Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

by Rachel Held Evans

If the Bible isn't a science book or an instruction manual, what is it? What do people mean when they say the Bible is inspired? When New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans found herself asking these questions, she embarked on a journey to better understand what the Bible is and how it's meant to be read. What she discovered changed her--and it can change you, too.

Evans knows firsthand how a relationship with the Bible can be as real and as complicated as a relationship with a family member or close friend. In Inspired, Evans explores contradictions and questions from her own experiences with the Bible, including:

• If the Bible was supposed to explain the mysteries of life, why does it leave the reader with so many questions?
• What does it mean to be chosen by God?
• To what degree did the Holy Spirit guide the preservation of these narratives, and is there something sacred to be uncovered beneath all these human fingerprints?
• If the Bible has given voice to the oppressed, why is it also used as justification by their oppressors?

Drawing on the best in biblical scholarship and using her well-honed literary expertise, Evans examines some of our favorite Bible stories and possible interpretations, retelling them through memoir, original poetry, short stories, and even a short screenplay.

Undaunted by the Bible's most difficult passages and unafraid to ask the hard questions, Evans wrestles through the process of doubting, imagining, and debating the mysteries surrounding Scripture. Discover alongside Evans that the Bible is not a static text, but a living, breathing, captivating, and confounding book that can equip us and inspire us to join God's loving and redemptive work in the world.

• ISBN10: 0718022319
• ISBN13: 9780718022310
• Publish Date: 12 July 2018 (first published 12 June 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Thomas Nelson Publishers
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[Beth C.]

I am a VERY lapsed Protestant. My husband, a VERY lapsed Catholic. Not so many years ago, in the place where his family is from, we wouldn't even have been allowed to marry because of this religion thing that neither of us pays too much attention to. But though I've walked away from the church, there is something about the spirituality that has refused to loose it's hold on me. I wonder, and I question, and I read - but always I go back to what I see. And what I see, particularly these days, are people - "Christians" - who use the Bible and their version of religion to justify cruelty. Who spend so much time preaching to others about what THEY believe, that it seems maybe they've forgotten to actually study the word themselves. This is why I left the church - I got tired of the Sunday Christians who were mean and spiteful and holier-than-thou during the rest of the week, but sweet as honey at church on Sunday, and expected that this was really all that mattered.

I sort of fell into Rachel Held Evans, I think on Twitter - which can be its own cesspool of hell, frankly. But here was this person openly questioning, not only her OWN faith, but the interpretations of those who use it as a weapon. So I started following her, and listening to what she had to say - and not realizing that I had already read one of her books (Evolving in Monkey Town) years before, and loved it. I ordered a used copy of Inspired from Powell's and waited for it to arrive...and then, a few days after it did, she passed away. And I began to read.

This book is easy to read, particularly for those of us who maybe aren't as versed in Bible as we once were. Her points are backed up by others, many of them Biblical scholars. And it's the kind of Christianity that I wish I had known. Kindness, understanding, and the realization that people must take the Bible as a document of the past - one that grows with us because it encourages questioning, but also one that is framed by the very existence of those living at that time.

Frankly, the epilogue is heartbreaking. Because she talks about her son, and her plans for teaching him Bible stories. About her sister-in-law, who sounds amazing. And the knowledge that these beloved people are now missing her is sad. Though I've heard it said that we mourn not for those we've lost, but for us - it doesn't make it easier for those now mourning her. As for me, and my questing heart - the thought that this kind, compassionate woman, this Bible scholar, will no longer be able to share her faith the rest of us is *also* heartbreaking. Because she was truly talented at putting into words what so many cannot, and at helping to frame arguments that have been going on for hundreds of years - and maybe, for some, showing them that they can love the Bible and love God, regardless of their race or sexuality or anything else.

Am I rushing out to find a new church or to read the Bible? No, not at this point. But I do have a new frame of reference to view things from, and I will be reading others of her books, and I thank her for giving me that much at least.

[lovelybookshelf]

As expected, RHE once again *gets* it - healthy skepticism, not being satisfied with simplistic answers, seeing through platitudes. The way INSPIRED looks at the Bible from various literary angles makes it all the richer. And I was struck by the way Bible passages meant to be read as voices of resistance and liberation have been twisted by modern evangelicals to instill fear, manipulate, and control others. Really appreciated this book.

[Jeff Sexton]

Inspired?

When I read Rachel Held Evans’ Searching for Sunday a couple of years ago (technically listened to Evans herself read it to me via Audible as I ran many miles along the Lake Murray Dam outside Columbia, SC), I was blown away. Here was someone who was roughly my age, who had grown up in roughly my part of the country (within a couple hundred miles as the bird flies), and who was speaking to one of the things I have been doing for seemingly twenty years already – searching for a way back into the church that she cherished as a child, but that she had grown disillusioned with as an adult. I didn’t agree with her ultimate conclusions then (read the book to find them for yourself), but at least the fact that she did find answers gave me hope that one day I too might find what I’ve sought for so long.

As a storybook from Evans’ perspective, INSPIRED is an interesting work, told in the familiar cadences of Searching for Sunday. If you like the writing style of that book, you will like the read of this book from that perspective at a bare minimum. And INSPIRED raises some good points, at least a few of them likely not intended by Evans in the way I took them. For example, she speaks of prophets saying “”In other words, the prophets are weirdos. More than anyone else in Scripture, they remind us that those odd ducks shouting from the margins of society may see things more clearly than the political and religious leaders with the inside track. We ignore them at our own peril.”.

Unfortunately INSPIRED also has some severe problems beyond political disagreements between myself and the author. (Indeed, if those were the only issues with this book, it would merit a five star rating, as I refuse to mark a book down simply because I disagree with its author politically.)

Evans claims that Hagar, concubine of Abram and mother of Ishmael, is the only person in the Bible to name God, which even a cursory Google of the topic (much less having much of the same type of church upbringing as Evans herself) will show is patently false. Hagar’s El Roi, cited by Evans, is one of about a half dozen versions of the El name of God, and there are at least that many versions of the Jehovah version of the name of God. Indeed, I’ve listened to thousands of sermons from some of the most respected preachers and theologians of the modern American age, from Billy Graham to Adrian Rogers to James Merritt to more obscure people like my former pastor and former President of the Georgia Baptist Convention Wayne Hamrick. I’ve read at least some of the works of respected theologians of any era of Christendom, from Saint Augustine to Saint Francis of Assisi to Charles Spurgeon to CS Lewis and many, many others. And as best I can tell at this time – I’ve got an outstanding question to even more learned friends on Facebook that I posted over night – this “Hagar is the only person to name God” myth began with a book by feminist “scholar” and storyteller Charlotte Gordon that was published nearly a decade ago and has apparently risen to prominence in progressive/ feminist Christian circles in the time since.

Evans also claims Biblical authority for the Jewish tradition of midrash, which is effectively ancient Jewish fan fiction regarding the people and events of the Torah (effectively the first few books of the Christian Old Testament). She makes the collectivist claim that it is impossible to be a Christian on your own, despite literally millions of Christians who refuse to attend church for any number of reasons proving her wrong on a daily basis. And she apparently has never heard of Marvin Snurdley, and thus insists that letters written to particular groups and individuals 2000 years ago are authoritative for us now, despite having lost any sense of true context millenia ago.

Finally, throughout the book Evans insists that storytelling is paramount, rather than accuracy or getting to a point. Indeed, at one point she point blank says that when someone asks you what the gospel is, you should respond with a story. In her case, involving maybe her grandmother or her parents’ expensive kitchen chairs. NO! When someone asks you what the gospel is, you respond with: The gospel is Jesus Christ, and the fact that he was God made flesh who lived the life we cannot then died the death that we no longer have to. THEN we can launch into any number of stories about Jesus, all revolving around that central theme.

It is for these reasons that INSPIRED ultimately became disappointing for me. It is still a great example of storytelling, and for that reason alone it is a worthy addition to any bookshelf. It doesn’t really try to make any particular point, and its citations are few and far between, so there really isn’t anything to argue from that perspective. It achieves at least one goal Evans seems to have – to start a conversation – admirably and is to be commended for that at minimum. So yes, absolutely buy this book. Despite the critiques above, it really is a great read. Just be prepared to take it with a fair amount of salt.