1. Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
    Eugene H. Peterson
    Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. / 2009 / Trade Paperback
    Our Price$14.99 Retail Price$19.99 Save 25% ($5.00)
    4.3 out of 5 stars for Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. View reviews of this product. 3 Reviews
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  1. Michele Morin
    Warren, Maine
    Age: 45-54
    Gender: female
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    How to Read the Bible without Dealing with God
    June 11, 2018
    Michele Morin
    Warren, Maine
    Age: 45-54
    Gender: female
    Quality: 5
    Value: 5
    Meets Expectations: 5
    If you want to live well and to share wisdom with your children and your neighbors about how they can also live well, the Bible will chart a sound course.

    If you are looking for inspiration or comfort or if you are preparing a speech, you will certainly want to lift some of the soaring phrases from the Psalms or a stirring descriptive passage from Isaiah to adorn your thinking.

    If you are curious about the future or have strong ideas about politics, youll find gasoline-words in the Bible to support your position and to throw on any conversation to keep the flames dancing high.

    Its clear that we can add the Bible to our rhetorical tool-belt and never once be singed by its fiery truth. However, this is not the reason the Word has been given, and in Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, Eugene Peterson has written a practical guide for those who want to approach Scripture in the manner suggested to the Apostle John in his Revelation:

    The voice out of Heaven spoke to me again: Go, take the book held open in the hand of the Angel astride sea and earth. I went up to the Angel and said, Give me the little book. He said, Take it, then eat it.

    Ingesting the Truth

    John was not the first man in history to eat a book. Apparently, Jeremiah and Ezekiel also ingested truth, and like John, their words reveal the metabolized essence of having been in the presence of God.

    In an era in which English-speaking people can select from a menu of Scripture texts, the challenge is for us to begin reading themand then, to take the next step and begin reading the Scriptures formatively, reading in order to live. (xi) To illustrate the kind of reading hes advocating, Peterson employs the delightful imagery of a dog working with fortitude on a bone superimposed upon an image from the book of Isaiah of a lion growling over its prey. Apparently, that Hebrew word for growling is usually rendered as meditate, as in Psalm 1 where the righteous meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night.

    As readers of Truth, we are called to take the Word into our being in a way that changes us. In Johns case, we can see from the text that eating the Bible was not an entirely pleasant experience. His stomachache is an important reminder that we may not find everything to our liking as we try to digest the hard truths of Scripture or the parts that seem strange to us.

    Scripture in Service to My Needs, Wants, and Feelings

    This full-bodied entering into a text, essentially chewing on it, is the kind of reading that takes time and a lot more thought and focused attention than most of us are currently investing in our spiritual reading, and yet it is the words of Scripture, the sentences and paragraphs and trains of thought through which God has chosen to communicate His holiness, His wisdom, and His love to mankind.

    Peterson floats a very plausible theory that readers of Scripture have replaced the inspired text with a new text of the sovereign self. Rather than taking the Truth of Gods Word into our jaws, and ultimately into the tissues of our lives, (20) we have replaced Father, Son, and Spirit with a new Holy Trinity.

    The New Holy Trinity, Eugene Peterson, Eat This BookIf my needs become non-negotiable, if my wants have taken on the weight and urgency of a need, and if my feelings have become the sum total of who I am, then the Real Trinity and their communication to me through the Bible become nothing more than a tool in service of [those] needs, wants, and feelings. (33)

    Rather than privatizing (46) Scripture by controlling and fragmenting its message, the believer is called to personalize its words and then to submit to their revelation of Gods character and will. The truth is that we are gathered into the narrative of Scripture; our story is enfolded into the overarching story of Gods people; and the stories that we share to illustrate a point are best seen as elements of one huge and coherent narrative.

    Approaching the Bible with this in mind effects the way we read, teach, and apply its truth. I appreciated the clarity Peterson brought to five specific topics:

    1. The Reader as Exegete

    Exegesis is a pretty intense term for the discipline of attending to the text and listening to it rightly and well. (50) In her role as exegete, the reader will pay rigorous attention to the words and their intent, proceeding with caution in order to get it right.

    Exegesis is loving God enough to stop and listen carefully to what He says. (55)

    2. The Obedient Reader

    Peterson compares his reading of Scripture to his reading of a running magazine. When he was actively involved in running as a habit, he never tired of reading about it. However, when a pulled muscle interrupted his running routine, he noticed that his reading came to a halt. In the same way, spiritual reading is participatory reading. If we are not participating in the reality of the Bible, we will not have as much interest in reading. Our reading should be formed around this question: What can I obey? (71)

    All right knowledge of God is born of obedience. ~John Calvin (69)

    3. Let the Reader Beware!

    As the residents of Narnia warned that Aslan is not like a tame lion, Peterson warns that the Word of God will not be tamed by the reader. It is a living Word, and it was first spoken into a particular context, a specific time and place and language. It was not given to make our lives more convenient or more manageable.

    We want to get in on the great invisibles of the Trinity, the soaring adorations of the angels, the quirky cragginess of the prophets, and . . . Jesus. (87)

    4. Reading as a Way of Living

    Petersons thoughts about lectio divina with its four components (reading, meditating, praying, and contemplating) rescue the concept from the ethereal and impractical by acknowledging that they are not four discrete items that we engage in one after another in stair-step fashion. Rather than linear, the process is more like a looping spiral in which all four elements are repeated, but in various sequences and configurations. Tying all our spiritual disciplines back to the Truth of Scripture grounds us in a true living out of their essence rather than a self-conscious performance mentality.

    5. Reading in the Company of Translators

    The story behind Eugene Petersons translation of The Message Bible links every teacher, preacher, and student of the Word to the role of translator. Against the backdrop of historical translations from Hebrew into Aramaic, Greek, and all the various English translations, Peterson found himself having to translate again, from the pulpit, into American English. The formal process that resulted in The Message Bible took ten years and formed his thinking about the importance of remembering the humble origins of the Bible in its original writing. Since the days of Tyndales translation which was intended for the boy that driveth the plough, many traditional and more modern translations left Tyndales plow boy in a cloud of dust with a kind of language that obscured the Spirit-given perspicuity of the text.

    Dealing with God is Not Optional

    God intends to speak with clarity to His people through a written Word. Therefore, in reading His Word in the way He intends, dealing with God is not optional. Participatory reading, reading that is formative, hands over all preconceived ideas about God and eats, chews, gnaws and receives, with humble delight the wild and untamed words of Scripture so that reading and living become one offering and one way of being with God in this world.

    Many thanks to William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.
  2. gardeningsue
    Age: 55-65
    Gender: female
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    Fun Read
    October 31, 2019
    gardeningsue
    Age: 55-65
    Gender: female
    Quality: 5
    Value: 5
    Meets Expectations: 5
    Explains exegesis and Hebrew meanings in conversational style. I recommend it. He explained Oxyrhynchus and Ugarit in 1897 when 500 New Greek words were unearthed. It showed that Holy Spirit spoke in language of common people, not how King James was written all dolled up. Never heard that anywhere else.
  3. Adam Miller
    Cape Cod, MA
    3 Stars Out Of 5
    I wouldn’t recommend
    April 18, 2012
    Adam Miller
    Cape Cod, MA
    I recently read this book for a class on orthodoxy and hermeneutics. And while I could offer a very critical review of the book, I would much rather explain its potential weight and value.

    "Eat This Book" is Peterson's second installment of a five part series on spiritual theology. More of a conversational journal, the book centers around the importance of reading and reviewing a text in order to internalize it's meaning. Peterson is a very eloquent author who is extremely gifted in articulating words in a picturesque way. After reading it, I was inspired and hungry to get into the Bible. But while Peterson is a passionate writer, I wouldn't recommend his book without certain warning.

    How you read a book is certainly important and plays a major role in what you get out of it. Many people do not know how to read the Bible. Furthermore, many people do not approach the Bible without a certain set of presuppositions. Peterson is not exempt. He tells the story in the book about what led him to paraphrase the Bible and how it came about that he wrote "The Message" (A complete paraphrase of the whole Bible in common, everyday language). The problem is that Peterson would consider his paraphrase a translation, but if it is a translation, we obviously have two different opinions on accuracy.

    The risk with any translation is adding, subtracting, or narrowing a particular meaning from the original author's intent. While Peterson's intentions may be pure, his process does not make proper provision for his own limitations. In the end, Peterson's premises bypass proper syntax in translating the text. This does not mean that there is nothing of value from Peterson's book or paraphrase, but it should be perceived with awareness of it's limitations and not accepted as a spiritual authority.

    Where you begin matters. If you think of the Bible allegorically, your paraphrase will reflect personal identity more than contextual accuracy. With that said, I think there is a good deal of valuable take-aways from the book, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone without a clear understanding of orthodoxy and hermeneutics.

    Check out my book reviews every Wednesday at worthyofthegospel.com
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