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Summary: Study and Show yourself approved
Review: I loaned this book to an extremely "pious" adventist girl who always used to invite me to church and bible studies. I haven't heard any "soul winning" efforts from her since!
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Summary: The Funniest Book Ever!!!
Review: This books many false and misleading claims regarding Christianity. For instance the book claims that there is no mention of Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Scrolls discovered at Qumran actually were written by the Essenes a Jewish sect that was mystical and midrashic in nature and wrote its texts in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The reason Jesus was not mentioned is because the Essenes were Jewish scholars interested only in documenting the Torah, rather then writing diaries about contemporary events. The first mention of Jesus in a non-Christian text can be found in Josephus's works on Jewish Antiquity which was written in AD 80, by Josephus who fought in the Jewish war of AD 70 and was born roughly around the time Jesus would have died. Josephus wrote that Jesus was `a holy man, believed to be a prophet' and that `followers, the Christians exist to this day' meaning that early Christians were living around the time of AD 80. This is a historical book documenting what was happening in Israel and Josephus saw no reason to elaborate on Jesus, but it is enlightening that Jesus, as a real person is mentioned by a non-Christian. The legacy of the real Jesus is also found in the Qur'an which extensively documents Jesus life including his death. Thus we find that not only Jews, but also Muslims agreed that a real person named Jesus existed and was seen by many as a prophet, one trying to reform Judaism. This book claims that the idea of Jesus being a virgin birth was based on Pagan beliefs. But this is also untrue. The idea of a special birth was Jewish idea first described in the Torah when Sarah gives birth to Isaac at the age of 80 even though she has been barren her whole life. Also Sampson was born under special circumstances. The idea of the `myth' of the virgin birth although contrived was based on Jewish theology which gave special status to special births. The best evidence that Jesus was a real person comes from the gospel of Mathew when he described the genealogy of Jesus back to King David. Why create an in depth lineage for a `pagan god'? The truth is that Mathew was Jewish and Jewish tradition held that in order for someone to be a Messiah their roots had to be established. Thus Mathew traced the true ancestry of a real man named Jesus. In the end this book is just a series of false claims, innuendo and defamation aimed at Christianity and Christian theology. Although parts of Christian theology like the trinity and the transfiguration seem odd, they are just as equally odd as the pagan tribes who used to drink blood, eat humans and sacrifice girls. So in the end one can be assured that Christian theology is based on reality, with some legends grafted onto it. Seth J. Frantzman
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Summary: This book made me a Christian.
Review: "The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read" contains a handful of insightful, informative essays set against a backdrop of vitriolic excrement of questionable academic merit. Filler-pages account for nearly half the book, while the essays themselves are "organized" in a very haphazard fashion, completely lacking in any semblance of continuity (even for an essay compilation). Photos and illustrations are of cheap, black-and-white photocopy quality, and most are of little to no interest or relevance. In short, don't waste your money (even if you're an atheist such as myself).
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Summary: just one example
Review: I could write a long review showing how biased this piece of crap is,starting from the title...but i'll point out just one example: the author claims that this god called "virishna" worshiped 1200 years before Christ, had very remarkables similitudes beetween his legend and Crist's one,that would be a interesting data IF wasn't the fact that this god never existed in fact, besides this author's book.I dare him or anyone to show the source where one can read about "Virishna" legend. Don't let this kind of people fool you, read serious scholars as Campbell or Eliade
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