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56 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Light and easy to read, October 18, 2003
Davis writes like Isaac Asimov. He wants to educate you. In this book, he gets in and gets out fast --- which is good. He tells you the story of Job, for example, in one page. He knows he has a lot to cover, so he hits each point in a page or two. If you want more detail, you can read one of hundreds of other books after this one. His coverage of the New Testament is good even though it's shorter than his Old Testament section. This makes sense because the New has less content --- fewer details, parables, people, and places. Davis uses bad jokes and awkward pop culture references half a dozen times. These don't help. I don't need references to Madonna, Baywatch, Jedi knights, and (of all things) The First Wives Club. The references age fast. Some of them come across like the work of an amateur comedy writer. Other than that, it's a really good book, as good as Asimov's Guide to the Bible. As an introduction to the Bible, it can't be beat. Sure, it's a secular approach, but if it wasn't, it would be twice and long and would no longer qualify as an introductory text.
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98 of 113 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Consumer Warning! A Shock Hazard., August 21, 2002
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
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38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Know Much About The Bible? Start Here., June 25, 2000
Kenneth C. Davis' breezy survey is aimed at a general reader interested in learning more about the Bible without necessarily accepting the predominant theological interpretations. Davis presents a neat summary of over 3,000 years of the history of the Near East, Israel and her people, the life and death of Jesus, and the early Christian church. This is not a scholarly work of Biblical criticism, and the more astute observations are taken from the work of more authoritative authors. In borrowing liberally from a diverse body of opinion, Davis manages to present generally balanced, informed views. In this continuation of his "Don't Know Much" genre, Davis' pithy commentary sometimes suffers from an overreliance on pop culture analogies and his occasional aw-shuckisms. Nevertheless, in adopting an easy, accessible style, he manages to spark interest and add entertainment value to what could have been an exceedingly dull book. Some will undoubtedly take issue with Davis' presentation of the controversies surrounding authorship of certain Biblical books, as well as his observations on the capricious, jealous, and sometimes violent God of the early Hebrew scriptures. Davis shows us how God apparently "matures" over the course of the Bible and speculates that God may have grown up alongside his most flawed creation, the human race. Perhaps Davis himself draws particular inspiration from certain portions of the Bible. The book contains the NRSV version of Jesus' moving, deeply inspirational Sermon on the Mount, from the gospel of Matthew. The appendices contain The Ten Commandments, the Twenty-Third Psalm, and the Lord's Prayer. Each chapter contains several scriptural passages that accompany many of the key points in the text. Smming up the book in his Afterword, Davis muses that it would be easy to dismiss the Bible as nothing more than a collection of myths and fairy tales that our ancestors conjured up to explain things they did not understand. He seems to come down, albeit rather ambivalently, on the side of faith. This book, despite being over 500 pages, is a fairly quick read. The bibliography provides a good starting point for further study, as does the Bible itself. In all, this book delivers what it promises: after reading it, you will certainly know more, both the good and the bad, about the Bible.
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