Reviews and Comments

This is a fascinating journey through the ways various well-known (and not-so-well-known) Quakers throughout time have read and used the Bible. The author starts off explaining how this research came to be undertaken, including his first introduction to biblical criticism.

He ably demonstrates how several of the very first Friends (Quakers) were reading the Bible empathetically, taking the state of the people in the narrative into account. He describes them as standing within the Biblical narrative looking out at the world. They described their own readings as "spiritual" rather than "empathetic," and this was usually not understood in the same way by later Friends.

As he moves through time, he shows how both more logical and more spiritualized readings developed, often in order to argue a position. Quakers have been defending our theology from the very beginning, but Quaker readings of Scripture were also instrumental in Quaker work for social change. Friends have stood out from other denominations of Christianity from the outset by having women speak. Both opposition to slavery and resistance to war taxes arose with Biblical explanations based on unusual hermeneutics.

The place and authority of the Bible relative to the Holy Spirit's inspiration comes up repeatedly. So, too, does the way Biblical language is strung together to paint a picture of the Kingdom of God and the works of the Spirit.

Reading this, you will see clearly how some of the more well-known Quakers in history were following directly on from the Biblical arguments of their less-well-known predecessors. If you're a modern Quaker, you might even gain some sympathy for those on "the other side" of the Great Separation. I definitely recommend this book.