Synopsis
A look at the Bible and its origins demonstrates how Genesis presents two incompatible versions of Creation, that the story of the Nativity in Matthew and Luke is nonsensical, and other hidden truths. History Bk Club Main. BOMC Alt.
Reviews
According to Oxford historian Fox ( Pagans and Christians ), "Scripture is not God's word in any strong sense, nor is it unerring, with the possible exception of a few trivial facts." He asserts that Genesis offers two Creation stories that don't correspond to historical suppositions and are made up from two contradictory sources; Luke's account of the Nativity is incongruous with his own date for the Annunciation and with Matthew's narrative of the Nativity; Jewish authors of the Bible wrote unreservedly under false names, choosing those of superiors in the distant past, such as Solomon and David. Moreover, the Gospels do not agree on the exact day of Jesus's Crucifixion; and anonymous authors of the Old Testament added "prophecies" after the event, such as prophecies attached to Isaiah (ca. 740-700 B.C.) that predicted the coming of Cyrus in the 530s B.C. Fox concludes that the Bible may not be historical but it has power as a mirror of humanity rather than divinity. He here reads biblical texts closely and brings many examples that may help neophytes to probe the historical veracity of the Bible. But Fox's arguments are also curiously diffuse, and the bulk of them will be known to Bible students. History Book Club main selection; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Biblical historiography, with an edge, by an Oxford don whose sword is too unwieldy for his prey. Fox (Pagans and Christians, 1986; The Search for Alexander, 1980) has a long tradition behind him: Classical historians from Gibbon onward have viewed the Christian overshadowing of Rome and Athens with nostalgic regret. Fox, though, carries his distress into an examination of the Torah as well, as he provides us with a very close reading of the Old and New Testaments, taking Pilate's taunt (``What is truth?'') as his point of origin. As a historian, Fox finds much amiss. Genesis gives two, contradictory, versions of the creation of Man, he says; the infancy narratives of St. Luke are patently false (Augustus never issued any decree ``that all the world should be taxed''); and the Epistles are padded with ``aggressive forgeries,'' clumsily interpolated centuries after the original compositions. ``If scripture is not the unerring word,'' Fox asks, ``what is it?'' That is an unfortunate query, because it moves the scope of Fox's work beyond history (where he is quite at ease) into literature (where his competence seems less sure). The questions of inspiration, metaphor, personification, and allegory are forgotten as Fox goes careening through the text in search of errors like a lawyer taking issue with Portia's jurisprudence in The Merchant of Venice. In the end, Fox can provide no answer himself, a curious stance that puts him in the same company as the most rock-ribbed fundamentalist of the American heartland. This is both frustrating and unfortunate, as Fox writes extremely well and his scholarship, per se, seems sound and clearly argued. A wealth of information, much of it fascinating, put forward for reasons that are less than obvious. A decent source book, then, but a total failure as an argument. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
The author of Pagans and Christians ( LJ 1/87) gives a detailed exposition of the historical origins (or lack thereof) of the Bible. Fox claims that he believes "in the Bible, but not in God," and thus explores the Bible as a historian. His version is "unauthorized," not because it has been suppressed, but because the Bible does not proclaim its authority. He reaches for what the authors of the Bible intended, realizing that the Bible is not the word of God and that much of it is not historically accurate or factual. Fox does not approach his subject as an antagonist, but with the care and knowledge to make the text more meaningful. This book deserves a place in all libraries. History Book Club main selection; BOMC alternate.
- George M. Jenks, Bucknell Univ., Lewisburg, Pa.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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