Rating: 
Summary: Probably the only Bible study guide worth having.
Review: While I'm sure it's not as comprehensive as it could be, it would be hard to overstate the value of this little book. The author does an excellent job of letting the Bible speak for itself, and in the process demonstrates just how short of being a "Holy Book" it really is.After having finished this book, I can't help hoping that as time goes on more people will read the Bible with the kind of scrutiny it deserves. Maybe then we would hear fewer arrogant claims being made about it, or at the very least we might not hear so much trash-talking by Christian fundamentalists concerning the "inferiority" of other religions -- which, for example, seems to be very popular right now with regard to Islam. If you _really_ want to know what is in the Bible, what it actually says and what its "message" is, get this book. Then sit down with it, and your copy of the Bible, and prepare to be amazed!
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ
Review: i got this book and never laughed so hard in my life, I went for my bible (I had lost it) and started looking up the pasages. it's really there, all of it. All thses born agains on here trashin it haven't read it, it doesn't TELL you what it might be saying (like the churches I grew up in), it tells you what is DOES say. Some of the stories are just made for the Jerry Singer show. Dysfunction is not a modern disease. This is a GREAT book. get one for everyone, I got them for my born again friends and my athiest friends and they both loved it. (My athiest frend is a bible scholar ironically- and he agreed with everything in the book.) Good just for a lugh and the icons that define parts are great, Mysogyney warnings, wrath of god overkill, all the best stuff! Get two copies an give one to a friend.
Rating: 
Summary: A challenge for each reader
Review: To take a sentence here or there out of context and say "The Bible Says", does NOT mean those passages are what that author MEANT. If you wrote a paper for your boss, would you want someone coming in years later, taking parts of it, presenting it to your boss as "this is what the author thinks"? You would want your words to have the meaning you intended them, in full context. Why not grant to the authors of each of the 66 different books within the Bible that same respect of NOT taking their words out of context?! To come in 2000 years later and say "this is what it means", is wrong, especially when every one of his examples is wrongly understood, its implications misapplied. EVERY one. I wish I had all you reviewers in a class where we could go over each one and you could, with greater knowledge and information, learn the hermeneutical (interpretational) fallacies he has made which reach the wrong conclusions each and every time. Just because something is in the Bible, does not mean that passage is supporting it. It may not be a teaching passage. It may be an historical passage describing, but not necessarily approving. Or it may be a metaphor, such as Jesus saying "I am the door..." He did not have hinges!
There has never yet been one proven contradiction in Scripture. What is often misunderstood is that the records we have from later in time, help interpret the earlier passages. The New Testament helps interpret the Old Testament. Also, all 66 books point to Jesus Christ as being the sole means of salvation from our sins. I challenge you: read the Bible, knowing each book is either pointing towards the coming Messiah and His life, death, and resurrection, or looking back on that historical event from eyewitnesses. Then believe that He loves you and wants to forgive you and have relationship with you!
Rating: 
Summary: A good book, but incomplete
Review: Ken's Guide To The Bible is an enjoyable, quick read, but is not complete enough for readers not completely familiar with scripture. While Mr. Smith's analysis is often amusing, a lot of times, he does not print the passages he is interpreting, and the reader is not able to draw thier own conclusions about his interpretations. A better read for people interested in this kind of stuff would be "Don't Know Much About The bible" By Kenneth C. Davis. Mr Davis offers the in depth analysis that Mr. Smith is lacking. I did like Mr. Smith's theory that Jesus may have been a fatso,though.
Rating:
Summary: The book you won't find in your church anytime soon
Review: Just from the dedication alone I knew this tome was going to be hilarious: "For Uzzah the ox-cart driver who deserved better." Smith not only puts a humorous twist to many of the Bible's passages, but points out in all seriousness some of the more atrocious, vulgar, and nauseating verses eminating from the Christian God of "love." If you've read the Bible, this book is a must read because Smith gives us examples that each and everyone of us probably missed somewhere down the line. Smith ends his book with the following: "'...the time is near,' Jesus says in the Bible's final chapter. 'I am coming soon!' Two thousand years later, the faithful still wait." If history has been correct so far, today's Christians may be a little disappointed when he doesn't show up. Good luck, though! In the meantime, I have a life to live on this planet and I certainly hope Ken Smith has more books like this in him.
Rating:
Summary: Hurray for Honesty!
Review: When I read this book I felt Al Franken looking over my shoulder. And that is good. Seems that all these fundamentalist (and somewhat fanatical) Christians want you to take every single word out of both the Old and New Testaments literally and without question. The thing is they select chapters and verses they want to preach, interpret them for the proper amount of fire and brimstone, and conveniently ignore how the whole Bible makes no sense nor has any applicaton today. Then again, evangelicalism is big buck business. Thank you, Ken, you gave me a lot of chuckles sticking pins in this ballon!
Rating:
Summary: Not long enough
Review: I got this book in the summer of 1996, when I was already having doubts about the fundamentalism I had chosen. After a few days of reading it surreptitiously in the bookstore - and annoying the other patrons by laughing so hard - I bought it for myself. This is truly an inspired book. I already knew some of the "bad" parts of the Bible (I had written a RELI project about God's lost battle in 2 Kings 3); as a result, I had deliberately avoided reading much of it. This book opened my eyes; I was on the floor laughing at his descriptions of Isaiah's and Micah's writing styles. Now I'm a happy agnostic with a degree in Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations :^) God bless Ken Smith! I have only one problem with this book - it's not long enough! I would have loved to see him expose the Christian misquotations / misuse of the Psalms and Zeph. 1-8. In addition, I wouldn't have minded some more in-depth scholarship; for example, he should have treated Isaiah 40-55 differently from Isaiah 1-39. But for a questioning Christian, I couldn't recommend this book enough.
Rating:
Summary: Read the Bible! You'll see Ken's right!
Review: On the contrary to the comment before, this book IS an attempt to read the Bible as it is. It does not try to interpret or skew the actual description in the Bible by historical understanding of the times, and takes everything at its face value (fundamentalism at its extreme, you might say). And it's fun! Makes you want to actually look into the Book. Hey, no disrespect or anything, but who in the history of Christianity has ever made Bible reading into something fun? Not Martin Luther, it's Ken.
Rating:
Summary: A challenge for each reader
Review: To take a sentence here or there out of context and say "The Bible Says", does NOT mean those passages are what that author MEANT. If you wrote a paper for your boss, would you want someone coming in years later, taking parts of it, presenting it to your boss as "this is what the author thinks"? You would want your words to have the meaning you intended them, in full context. Why not grant to the authors of each of the 66 different books within the Bible that same respect of NOT taking their words out of context?! To come in 2000 years later and say "this is what it means", is wrong, especially when every one of his examples is wrongly understood, its implications misapplied. EVERY one. I wish I had all you reviewers in a class where we could go over each one and you could, with greater knowledge and information, learn the hermeneutical (interpretational) fallacies he has made which reach the wrong conclusions each and every time. Just because something is in the Bible, does not mean that passage is supporting it. It may not be a teaching passage. It may be an historical passage describing, but not necessarily approving. Or it may be a metaphor, such as Jesus saying "I am the door..." He did not have hinges!
There has never yet been one proven contradiction in Scripture. What is often misunderstood is that the records we have from later in time, help interpret the earlier passages. The New Testament helps interpret the Old Testament. Also, all 66 books point to Jesus Christ as being the sole means of salvation from our sins. I challenge you: read the Bible, knowing each book is either pointing towards the coming Messiah and His life, death, and resurrection, or looking back on that historical event from eyewitnesses. Then believe that He loves you and wants to forgive you and have relationship with you!
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of good stuff but some annoying errors
Review: This book was very informative and taught me lots of useful things about the bible. Some passages Ken picked out that I found very interesting (and highlighted in my own Bible): "the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all they chose" Genesis 6:1-2
I thought this only happenned in Greek mythology... Ken points out that in Genesis 1 God says "Let there be light" on the first day and then creates the sun, moon and stars on the third day. Where did the light on the first day come from? Moses' sister Miriam is made a leper for speaking out against him. Numbers 12:1-10 "One who blasphemes the name of the lord shall be put to death" Leviticus 24:16 However Ken did make some mistakes. For example:
II Samuel 2-16 refers to an Amalekite soldier not an Israelite soldier (as Ken says). Not that what David did is particularly exemplary either way. I Samuel 17:51 is a bit ambiguous in the New Revised Standard edition and the King James version but the New International version makes it clear that Goliath was already dead when David hacked his head off with a sword. Ken seems to have missed this. Ken sites Exodus 21:22-25 when he says that people take an "eye for an eye" out of context. He says God's approval for such action only applies when men who are fighting hit pregnant woman who then miscarries and is seriously injured as a result. While this seems to be an acurrate citation - most people are citing Leviticus 24:19-20 when they justify an eye for an eye. This is the law the Lord gives Moses and there are no such restrictions on it. There are other points that Ken makes that seem a bit dubious and other passages where he gives an uncharitable interpretation. While this is a great book for looking up obscure, seemingly contradictory and bizarre passages in the Bible - it would probably be best used as a tool to spark your own research, not as an authoritative guide.
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