Rating: 
Summary: Very Interesting
Review: I found this book to be an interesting study of the Bible. Although I did not agree with everything the author had to say, I was astounded by all the facts I had never thought about before. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a book about the Bible to challenge your thoughts and teach you something.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and Fact Based
Review: It is always refreshing to read a book about the Bible which doesn't kow tow to the sensibilities of the literal fundamentalist. I found this book intelligent without being condescending, and I found it very accessible. I heard the author on an NPR interview while driving in my car and immediately turned to go get the book. I am not sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: Picks out various bible events backed by weak arguments.
Review: Davis lets his emotions get control of his writing and lacks any substantial facts to back up his arguments. He is quite on sided and doesn't objectively supply all facts relevant to an issue. Don't know much about history or the bible, do we Mr. Davis?
Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading in schools.
Review: Great book. Should be required reading in schools so that children know the diffrence from what organizations teach us about a holy book and what it really says. The critics seem to find fault with it, not because his info is wrong, but because it is not what they want to hear. This seems more of an agruement for wishful thinking than for this books validity or facts.The book is also easy to read (listen to) and fun. If you believe honesty is the best policy, when dealing with the Bible, then this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: excellent reference book for bible history
Review: For anyone who wants to know the stories of the bible, but doesn't have a spare month to sit and read, this is the book. Entertaining, concises, outstanding.
Rating:
Summary: Pastor Recommended!
Review: 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!!
Rating:
Summary: Bible stories and history from a very cynical point of view.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Why is reason anathema to faith?
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to biblical skepticism.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Infomative and Fun To Read
Review: 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.
| 
