The Bible Jesus Read

“When we read the Old Testament … these are the prayers Jesus prayed, the poems he memorized, the songs he sang, the bedtime stories he heard as a child, the prophecies he pondered.”
“Old Testament is a testimonial letter of Christ, which he caused to be opened after his death and read and proclaimed everywhere through the Gospel” Marin Luther

We often poke and prod the text so much we forget to just sit back and allow the text to read us.
That’s what Philip Yancey does in his latest book, The Bible Jesus Read (Zondervan: 1999). After spending much of his Christian walk reading and re-reading the New Testament Yancey discovers the Old. Yancey chronicles his journey with what he felt were some of the hardest books to approach, show more yet the most rewarding.
The wonderful simplicity of this book is that each book is approached on its own terms. Often biblical interpretations come with their own slant or bias. Within a page or two of almost every commentary readers can dismiss a book for being either too literal or too liberal.
Never claiming to be a scholar, yet at the same time obviously well-read, Yancey approaches the text much like Prof. Terry Fretheim does in his Pentateuch course. He just looks at the texts as they are found on the page. His personal theological slant is a non-issue because when the Bible is read at this most basic level the issues that divide us never come up. Instead he finds the most basic human/God relational questions and explores them.
Calling upon the most ecumenical of authors, e.g., Martin Luther, Thomas Merton, C. S. Lewis, Abraham Heschel, Jack Miles, Kathleen Norris and countless others, Yancey successfully bridges the chasm that denominationally and theologically separates American Christians.
If the Old Testament has traditionally been difficult for you there is now a two-part solution. First, to cover the narrative aspects read Walter Wangerin’s The Book of God (Zondervan: 1996) a modern, easy-to-read novelization of the Bible. Then approach the non-narrative aspects of the Scriptures–or, if you already have the basic storyline down you can skip to this step—read Yancey’s book. Yancey brings his readers through seemingly random placed Psalms and confusing oracles of God to rediscover a God so loving it is no wonder Jesus quoted often from these books.
Yancey looks at five books/areas of the Old Testament that are difficult for many Christians and in his very readable way, walks through the themes and issues he finds to be the most basic. The books he looks at are Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the Prophets and claims these as his favorites.
As he dives into these books he finds that the Old Testament God is in fact the same as the New once given a chance to be known. In fact, Yancey makes it clear to his New Testament biased audience that “we cannot understand the New Testament apart from the Old.”
He winnows away at the idea that God as portrayed in the Old Testament is somehow different or harsher than the new. Amazingly he does this without making the reader feel that this is Yancey’s mission with this book. His only agenda seems to be to pass on the exciting experience he’s had with the Old Testament in recent years. In fact, his approach to the Old Testament is so enlivening that it is possible for the Old Testament to move from a non-existent topic in your sermon writing to a regular feature.
This book makes wonderful devotional reading, easy enough to be read even in the depths of the semester. It would also make a great book to use in a beginners’ or intermediate level Bible study in the parish. It approaches the Bible in the same way most non-trained parishioners would, but with a responsibility one would expect from a trusted scholar. Yancey is a popular enough author that The Bible Jesus Read is available at almost every bookstore. show less

I found this a really interesting and helpful book. The Old Testament is often ignored today, but I loved reading the narratives as a child. Had much less time for the poetry and Job just confused me. This book explains the context of a number of the most confusing books in the Old Testament, and Yancey gives suggestions that helped me understand and want to spend time rereading them.

楊腓力在這本書中，為你呈現一位機智、有想像力，具有挑戰性、無懼、富同情心，而且難以捉摸，並給人終極滿足的耶穌。而且在這本誠實的書中，將會幫助你發現一位不同的耶穌,不同於主日學中那位穿著法蘭絲絨的圖像，帶著微笑的得勝救主，更不同於被一般傳統文化所遮蓋的 那位好像只能將他擺在宗教盒子裡的耶穌。

Philip Yancey, in his usual clear style, looks at some of the books of the Old Testament. He explains why he thinks it's important for Christians to read them; he also gives an overview of what they're about. Different chapters cover Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the prophets in general.

Interesting and well worth reading. I found it quite thought-provoking and encouraging, particularly when I reread it, over a decade after the first time I read it.

Recommended.

Latest longer review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-bible-jesus-read-by-philip-yanc...

I must admit, a long time ago, I read a Yancey book and decided that he was a fluffy, feel good, low substance Christian author that deserved to be sold on the shelves with the crappy Christian souvenirs rather than with solid thinkers like Zacharias and Moreland. While I still don't believe that he is a great apologist or academician, I now have to take back all those things I thought. This was one of his earlier books (his third?) and I think it is a major accomplishment. Read it as more of a devotional than any kind of theological treatise, and you will find that there is a lot of depth and meaning to be had that can enrich your view of the Old Testament. This book opened my eyes to some of the best books of the Bible. I had read show more many of them, and was one of the few people I know to enjoy those books, but I can't say that I was getting quite as much out of them as I can now.

You want the short version of the book? You matter to the Creator of the universe and what you think matters to Him too! show less

Yancey discusses the Old Testament, focusing on the books he has wrestled with over the years such as Job, the Psalms, Eccelesiastes, and a couple of others. He discusses the questions these books raised in his mind and some of the answers he has worked through. His style is very accessable and real and thought provoking.

A wonderful book that gives a picture of the holy book that Jesus would have had growing up and an idea of what it meant for the people at the time. Obviously, that world was very different from ours now, but in many respects the struggles that took place then we tend to find ourselves in as well. Yancey does a wonderful job of touching on this in a way that only he can.