Hear Ye the Word of the Lord: What We Miss If We Only Read the Bible

By D. Brent Sandy. IVP Academic, 2024. 216 pages. $25/paperback; $24.99/eBook.

I really like this book, but I almost didn’t review it—twice. First, when I picked it up, turned it over, and read the author’s brief bio, I saw that he taught New Testament and Greek at Wheaton College, a renowned Evangelical Christian institution. It was obvious in the first chapter that he believed the words in the Bible to have been spoken by God. He is what I call a biblical literalist, and I thought that his book would not be of interest to most Friends Journal readers. I was about to put it aside when I looked at the subtitle, What We Miss If We Only Read the Bible, and I reconsidered. I thought Sandy might be advocating reading books other than the Bible—something that Quakers interested in Scripture frequently do. But as I read further in the book, I quickly recognized my mistake: the emphasis is on the word read. Sandy is not advising us to read other books but to approach the Bible as a book that needs to be heard, not just quietly read in the solitude of a study. Even so, I continued reading.

I soon realized Brent Sandy is a serious scholar. He wants to understand the Bible and knows that to do that he needs to know what the Scriptures meant to the people who first heard them: people living in cultures and circumstances very different from our own. To grasp the Bible’s essential message, we must first come to know the “lost world” inhabited by those first hearers. They, he says, were the primary audience; its message was aimed at them, not us. The people to whom it was first delivered are not just incidental. Until we hear its words through their ears (as best we can thousands of years later), we haven’t heard them accurately. This is a challenge worth taking.

Sandy reminds us that most of the Bible was delivered orally before it was written down, sometimes many generations before it was first penned. God spoke; Moses spoke; the prophets spoke; Jesus spoke. Even the parts that were first written, for example the epistles of Paul, would have been transmitted by reading them aloud to largely illiterate audiences. As a writer, I know that the way I write changes when I am writing for readers as opposed to writing for oral presentation. Scripture writers knew their audience. In the third verse of Revelation (1:3), the narrator says, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud and those who hear the message of this prophecy.”

In 14 short chapters, Sandy carefully lays the groundwork for this effort, reminds us who the agents of transmission were, and explores the implications of the oral presentation. When, for example, Scripture is shared in a public recitation, the reading would involve delivering the whole of a piece at one time: not a single verse or even a chapter (designations necessitated by the needs of copyists and scholars, and invented long after the last text was written down). This means that the fundamental unit of reception and therefore of understanding is much larger for a hearer than a reader.

Among the more unexpected (to me) implications of this delivery style is Sandy’s vigorous assault on proof texting: the practice of tweezing a single verse or segment of text out of context and assigning it disproportionate value. For example, Sandy considers a phrase from Matthew 7:7: “Ask and you shall receive.” Some Christians hold that this is a promise that “God will give them what they want, regardless of what the true will of God may be for them. But,” he asks, “is that consistent with the rest of Scripture?” Sandy puts this lonely verse into conversation with statements from across the whole Bible to create a fuller understanding. Then he declares: “We’re now better prepared to understand Jesus’ statement. He never intended a wide-open offer of satisfying our unlimited desires if we simply ask.” He wryly adds, “Of course, we already knew that because many of us have probably tried the formula only to be disappointed.”

He describes the final four chapters as “experiments in oral interpretation.” In each, he suggests ways to create opportunities for voicing Scripture and for rephrasing stories in more contemporary words. He emphasizes that for speakers in earlier times, such presentations would involve a degree of play-acting, emotional interpretation, and drama. To hold an audience’s attention, you need to project enthusiasm for your topic and animation.

Coincidentally, I was reading another book about the Apocalypse of John at the same time. Sandy’s “experiments” got me to thinking about how I would put on an oral performance of that book, and I was suddenly struck by the thought that the Book of Revelation could be read as a pretty good script for a first-century superhero action movie. That insight opened a whole new understanding; you might say it was a revelation!

If you have an interest in the Bible or you just want to understand what all the fuss is about, Hear Ye the Word of the Lord offers a unique and valuable way to hear it. You might want to buy it for a nice quiet read, but think of the fun you could have reading it aloud with others!

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Paul Buckley has written numerous articles and books on Quaker history, faith, and practice. He worships with Clear Creek Meeting in Richmond, Ind., and travels in the ministry urging spiritual renewal among Friends. His most recent publication is a Pendle Hill pamphlet, Teach Us to Pray, due out in February 2025. Contact: bucklpa@earlham.edu.