Review
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Title: The Bible Says So – What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues
Author: Dan McClellan
Publisher: St. Martin’s Essentials
Year Published: 2025
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781250347466
Genre: Religion, Bible Study
Price: $27.00
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a complicated relationship with the Bible. On the Church’s website, the Bible is extolled as “…the Word of God” and “…a witness for God and Jesus Christ.” At the same time, the Church cautions that “…the Bible is not God’s final revelation to humanity” and that LDS church members “…do not believe the Bible, as it is currently available, is without error.”[i] Also, research into biblical authorship and textual analysis shows that many of the books in the Bible were not written by the attributed authors and that more and older manuscripts and texts exist that were not available to the translators of the King James Version, the Church’s preferred English language text. The Church also stands apart from much of Christianity in its view of an open canon; Mainstream Christian faiths view the Bible as sola scriptura or the concept that the Bible is self-sufficient, standing alone as the ultimate authority on matters of doctrine and theology.
Enter Dan McClellan, a professional bible scholar, historian, and Latter-day Saint. McClellan, with a PhD in Biblical studies from the University of Exeter, currently teaches online classes in Hebrew. He has over a million followers on social media with his “Data over Dogma” approach to scriptures. “The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues” is McClellan’s effort to address what the Bible texts really say about many of the world’s hot-button topics. The results may surprise some LDS church members.
McClellan points out in his introduction that he wants to “…understand the Bible on its own terms,” regardless of his own views, and to “…be willing to distinguish ‘the Bible’ from “my interpretation of the Bible” [p1]. He wants to seek data over dogma, referring to both ancient manuscripts and the context of the times when the texts were written. McClellan points to three specific dogmas that he confronts with regularity: inspiration, inerrancy, and univocality. These dogmas state the Bible authors were all inspired in writing their texts, that the messages come to us without error, and that the scriptural authors speak with one voice about doctrinal issues.
McClellan’s book then looks at many common perceptions of the Bible and the reality behind these dogmatic beliefs. Chapters include biblical treatments of slavery, creation ex nihilo, what the text says about whether or not God lies or has a body, homosexuality, the mark of the beast, and the nature of Hell, among many others. McClellan is quick to point out the many contradictions within the scriptural texts, addresses questions about authorship, parsing how some Greek and Hebrew words may have been mistranslated, and how the context of the writers’ worldviews may differ from our contemporary assumptions.
“The Bible Says So” is a fun read. It’s easy to revisit specific topics of interest, and the prose is lively. The deeper academic aspects of his treatment seem easy to understand. For this reader, I enjoyed the entire book, but of particular importance are McClellan’s introductory and concluding chapters. In his introduction, he writes:
When people say the Bible says X, sometimes they’re quoting directly from the Bible, but most of the time, they’re not repeating the exact words on the page but just stating what they believe the Bible says. Even when they are quoting the exact words on the page, they usually have to follow up by explaining what they mean…and this is an issue because, in that sense, the Bible simply doesn’t say anything at all. The Bible is a collection of texts, and texts do not have inherent meaning…Meaning is generated in, and confined to, the mind of a reader based on their experiences with and understanding agreements that have been reached about what meaning is going to be linked with what combinations of sounds, and then what combination of sounds are going to be linked with what combinations of (writing). [p5-6]
In other words, readers are going to construct meaning based on their own experiences and engagement with the texts. This actually complements the Church’s belief that we can receive inspiration from the scriptural texts we read, which often has little to do with the actual written words themselves.
In his concluding chapter, McClellan quotes Bible scholar John J. Collins, who said, “Strictly speaking, the Bible does not mean anything until it is interpreted. Appeal to textual agency (“but the Bible Says”) is far too simple an evasion of the reader’s responsibility.” The Bible, McClellan says, is “…no longer saying anything at all; we’re just using the Bible as a bullhorn to authorize, validate, and amplify what we’re saying” [p253].
We use our own worldview, McClellan says, to interpret what the Bible says about slavery, sexual ethics, and other topics. “It is from our collective consensus that the Bible draws its authority” [p254]. 19th-century appeals to Biblical authority condemning slavery run counter to most if not all, statements about slavery in the texts themselves. McClellan suggests that we take a more productive approach to Biblical authority by understanding the context and criticizing “…its harmful ideologies, and then to openly advocate for renegotiation” [p257].
Finally, McClellan argues:
The Bible says a lot of things. Well, we think it does, anyway. It really doesn’t speak for itself. We speak with and through it, and we already reject so much of what its authors were most likely trying to say…We’re going to negotiate with the Bible whether we acknowledge it or not.” [p259]
In “The Bible Says So” we can find both the contexts and experiences of its authors and then compare them with our own experiences and worldviews to renegotiate our relationship to the text. Bible readers then “…might come to love it, maybe as much as I do” [p259].
[i] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/bible?lang=eng, accessed March 23, 2025