Justo González, The Bible in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022). 186pp + indexes. ISBN 9780802881748
Reviewed by Dr Rod Benson
When Christians and people of other or no faith ask me questions about the Bible, they typically don’t ask why I regard the Bible as trustworthy, or why I shape my life on its teachings. They ask a slightly different question: “How can I be sure that the text of the Bible is authentic?”
For some, it’s a question of making sense of multiple English versions; for others, doubts arise from diverse, even contradictory, interpretations of a biblical text; for still others, the question reflects reservations about textual origins, or changes in meaning as the text is translated from one language to another.
There are plenty of good books addressing such questions, but many are rather technical for the ordinary layperson to navigate with ease. This short, clear and accessible book by Justo González is a welcome primer on the origins and early interpretation of the Bible.
A Cuban-American historical theologian, and a retired elder of the United Methodist Church, González is approaching his ninth decade. Students of historical theology and church history may be familiar with González’s three-volume History of Christian Thought and his widely used two-volume The Story of Christianity. He has also written many other books and articles. This is his most autobiographical work.
In his introduction, González writes, “the path leading from the first ancient Bibles to the one you hold today in your hands is long, complex, and providential” (1). His aim is to explain how the Bible as we know it came to be, how it has been used, and how it was interpreted by its early readers. The title is misleading since the author extends his discussion, in places, to include the Protestant Reformation, but he focuses on the period from New Testament times to the late Patristic era (late 700s CE).
Readers will learn about the process of transmission from oral teaching to papyrus scrolls, codices, and eventually the printing press. There is a whole chapter on the physical appearance of early Christian Bibles, and another on how we came to have chapter and verse divisions in our Bibles. González also addresses issues such as editing, canonicity, and transmission of the text through time that are overlooked or taken for granted.
After a preface and introduction, the book is divided into three parts. Part 1, “The shape of the Bible,” discusses the languages in which the original text of Scripture was composed (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), and the process whereby the early church settled on a canon (“standard” or “rule”) of authoritative documents, thereby excluding others. The author discusses the various texts and versions, and how critical editions were established that provide a basis for modern translation work.
Part 2, “The use of the Bible,” examines how the Bible has been used by Christians in worship, private reading, education, and in shaping and critiquing the social order. There is a separate chapter on the use of the Book of Psalms. I would like to have seen sections on the uses of each of the main biblical literary genres here, but that may have been beyond the scope of the book.
González reminds us that, for a large part of the history of Christianity, “most believers knew the Bible not because they had read it themselves – which most could not do – but because they had heard it read to the congregation of the faithful” (64). Having lived as a child in regional Papua New Guinea, I can confirm that this is the lived experience of many people today, whether because they don’t have the Bible in their birth language or because they cannot read.
Part 3, “The interpretation of the Bible,” looks at the ways in which scholars and others have made sense of Scripture. Like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:30f, many readers of the Bible find what they read unfamiliar, confusing or seemingly contradictory, and they benefit from processes of exposition and interpretation.
Here, González discusses the early church’s adoption of Jewish models of interpretation, the rise in popularity of a typological (analogical) model such as that employed by Augustine of Hippo, and the approach taken by the Protestant Reformers of emphasising the plain or literal sense of the text.
González concludes his book with brief outlines of key early Christian thinkers (mostly Patristic, but including Erasmus and Calvin), along with suggestions for further reading and two indexes. He succeeds in grounding the reliability of the text of Scripture in history and providence.
Reading this book will likely fill in some gaps in one’s knowledge of the processes and events that brought the ancient writings to final form in the Bibles we have today. It may also dispel lingering doubts and inspire wonder, trust and gratitude.
Image source: Publisher.
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