Abstract
In the study of early Christianity in the past century, there has been a wide range of important research that has been done on Scripture and its interpretation, and it is good to see as prolific a writer as Justo L. González bring the fruit of this research to a popular audience. The book is divided into three parts that cover what G. calls the Bible’s shape, use, and interpretation. The section on shape concerns the history of books and reading culture in antiquity insofar as it pertains particularly to the Bible. G. does a fine job placing the Bible and its development in the context of Jewish, early Christian, and imperial Roman cultures, while also remaining admirably humble in noting details that are just not as clear as one might wish. The section on the Bible’s use connects how early Christians worshipped with how they brought the Bible into their practices of education and social reform. The section is highlighted by G.’s very accessible description of how the Bible was known and loved in an oral culture that did not have easy access to the written text, and by G.’s patient advocacy for the recovery of a christological reading of the Bible and particularly of the Psalms. Finally, the section on biblical interpretation offers a cogent summary of different approaches concerning both how different texts in the Bible interpret other biblical texts and also the interpretive methods used in early Christianity. G. shows these methods at work in early Christian readings of biblical texts concerning Creation, Exodus, and Word/Logos theology.
The scope of a book on the “early church” became confusing when G. directed many chapters’ content all the way through the Reformation. The book’s subtitle perhaps should be As Compared with the Bible in the Reformation and now in Post-Modernity. I note as well that G. chooses to quote early Christian sources almost exclusively from the “Ante-Nicene Fathers” and “Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers” translations. These translations are out of copyright and digitally accessible, but their stilted language will be an unnecessary obstacle to the audience that G. is targeting. Yet the book remains a genuine contribution, suited to parish and introductory college use.