The afterlife has inspired any number of interpretations, but what the Bible actually says about Heaven and Hell may come as a surprise, says T.J. Wray, associate professor of religious studies at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I. “There is no Satan the Hebrew Bible,” Wray points out. She adds that though Satan is clearly present in the New Testament, he is not quite the figure of popular imagination. “Most of our ideas about Hell and the Devil come from later works,” she says, offering Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno as obvious examples. “Many times works outside the Bible begin to bleed inside the narrative.”
Peeling away layers of non-biblical interpretations and concentrating on the actual text form the core of Wray’s popular college courses. That approach is also central to her new book, What the Bible Really Tells Us: The Essential Guide to Biblical Literacy (Rowman & Littlefield, Oct.; starred review in the October 10 issue of PW). Written in an accessible style, the book “is for people who are curious about what the Bible really says and not what pop culture or televangelists say,” says Wray.
After several introductory chapters, including a sixty-second Bible literacy quiz, What the Bible Really Tells Us follows a thematic structure addressing the issues Wray’s students ask about most--suffering, heaven and hell, money, sexuality and gender, law and justice, and the environment. She says the goal of the book is “to empower the reader to begin to read and understand the Bible for themselves. I do not reinterpret. I look at the word and pay close attention to the historical context and exactly what it says.”
Sarah Stanton, acquisitions editor at Rowman & Littlefield, tells PW, “This book aims to encourage readers to dig into the Bible themselves and learn the strategies to understand biblical texts and make their own interpretations. I think it’s a thoughtful book for readers who want to learn how to engage with the Bible, rather than reading a set of pat answers. It is about understanding how it relates to their own lives.”
Wray is passionate about viewing the Bible not as collection of ancient texts indecipherable to the average person, but as “a book that has sustained people through the joys and tragedies of life. People aren’t reading it anymore and that’s a shame.” She hopes What the Bible Really Tells Us will help change that. “At the end of the book I say this is just the beginning for you. I hope that once readers are empowered to read the Bible on their own, they will come to appreciate its genius and timeless lessons.”
