Due to my lack of new content and posts on my blog, and due to the fact that I’m having way too much fun with ChatGPT writing “unhinged book reviews” of my books, I’m just going to share a few more. Who knows? Maybe it will inspire more book sales!
I have to say, as funny as this “review” sounds, I think it really nails the “air and ethos” I was going for when I wrote the book. And it reflects the pure joy I’ve always had doing Biblical Studies. For me, I love it when I learn something that essentially smacks me up the side of the head, laughs, and says, “Well, that’s another thing you had wrong! Enjoy the light!”
Enjoy.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar: A Reader’s Guide to the New Testament by Joel Edmund Anderson
A Review Written After My Dispensational Prophecy Chart Was Confiscated by the Authorities
I picked up The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar: A Reader’s Guide to the New Testament expecting a pleasant little Bible handbook. You know the kind.
Matthew: Jesus.
Mark: Jesus, but faster.
Luke: Jesus, but with poor people.
John: Jesus, but now there are eagles and Greek words.
Romans: Romans Road.
Revelation: ANTICHRIST + MICROCHIPS + RUSSIA + POSSIBLY WALMART.
Instead, Joel Edmund Anderson grabbed me by the lapels, dragged me bodily into Second Temple Judaism, threw Josephus at my head, screamed “HISTORICAL CONTEXT!”, and then made me watch Jerusalem burn in AD 70.
This book is 631 pages long. SIX. HUNDRED. THIRTY. ONE. PAGES.
Sir, you called yourself the Blue-Collar Bible Scholar. I thought we were going to Home Depot. Instead, I have been enrolled against my will in graduate-level New Testament studies.
Anderson explains that this is deliberate. Academic introductions, he says, often resemble Olympic training programs when ordinary Christians mostly want to “go for a jog in the park.” His goal is to take graduate-level biblical scholarship and make it understandable to normal people. Wonderful. Except approximately 170 pages into my “jog in the park,” ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES IS DESECRATING THE TEMPLE AND I AM BEING PURSUED BY A ZEALOT.
THE BASIC PREMISE OF THIS BOOK
Anderson has apparently become irritated by Christians who read the Bible like a celestial fortune cookie. Open Bible. Point finger. “Judas went out and hanged himself.” Hmm. Try again. “Go and do likewise.” OH NO.
Anderson’s entire project is essentially: STOP DOING THAT.
The New Testament, he insists, was written to actual first-century communities and must first be understood in their historical and literary worlds before we start asking what it means for us. This sounds perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, accepting it means learning things. And learning things is how trouble starts.
THEN AD 70 SHOWS UP
You will learn about the Jewish War of AD 66–70. You will learn about it a lot. A LOT. You might begin the book unaware of the Jewish War. By page 631 you will have personally served under Vespasian. Someone at work will say, “Hey, do you want Mexican for lunch?” And you will stare into the middle distance and whisper, “Not since Titus breached the walls.” Your coworker: “What?” You: “THE TEMPLE IS GONE, KEVIN.”
Anderson explicitly argues that the Jewish War is crucial for understanding the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, which he places around the period of the war and its aftermath. This becomes one of the book’s recurring interpretive hammers. And once Anderson acquires that hammer, AD 70 begins looking suspiciously like a nail.
Olivet Discourse? AD 70.
Coming of the Son of Man? AD 70 has entered the chat.
Kingdom judgment? HAVE YOU CONSIDERED AD 70?
Luke 17? AD 70 WOULD LIKE TO KNOW YOUR LOCATION.
Anderson connects the Temple’s destruction, the coming of the Son of Man, and the coming of God’s Kingdom, arguing that Jesus’ warning about coming judgment most naturally points toward the Jewish War. At some point I began suspecting Anderson was hiding behind my couch whispering: “Have you adequately considered the significance of the Jewish War?”
NO, JOEL. I AM TRYING TO SLEEP.
THEN HE COMES FOR THE RAPTURE
Oh. Oh dear. If you grew up with dispensationalism, prepare yourself. Anderson approaches 1 Thessalonians 4, cracks his knuckles, and essentially says: “Okay everybody, gather around. We need to talk about what you people have done to this passage.”
He argues that Paul’s picture is not Christians being vacuumed vertically into heaven before a seven-year tribulation. Instead, he explains parousia using the ancient image of citizens going outside their city to greet an arriving victorious king and escorting him back into the city. Thus resurrected believers go out to welcome Christ, the returning King of creation.
Somewhere, a Left Behind boxed set spontaneously combusted. Tim LaHaye’s spirit just sat bolt upright. A prophecy conference in Dallas experienced a disturbance in the Force. And a 94-year-old Baptist named Earl shouted: “I KNEW THAT BOY N.T. WRIGHT WAS TROUBLE.”
PAUL ALSO GETS REPOSSESSED FROM SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
You thought Paul sat down one afternoon and said: “I believe I shall compose a comprehensive Protestant systematic theology.”
Anderson: NO. Paul was writing letters to churches whose members were apparently incapable of behaving normally for more than eleven consecutive minutes.
Corinth: “Paul, can Christians sue each other?”
Paul: “No.”
Corinth: “What about sleeping with my stepmother?”
Paul: “WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK ME THAT?”
Corinth: “What about meat sacrificed to idols?”
Paul: “Okay—”
Corinth: “Also women are shouting during worship and someone is speaking in tongues while another guy is apparently getting drunk during Communion.”
Paul: “I HAVE BEEN GONE SIX MONTHS!”
Anderson describes Paul’s letters as “theology on the fly”—occasional writings applying the Gospel to actual crises in actual churches. This may be the greatest description of Pauline theology ever written.
THE HAND-DRAWN CHARTS
Then there are Anderson’s illustrations. Sweet merciful heavens. The man has a PhD. He has two master’s degrees. He has spent decades teaching biblical studies. And he apparently decided: “You know what this 631-page New Testament guide needs? Drawings that look like I made them during a faculty meeting.”
AND THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. Timelines. Story structures. Arrows. Boxes. Stick people. Things happening to other things. Possibly a goat. I don’t know. Anderson openly admits that the illustrations are deliberately “rough” because he wants readers to see how even crude visualizations can improve understanding and memory. Translation: “Cambridge University Press has professional graphic designers. I HAVE A PEN.”
And somehow? IT WORKS. After staring at one of these things for thirty seconds you’re suddenly: “Ohhhh! THAT’S HOW MARK IS STRUCTURED!” Then you realize you’ve learned something from what looks like evidence recovered from the Unabomber’s cabin.
ANDERSON ALSO WANTS YOU TO “WRESTLE” WITH SCRIPTURE
This metaphor occurs repeatedly. You must wrestle with the Bible. Apparently, Scripture is not something you simply read. It is THE UNDERTAKER. Anderson even tells readers that sometimes the best way to appreciate Scripture as inspired is temporarily to stop approaching it nervously as “The Inspired Bible™,” read it seriously as literature and history, and actually grapple with what it says.
Welcome to: WRESTLEMANIA XXXIII: BIBLICAL STUDIES
Tonight’s main event: JOEL “THE BLUE-COLLAR EXEGETE” ANDERSON VS. THE BOOK OF REVELATION
NO HOLDS BARRED. GREEK LEXICONS LEGAL. JOSEPHUS UNDER THE RING. Winner receives the N.T. Wright Intercontinental Championship Belt.
THE METHOD IS ACTUALLY INFURIATINGLY GOOD
Here’s Anderson’s recommended procedure: Read the biblical passage. Write down what you notice. Read his walkthrough. Then read the biblical passage again.
Excuse me? You want me to actually read the Bible? Twice? I bought a Bible guide specifically so someone else would do that for me. This is unacceptable. ZERO STARS. Unfortunately, it works. FIVE STARS.
MOMENTS WHEN THE BLUE-COLLAR PART REALLY COMES OUT
At one point Anderson summarizes Paul’s warning about Christians who refuse to work as people who basically “mooch off of others.” This is biblical scholarship wearing steel-toed boots. No twenty-seven-page excursus. No German terminology. No Sitz im Leben. Just: “Paul says get a job, Randy.” Beautiful.
THE ACTUAL DANGER OF THIS BOOK
The dangerous thing about The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar isn’t that Anderson gives you interpretations. It’s that he teaches you how to notice things: Historical setting. Genre. Narrative structure. Old Testament echoes. First-century Judaism. Roman imperial context. Greek terminology. Jewish apocalyptic imagery. And suddenly you start seeing connections yourself.
This is catastrophic. Because now you can’t go back. Someone quotes a verse. Old You: “Amen.” New You: “Well, what’s the literary context?” Everyone at Bible study: “Oh God.” You: “And what’s happening historically?” “Joel, please.” “And does this echo Isaiah?” “We have children.” “BECAUSE THE GREEK WORD HERE—” “GET OUT.”
FINAL VERDICT
The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar: A Reader’s Guide to the New Testament is what happens when a biblical scholar spends decades teaching teenagers and concludes: “Fine. I’ll explain the entire New Testament myself.” It is part commentary. Part history textbook. Part literary guide. Part biblical theology. Part hand-drawn notebook. Part sustained intervention for Christians who have been reading Revelation like tomorrow’s newspaper. And part 631-page ambush by Second Temple Judaism.
You enter thinking: “I’d like to understand the New Testament better.” You emerge three weeks later, barefoot, disheveled, clutching Josephus, shouting at strangers: “THE SON OF MAN LANGUAGE COMES FROM DANIEL 7!” Your family calls someone. But it’s too late. You now have historical context. And historical context cannot be unlearned.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Highly recommended. Particularly for:
- Christians who want to understand the New Testament.
- Students intimidated by biblical scholarship.
- Pastors.
- Teachers.
- People confused by Revelation.
- People with unhealthy emotional attachments to prophecy charts.
- Anyone who has ever said, “The Bible clearly says…” immediately before quoting one verse with absolutely no idea what happens before or after it.
- And anyone who thinks AD 70 isn’t relevant.
Because Joel Edmund Anderson is coming for you. He has a hand-drawn timeline. And he knows how to use it.
