Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Has God Spoken?: Proof of the Bible's Divine Inspiration by Hank Hanegraff - Host of Bible Answer Man

Has God Spoken?: Proof of the Bible’s Divine Inspiration

I had such high hopes for this book.  The title sounds so promising.  Especially the subtitle - "Proof of the Bible's Divine Inspiration".  I was excited to read it and find out what the proof was.
Instead, I found the book to be SAD.
It is a
S upercilious
A rrogant
D iatribe

If you like acronyms, then this is the book for you.  It has 9 acronyms and subacronyms in which Hank gives his "proof of the Bible's divine inspiration."  He also rants against Bart Ehrman, President Obama, Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others.  Even when I agree with some of Hank's statements, I am appalled at how rude, unkind and judgemental his language is. When he attacks the people that he disagrees with, he also attacks their beliefs, most of which are shared by many other people.  Hank is basically calling anyone who disagrees with his understanding of scripture "benighted" (p. 151) - which means " in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance, typically owing to a lack of opportunity."  Basically, if we don't see things the way he does, we are stupid and wrong and possibly heretically dangerous. 

Hank especially hates Ehrman whom he accuses of "spiritual terrorism", misinterpretation, attempting to "make the language of scripture"walk on all fours" ", (I still have no idea what that is supposed to mean), setting up a "rigged game", "regurgitated sophistry, selling sensationalism and an unhealthy dose of Scriptortutre" and a lot more.

I did learn a few new things from Hank's book that I had not heard before that I found interesting, such as his deliniation between "predictive prophesy" and "typelogical prophesy".  I understood the difference but had not seen them defined so nicely.  I wish that Hank had explained where his understandings of prophesy and typology came from rather than just saying that "the student of Scripture well knows" these things.  Hank documents thouroughly the words of those who he sees as his opposors which include an episode of the TV show "West Wing", but he does not document all of his Biblical "facts", rather saying that anyone who is a Biblical scholar should just know these things - intimating that if we don't just know that stuff, we are uneducated and stupid. 

I liked Hank's MEALS acronym, but for the most part, I was disappointed by Hank's openly hostile attitude towards Bart Ehrman and anyone else who has views about the Bible that differ from his own views.

I received this book free to review from Booksneeze.

3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry you were disappointed by this. I've found Hannagraaff's writing (and speaking) to be arrogant, as you've described.

    You might enjoy "Is My Bible the Inspired Word of God?" by Ed Goodrick (NIV concordance guy and Greek guru). It's a quick read (120 pages?), very straightforward, and not nearly as My Way/Highway as Hannagraaff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, it sounds like he used the book as his own personal soapbox! I am sorry it turned out to be so disappointing. I don't think it will be one I want to read then.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That sounds so disappointing. Going off the title, I probably would have bought it. Thanks for saving me some money. Now I can buy something more useful. Maybe the book Kate referenced...

    ReplyDelete