"And, that, dear Reader, is exactly what this book is all about! Read and judge for yourself!"
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A New Look at a Very Old Book:
A Journey Back to the 1st Century by Robert E. Mayer, PhD Trafford Publishing
book review by Cynthia Collins
There are two main groups of readers of the Bible: People who believe what is written literally, and those who take it figuratively. The many editions and translations written over the centuries, as well as passages that suggest contradictory information about the same events, raises the question of how does someone go about interpreting the written words?
Dr. Mayer has addressed these issues in a scholarly, non-preachy, approach and suggests that this book will help readers "read and judge" for themselves. He combines history and theology, along with social customs, geological periods, and the solar system of the time, to explain the historical meanings of biblical verses. He compares and discusses the chronological order of when the books of the Bible were written to their actual order as they appear in print. By doing this, he presents questions about when and by whom the books, especially those of the New Testament, were written. He adds several appendices that list his sources of information ranging from historical events to modern writings on theology. And he includes a section on the other major religions of the world.
This book is not light reading. It is an interesting and detailed reference book for adults wishing to delve into comparative religious studies or the history of the Bible. College students, scholars, and religious leaders, exploring the four hundred pages of biblical verses and related historical data, would have no trouble gathering information for research or teaching. Dr. Mayer has succeeded in writing a thought-provoking book that respectfully questions the timeline of the writing of the Bible.