For the last few months, I’ve been on a minor quest to find a good book to give people that will introduce them to how to read the Bible in a meaningful way. So when I saw this book, I got excited. In the introduction, Dr. Marty claims his purpose is

to tell the story of the Bible… It is not a paraphrase of the Bible’s sixty-six books… This book skips important information. It is an effort to synthesize the storyline of the Old and New Testaments minus the laws, messages, prophecies, and parables… With very little commentary, I’m trying to give ‘just the facts’ – to tell the story as it is recorded.

It sounds like a noble goal, but Marty’s task is flawed from the start. When you strip away the larger story of the scriptures, you lose the heart of the story. You lose the context that gives the stories meaning. Marty mostly succeeds in giving us “just the facts”, but in the process he renders the book useless to a beginner. It’s the Heath Brothers’ “Curse of Knowledge” – for  Marty (who is professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute), “just the facts” are enough. He has a lifetime of studying the cultures and customs of the Biblical peoples that provides him with enough context that the facts have meaning. But for those who are not so lucky?

The events of the Bible – “just the facts” – don’t have enough meaning to be meaningful. That’s why the Bible needs to be read in context and in community.

I got the sense that Marty realized this – at least subconsciously – as he wrote. Sometimes, he did add interpretation. For instance, in Genesis 3, a snake tempts Eve. But Marty ‘helpfully’ interprets the snake as Satan. This is not a fact in Genesis 3; this is an interpretation. Which Marty is more than welcome to do (it’s his book, after all) but he does this so inconsistently that it’s unhelpful.

And while the Old Testament section of the book was not great, Marty’s approach is at least tolerable. It’s not until he gets to the New Testament that the book falls apart. Marty assumes that all four of the Gospels are equally historically informative. He pays no attention to the Gospel writers’ theological concerns, merely strips out the “facts” and smashes them all together.

The result is an unfortunate violence to the Gospels. For instance: John moves Jesus’ Temple Cleansing to the beginning of his gospel so that the whole of Jesus’ ministry takes place in the context of a Holy Week. Not in Marty’s book! Now Jesus just (very improbably) cleanses the Temple twice. And when he does conflate stories, Marty doesn’t evince any method to choosing which Gospel author he’s following. Sometimes John, sometimes Mark or Matthew and even occasionally Luke. The result is a jumbled and confusing narrative of Jesus’ life (not teachings!) and death (his accounting of Holy Week is especially convoluted).

The last time a church leader tried to do this with the Gospels, the Church roundly rejected it. We’d do well to let Marty’s book fall into the same historical category – interesting, maybe a nice try, but ultimately irrelevant and useless.

I was disappointed with this book – Marty’s methodology only serves to reinforce the importance of a holistic approach to the Biblical story.

Bottom Line: This book’s not worth your time. By stripping the Bible down to ‘just the facts’, Marty has stolen from the Scriptures their heart and vitality. And that’s not useful to anyone.

I’ve got Scott McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet and Gordon Fee’s How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth as the next stops on my quest. Any other recommendations?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Bethany House Publishers as part of their book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”