I was asked by brother Alf to consider reading and offering my thoughts on liberal Rachel Held Evans’ book titled Inspired. Usually I take a long time reading books I disagree with and posting about it on my blog since I want my critique to be accurate of their view, logically sound in my arguments and that what I say is true.
In an interview Rachel Held Evans said this about her male critics who are pastors and seminarians:
Actually they don’t criticize my hermeneutics or my exegesis. They just say, “This woman has no authority to write about the Bible.” They don’t even attempt to engage the arguments that I make, and that’s what irritates me.
(Source)
Note here she said they didn’t handle her hermenuetics, her exegesis nor her arguments but attack her as a woman. In this post and future posts I won’t be attacking her as a woman. I also think Rachel Held Evans’ statements about her detractors thus far shouldn’t be attributed to all those who disagree with her; that would not be fair. I think thoughtful reviews of any books takes time, even responses to terrible books because it takes time to be fair and offer sound arguments against a book’s perspective. Her book was released on June 12th, 2018 and her statement in that interview was on July 6th. Sometimes in academia it takes months or even over a year before there’s a critique from the other side. So for her to say no one who is a pastor and in seminary has critiqued her hermeneutics, exegesis and arguments is rather premature. It’s also strikes me as a bit narcissistic for someone who is professing to write a book admitting she’s not a Bible scholar to think meaningful responses from pastors and those in seminary should be served right away (3 weeks) when others who are more serious scholars get their response much slower.
In this post I will offer my thoughts on the “Introduction” for the book.
The Domain for Truth 