Brothers Unto Brothers

Every once in a while a rare book comes along that helps the reader see the entire Bible through a new lens, bringing numerous fresh insights into overly familiar passages and clarifying difficulties in obscure or often misunderstood texts. This new book by James G. Williams, a professor of Hebrew Bible and New Testament, is one such gem.

Our society does not take the Bible seriously, laments Williams: "Very few people now read the Bible. That is a commonplace. I wonder, in fact, whether Western culture now induces us to ignore the Bible, which is felt by many to be a sacred museum piece and by others to be a myth or collections of myths like all the other myths of the world."

Williams criticized the bulk of biblical scholarship today because so much is "permeated with overspecialization or intellectual faddishness...." Too often, he notes, theologians and Bible scholars are not accountable to any faith community whatsoever.

According to Williams, fundamentalists and evangelicals have "preserved a nucleus of respect for biblical texts and traditions amid cultural ferment and despite the disdain shown for religion (this usually means Christianity) by both its cultured and its uncultured despisers." He does criticize fundamentalist-evangelicals who are unwilling to study the Bible within "a broader context of human history and culture."

Here is an author who is not afraid to declare his opinions. In doing so he may upset or offend some, but he also challenges anyone with an interest in the Bible.

Williams applies the theory and analysis of René Girard to understand the origin, nature, and overcoming of violence in the Bible. Girard's work on scapegoating is having an increasing influence on many biblical scholars. He developed his scapegoating theory while studying literature, including classical European fiction and Greek mythology.

Eventually Williams turned his attention to the Bible. While finding scapegoating themes in the Bible too, he also found something new: Jesus overturned scapegoating by exposing the truth about this ugly (and usually hidden) dynamic.

Scapegoating helps us explore additional ways of understanding the atonement. Jesus was "the biblical revelation of the God who comes into the world as the Innocent Victim and who defends and frees victims" of scapegoating. In the Bible we find "the revelation or disclosure of a God who does not want victims, a God who is disclosed in the action of those who take the side of victims."

NEW PARADIGMS WITH which to study the Bible are almost always helpful. Otherwise our Bible studies can become stale and predictable, not because of the poverty of scriptures but because of the dullness of our own limited abilities and insights.

In this book, for example, I was pleased to discover a discussion of the parable of the prodigal son. I am engaged in a lengthy study of that fine story. I like to think that I have some understanding of Jesus' masterpiece. Nevertheless, in three pages, Williams helped me to a new way of seeing that famous parable: He compared it to other biblical examples of sibling rivalry (Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers), drawing important parallels and contrasts.

Williams also analyzes the Old Testament law, the Mosaic covenant, and the concerns of the prophets. There is a fascinating chapter on Job, the "failed scapegoat" (who refused to accept his friends' scapegoating judgment that his punishment was just). He raises disturbing questions about society as he reflects on the healing of the Gerasene demoniac.

While reading Williams, I was often flipping through my Bible and re-reading familiar stories. One of the greatest compliments that I can pay this book is to observe that I added many notes to my favorite study Bible; those notes reflect new insights and are all directly from this book.

At times I did find the reading a little dense and heavy. It certainly helps to be familiar with Girard's work, but that's not entirely necessary. I have little patience for scholarly writing: Too often its complexity can be mere sloppiness or ineptness, merely a cover for superficiality. But this book is worth the work of careful analysis and patient plodding. Williams even dares to draw insights from his analyses and to apply them to the violent society we live in now, thus proving the Bible's relevance for this day and age.

That may not be news for you and it was not news for me either. But it is always a delight to find such a sharp mind uncovering the Bible's significance. And it is even a greater privilege when that discovery deepens our own appreciation for the Bible.

Arthur P. Boers pastored Bloomingdale (Ontario) Mennonite Church and was the author of Lord, Teach Us to Pray (Herald) and Justice That Heals (Faith & Life) when this review appeared.

The Bible, Violence and the Sacred: Liberation From the Myth of Sanctioned Violence. By James G. Williams. HarperSanFrancisco, 1991. $27 (cloth).