Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Good Book but Never Learned

I read this for the first time when I was maybe fifteen. I was gonna tell people about this book and have everyone questioning everything in droves. I was an arrogant teenager who was loud about my extremely non-Christian beliefs, and tended to irritate or even enrage people who wanted me to believe what they did. I've never believed in Jesus and have no interest in the worldviews that accompany such. I read this book again recently, and was happy to have found it. As a devout Jewish adult with a lot more life experience, all I can think is: how did I read this book in one sitting originally? This is a dense, information-packed tone. Reading it as an adult took me over a week. A lot of it I remembered. Some of it had me raising my show more eyebrows in light of other information about vaguely related things: oh, those two are connected. Look at how it shows up, type thing. I've never believed the Bible was written by G-d. I've always insisted it was by people, probably different men, some of whom were good at storytelling. I'd be so curious about what an updated version of this book would look like. I was reading other books about real-life influences at the time I originally read this, and I'm pondering on starting on them again after a bit. I'm glad I got to read this again. show less

An interesting, comprehensive and yet accessible guide to the bible. Not as much detail as I'd hoped on some topics, way too much filler on others. If you already know the book and religion, you are unlikely to learn much. But I learned some, and a few decades ago would have really learned a lot. Written in a light, but respectful manner. You will have some ideas challenged.

I am a huge fan of Kevin Davis's Don't Know Much About series. They are always an excellent starting point for study and understanding the big picture of a topic. DKMA The Bible does not disappoint. He is informative and amusing as always, but never disrespectful or flippant. He presents some rabinical and religious thought behind some of the questions about the Bible (like why there are two sets of the Ten Commandments), and presents some great quotes. An excellent book to start religious study, but it shouldn't be the only resource used to understand the history of the Bible, the content of the Bible, or Christianity (even for non-Christians)

Review of the Old and New Testaments and of research about their possible authors. Davis highlights some of the more prevalent misconceptions about the Bible, including the mistranslations of "Red Sea," "coat of many colors" and "virgin," inter alia. In other cases, he just clarifies translations (e.g., Jesus is the Greek translation of Joshua). He points out the multiple and contradictory accounts of the same events in different books of the Bible (and sometimes, as with the creation story in Genesis, within the same book). He also familiarlizes the reader with the historical context of stories, and how it influenced the content (for example, hatred of Nero, a definition of homosexuality that focused on pederasty by heterosexuals, show more etc.) He exposes some of the lesser known bad acts of beloved characters, such as David, Solomon, and Saul. While Davis does a good job in showing that the Bible cannot be taken literally, he doesn't deny the value of faith and even, in the last chapter, makes a case for it. This necessarily superficial survey is entertaining, and a valuable adjunct to an uneducated reading of the Bible. (JAF) show less

Very interesting read. The author definitely comes from the believer's point of view and skips over a few things I'd like to see explained, but overall good. Investigating the origins of stories and the history surrounding the writers provides interesting insights.

Overall, this is probably the best book I've read on the subject. That subject being the history and idiosyncrasy of the Bible. Although not as detailed as Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible?" it covers the entire Bible, not just the Old Testament. A fantastic book for believers and non-believers alike as it gives you quite a bit of insight into the background of the Good Book and many of the stories you were taught incorrectly in Sunday School.

A fast-paced synopsis of major and minor points and stories in Scripture. It's been a while since I read this, but I don't recall it as overtly proselytising. Mostly, "here's what the story says, here's the generally accepted cultural significance or theology behind it." Lots of historical context and timelines. Pretty cool book.