A new interpretation of the Bible
challenges both its detractors and apologists.

The Bible is notorious for its
internal contradictions, which critics take as a reason to reject its
revelatory authority and defenders refuse to acknowledge. The Gatekeeper (The
Gospel Matrix, 2015) adopts a different exegetical approach. The author
concedes that there are, in fact, numerous inconsistencies but claims that they
are all purposeful, inserted in order to point audiences in the direction of a
higher truth. To understand the experiential value of these incongruities, a
literal interpretation must be discarded in favor of one that accepts the
allegorical character of the Bible. The author’s tour of the Bible is a
thorough one, covering all the Gospels, the book of Revelation, and Paul’s
letters, to name a small but central sampling. The Gatekeeper contends that the
Christian church is really a corrupt institution, something revealed when the
Bible is properly understood. The author revisits key passages, especially
regarding the “body of Christ” and the “bride of Christ,” to tease out their correct
meanings. One of the chief arguments of the book is an epistemological
one—humanity is caught in a “matrix” that occludes unfettered access to
objective reality, but the time is fast approaching when the truth can be fully
disclosed. That truth will include the transcendence of the shallow vision of
God as a distinct person who governs humans in favor of an all-pervasive
intelligence. The Gatekeeper’s erudition is impressive, including the author’s
grasp of the Bible as well as the scholarly commentary devoted to it. In
addition, The Gatekeeper’s aims are not only ambitious, but are also exercised
with great spiritedness—he openly challenges Bart Ehrman, a pre-eminent critic
of the Bible. But the whole work is written in a gratuitously hectoring,
peremptory tone, dismissing disagreement as either evil or stupid; at one point
he refers to intellectual competitors as “archontic parasites.” Furthermore,
the author never tires of informing the reader how revolutionary this book is,
apparently a fount of sublime truth, a self-congratulatory conceit that quickly
becomes tiresome.

Despite this study’s striking and provocative
scholarship, many readers will likely be put off by its bombastic style.