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The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture is unavailable, but you can change that!

Biblicism—an approach to the Bible common among some American evangelicals—emphasizes together the Bible’s exclusive authority, infallibility, clarity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability. Acclaimed sociologist Christian Smith argues that this approach is misguided and unable to live up to its own claims. If evangelical biblicism worked as its...

that all the contestants in a particular cooking-skills competition must prepare; the contestants, though they vow that they cooked up the same recipe from the same cookbook, each produce a dish that is in some way distinct from all the others. These four hypothetical scenarios depict something like the quandary in which biblicist believers find themselves. The very same Bible—which biblicists insist is perspicuous and harmonious—gives rise to divergent understandings among intelligent, sincere,
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