It Ain't Necessarily So: Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past

Useful to read alongside John Romer's "Testament" and Karen Armstrong's "The Bible, a biography". In the end, fundamentalism hasn't anything to be fundamentalist about.................... It's a great song as well.....

This is a tricky book to have written: what is the 'truth'? The evidence strongly indicates that the Bible is not a verbatim historical account but, it is unquestionably a tome of vast importance to the world.
Our truths have a half life of less than ten years so, it is a fair bet that the veracity, or otherwise, of events as evidenced in this book will be reversed in less than a generation. The wisdom of this book is to understand that fact and look beyond the surface. The outcome is to adduce the innate truth of the Bible whilst accepting some exaggeration and political re-writing of the stories. This seems to me, to be the obvious assumption: no falsehood can be at the centre of three of the most significant religions for thousands of years and yet, some inaccuracies and morally questionable attitudes cannot be denied.
A thoroughly thought provoking book that is well worth a few hours of anyone's time in the reading. ( )