“What this book does aim to do is to encourage the asking of questions, knowing that it is not possible to obtain all the answers, allowing for an encounter with God in the spaces in between. . . . It is an approach modeled by the Wisdom tradition of the Old Testament, present in the New Testament, and which involves the continuing search for meaning in life.

This search involves living and learning together despite our differences. . . . It is the negotiating of those differences that so often makes the Bible seem remote and flat, when what we have in the Bible is a vibrant and varied collection of books that leave plenty of room for disagreement and debate. To encounter the Bible is to stand on holy ground, and any debate about it has something to do with God whether we acknowledge that or not.”

With humor and examples drawn from art and life, Helen-Ann Hartley argues that to appreciate fully the Bible’s richness and diversity, we have to wrestle critically and creatively with themes that attract us and repel us.