanimate objects which we can see around us. God does not appear to fulfill any useful purpose; what is God for or about? Is God just a mystery? Or a problem? Or both?
In Who On Earth is God?: Making Sense of God in the Bible Neil Richardson provides the answers to these fascinating questions. Richardson tackles the hard issues surrounding some of the more problematic passages head on, looking at divine anger, violence and jealousy, and suggesting how these can be interpreted. The book engages with the difficult questions posed by contemporary issues, and the 'new atheism' pioneered by popular writers such as Richard Dawkins. This takes discussion 'beyond the bible' into later developments in thought, and notions of God in a post-modern context. This is an indispensable guide for people with or without faith, wrestling with these difficult, and eternal, questions and themes.
Foreword
Introduction: Why This Book?
i) That strange word ‘God’
ii) ‘There is no God’?
iii) God and gods
iv) The God of the Bible
Conclusion
Seven Steps Towards Reading the Bible
Chapter One: Beginnings: God of Creation
i) God of Beginnings
ii) Human Beings and God
iii) The Question of God’s Patience
iv) Beginning Again: Abraham, Friend of God
Summary
Chapter Two: Moses, Joshua and the Violence of God
i) God the Terrorist?
ii) ‘Divine’ Massacres, Ancient and Modern
iii) Divine Cruelty to Dumb Animals?
iv) A Choosy ‘Jealous’ God
Summary
Interlude (1): Is the Bible No Longer Trustworthy?
Chapter Three: Through the Darkest Night
i) Why did God Allow This to Happen?
ii) Towards Belief in One God
iii) The ‘Judgements’ of God in History
iv) Wrath: God’s Dark Side or Ours?
Summary
Chapter Four God: A ‘You’ Rather Than an ‘It’
i) An Awesomely Consistent ‘You’
ii) An Always and Everywhere ‘You’
iii) An Elusive (and Cruel?) You
iv) ‘My God’, ‘Our God
Summary
Interlude 2 Is the God of the Old Testament Different from the God of the New?
Chapter Five: Jesus and the God of the Bible:
i) Jesus and the Question of God
ii) The Strange Things Jesus Said about God
iii) Not a God for Religious People
iv) The Meaning of the Virgin Birth
Summary
Chapter Six: Paul: the God Who Crossed Boundaries
i) God on the Damascus Road
ii) Jesus in Our Place and in God’s Place
iii) Some Contemporary Problems with Paul’s God
iv) ‘To the Church of God in Corinth’
Summary
Chapter Seven: ‘John’s’ Witness to God
i) ‘John’ and God
ii) Still a Violent God? The Book of Revelation
iii) God in the End
iv) The Bible’s Climax: the First Letter of John
Summary
Summary of Summaries
Conclusion: Who on Earth is God?
A Personal Postscript
Here is a book for new Christians and non-Christians. But also for Christians like me - long in the tooth and with years of reading and teaching the Bible under their belt. It is clear, brave, and honest. It will stir people to discussion and debate. It will surely accomplish what its author describes as his aim: "to offer a foundation for a far-reaching Jewish and Christian humanism." It should be stuffed into brief cases, lunch boxes and pockets and read on buses, offices and in the pew. * Leslie Griffiths, Methodist Minister and Member of the House of Lords, UK * Neil Richardson is to be congratulated for his boldness in tackling such a huge subject, and for doing so in a remarkably even-handed way. Would that some of those whose views he challenges were as willing to be so balanced! He doesn't shirk the hard questions raised by some biblical passages. Rather he encourages his readers to confront them openly and honestly. His suggestion that 'we can no longer identify the "God" of the text with the real God' will be challenging to some but profoundly helpful to many. This is a fine example of apologetics! * Adrian Curtis, University of Manchester, UK *
