Putting Away Childish Things: The Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, and Other Fairy Tales You Dont't Need to Believe to Have a Living Faith

by Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Peter Heinegg (Translator)

A religious scholar argues that the Immaculate Conception, Hell, and other elements of Christianity are mere childish, sexist conventions hindering a true encounter with the Gospel. By the author of Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. $30,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Psychology, Theology

306 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Uta Ranke-Heinemann was a German formerly christian theologian, academic and author. She holds the (nondenominational) chair of History of Religion at University of Essen in Essen, her birthplace. She was also the daughter of the former president of Germany, Gustav Heinemann.
Having started as a Catholic theologian, she became the first female professor of Catholic theology in 1970. In 1987 she lost her missio canonica over her rejection of aspects of Catholic dogma, and in 2001 she left the Catholic Church (and Christianity) entirely by publicly rejecting the divine nature of both the Bible and Jesus.

Reviews

[Trey Mustian]

If your faith in Jesus Christ depends upon the Bible being inerrant and literally true in every respect, this book will either completely anger you or shake you to your core. I have not believed the Bible to be inerrant or completely accurate for a long time. I have read too much about how it came to be compiled to believe that.Yet I believe very strongly in God and remain a very imperfect follower of Jesus. This book examines in exquisite detail the inaccuracies , inconsistencies and improbability that are found in the Bible. Its central thesis is that excessive adherence to the Bible as accurate in all respects can actually serve to obscure rather than spotlight the real message Jesus has for us.

[Ellen Snyder]

Origins of many Christian beliefs and where they came from. The author claims they are not essential to the real meaning of Jesus message.

[Steve Dustcircle]

While it comes from a Germanic, Catholic point of view, the research and scholarship is pretty dead on. I'm well-versed in most of the topics covered, and only came across a couple of explicit errors, easily fixable with a general Wikipedia check. This aside, most of the book should be scary to the novel Christian/Catholic who takes for granted simple theology, as this book takes each subject and tears it apart, using both historical and scientific findings, or by mere common sense deducing. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know if most of the spectacular tales, legends and miracles of the Bible really stand up to scrutiny, even if it's standing up against the Bible itself.

[Richard Worden]

Professor Ranke-Heinemann offers a book that makes the readers think. She boarded in R. Bultmann's home and sat at his supper table discussing theology. What the Protestant church was at the time was less attractive than the Roman Catholic Church Ranke-Heinemann she joined.
The various explorations that Ranke-Heinemann follows in her book reveal her intimate knowledge of the Early Church Fathers, current Roman Catholic theologians and Protestant thinkers. The matters that Ranke-Heinemann exposes puts her in conflict with her church; however, her findings and speculations (she is a good detective) make a valuable contribution to uncovering the beginnings of Christianity and how over the years the story of Jesus was distorted.

[Emma]

This is an extremely important book. Everyone, especially those who grew up in a religious house, should read this. Gave me a completely different perspective on the formation of Christianity.

[Paul Gibson]

This is a reread from my first in about 1998.
I'm not generally interested in "shooting fish in a barrel" books but this book is far more. It is written by a doubter who understands and says "amen" to faith.
I'll not do a summary here but will implore that if you just want to read one of the best chapters ever written concerning the subject, don't miss her chapter on Hell. While reading it, if you're not enlightened, stunned and amazed, you don't know what you're missing and I don't know how to help you.
My only disappointment is that she does

[Steve]

Interesting enough but better yet is James Tabor's, The Jesus Dynasty.

[Jennifer]

Witty and very informative. With the last two pages removed, this book would be a straight up atheist debunking of Christianity.

[Sam Torode]

A must-read.

[Merci]

I believe my parish decided that I should not read this book. I agreed.

[Carlos]

It is hard to pin down the intended audience for this book. Unlike Ranke’s “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven”, where believer and non-believers alike could find it interesting to explore the path that led the Catholic Church to have such a twisted relationship with sex, this work would seem too critical of blind faith in the scriptures for believers and too trusting of religious texts for non-believers. The entire premise of the work is exposing the implausibility of the “fairy tales” embedded in the gospels, i.e., the miracles. For the non-believer reader, Ranke seems to waste time trying to parse what aspects of the scriptures can be believed and what parts are excesses of the writers, when chucking the whole thing seems the simplest path forward. For the believer reader, her critical dissection of scripture seems to leave a secular message that is hard to reconcile the faith proclaimed by any church. The niche of believers wanting to disassociate themselves from the scandal of miracles but not yet ready to put Jesus in the same category as other religious philosophers seems to be awfully small.

[Samuel Boitar]

o problema da uta é o ressentimento com que ela escreve. já era algo palpável no livro dos eunucos, mas pelo menos lá os tópicos eram mais interessantes e a escrita não era tão envenenada. aqui ela chuta o cachorro morto com tanta raiva e ódio que a leitura se torna constrangedora.

[Hartmut Hering]

Ein Buch das sehr zum Nachdenken anregt und - auch aus theologischer Sicht - mit den Widersprüchen und Unwahrheiten der Glaubensgrundsätze aufräumt, ohne den christlichen Glauben an sich anzugreifen.

[Artur Nowrot]

Mocne wypunktowanie biblijnych przeinaczeń i dodatków, które niestety ukształtowały dzisiejsze chrześcijaństwo, a przy okazji radykalna wypowiedź na temat tego, czym chrześcijaństwo być powinno.