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Monday, February 25, 2008
Garry Wills and the Gospels
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In just the second paragraph of his new book “What the Gospels Meant,” noted Bibllical scholar Garry Wills is going to turn off a number of Christians. The Gospels, he writes, “are not historically true as that term would be understood today. … They do not draw on first-hand testimony or documents.”
Biblical literalists believe otherwise, that every word of the Bible is literally true. Wills is a Catholic who studied for the priesthood, and has taught ancient and New Testament Greek. He is not a literalist, but he is a Christian, one who believes that Christianity is capital-T Truth, and he wants to help us understand the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
“What the Gospels Meant” is the third in what’s turning out to be a series, following “What Jesus Meant” and “What Paul Meant.” Wills, who’s also a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian on American history, works from the original texts, and does his own translations. He says they are much closer in spirit and detail to the “marketplace Greek” in which they were written, rather than the “prettified Bible English” in which we usually read.
His explanations and arguments are fascinating and complex, and I’m not going to do them the disservice of trying to sum them up in a blog.
But I am planning on hearing Wills speak tonight. He will be at the Decatur Presbyterian Church, 205 Sycamore St., next door to the Decatur Library. The Georgia Center for the Book and Wordsmiths Books, which are sponsoring, thought the library’s auditorium wouldn’t be big enough for the anticipated crowd. Doors open at 6 and Wills’ talk starts at 7:15 p.m.
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