Hearing the Voice of God

Abstract

In this chapter I will be looking at two very general problems that may afflict the modern-day Christian reader of the Bible. These are problems which arise when modern Christians read the Bible as a Christian text and as part of their Christian religious practice. There are problems involved in reading the Bible in other ways, even simply as a work of ancient literature, but these I will not go into. I am concerned with problems arising for Christians from reading the Bible as a specifically Christian book. Much of the Bible, the part that Christians traditionally call the Old Testament, is also the Jewish Bible. That is a fact I do not wish to cover over. It may be that different problems, even different philosophical problems, arise for Jews reading the Jewish Bible today from those that arise for Christians reading the Christian Bible. Jews will certainly avoid any problems specific to the Christian New Testament. I speak of the Bible as a Christian book both because I do not presume to speak for Jewish readers of the Bible, and also because I come from a Christian culture, as, I guess, do most of the participants at this conference.