Opening the Bible

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., and lecturer in the
Anglican Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver.

As an Anglican priest, Roger Ferlo takes seriously the advice of the
Elizabethan divine Richard Hooker that the Bible must always be read in
the context of common worship and the received Christian tradition. This
volume on reading the Bible gives the reader a broad yet compact
introduction to scripture; the reasons for, and uses of, the
typographical presentation of current versions of the Bible (focusing
particularly on the New Oxford Annotated Bible edition of the Revised
New Standard Version); the complexities of biblical translations; and
various literary and spiritual methods of reading the Bible.

The richness of material presented is a mixed blessing. There are many
fascinating insights and historical notes about the biblical text that
many readers with some background in literary study or religious history
will find new and helpful. At the same time, readers hoping for a
simple, straightforward introduction to reading the Bible may feel
overwhelmed and frustrated by what could be regarded as needless and
complicating detail. For them, even pondering the chapter-by-chapter
“Questions for Group Discussion” at the back of the book will not
illuminate the text.

Canadian readers will discover another problem with this book. It is an
American work that has been published in Canada without any attempt to
Canadianize the references. For example, although the reader is often
referred to the Book of Common Prayer, it is the American Episcopal
version, not the Anglican Church of Canada edition; thus the many page
references are always to the American book. Editorial changes before
publication would have made Opening the Bible more usable in this
country.