On The Incarnation

Short Review: I read this in part because it has CS Lewis' defense of old books. I largely support Lewis' point. But I think he goes too far in assuming that the modern reader can read old books and not distort them because of the change in culture and history. Much of NT Wright's focus has been to tell modern readers how they are misreading scripture because they have a different culture and history. And I think that is true of many old books. It is not that I think we shouldn't take Lewis' advice. I think we should read old books. But I also think we should be doing the work necessary to understand them and that is often reading about those old books to understand what we may be misunderstanding about them because they were not written to us, but to a different set of people.

I thought the first section of On the Incarnation was much better than the second. The positive defense of the Incarnation was more helpful than Athanasius' arguments with Jews, Pagans and others about the incarnation.

But this is a short book, about 75 pages with the introduction. On kindle there are a number of edition for $0.99.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/on-the-incarnation/

For such a small book, this was pretty dense! Even though I read the occasional book about Christianity and other religious topics, I don't read much serious theology, preferring to stick to the self-help, feel-good type stuff. So this was a whole new thing for me. I did enjoy this book, even though I had to focus very closely to follow it. (It's pretty old, and I'm not great at classics.)

It's easy, I think, when you have grown up within religion, to take its teachings for granted. I mean, I've struggled over the years with what my religion claims about various things, but I've rarely delved into the What Actually Happened in the Bible Historically, generally preferring the And How Does This Affect Me Personally, What Can I Do To Be a Better Person books. I found “On the Incarnation” to be an interesting, compelling discussion about Jesus, his ministry, his purpose, humanity's need for a savior, and all the ways historically that we've aimed to dismiss all of the above. It gave me new perspective on some of the New Testament Scriptures, and basically just gave me a jumping-off point for thinking deeper about the meaning behind my beliefs.

I also thought it was interesting that, to the best of my memory, Jesus was never actually called by name in the book - he was generally called “The Word of God.” Interesting because I had always taken The Word to mean the Holy Spirit; but to be honest, I've never been 100% confident in anything regarding that third incarnation of God. The Father and the Son are easier to grasp than the Holy Ghost.

(A friend started a theological book club, which is why I read this. Turns out I won't be able to go to the meeting, which is a bummer because I definitely think I would benefit from talking about this book more with people who are smarter than I am.)