I write a lot of book reviews. And this is basically my attitude toward reading. You will never completely agree with a book. But it is pretty rare that you will completely disagree with a book. If you look for areas of agreement you will find them.

I intentionally try to read outside my faith tradition. But I think even more important is to intentionally read outside of my stream of Christianity. Much of the time we are far more dismissive of other Christians than we are of people of other faiths.

I did not read the review that Matt referenced. But I did read Kathy Keller's review. And while Kathy raised some good questions about hermeneutical approaches, it felt like a review of a book that she had not really tried to read openly. I have not read Rachel's book yet. But I have read a lot by Rachel. She tends to use sarcasm, irony and hyperbole to make points. Keller seemed to miss that those were involved. Not having read the book yet I can't completely comment, but even reading some of the quotes I was pretty sure they were being taken out of context.

I do also think it is important to realize that there are real people out there. I do not make every book review into a positive spin. There are books I absolutely hate. And while I am not always consistent, I really do try to write a review that the author, even if they would disagree with my conclusion would acknowledge that I had really read the book and understood the point, even if I disagree.

I have learned a lot about Christian community, love and charity as a book blogger. It is hard work sometimes. But I do think there is a point about 'if we can't love one another, it is pretty hard to love outside the church."

Matt, great article! Thanks for bringing sanity to the hype over this book and others like it.

@adam Great points. Sounds like you do excellent reviews. I wrote this before Kathy Keller's review went up, so I didn't comment on it, but my thoughts were really similar: I felt like she read the book as straight theological commentary rather than what it was, a sort of playful ironic satirical journey asking questions about our hermeneutics. But I totally get that we all have topics we're sensitive about, too. Having said that, I thought her review was certainly attempting to be fair minded, which I didn't think the Desiring God review even attempted.

@JW My pleasure. I think having conversations is always more helpful than shouting matches....

Great article, Matt! Thanks for a calm, reasonable perspective on these issues. I have heard so much about the book (some extremely positive things, some extremely negative) and am eager to read it.

@ Alexis: Hi. :)

Thanks for the kind words. I was mostly surprised by the rhetoric being rolled out before people read the book. I didn't agree with everything in it, but I thought it had some great points and is an important piece of this conversation. And, it was a fun read. Let me know what you think when you read it!

I agree, for the most part, but I was surprised to see the phrase "allow someone in our church to read the book". This makes me thankful to be part of a community where my leaders don't forbid reading material.

Matt, I agree with all of your points on making an informed decision. A review of a book that hasn't been read isn't technically a review, it's hearsay. Again, I agree with your main thesis, that reviews should be reserved until after the book has been read. That being said, I'm also not surprised that someone writing from Desiring God would have a negative review of Rachel's new book. Even though John Piper didn't write the specific review you quote, it's Piper's blog and his camp. John Piper isn't exactly Rachel's best friend and vice-versa. A quick glance at either Piper's or Evans' blog reveals two contrasting world views, not the least of which is the role and authority of Scripture for today's believer. While I don't think it's fair or wise in advising potential readers to avoid Rachel's book, I also don't think anyone should be surprised by who is giving that advice in the first place. Rachel's book is published by Thomas Nelson and her audience is largely Christian. Anytime traditions are questioned, we get competing answers at best. In this situation, Rachel does a fantastic job at questioning traditions and should keep doing so.

Same holds true for secular material. A number of years ago, parents in our school district began a campaign to have 14 books removed from the high school curriculum. Our church organized a book group to read them and form our own opinions. It was announced in the paper, and we received immediate push-back. I received calls from two upset parents (my name was on the press release) telling me we were defiling God by bringing the literature (they called it pornography) into our church and questioning whether I was really a Christian. Neither of the callers had read the books. Those of us who did formed differing opinions and were able to express them respectfully ... at church.

@Denise I agree with you! I didn't mean to imply that generally we should disallow certain books to our people, although that happens often. My pastor at my church is a big believer in engaging with ideas whether he agrees with them or not and has never said there's a certain book we shouldn't read.

@Jonathan You're absolutely right. I think we can predict with some accuracy before some books release who will be for or against them, and I think that's a shame. The Desiring God review was especially egregious in arguing against something that's not present in the book, rather than the book itself. In that sense, anyone in the "desiring God" community could end up against the book for "the wrong reasons." I wouldn't have an issue with the review if it said, for instance, "I think this book is wrong about women's roles" instead of "this book says the Bible can't be trusted." It's a poor review (possibly brought about by poor reading and/or difficult to overcome preconceptions on the part of the reader). That's part of the reality of reading a book, of course, so I totally understand that... but I think that's why we can't rely on any one review to give us an accurate view of a book. Of course, by the same token, I agree with Peter Travers's movie reviews about 90% of the time, so I trust him. But every once in a while I love a movie he hated. So I don't take his word as law. :)

@Lee Great, great story and excellent example. We as leaders really need to help our people learn critical reading abilities. I remember telling someone that the message of the (disturbing) movie "Seven" was more Christian than the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and you would have thought I bit the head of a bat off. Pretty funny. Okay, and clearly given the movies mentioned this was a long time ago.

Your 'correction' of Newbell added context.. without materially altering her point in any way at all. She didn't 'get it wrong', she just chose not to directly quote something that was superfluous to the point she was making.

Evans is incessantly building strawmen for herself. Satirizing 'literalist' hermeneutics.. of a nature that no one anywhere actually subscribes to. Opposing pretend complementarians looking to map a 1950s America onto the Bible. etc. Forceful arguments, were the targets of them to exist.

As for the broader point, I disagree also. Whatever benefits there are to reading the book for engaging in the conversation (and there are some), they are not absolutely essential for making a substantial contribution. If you are even a little familiar with Evans' blog, for instance, you have all you need to (potentially) substantially contribute to the conversation.

Thank you, thank you. Love your perspective. I don't need protecting from ideas. I feel quite capable of standing with the Bereans.

@nathan The thing is, though, that Newbell's point was not in any way supported by the text. She was quoting out of context to make the text appear to say something that it wasn't. It would be the equivalent of me quoting you to show that you love Helds's blog and quoting, "If you are even a little familiar with Evans's blog, for instance, you have all you need." Newbell's review took multiple quotes out of context to say that the book made a point that it never even addressed.

As for having something to contribute to the conversation without having read the book, sure, if the conversation is the wider conversation about hermeneutics and/or gender roles within the community of faith. I don't think, however, you can have much to contribute to the conversation concerning the book itself.

Having said that, Nathan, I'd just add that if part of what you're saying is that someone can legitimately say, "I haven't read the book but from what I see of Evans's blog I'm not sure it's something I would recommend" I have no issue with that. Or, vice versa, suspecting one might like the book because one likes the blog.

@Sandra You're welcome. My high school was called Berean. :)

Seems to me that the idea here is to sell books - and the more controversial, the better. Without that, who would buy this silly sounding tome?

@elegance Your comment is precisely what I'm suggesting in this article that we not do... judging the book by appearance rather than investigating it. If you read the book you may find that your current opinion is overly skeptical (although clearly a publisher doesn't buy a book they don't think they can sell).

I whole-heartedly agree with you regarding pre-judgment. We do this in so many aspects of life, and we're all guilty at one time or another. I agree that it's important to keep our minds open, you never know what you could learn. Too often, people shut out what they *think* they won't agree with. I see this all the time on the internet, where commenters make statements of dissent, often in anger and ugliness, when it's clear they didn't read the entire post or perhaps any if it - they certainly seem to be commenting on things they misconstrued.

Thanks, Michelle. It's true that people on the Internet often start typing before they read. :)

"Three, like my mom would say, if you don’t try things you don't know when you're missing out."

You do realize that this statement is based on a very narrowly defined set of parameters, right?

For example, I don't need to have sex with a male to know it isn't right.

Nor, do I need to read "fifty shades of gray" to know that it is porn, either.

Nor, do I need to eat crap to know what crap taste like.

So, here is my take on just what you wrote...and here is the key graf...

"Rachel Held Evans's "The Year of Biblical Womanhood" in which Evans explores what the Bible says about womanhood by living out a variety of explicit commands in scripture..."

I haven't even heard of this book till now, but herein is the thing...I'm an ancient and medieval student...and already I'm thinking, "how can she live out those explicit commands when she isn't even living in the environment of 1800-to-200 BCE?"
So already, my first question is who is she?
What are her educational credentials are?
What are her field of studies?
so...I researched, and here is what I found...in less than five minutes, her blog, and Amazon's display of her book's bibliography...she has a degree in English lit, okay, and she also talks a lot at speaking engagements...so...so far, I'm not finding anything that says where and how she did her research...so, I go to her book, and I look at her bibliography and I find nothing but other peoples books.

Nothing from the archeological studies, nothing from Prof. Dever, nothing from Prof Frinklestein, nothing.

So, where is she getting her information...she got her information from other modern books...so here's a little piece of advice to all you wannabe writers wanting to write about people in ancient Israel or any ancient culture...USE THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESOURCES.

as it stands now, without even reading the book, just the bibliography...I can say that Ms. Evan's book is about her living her's interpretation of others interpretation of what it was like for ancient Israeli women...without ever actually discovering what life was really like for ancient Semitic women of the Levant.

She was playing pretend...she may have taken it seriously, but not serious enough to actually know what she was writing about...which, was how life was like for a woman/mother/daughter in Ancient Israel.

The only controversy here is why there is a controversy.

@sheerahkahn

Okay. Good. Let's talk about this. Here's me quoting you quoting me:

"Three, like my mom would say, if you don’t try things you don't know when you're missing out."

You do realize that this statement is based on a very narrowly defined set of parameters, right?

Yes, it is based on a narrow bit of parameters and in the context of my article it's clearly referring to READING BOOKS and positions you disagree with, not exploratory sexuality, eating filth or pornography. So your argument here has gone a bit far afield.

Also, again, having not read the book you're making assumptions about the book that are leading you to a misunderstanding. Evans does not attempt to live out the commands in a completely accurate way, any more than any modern person does. She uses the tool of this sort of experimental/satirical tool to discuss modern hermeneutics and how we determine what is "Biblical." All that to say, you could very well read the book and have issues with her sources or what she does with them, but at this point you're missing the main point/purpose of the book because you haven't read it.

I think, honestly, you would find the book has some similar thoughts as you do about how to apply (inspired) ancient near eastern Biblical mandates and cultural thoughts to the modern day.

Thank you for you review of this book, but I'm not interested in reading it myself. I have limited time to give to reading... That's why I want to check out reviews.

I agree that a reviewer should read the book in question. I think it strange, however, that you think a reviewer should not distill the author's thrust through quoting sentences from the book. Of course they are out of context, but they are whole units of thought that the author made.

This makes me think that you are primarily a fan and maybe a friend of this author. Your wholehearted endorsement of the book is no more convincing than another person's dismissive rejection of the book.

Who is this author and what are her qualifications for addressing this subject? What position does she take? What are her theological, hermeneutical and philosophical perspectives? What does this book contribute to the overall discussion? Why should I read it?

That's what I want in a book review.

@dave

I wrote a response earlier but it didn't show, so forgive me if this ends up being a repeat.

1. I don't know Ms. Evans, so we're not friends (not even on Facebook). I'm also not a "fan" in any appreciable sense: I don't regularly read her blog, I've not read her first book, I've never gone to see her at a reading or anything like that.

2. This post isn't a book review. I think that's pretty clear. I shared a few things I liked at the end of the post, but the point of this article was purely that one should read a book for one's self to form the best opinion of a book. One paragraph out of thirteen addresses my (partial) opinion about the content of the book.

3. I don't believe that quoting an author in order to "distill the author's thrust" is a bad thing. That's to be encouraged in a review. What i mean by "out of context" is quoting the author in such a way to make it look like the author is making a point that they are not, or addressing a topic that they are not. The review in question did precisely that. The reviewer used selective quoting to make it appear that the author was addressing the reliability and/or divine nature of scripture, two topics that were not addressed in the book in the way that the reviewer took issue with. In fact, it took some pretty bold misquoting to make it appear that way. That's a sign of a poor or slanted book review.

As for your last questions, I think those are fair questions to ask of a book review. Of course, this was not a book review, and honestly the article is only tangentially about Ms. Evans or her book. It really is more about how we talk about, recommend or denounce books or ideas that we like or dislike.

"Also, again, having not read the book you're making assumptions about the book that are leading you to a misunderstanding. Evans does not attempt to live out the commands in a completely accurate way, any more than any modern person does. She uses the tool of this sort of experimental/satirical tool to discuss modern hermeneutics and how we determine what is "Biblical.""

Okay, Matt, here's the problem.

I want you to read what you wrote.

Btw, there is nothing wrong with what you wrote, so there is no dissembling here or trickery, I'm being quite upfront, but I want you to reread what you wrote.

Okay.

Now, I read through her bibliography, did you?

If you did then you will note that her bibliography agrees with the aforementioned quote of yours.

Please note that...her bibliography agrees with the quote of yours.

Unfortunately, what she says about her book doesn't agree with her bibliography, nor does it agree with what you are saying about her book.

The contents of her book, of which may even talk about what you say she is addressing is not the issue, the problem is her initial statement which frames the premise of her book which, unfortunately, isn't the dichotomy between how women actually lived in the ancient world, vs how modern viewpoints of women should behave.

No, her premise is that she is going to live like a woman from "biblical Israel" following all the laws, requirements, etc.

Her bibliography, again back to her bibliography, doesn't support that statement of hers.

So, based solely on her bibliography, and her education all that tells me is she did no research on how a woman or women in general lived in Ancient Israel, or any woman from the Levant from the period of 1800 to 200 bce lived.

Therefore, her entire premise of her book is false...which is, that she is living as a woman from ancient Israel.

Facts speak clearer that explanations, and those are the facts.

If she had said this...and you will note, this is your quote:

"Evans does not attempt to live out the commands in a completely accurate way, any more than any modern person does. She uses the tool of this sort of experimental/satirical tool to discuss modern hermeneutics and how we determine what is "Biblical."

Then I wouldn't be here commenting.

So...if you haven't looked at her bibliography, I strongly recommend you do because it supports what you are saying about her, but unfortunately, her statements regarding the book are not supported by her bibliography.

And yes, therefore, a judgement about the quality of a book based on both the background of the writer, the writers statements about the book, and the books bibliography will give a clear indication as to the content of the book. If there is continuity between bibliography and writers statements...then the book is as it presents itself...if not...

@sheerahkahn

Okay, I think I get what you are saying now.

I don't think that Evans ever said she was going to live out an exactly accurate version of ancient Biblical practice of womanhood (I could be wrong on that, I haven't been following all the interviews and whatnot). The book itself is pretty clear from the beginning that it won't be that. She makes jokes about it. You know, she does things like taking the idea of "praising your husband at the city gates" and goes out with a sign saying her husband is awesome to the entrance to her town. This is completely self-aware in the book. It's not meant to be a serious study-it-at-seminary sort of book. I think maybe part of the issue here is genre rather than content (and possibly public relations issues).

Anyway, I understand your point. Thanks for taking the time to make it clearer to me.

"...the book. It's not meant to be a serious study-it-at-seminary sort of book." Making sheera's point exactly. This was originally a post about reviewing the reviews. We are all simply reviewing the reviews of the reviews since no one has apparently actually read the book because the subject matter and the public behavior of the author appear to be pretty silly.

@sheerahkahn

Okay, I think I get what you are saying now.

I don't think that Evans ever said she was going to live out an exactly accurate version of ancient Biblical practice of womanhood (I could be wrong on that, I haven't been following all the interviews and whatnot). The book itself is pretty clear from the beginning that it won't be that. She makes jokes about it. You know, she does things like taking the idea of "praising your husband at the city gates" and goes out with a sign saying her husband is awesome to the entrance to her town. This is completely self-aware in the book. It's not meant to be a serious study-it-at-seminary sort of book. I think maybe part of the issue here is genre rather than content (and possibly public relations issues).

Anyway, I understand your point. Thanks for taking the time to make it clearer to me.

@anonymous

I'm not making Sheerhkahn's point, I'm just agreeing with it, or at least that piece of it.

I have, indeed, read the book. It's pretty good. Not being a serious study of Biblical archaeology doesn't disqualify a book from having value.

"I have, indeed, read the book. It's pretty good. Not being a serious study of Biblical archaeology doesn't disqualify a book from having value."

Don't get me wrong Matt, for me, nothing makes me giggle more like a little girl getting a pony for her birthday than taking a bunch of nonsense modern Christians have about how our faith came to be, or even how people/men/women should behave as Christians, and riding off into the sunset leaving a trail of mockery behind me.

But authors, and their money grubbing publishers NEED to take care how they position themselves in relation to their books.

Like in this case, her books presentation drew the likes of me...which my response was, "oh someone is going to live like a woman from Ancient Israel." Which, btw, would be a fascinating undertaking because of how women behaved and practiced their faith on a day to day basis in the Ancient World of which, I at least would think... open up the past, and hopefully dispel a whole load of ignorance that 99% of modern Christians seem to have about the bible; But most importantly, would provide an extremely interesting contrast of world views that the participant female would have from living in two different time periods.

Alas, as you pointed out, that is not, nor was the intention of the book or the author...and yet...it was presented as such.

So, with all that said, thank you for considering my words, and thank you for being patient. Critical thinking is much needed in our lives today, and you have held your point quite well. I am glad we have reached an accord, and I hope she has a joyous ride with it...and I wish the author plenty of opportunity to lampoon the silliness that many modern Christians have about women in today's world.

@sheerakhan

Hey, thanks for the kind words, and thanks for sticking the conversation out.

And hey, there's always room for the book you hoped this one would be. Maybe you should write it! (I don't actually know if you're a woman... God bless the gender equality of the Internet!).

"I don't actually know if you're a woman..."

Oh good G-d no.

Nothing wrong with females, don't get me wrong, as I loves em as much as any other man would, but after watching my sons be born...thank G-d I a man.

As for writing that book...I'm afraid the aforementioned favored bias to my gender would prevent me from fully appreciating the experiment, and more than likely color my final analysis to favor the joys of my masculinity far too much.

Perhaps a woman of more rational appeal and with a sense of detail will take on the task...I can guarantee that it would be a book I would pre-order as soon as I got wind of it being produced.

It's with interest that I have been reading the various reviews for this book. I enjoyed Rachel's style in other of her works, and this is a topic that I, as a married mother of 4, am keenly interested in. It seems however, according to even the most basic of descriptions, that I will be disappointed by this book. Our family is currently engaged in wrestling with applying the specific directions for family life and biblical gender roles in scripture, in our modern day society. And separating out Jewish tradition from what is explicit in scripture adds a challenge as well. To read of these issues being treated sarcastically, to make a point about how gender roles are treated in the church, (however needed such a discussion is!), is just discouraging. Perhaps, after we have progressed in our own family's journey, I'll have to write my own book about biblical womanhood, and biblical man hood, and raising a family according to the Bible, and all that goes with it... And then again, perhaps we'll be to busy living it to write about it.