Pastor Recommended!
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Accessible, entertaining, and intelligent. My pastor recommended this book to the congregation, reminding us that when we question our faith, it makes us stronger. This is not so much questioning as understanding, and putting some of the odder things into a historical perspective. It was interesting to get an explanation of the number 666. I also liked the bibliography in the back, it gave me a reading list for the future. I think he knew what it would do, and that was to get us to read our bibles side by side with the book. Great idea!!
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Bible stories and history from a very cynical point of view.
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Davis uses this as a vehicle for communicating his own biases and intolerance for different faiths and viewpoints. Interesting that someone with such an obvious contempt for religion would choose this subject.
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Why is reason anathema to faith?
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Why do religious conservatives--or fundamentalists or literalists or whatever--have such a hard time understanding that people can love, respect and treasure the scriptures without having to believe every last, literal word? The Bible is a compilation of stories, poetry, sayings and history of one people's experience of their God (actually, "gods," since we can trace the evolution of the deity throughout the scriptures from mountainous tribal god to loving, redemptive Father). Davis understands the whole story of the development of the Bible and presents it in a scholarly and humorous way. Anyone who accepts the Bible as the literal truth of God hasn't read it; there are simply too many contradictions and "ungodly" happenings. Perhaps God gave us minds to actually use; it is comforting to believe that mankind has evolved since the days when the Bible was compiled, and that we have a more complete understanding of His greatest creation. What kind of faith cannot stand up to reasonable--and reasoned--scrutiny? If you want to learn more about the Bible and if you have not closed your mind to greater understanding of the Bible, a great work of literature, history and faith, you will love this book.
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Excellent introduction to biblical skepticism.
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I highly recommend Kenneth C. Davis's "Don't Know Much About the Bible" as a book which goes through the Bible, pointing out the grains (and tons) of salt with which its narrative should be taken. The author is, however, sympathetic to the Christian, which might get it an audience among those to whom a more skeptical outlook is most needed. He himself seems to be a Christian in the sense, not of a believer in the divinity of Jesus, but rather in the same way a Freudian is a follower of Freud, a communist a follower of Marx, a behaviorist a follower of Skinner, evolutionist a follower of Darwin, etc., not apotheosizing the reputed founder, but still being a "follower". As such, he does lack a complete skepticism, claiming for example that the similarities of Jesus' teachings to those of the Rabbi Hillel and other tenets of the newly forming rabbinic Judaism of the time, might result from Jesus having heard and expounded on these ideas, rather than that the evangelists put these ideas into Jesus' mouth after the fact, without Jesus' ever having professed them. Needless to say he also leaves out the theory that Jesus never even existed.
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Infomative and Fun To Read
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To all of you who swallow whole whatever you hear about the "Truth" I challenge you to read this book with an open mind. It will educate, amuse and enlighten you.
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