In the Beginning There Was Darkness: A Blind Person’s Conversations with the Bible

Many people have written books about the Bible from feminist and black points of view, but prior to this exceptional book no one has interpreted the Bible from the perspective of blindness. When John Hull went blind he realised that the Bible was written by sighted people. Even Jesus shared in the attitudes of his day towards blindness. In writing the book, Hull ignored the printed text and listened to the Bible on tape. The result is a unique interpretation, which challenges the sighted monopoly yet brings new insights into the Bible for both sighted and blind. Examining some of the best known instances of blindness in the biblical stories, the author brings anecdotes from his own life and experience to bear on thesa. What emerges is that the image of God is stamped upon blindness since only blind people can say that they, like God, are beyond light and darkness. In the Beginning There was Darkness affords new perspectives to all who are unaware that they read the Bible from a sighted point of view and will draw the different worlds of sight and blindness into a deeper mutual understanding. A gripping testament to courage and faith, it makes a powerful contribution to burgeoning interest in theologies of disability and offers one of the most sinking fusions of the biblical and the personal yet to have appeared in print.