I’ve just started reading Who Really Goes to Hell–The Gospel You’ve Never Heard: What a Protestant Bible written by Jews says about God’s work through Christ by David I. Rudel.  An intriguing title in itself but the caption underneath it made me all the more interested: “(A book for those in the church and those offended by it)”.  Now that’s what I call a hot sell!

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll cover what strikes me most about the book, and some the insights that are most compelling.  Today, I just want to write a few words about what it is and what it is not.

This book is scholarly, but not written by a scholar.  The author is a math teacher.  He has a deep faith, liberal arts training, and brings a fresh perspective to Biblical Studies.  He, however, doesn’t have a PhD in Old or New Testament studies.  But this, in itself actually serves to his benefit, because he brings a real intensity to the text.  When he has a point to make (and he has many), he drives to it with direct examples, drawing from all over the Bible.  He also isn’t writing from an academic perspective, but an Evangelical Christian one.  This makes his arguments less about how they fit alongside Crossan’s or Ehrman’s, but how they fit against the preacher down the street.  And it is precisely this difference that allows Rudel to get to his primary point: the gospel proclaimed in most churches on Sunday morning (what he calls the “modern gospel”) is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus as depicted in the gospels.

If you want to read it for yourself, you can order it here, get a free ebook for your nook here, or go to the author’s page and download it for free.