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{"id":2752,"date":"2007-07-16T01:10:43","date_gmt":"2007-07-16T06:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2007\/07\/16\/the-best-book-ever-on-the-bible\/"},"modified":"2007-07-16T01:10:43","modified_gmt":"2007-07-16T06:10:43","slug":"the-best-book-ever-on-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/07\/16\/the-best-book-ever-on-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Book Ever on the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Is Eat this Book<\/a><\/em> by Eugene Peterson. How do you read the Bible?
\nI begin with my own orientation to Peterson\u2019s book.
\nSome view the Bible through epistemological <\/em>eyes: they see it as truth and upon this truth all others truths and knowledge can be established. The dominant word is truth. Others view the Bible through ideological <\/em>eyes: they see the Bible as a protest against a cultural establishment and its dominant word is justice. Yet others see the Bible through moral <\/em>eyes: they see it as commandment and the dominant word is obedience.
\nPeterson sees the Bible through formational <\/em>eyes: he views as something to eat. So, he proposes \u2014 in addition to the salutary points above and not at all denying any of them \u2014 we read it in the mode of lectio divina, and he has a theologically-rich understanding of lectio. Don\u2019t think of a few folks sitting around a table reading the Bible and hearing voices. Instead, think of the psalmist of Psalm 119 or Jesus or Paul\u2019s marvelous comment to Timothy. Think Augustine \u2014 that\u2019s the sort of Bible he has in mind when he discusses lectio divina.
\nLectio: read.
\nOratio: pray.
\nMeditatio: mull and chew and ruminate.
\nContemplatio: let it work its way into the sinews of our being so that we live it out.
\nAny view of the Bible that doesn\u2019t lead to formation isn\u2019t reading the Bible for what it is intended to do. Eugene Peterson does just that. Lectio leads to formatio.
\nI sat out to read this book in an evening. After all, it is only about 180 pages. Was I in for a surprise. Captiving prose, elegant imagery, and a fire that starts burning as you open its pages and increases in flame as you turn from page to page. I poised myself over its pages for two days \u2014 often looking up in thanks and gazing into my back yard lost in pondering over the richness of this book. Marvelous. I\u2019ve read books on the Bible ever since I was in college when Harold Lindsell through the first pitch to begin the battle for the Bible, but I\u2019ve not read one book that I thought got the job done as well as Peterson. If you read this book it will lead you to Eat the Book of all Books.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"