But the books of Job and Ecclesiastes argue that the righteous are not always rewarded and the wicked are not always punished. The traditional wisdom was that people prospered when the obeyed God, seen best in Proverbs but in many other places. They argue over whether people get what they deserve. There are xenophobic nationals like Ezra and universalists like Amos and the book of Jonah. In chapter one Stark begins by informing us that the authors in the Bible argue with each other. I’ll come back to this later, in my criticisms. Just so you know, one of the motivations for writing his book is that it can help believers “to discover that there are better ways to be a Christian than to be a fundamentalist, ways to be a Christian that do not preclude critical engagement with the numerous problematic aspects of the Christian scripture and religion” (pp. He comes from the same centrist Christian Church that I did, which is also noteworthy. I'll share a few criticisms of it but they pale by comparison with the over-all thrust of his powerful book. It’s an absolute must read that I’ve included in my Debunking Christianity Challenge.
This is my conclusion from reading this book by Thom Stark.
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