Christianity Really Is Bookish
by Bill Muehlenberg, Culture Watch:
The Christian religion is one in which books really matter. Reading and writing matter greatly to biblical Christianity. It is a bookish religion. Note, I did not say Christians are bookish. Sadly that is not true of most Christians today. But they should be, because Christianity at its core is bookish.
From its earliest days Christianity was all about writing, about books, about the public reading of books and letters, and so on. Sadly today far too many Christians are not readers or interested in books, including the 66 books found in the Bible.
Thus most modern believers in the West are way out of sync with early Christianity. They prefer entertainment, emotion and imagery over solid content, especially as found in books. Let me make my point for the importance of books and reading in earliest Christianity by referring to two recent books which have made a solid case for this.
Both volumes are very significant books which overlap in many respects, and I actually alerted my readers to them in a piece I did a few weeks ago: billmuehlenberg.com/2018/06/08/so-what-are-you-reading-now/
Larry Hurtado’s book, Destroyer of the Gods, came out in 2016 (Baker), while Michael Kruger’s volume, Christianity at the Crossroads, appeared the following year (SPCK). Both books look carefully at the first few centuries of Christianity, with Kruger especially focusing on the second century of the church.
Hurtado examines the various distinctives of early Christianity and why it thrived. Chapter 4 is entitled “A ‘Bookish’ Religion”. He notes that unlike many other religions, sacred books are absolutely essential to Christianity. Certainly in light of Roman religions at the time, Christianity was a very “bookish” religion.
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