One of the characteristics of this book is to take Rene Girard's scapegoat theory of human culture and violence as disclosive and helpful for hermeneutics.

If the mainspring of the Bible is not the legal weight of each word but a progressive engine of disclosure, overturning a root human condition, then we are discovering a radically new hermeneutics. One which provokes human transformation. (p.26)

As I am a little more skeptical about Girard* nowadays, I was interested to see whether one really had to commit to that package in order to find this useful or not. Or whether it could be that the insights can be accepted without the whole package.

The book is set out as a resource for groups or class-work and is designed attractively from a typographic point of view -though not so easily read on screen in the pdf format I had access to, I trust that this will be addressed by suitable formatting for e-book versions in due course. Part of the course-book nature of the volume shows up at the end of each chapter where there are discussion questions and personal questions. I did wonder whether those ought to be the other way round: to encourage readers to be honest and in touch with their own history and responses before entering a group situation. Also, each chapter begins with aims and key points as well as a heads-up for key terms. Good educational practice.

The parts dealing with hermeneutics are set out clearly and succinctly which is no mean feat, I think. I was at first surprised by the basic laying out of the canon of scripture but as I saw it was done comparatively including the RC and Orthodox canons I began to see the point -it gently de-absolutises some approaches to reading scripture by raising implicit questions about why some of us can be so fierce about things which have a little bit of contingency about them -and what does that do to our considering scripture to be God-breathed? -Obviously I'm not going into that here and neither does this book, but it is important to dwell on it before coming over all crusader.

We also have a useful and equally succinct  primer in atonement theories (possibly one of the best I've seen in this respect), and again this can have the effect of encouraging more considered discourse on what Jesus's Ministry, Cross and Raising achieve. This section helps us to see the way that culture relates to plausibility and tends to assist in the foregrounding of particular theological motifs. Again we need to develop a healthy sense of contingency about such things, not to dispose of them but to be able to make use of them (or not) wisely in the service of God's mission. One of the things it notes in presenting these theories is the role that violence plays in the motif, hinting at how that can, in turn, give subliminal permission to populations, rulers or church polities to endorse the use of violence.

There is a brief outline  of the development of the the doctrine of penal substitionary atonement (PSA) which is again helfpful not least in reminding us that the term 'hilasterion' used in Paul is 'mercy seat', that is a place where mercy is found. It also notes that there is not a developed doctrine in Paul, merely metaphor and allusion.

The introduction to Girard's take on violence in human society is very clearly done and again briefly; a great service to the reader. The re-presentation of the Hapiru (=Hebrews) as a class rather than a race is a fair idea and worth putting out there in this regard. This enables us to appreciate reading the text of scripture as a sedimentation of revelation of divine love struggling against the violent defaults of human thinking and its projection onto the divine. This calls us to attend to the whole fabric of scripture and the deep -structures or divine drumbeat of love, resisted as it is by the vested interests of violently upheld power and wealth.

For those who have already been thinking a lot about non-violence, the gospel and Christian peacemaking, there is probably little in this that will surprise. Though the Girardian reading of the fall may be intriguing and thought-provoking. Where this book really scores is in offering a well-presented, clearly argued and succinct tour of the 'deep structure' of non-violence in scripture in a way that is thoughtful. The strength of the Girardian reading of the Hebrew Bible is to give a way to reframe what appears at first to be divine violence. It is a strength that this book is not so much an argument for a particular reading (or set of readings) but an invitation, in effect, to 'reason together' by inviting study and asking questions, including personally reflective questions. It is a kind of invite to try the approach on for size.

The book is also offering itself as a helpfully laid-out teaching/learning resource. In the USA I guess it would work as adult Sunday school material. In Britain it would more naturally lend itself to cell-group or home-group contexts or even to a Lent-course particularly for people who are keen to get to grips with something a bit 'meatier' and are okay with a degree of challenge.

Links for this Review

Seven Stories: How to Study and Teach the Nonviolent Bible: Amazon.co.uk: Anthony W Bartlett: 9780692931943: Books:

*I don't find the linkage between the three pillars of the theory very convincing. I definitely think that the mimetic theme is right -and this was the reason I first looked into Girard. I also am convinced that there is something important in recognising that the sacrifice of Christ is among other things an unmasking of violence and power. I'm less convinced by the rivalrous sacrificial crisis-resolution aspect in that it purports to offer a universal cultural mechanism, and I'm simply not sure that it is so. I do think that there is a reality to the scapegoating mechanism but I just don't think it is necessarily a total explanation or a universal. And then I guess too that my own take on atonement -basing it in forgiveness rather than things like 'satisfaction' or 'penalty' tends me towards considering that seeing sacrifice purely as a human construct misplaced onto the divine may be in danger of removing an important insight about love.