Unauthorized Version, The : Truth and Fiction in the Bible

Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable read that in itself has "truth and fiction"
Review: After reading the egregiously weak "Case Against Christianity", I decided to move onto this book, which is, my far, by favorite book that is critical of the Bible. In all the places that Case Against Christianity failed, this book succeeded.

Unlike CAC, this book was written by a professional (which the author of CAC wasn't) who doesn't have any type of theological or philosophical axe to grind. He even makes the interesting statement that he "believes in the Bible but not in God." Throughout the book, we are treated to a very sophisticated analysis of the Old and New Testament.

Most of the time is spent on the Old Testament. I am so unfamiliar with the Old Testament that I couldn't tell if a single statement made by Fox is accurate. He is, though, very critical on the OT, and seems to conclude that most of it is "false".

As for the New Testament, he was quite generous and seemed to conclude that most of it was "truth". The only decisive argument he brings up against the NT is the Luke and Quirinius issue, where I felt Fox's statements were "fiction" (hence my subject title). As for the rest, he doesn't even bring up (in any sort of depth) the resurrection claims of the NT. He does argue for John priority (very interesting and unusual) and puts out Luke's use of "we" in Acts where Fox concludes that Luke must be of a very early date. Besides this, most of the book is dediced to the OT.

Something I appreciated from Fox was how he put the OT in it's historical context. While it may seem so unusual and amazing to us, once put into the correct social setting, it loses those qualities.

Another flaw I felt this book had was its indecisiveness at times. I would read through a whole chapter and not be able to answer the question, "What's the point? What is Fox getting at?". As a conservative, I found this book to be very a sophisticated and enjoyable read that is well worth the Christian and non-Christians time.

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Summary: The UN-researched Version
Review: I have never written a review of a book that I did not read, but I must admit that I started this book but gave up on page 198. Therefore, my review is of only the first half of the book.

First and foremost Robin Lane Fox is a excellent writer. The books pace and prose was very readable and quite enjoyable. I gave up because Mr. Fox's said purpose was to produce a historical look at the bible. This intrigued me greatly, but as I started to devour the book I found so many historical and exegetical anomalies that I simply lost respect for the contents and found myself relegating this book to a dusty shelf to lie dormant.

While I could nitpick I will simply state 3 obvious errors that can easily be dismissed as the ramblings of an ideological prisoner to a false belief system.

ONE

Mr. Fox suggests that there are two different and irreconcilable accounts of the creation story presented in Genesis. While this novel postulate is not new it has been thoroughly debunked, both logically and hermeneutically. The first Genesis account is from Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 while the second supposedly contradictory one is from Genesis 2:4 - 2:25.
The major mistake that is made, is the belief that it is all one timeline from 1:1 - 2:25. However, it is abundantly clear that starting at 2:4 there is a break and the story is retold but this time focusing on man - the subject of the creation. (This by the way is very common in Hebrew literature to show a panoply of the story first and then focus on the main character involved.) But don't take my word on the subject read the first two chapters yourself, you will see!

TWO

For some reason unbeknownst to me a certain segment of the population love to pull out the Quirinius census debate found in Luke 2:2. Mr. Fox alleges that Quirinius was not governor of Syria until about 6 AD. While it is true that Quirinius did not take over the full governorship of Syria until 6 AD, there is plenty of historical evidence to show that he was governor of Syria from 12 - 2 BC during the military action against the Homonadensians. There is also evidence that Quirinius was given the chore of the census when Augustus ordered it in 8 - 7 BC to help quell the violence in this volatile area of Palestine. Anyway you look at it the honest historian sees no problem with Quirinius being assigned as either governor-pro-tem or as the actual governor during this period

THREE

This was the final straw that made me close the book. Against all known historical records and evidence Mr. Fox gives the date of authorship for Daniel at 'slightly later than 164' BC. This flies in the face of the facts. First, over half of the book is written in Imperial Aramaic. It is with a high degree of accuracy that SECULAR historians can date this Aramaic to the 6th or 5th century BC. The second is that the Septuagint (Greek translation of known Old Testament books) contained Daniel. The Septuagint was completed in the third century BC in Alexandria and it is undisputed that the whole book of Daniel was in the Septuagint. My question is how does anybody who must be aware of the above historical facts date this book at 164BC????

This book would be great if it was a work of Fiction, but unfortunately it is being passed off as a historical documentary. If you are unfamiliar with Hebrew and Greek history I suggest you give this book a pass and then to acquire your knowledge from better sources. If you are familiar with history this book could be viewed as an amusing form of fiction or a rather obnoxious attempt at revisionism. I chose the latter and the book is gathering dust.

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Summary: Brilliant Story of the Bible
Review: I must admit that I am a fan of Robin Lane Fox. I like his manner of writing, deprecating humor and incredible facility for research. This book is simply a tour de force - no other words to describe it.

While not religious, Fox is just, even fair, in his treatment of a book many consider the Word of God. First and foremost he is a historian of the first degree, conversant with both the religious views of the past and the social setting in which they arose and thrived. The book travels along a fairly straight line but by subject - not chronologically.

For all the rants against the author he more or less accepts the Bibical accounts as being genuine which is not to say they are valid or even true. He does not ask obvious questions - how could a people without an alphabet or writing materials preserve a history of themselves or their god? Instead he compares stories, searches for meaning, finds numerous flaws in both prophecy and inner logic and lets the reader decide.

In his dating of the New Testament he is quite conservative. His text comparisons are interesting as are his descriptions of local customs of the time. The manner in which this disparate groups of stories became our Bible is a mystery story in itself but the author sticks with the words and their context. This work is very readable and written for the educated layman.

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Summary: All Those Nagging Questions
Review: In my youth - how odd to be saying that! - I couldn't figure a lot of things in the Bible out. The obvious ones, like the two versions of the creation, bothered me less since it was understood that the stories in Genesis were allegories, stories, myths, and important more for their poetry and as set-up for the rest of the story of humankind. Then there was the way that, in the first five books and right through Joshua and Judges, people kept rejoicing in slaughter. Never mind my puzzlement as I learned more about history. The Epistles never felt consistent to me.

Fox is a specialist, and I'm not. He gives the reader all the material he or she needs to understand why all those things bother them. You may have Herod, or Cyrinius. You cannot have both. And so on.

This isn't the book to hand to a fundamentalist; all you'll do is offend. The examination of texts and where things came from is great for those with no belief to lose. And (to be quite honest) it's a relief to discover that the Hebrews didn't actually massacre the inhabitants of Canaan.

All in all, I recommend this book.

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Summary: Gospel truths
Review: My favorite general introduction to the Bible as a book. It's a close reading of the Old and New Testaments, taking Pilate's taunt ("What is truth?") as a starting point. Fox gives good account of the dubious texts that secularists need to know for their daily battles with fundamentalist: The two, contradictory accounts of the creation of Man in Genesis; the versions of Christ's birth in Matthew and Luke that are provably false in terms of Roman history (Augustus never decreed "that all the world should be taxed"); and the "aggressive forgeries" that pepper the Epistles. On the other hand, Fox tells how the "higher criticism" that Christians so often scorn actually proves that the Gospels are much older than people once assumed, and that most of the Epistles really were written by the same person.

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Summary: The case against an otherwise informative book
Review: Robin Lane Fox is one of the leading classical historians today, known for major works on Alexander the Great and the clash between Pagans and Christians. And there is much in this book that many readers will find useful and interesting. Lane Fox starts off right away against those who believe the Bible is reliable history. He points out the two differing creation stories in the book of Genesis. He notes how Luke irretrievably muddled his nativity story by tying Herod's reign with a census conducted under Governor Quirinius of Syria, not aware that Quirinius, and the census vital for moving Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, were separated from Herod by at least a decade.

And then Lane Fox goes on. He discusses the history of the actual texts and the earliest copies, and how there are in fact thousands of differences. Most of these are relatively minor, but the last twelve verses of Mark and the story of the women taken in adultery in John were clearly not in the original versions. We learn about the practice of pseudonymous authors, and we have a long discussion of the claims of the Tanakh or Old Testament, and how they usually do not match the claims of archaelogy or surrounding records. We learn the interesting fact that no-one in the New Testament quotes the Songs of Songs or Ecclesiastes. We also learn this amusing anecdote about the plant that temporarily shades Jonah: "Traditionally, the plant has been seen as a gourd, but the Hebrew word is uncertain. When Latin biblical translators changed it to ivy, Augustine knew of congregations in north Africa who rioted until the gourd was brought back to the text."

And Lane Fox is especially good on how Christians muddled the relationship between the "New" and the "Old" Testaments: "When Christians quoted those old prophecies, they used Greek translations which were untrue to the Hebrew originals: they ran separate bits of a text into one; they twisted the sense and reference of nouns (Paul, at Galatians 3:8, is a spectacular example); they mistook the speakers and the uses of personal pronouns (John 19:37 or Matthew 27:9)...they muddled Jeremiah with Zechariah...they reread the literal sense and found a non-existent allegory..."

Yet although Lane Fox is an atheist, there are times when he is surprisingly uncritical of the New Testament. He tries to argue that Jesus was crucified in 36, instead of a far more likely 30. His argument is that since Jesus died after John the Baptist and John the Baptist, according to Mark, was executed for opposing Herod Antipas' marriage to his half-brother's widow, that marriage must have taken place no earlier than 34, when the half-brother died. The problem with this argument is that a) Mark gets the half-brother wrong b) Josephus doesn't say John the Baptist's execution had anything to do with Antipas' marriage.

This leads to a larger problem. Against most scholarly opinion, and against most evidence, Lane Fox insists that the Gospel of John was written by a primary source, possibly John himself, and that the Acts of the Apostles was written by a genuine companion of Paul. Lane Fox's arguments are weak. He claims that John shows a firm knowledge of first century Judea, which is a) not directly relevant and b) open to question, since John 8:33 has the Pharisees claiming that they have never been captives of anyone, forgetting both Egypt and Babylon. He sees the references to "the other disciple" in John and the we passages in Acts as references to the authors, when in the first case they could be a subtle pseudonymous device, while in the second the use of "we" is a common literary device when characters travel over water, which is where the we passages appear. One should see Donald Akenson's "Saint Saul," for why we can't put our faith in Acts, but there are obvious problems with Lane Fox's account. If Jesus really said "I am the Resurrection and the Life," then all four gospels, not just one, would have it. John's Jesus emphasizes his divinity, while Mark's, famously, is secretive about being the Messiah, a difference which to me is only compatible with the idea that Mark is an earlier and closer source to the historical Jesus. Likewise it is questionable to put too much faith in "Luke," who not only gets the date of the census wrong, but at the end of Luke has Jesus ascend on Easter Sunday while having him ascend 40 days later at the beginning of Acts. Lane Fox seems to keep as much of the Gospel accounts as possible, except when they are clearly contradicted by other information. This is understandable for a historian for whom scarcity of evidence is a constant problem, but it is wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Great history from an admittedly partisan author
Review: Robin Lane Fox's book, The Un authorized Version" is often thrilling history , as it takes an often sharp and incisive look at Bible stories as history and reveals the inadequacies and sometimes truths buried beneath the famous words. My main objection to the book is Fox's sometimes subtle sometimes overt prejudice to the Bible's Jewish origins. There is little in Fox's work of any Jewish scholarly thought on the Bible stories- I didn't expect the traditionalists like the medieval Ibn Ezra or Rashi- but I did expect at least a mention of the Enlightenment favorite Spinoza. In fact, I noticed a decisively anti- Jewish cast to a lot of the discussions, especially in the Jesus chapters which portray Jesus as a Christian scholar who happened to be born Jewish, instead of as a Jewish Thinker who interpreted and re iterated much of Gods laws as a Torah Reformer. I also would have enjoyed a deeper analysis of archeological evidence. I was taken with Fox's explanation for Joshua's Mound of Foreskins(early flint left over by prehistoric peoples.) But where is his detailed analysis and comparisons of the newly translated Dead Sea Scrolls? All we get is a cursory description- I would love to have read Fox's comparisons of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Masoretic text and the Septugaint. Fox's book is an incisively written, often sharp witted work.It also admits to being opinionated and biased(on the atheist bent). It is fast reading and often fascinating. M. Lamb