Don't Know Much About the Bible

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Summary: Author misses the whole point!
Review: Relishing the details, the author ignores the majesty and message of The Bible. The index contains only a single entry for "love!"

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Summary: Why is Davis qualified to educate you on the Bible?
Review: Was this book written to "educate" people ignorant of the bible, or to make money? The main problem with the book is Davis's lack of explaining his stance on such issue as, biblical inerrancy. Many interpretation and explanations biblical scripture are unfounded and stated as fact without apposing views presented.

What bothered me is the book and the web presents basically no information about Davis beyond his occupation. If this book is read to understand more about the bible, ultimately the Christian Religion, one should understand the position of the author.

If you "don't know much about the bible" I suggest reading the bible, and attending a church where the bible is studied! If the bible is the foundation of the Christian religion, it must be read as that, and not as a literary work. For the beginner of biblical study as supplement to reading the bible I suggest R. C. Sproul's and Robert Wolgemuth's book
"What's In The Bible."

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Summary: Consumer Warning! A Shock Hazard.
Review: Davis has written a superb work of commentary on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. It far surpasses the prosaic two volume work by the late Dr. Asimov which, in the main, paraphrases traditional commentary.

Don't let the keen Davis sense of humor put you off. His sources, both popular and scholarly, nail down most every issue in keeping with what is known today in my opinion. Most of us in the Judeo-Christian tradition will find this book both useful and enlightening. Fundamentalists will wish to avoid it as it contains many corrections to opinions offered as fact by under-informed persons in past generations.

Do get this book if you are frustrated with your reading of the Bible. If you are beginning to understand you cannot understand the Bible by simply reading the Bible, Davis' insights will be very useful to you. After all, Davis' research may prove to be more valuable than direct revelation. For example, he provides a glossary that did not come with the original. His "Introduction" and "Whose Bible Is It Anyway?" is not to be skipped. Also, many Sunday School teachers in synagogue and church owe their classes the knowledge this book imparts. This is popular journalism of a very serious subject at its very best. Interestingly Davis does it all without footnotes or even chapter notes. It is very likely that he could have provided such. Both he and his editor decided in favor of ease of reading instead.

Only the wonderful commentary on the "Hebrew Scriptures" by the late Rabbi Sandmel exceeds the insights offered in this book particularly for the Old Testament. However, that tremendous rabbinical scholar was writing to a somewhat different audience.

The Introduction covers a number of matters not usually discussed in Sunday School. However, he does not mention that Isaiah went about Jerusalem naked for three years. Nor does he mention the gruesome occurrences of Lamentations 4. Some of his dating may be questioned as good reasons may cause it to be for generations to come.

There are also two matters that Davis does not explore at least not sufficiently. Both relate to his depiction of current understandings of the Bible. One is: How is it that we have any sort of Bible at all... handed down through the centuries to us... if his contrasts, complications and contradictory interpretations are true? He seems to begin an answer to this with his comments on "power."

Second and related to the first: How did such revered writings become transformed by translators and clergy into the very "Word" of God? Hint: How might the Reformation have brought this about? Both of these issues are being avoided by dozen of interpreters and popularizers. Serious students of the Bible should ask why?

One caveat. Davis clarifies uncountable issues and Biblical circumstances in highly readable and accessible prose. Most of the "what" in the Bible is addressed. Those looking for more... than clergy have provided through the ages... on the "how" and "why" will want to look further. Re-call these comments began with a warning about "shock hazards!"

Davis' tone will seem iconoclastic and anything but reverential to most readers. His insights will shock any number of readers. Then we have his conclusion which seems dramatically askance from his straight ahead commentary. He uses a quote that he...or his editor...chose to conclude (page 472) this work.

Unfortunately, it is possibly more controversial than anything else he has asserted. Thus we are pushed to the very edge of the supreme controversy of western civilization with no healthy discussion to brace us. Another book...or two...could be written right here! Is the "Afterword" really Davis' concluding thoughts alone?

8-18-02 psb rev 8-21-02

Rating:
Summary: Author knows much
Review: Clear, concise and easy to read. I've spent over 20 years studying the bible and can say that Mr. Davis knows his material. I liked his imformative style and the whole layout of the book. The glossary and bibliography were an added bonus. This book is a great place to start for the beginner as well as novice.

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Summary: A Very good book
Review: All the complaints lodged against him are the groundless whining of fanatics who base their criticism upon author's use of provable facts and logical inference which contradiction or create a perceived disrespect to their speculative beliefs.

The unfootnoted book (it includes an extensive bibliography) is a cursory examination of the bible and is more than suitable for anyone who is not a biblical/mythical scholar or has not read the book a half dozen times, which is 99% of the population which is why any complaint that it doesn't conform to what might be printed in a academic journal is irrelevant. It is a popular book for the very reason that it is accessible and unbiased, not a dusty tome of authoritative but insipid writing or a theologically suppositional attempt at proselytization.

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Summary: An excellent (re)introduction to the Bible
Review: As a Boy Scout I was tasked to read and summarize the New Testament's 'Book of Matthew'. The Book of Matthew is conversationally written, and my Revised Standard Version of "The Holy Bible" is conversationally written. I completed my task, but reading and summarizing the Book of Matthew was long and difficult. I read no further.

The importance of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity in global events has increased tremendously in the last two decades. I wanted additional exposure to the Christian Bible, but I didn't know where to start -- the Bible contains an *immense* amount of Christian history, philosophy, and doctrine. I believe that "Don't Know Much About The Bible: ..." by Kenneth C. Davis provides a good starting point for those wanting (re)introduction to the Bible.

I consider Mr. Davis a liberal historian. Mr. Davis explains the Bible's events in the context of history and in relationship to the Hebrew Scriptures (the precursor to the Christian Old Testament); to the Islamic Quran; and to related texts such as the "Dead Sea Scrolls", the "Gnostic Gospels", and the "Gospel According To Thomas". Mr. Davis acknowledges that devout worshippers feel strongly about their own views, but feels that devout worshippers should not fear differing views and legitimate questions.

"Don't Know Much About The Bible: ..." is written in a question/answer format. Mr. Davis uses questions concerning major Biblical topics and events as section headings, then answers those questions. Questions are sequenced to take the reader first through the Christian Old Testament and then the Christian New Testament with interleaved discussion of concurrent global historical events and related Bible excerpts. Combined with a detailed index this format makes "Don't Know Much About The Bible: ..." an excellent reference book for individuals wanting summaries of specific Biblical topics and events. The interleaved Book/Chapter/Verse references allow individuals to read the original Bible quotations and to draw their own conclusions.

Mr. Davis is a knowledgable historian with a gift for clear explanation and his text is well-written. I highly recommend "Don't Know Much About The Bible: ...", particularly for anyone wanting a (re)introduction to the Christian Bible.

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Summary: What a fasninating book . Kenneth takes you to the origins.
Review: This book is almost as good as "The Source". It is better in some ways. You learn a tremendous amount about the stories in the Bible from creation to modern days.

Fascinating and an easy read.

I loved it. Now when some one mentions anything from the Bible I know something about it.

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Summary: A Workmanlike Popularized Account of Stuff We Should Know!
Review: Because of its decidedly unscholarly flipness and the fact that it is nothing more than a compendium of little known (or little remembered) facts about the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), I've been somewhat stinting in my rating of this book. Still it is a valuable and enlightening presentation of what's really in those ancient works which we are all taught to revere here in the Western world.

In fact, the material contained in the biblical writings is often shocking and out of step with our modern mores and sensibilities. Reading some of that stuff today, you can't help being scandalized and, if some of it weren't in THE BIBLE, you'd want to disregard it or toss it away. But the ancient religious literature of the Western world also has its share of valuable and spiritually uplifting insights, though these don't rise to the top in Davis' book. Still, unless you take a fundamentalist view and believe every word in the bible to be sacrosanct and infallibly written and preserved over the past three thousand years (and intelligible, thereafter, in our modern languages), Davis' book is worth retaining and mining for the iconcoclastic viewpoints he offers.

But beware: author Davis is necessarily focusing on the controversial and troubling aspects of "the good book" in an effort to shake us out of our Sunday School-induced fantasies and broaden our perspectives. I think he succeeds in doing this. But I wish he'd had some insights of his own to offer rather than merely latching onto the more controversial and troubling aspects of these texts. Or just parroting the mainstream of biblical criticism, as he does (despite the fact that there are a multiplicity of conflicting views and theories in that area of study and no single solid explanation of how the bible came to be written or who first wrote and preserved it, or what kinds of societies really generated it).

But I guess that wasn't what this kind of book is about. Anyway, it is a great antidote to claims for an overly literal biblical interpretation or to those who maintain that the bible is somehow more valid than other historical documents mankind has written and preserved over the generations.

SWM

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Summary: all you will ever need to know about the mysterys of christ.
Review: I just finished this book, and I have to tell you.......It explained alot of those nagging questions we all have about GOD, Christ, Life, living, death, ect.... Don't waste your life as I have trying to understand the impossible: Relegion: whose right? whose wrong? Is it true? Is there a GOD? ect.....This author explains it all!

Happy Reading!

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Summary: The Story Behind the Bible
Review: I read this book last Summer, and having read other people's reviews I felt like I had to speak up. First of all, I know people who have read the Bible, but have no idea of the life and times of the people who wrote it or who are in it. I grew up pretty much the same way and did not even learn this type of information at Church. This book gives a background into history of the Bible, stories in the Bible, and incidentally Christianity. I recommend it for anyone who has an intellectual curiosity about the Bible. Even those who don't think they have an interest in the Bible might like this book due to this book's approach and the enormous influence of the Bible on our lives (believer or not).

I disagree with reviewers that think this book was written to discredit the Bible. I suspect that these people are uncomfortable with the Bible being written about in a historical, non-religious manner.