Highly Illuminating Book. Buy It Now!

Reviewed by B. Marold, 2006-05-27

`3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated' by computer scientist extraordinare and lifelong Lutheran, Donald E. Knuth is one of those truly unique books which seems to be perfectly composed to illuminate a subject virtually everyone takes for granted. The best analogy I can think of in another field is the little book `The Elements of Style' by Strunk and White, which provides a brilliantly concise set of instructions on writing better.

Knuth's book is a wondrous amalgam of at least three different interests, Christianity, Computer Science, or more exactly, meticulous scholarship, and the art font design and calligraphy. The very title of the book has a dual meaning in that Knuth's commentary illuminates the 59 selected verses from the bible, plus the very artistic renderings of these texts by 59 of the world's greatest calligraphers, in much the same way that they may have been `illuminated' in Medieval hand-written copies of the Bible.

I am tempted to call this `Bible Commentary for Dummies', but it does not have the glib, simplistic tone of the `Dummy' franchisee. What it does share with this series is that it is a superb introduction to the world of Bible scholarship and the fact that the history of those words on the printed page of your Bible have a density of meaning and penumbra of alternate interpretations which will boggle the mind.

While Bible commentary is a major field of professional scholarship, my sense is that the average Christian is not nearly as caught up in the discussion of scripture as their Jewish brethren. In fact, the Hebrew embraces one of the classic methods of enlightenment, which is deep study of the Torah and Talmud and the many historical commentaries made of these sacred books. Where the average devout Jew will spend much time reading his Maimonides, I suspect very few Lutherans spend much quality time reading the writings of Luther, let alone St. Augustine or even Jonathan Edwards.

These 59 verses, the 16th verse after the beginning of Chapter 3 of each book were basically chosen at random to be the text for a Bible study class conducted by Knuth at his church several years ago. The only verse not chosen at random was this verse from the Gospel of John, which is arguably the most important verse in all of the New Testament. Knuth picked this number because he wanted to be sure that at least one out of all the verses would be interesting and important. He was probably as surprised as his readers to find that every verse had much to offer, as long as Knuth gave each his thorough scholarship that placed the words of the text in their context.

Of course, one can wonder, which translation did Knuth use? It turns out that Knuth did original translations of all the verses from the original Hebrew and Greek, and, he says this was one of the very best decisions he ever made in his intellectual live. This is primarily because there is literally very little consensus on the correct translation of the source text, assuming there is even agreement on what the source text should actually be. The second and possibly more important reason for his reader is that a new translation, especially of the more familiar texts, will give one a new and better perspective than the same old King James quote or some other of the dozens of modern translations.

For each verse, there are three pages of text plus one full page of art giving the calligrapher's interpretation of the text. All of the calligraphic works are beautiful to look at. Most are pretty standard, letting the ingenuity of the font and standard transformations of size and coloring to convey emphasis or special effect. Some, however, are far more imaginative, incorporating pictures and even mirror images of text to help `illuminate' the words. While the range of styles is great, my first impression is the work of Ben Shawn with mixing words and pictures.

My only argument with this volume is that Knuth does little to explain much of the reasoning behind his selection and his method of scholarship. Fortunately, he has done this in a more recent book, `Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About' which dedicates much of his six lecture to the background to this book, both its art and its scholarship. In this book, for example, we learn of both the many pitfalls to accurate translation, and how a person with no knowledge of either Hebrew or Greek could go about translating these texts. The secret lies in the enormous body of concordances compiled over the years which detail everything you will ever want to know about each and every Hebrew and Greek word in the Bible.

I found it ironic that while Knuth indicated that a really good translation had to go so far as to pay attention to the way the author of a particular chapter used their words, in the commentary, he jumps thousands of years to use references to the New Testament (originally Greek) to explain concepts in the Old Testament (originally Hebrew).

While I think this is a superb introduction to the material and techniques of really diligent Bible study, one will get much more out of this book if you have at least two other books at hand. The first is a good, modern Bible translation to look up the hundreds of verses cited in the text. The second is a set of really good maps of the ancient lands of and around Palestine and modern Israel. `The Oxford Bible Commentary' has an especially good set of maps covering various periods of the Bible texts.

While I may not be the best person to judge this, I do believe there is no particularly strong Lutheran bias in the scholarship, although Luther is cited more often than many major Christian commentator.

This book is a real gem. Read it from cover to cover!

Very Interesting

Reviewed by Mark Nenadov, 2006-03-23

This is a truly unique work. Knuth has obviously studied a lot in order to produce this study and it shows. The concept in and of itself, composing a book of 3:16 of every book of the Bible that contains the said verse, is unique. And the word art is truly wonderful touch. And the overview of each book of the Bible being covered is great.

I don't necessarily agree with every single thing that Knuth says here, but generally I found his comments to be very deep and insightful. Knuth here shows that many of the good attributes of a computer scientist can be applied to Bible study, with great results.

Truly one can be a man of faith and a man of reason, logic, and science. I highly recommend this book for any interested Christian who also is involved in Computer Science. If for nothing else, it is a worthwhile on the basis of the scripture word-art alone.

"Bible study truly helps to make God's people complete" (221).

Reviewed by Lissiehoya, 2005-06-25

I just finished reading "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated" by Donald E. Knuth, a computer scientist, and found it to be an interesting book. His introduction talks about his process of selection for a verse in the Bible to study and it is clear, especially here, that his mind functions very mathematically. However, his choice of the 3:16 verses is not entirely random, since it is inspired by the well-known John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.") Interestingly, Knuth translates his own 3:16 verses for this book and it is clear that he has done a lot of research into biblical scholarship for this book. Although his approach and ideas seem clearly Protestant (he's doing it for a Bible study, he refers to a Bible class that he gave at Bethany Lutheran Church that inspired this book), he does draw on a variety of sources for his analysis (Luther and Calvin most frequently, but also St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and other early Christian writings). I also really liked the style of his writing. This book was clearly not intended to find a place in the academic study of theology and the Bible, but to open up the eyes of those who did not pursue that path and give them a detailed introduction to the scholarship in biblical study.

The only thing that really irritated me was his repeated use of Jehovah instead of Yahweh in his analysis. I kept thinking: come on, you did all this research and nobody told you that Jehovah is a made up name? He does, however, explain his choice (and the origins of the word "Jehovah") in his analysis of Ezekiel 3:16: "Today's Bible scholars almost unanimously prefer the name 'Yahweh', which better reflects the ancient Hebrew pronunciation, to 'Jehovah', which has been called a 'morphological monstrosity.' However, I've tended to avoid the name 'Yahweh' in this book, because it still sounds too academic" (113). Whatever.

Novel Approach

Reviewed by Randy Given, 2003-11-22

After being aware of this book and also recently having read "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About", I was eager to read this book. My expectations were high, possibly too high, but this was a decent book. Yes, some of the theology is light, but many of the text exegesis are right on target. There are three pages of comments for each of the 59 verses, which a good variety of detail without making it overly complicated. A good read.

A unique and intimate portrait of the Bible.

Reviewed by Anonymous, 2002-01-14

From his idiosyncratic perspective as a computer scientist, Knuth presents an aesthetically pleasing and intellectually inviting commentary of the 3:16's.

In this day and age of technological sophistication, it is so courageous that a scientist and scholar of Knuth's stature can say "it's tragic that scientific advances have caused many people to imagine that they know it all, and that God is irrelevant or nonexistent. The fact is that everything we learn reveals more things that we do not understand... Reverence for God comes naturally if we are honest about how little we know." [1]

Knuth is candid about what he knows as well as what he doesn't know and he presents his views in a non-judgemental, introspective manner. For example, Knuth is surely including himself when he states "God sees the rottenness, deceit, and hypocrisy in every one of us..." [2] Furthermore, there are rare glimpses into Knuth the man as he unabashedly says what he feels. To illustrate, Knuth describes his thoughts about his own mortality and how he felt when his father died. [3]

Ultimately, this book is Knuth's solemn and joyous celebration of his relationship with God. But don't let the elegance of the artwork or the relative brevity of the commentary fool you into thinking this book is merely easy on the eyes. The Christian will find this an uplifting and spiritually challenging study, while the non-Christian will discover the richness of the 3:16's and why Knuth finds the Bible is relevant to everyday life.

Knuth is a consummate craftsman and this is a towering work of biblical scholarship, an enduring exegetical legacy for the ages.

Quotes and references from book:
[1] Proverbs 3:16 study
[2] Romans 3:16 study
[3] Job 3:16 study