Are you grappling with a difficult verse in the Bible? And are you looking for a short, easy-to-read answer that really makes sense without explaining away the verse? Hard Sayings of the Bible is the handy reference book you need. Here you will find explanations of over five hundred of the most troubling verses to test the minds and hearts of Bible readers. Four seasoned scholars, all with a notable gift for communicating with people in the pew, take you behind the scenes to find succinct solutions to a wide variety of Bible difficulties, ranging from discrepancies about numbers to questions about God’s justice. Historical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds shed light on these passages and not only help explain what they meant in biblical times but also show how they are relevant today. Now carefully cross-referenced with over one hundred new verses explained, as well as a dozen new introductory articles on chronology, miracles, archaeology, prophecy and more, Hard Sayings of the Bible offers the combined resources of five previous volumes that have over 250,000 copies in print. If you find yourself tied up in scriptural knots, here’s the book that will help you cut through them.
Possibly The Best I find three books that tackle Bible difficulties stand out above all others. Gleason Archer’s “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties”, Norman Geisler’s and Ron Brooks’ “When Skeptics Ask…”, and this one. Out of those three this is probably my favorite. This one seems to go into deeper historical setting information. And as one who questions constantly, I am finding better answers here. That is not to say that the three books disagree, for they do agree with each other. This one seems to always anticipate the extra question someone would ask. And now to alienate at least 50% of you… The one disagreement between the books is that this one has an egalitarian stance while the other two hold the traditional view regarding the role of women in the church. Holding one view or the other on this topic will neither send someone to heaven nor hell, yet often emotion takes over this debate. As a former traditionalist I was surprised at how the biblical (as opposed to liberal) view of…
A great tool to have on hand I don’t think there is any mystery to the fact that some biblical passages are tougher to interpret than others. This is why I so appreciate this book. In fact, I had bought the individual IVP books that were later compiled into Hard Sayings of the Bible, and I spent the money for this because it’s nice having it all in one bound volume. I have used this many times to see if a particular passage is talked about, and probably half of the time it’s in there. (I consider this to be a pretty high percentage.) While I may not always agree with the assessment, it is nice to get other perspectives, and more than once they have convinced me of their position on very difficult passages.