As the Author Intended...Discovering Structure and Meaning in the Bible

About the Book

ABOUT THE AUTHOR “As the Author Intended….” is Michael’s first and possibly last book. He doesn’t read much despite often receiving many books as presents. He studied the simplest English subject he could find at school and up until recently thought “grammar” was his mother’s mother. He learnt the violin for five years, the piano for one and the recorder for a month. He was so bad at all these instruments that he took up guitar and made an oath never to have music lessons again. He aspires to be a rock and roll star but for the past twenty years has played in a bush band. He plays soccer despite low levels of co-ordination and his golf is “innovative” at best. He learnt to throw a boomerang and managed to catch a few before putting his shoulder out. He studied computer science at university but ended up working in financial markets. He tries to have very little to do with technology these days which is healthy for all concerned. He is left-handed, was born in the Year of the Monkey and has taken around seven years to get this book out. Despite all this, he is a husband, father, son, brother and friend who loves every minute of it and has a passion for reading the Bible. ABOUT THE BOOK Although themes of the Bible are extensively analysed, surprisingly little serious analysis is done on the structure of the books in the Bible. Similarly, many teachers teach from the Bible, yet so little is done in giving people the tools to discover and read the Bible for themselves, free from the restrictions of things like study guides or external influences. "As the Author Intended..." is book which counters these two imbalances. "As the Author Intended..." walks through how to read the Bible in a way which brings about discovery and, in the process, discovers the literary structures, particularly chiasmus, which the Bible’s authors intended to be seen as clearly as the very words themselves. The book is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the link between structure and meaning. The second part looks at the structures of Genesis, Ruth, Esther, Jonah and Matthew. The third part then discusses a framework for studying the bible which lends itself to discovery based learning.

About the Author