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Rating: 
Summary: A heavenly work of devilish mischief
Review: "The Bible According to Mark Twain" is one of those serendipitous finds that is as delightful as is it unexpected. Twain shows himself to be a serious thinker about biblical issues, especially as they pertain to the saintly rogues and roguish saints who populated his world. The works in this volume expand on biblical themes, and are as human as they are irreverent. There is no sacrilege or blasphemy intended in Twain's musings -- simply the toil of a man trying to come to terms with the sometimes illogical world inhabited by religious people.
Twain muses on the story of Noah's ark by wondering about the germs that must have been stowed aboard along with Noah and his family. What kind of a God would ensure that such dangerous organisms would survive the "destruction" of life on earth, allowing them to renew their deadly work afterward? Twain's Captain Stormfield, recently deceased and on his way to heaven, shows the author grappling with the recently-discovered enormity of the universe, and with a heaven segregated (not by race and religion as one Earth) by planet and geographical region. "Letters from Earth," authored by Satan before his banishment to eternal fire, makes rather pointed comments about earthlings' desire for a heaven that is both bereft of earthly pleasures (notably sex) and filled with activity that earthlings normally shun (singing, church services, rubbing shoulders with Jews, blacks and heathens).
Few if any of the completed and incomplete works in this volume were published in Twain's lifetime. Yet the writings show him to be a religious man, in the sense of one who wrestles with the great eternal questions. Twain could not have been satisfied with the pious niceties he likely received from the religious worthies of his day. His questions continue to challenge us to enlarge our conceptions of the deity. Not for him was a deity who looked too much like the rascals and fools he encountered on a day's perambulation. Many of his questions (for instance about the historicity of the Bible) were very perceptive and continue to challenge us to this day.
"The Bible According to Mark Twain" may not rock your religious world, but it will set you to thinking about the way that in every age, "God" acts and thinks suspiciously like ourselves!
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Summary: Every Bible-thumper should read this book!
Review: Anybody looking for a way to deflate the self-righteous, Bible-thumping, polyester-wearing right-wing nuts of our day ought to give them a copy of this book. Not only does this book show how ridiculous the Bible is, it does it in a very comical inoffensive (if you have an open mind it's inoffensive) way. A book every thinking person will love!
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Summary: Surprisingly non-controversial
Review: I am a very religious person, and I was somewhat skeptical about reading this book when I received it as a gift. My husband and I read each other the diaries of Adam and Eve, and by the end we were both so moved we cried. True, it is excellent satire, but it is hardly offensive. Mark Twain manages to weave in sincerity and bits of truth with his masterful parodies.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly non-controversial
Review: I am a very religious person, and I was somewhat skeptical about reading this book when I received it as a gift. My husband and I read each other the diaries of Adam and Eve, and by the end we were both so moved we cried. True, it is excellent satire, but it is hardly offensive. Mark Twain manages to weave in sincerity and bits of truth with his masterful parodies.
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Summary: Generally, a good collection
Review: In the decades since his death, many of Mark Twain's writings have been reorganized into common themes such as protests, speeches, short stories and sketches, and full works of fiction in larger volumes. A recent welcome addition to these is The Bible According to Mark Twain, which includes diaries of Adam, Eve, and other Old Testament characters, various speculations on what the imaginary Heaven might be like (including Captain Stormfield's), some autobiographical dictations, a few pieces that appear in print for the first time, and, of course, Letters From the Earth.It also contains too many of the editor's notes that plague most of Twain's posthumous releases. Here, notes take up 50 of the book's first 260 pages (10 more are blank). Why do editors feel compelled to insert their version of Twain's autobiography before every entry? If they must share this information with readers, they can do so at the start or the end of the book, without interrupting Twain's far superior writing. Granted, some of the details are worth knowing: Twain read Paine's Age of Reason while piloting riverboats. This helped shape his views toward Christianity. But other statements are extremely irritating: "...we have omitted the five-and-a-half page attack on the concept of the virgin birth (mistakenly referred to as the immaculate conception) because that discussion is not closely related to the writings in this volume." Yes it is! Claims like this make me wonder what else is missing. The rest of Twain's writings on religion need a book of their own, WITHOUT the gratuitous editorial comments. I'll let Twain have the last word: "From the beginning of time, whenever a king has lain dangerously ill, the priesthood and some part of the nation have prayed in unison that the king be spared to his grieving and anxious people (in case they were grieving and anxious, which was not usually the rule) and in no instance was their prayer ever answered. When Mr. Garfield lay near to death, the physicians and surgeons knew that nothing could save him, yet at an appointed signal all the pulpits in the United States broke forth with one simultaneous and supplicating appeal for the President's restoration to health. They did this with the same old innocent confidence with which the primeval savage had prayed to his imaginary devils to spare his perishing chief -- for that day will never come when facts and experience can teach a pulpit anything useful. Of course the President died, just the same."
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Summary: Indispensable religious satire
Review: Mark Twain promptly proves with this volume that he is, indeed, as the title states, "America's Master Satirist." Having grown up in a fundamentalist Presbyterian community, Twain knew his Bible well; and, like any thinking person, his beliefs and attitudes relating to it changed as he grew older, wiser, and more experienced. Although Twain - due to many factors, such as the death of several children and his wife and his failed investments - grew famously bitter towards the end of his life, his vision remained remarkably clear-headed, though clearly suffued with pessimism - indeed, his zest for the truth and absolute intolerance for mankind's accepted irrational beliefs became even more razor-sharp during this period. Although there are writings in this volume from all phases of Mark Twain's career, the majority of them do come from that latter period - a period in which, indeed, the exploration of these themes was the main facet of his writing. Included are such well-known items as the Diaries of Adam and Eve (as well as several other Old Testament characters), Captain Stormfield's Visit To Heaven (published here in full for the first time ever), and, of course, his masterpiece, Letters From The Earth. In these, and the other, oftentimes more obscure pieces, Twain burlesques and satarizes freely, calling mankind on both his steadfast taking to irrational and illogical beliefs, as well as on his sheer stupidity and gullibility. If one is looking for a satire along the lines of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, then this is DEFINITELY not the place to look; however, if you have a fondness, as I do, for the darker, more probing side of Twain, then this is a volume that you must most definitely pick up.
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Summary: Right-Wing Religionist Praises Mark Twain
Review: NEWSFLASH: I am a very religious conservative (aka "right-wing nut") who believes in the Bible and other books of scripture as the word of God, yet (unlike another reviewer would predict) I love Mark Twain's religious satire. I think that he has a keen eye for truth -- he sorts out the garbage of man-made religious fluff from the stuff that really matters. In many ways, his religious writings actually support my own beliefs in his tongue-in-cheek way. I don't think this book has any use if you intend to "bash" right-wing religionists with it. Anyone who would be shaken by Twain's writings probably doesn't really believe what they profess anyway... I have read most of the writings in this book, although not in this edited compilation, so I cannot give my rating based on that. The five stars I have given in my review are for Mark Twain's works themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Right-Wing Religionist Praises Mark Twain
Review: NEWSFLASH: I am a very religious conservative (aka "right-wing nut") who believes in the Bible and other books of scripture as the word of God, yet (unlike another reviewer would predict) I love Mark Twain's religious satire. I think that he has a keen eye for truth -- he sorts out the garbage of man-made religious fluff from the stuff that really matters. In many ways, his religious writings actually support my own beliefs in his tongue-in-cheek way. I don't think this book has any use if you intend to "bash" right-wing religionists with it. Anyone who would be shaken by Twain's writings probably doesn't really believe what they profess anyway... I have read most of the writings in this book, although not in this edited compilation, so I cannot give my rating based on that. The five stars I have given in my review are for Mark Twain's works themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Every Bible-thumper should read this book!
Review: The Bible According to Mark Twain gathers together a group of writings by the famous author that were either published years ago or not at all. The writings all deal with Mark Twain's intense study and understanding of the Bible. The book begins with some humorous ideas of what Adam's and Eve's diaries may have looked like during their first days together and then later after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Twain is unable to comprehend how they could be punished for doing something bad (eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge) when they still had no conception of good and bad until they ate the apple. Later works detail some thoughts on Noah and the flood and the importance of flies. It was important to preserve the disease carriers. When Twain takes a walk through Heaven you discover halos, harps, and wings are just for show. And finally he finishes up with a scathing attack on the stupidity of mankind, pointing out that statements like, Thou Shall Not Kill, and committing genocide do not go together. Or how could man conceive of a Heaven as Heaven and leave out sexual intercourse? If sanity is dangerous to your health, don't read this book.
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Summary: Who says it's not possible to be funny when you're angry?
Review: The Bible According to Mark Twain gathers together a group of writings by the famous author that were either published years ago or not at all. The writings all deal with Mark Twain's intense study and understanding of the Bible. The book begins with some humorous ideas of what Adam's and Eve's diaries may have looked like during their first days together and then later after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Twain is unable to comprehend how they could be punished for doing something bad (eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge) when they still had no conception of good and bad until they ate the apple. Later works detail some thoughts on Noah and the flood and the importance of flies. It was important to preserve the disease carriers. When Twain takes a walk through Heaven you discover halos, harps, and wings are just for show. And finally he finishes up with a scathing attack on the stupidity of mankind, pointing out that statements like, Thou Shall Not Kill, and committing genocide do not go together. Or how could man conceive of a Heaven as Heaven and leave out sexual intercourse? If sanity is dangerous to your health, don't read this book.
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