Reviews
Brian Malley's ethnography brims with bold new insights and counter-intuitive ideas about how conservative evangelicals know 'what the Bible says.' After deftly disposing of literalist clichs, he shows how their interpretive traditions combine with an absence of hermeneutic method and their desire for daily relevance to 'bring the Bible alive' for each generation. A must-read for anyone curious about what Bible belief really is and how it happens., This is an exciting time for students of religion, with new competing theories drawing on cognitive anthropology and psychology, and on evolutionary biology. With this first in-depth case-study of a religious movement based on these novel ideas, Brian Malley makes an outstanding contribution to the ongoing debates., Brian Malley's ethnography brims with bold new insights and counter-intuitive ideas about how conservative evangelicals know 'what the Bible says.' After deftly disposing of literalist clichés, he shows how their interpretive traditions combine with an absence of hermeneutic method and their desire for daily relevance to 'bring the Bible alive' for each generation. A must-read for anyone curious about what Bible belief really is and how it happens., As an ethnographer, the book - regardless of its focus - appeals to me on the basis of its rich account, diligently undertaken, with considerable attention paid to both the subjects and the subjects. . . . It offers new insights into the nuanced and complex readings of the Bible, which we might otherwise perceive as a normative given., Brian Malley's ethnography brims with bold new insights and counter-intuitive ideas about how conservative evangelicals know 'what the Bible says.' After deftly disposing of literalist clich s, he shows how their interpretive traditions combine with an absence of hermeneutic method and their desire for daily relevance to 'bring the Bible alive' for each generation. A must-read for anyone curious about what Bible belief really is and how it happens.
