Customer Reviews

Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Good Book but Never Learned

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

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.

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

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.

I read this book last Summer, and having read other people's reviews I felt like I had to speak up. First of all, I know people who have read the Bible, but have no idea of the life and times of the people who wrote it or who are in it. I grew up pretty much the same way and did not even learn this type of information at Church. This book gives a background into history of the Bible, stories in the Bible, and incidentally Christianity. I recommend it for anyone who has an intellectual curiosity about the Bible. Even those who don't think they have an interest in the Bible might like this book due to this book's approach and the enormous influence of the Bible on our lives (believer or not).

I disagree with reviewers that think this book was written to discredit the Bible. I suspect that these people are uncomfortable with the Bible being written about in a historical, non-religious manner.

If you'd like to learn a lot about the bible and don't mind reading an author that seems to take some glee in pointing out the book's inconsistencies, then "Don't Know Much About the Bible" is for you. Book-by-book, Kenneth C. Davis provides fairly clear summaries of both the New and Old Testaments. Along the way, he provides a ton of fascinating information, clarifying common misconceptions about famous biblical stories, pointing out events that are conveniently left out of most Sunday or Hebrew school teachings, and explaining believed mistranslations of the ancient Greek or Hebrew texts (e.g., he writes that scholars now mostly believe that the sea the Jews crossed while leaving Egypt is properly translated as "The Sea of Reeds", not "The Red Sea").

Davis seems to take a lot of pleasure in pointing out the various inconsistencies within the bible: historical inaccuracies, conflicting accounts between various parts of the scripture, and books or stories that just don't seem to fit. While it's important for him to point these out in a secular work such as this, the tone that he uses to do so may be a put-off to some (e.g., after describing how the various Gospels disagree on the year of Jesus's birth, he writes: "The date is wrong and the year is a mystery. In other words, the birthday of the 'Son of God' is a movable feast. If this is divinely inspired, couldn't God get that year right?"). This style tends to cast

some doubt on the author's credibility and impartiality throughout the rest of the book.

The summary of the book of Revelation was a bit of a disappointment. It's obviously a complex book that's difficult to read and more difficult to understand; however, Davis decided to punt on providing any interpretations and instead sticks to a very brief plot summary.

"Don't Know Much About The Bible" sticks mostly to the bible itself and does not talk much about the religions of Judaism or Christianity. For instance, there's very little mention of the history of biblical commentary or the debates that occurred throughout the ages as to the meanings of the scriptures (e.g., Aquinas doesn't show up in the index, and Augustine is only mentioned in passing a handful of times). This is not necessarily a problem; the book is long enough as it is (approx. 500 pages). But don't expect to have a full understanding of, for instance, where Catholocism differs from Protestantism, etc., after reading the book.

Asides from these minor points, though, the book is clearly written and an easy and worthwhile read. You will definitely gain a better overall understanding of the bible itself as well as the various books that comprise it.

I've always been leery of books with names like "Personal Hygiene
for the Complete Idiot" or "Home Schooling for
Dummies." Is it good marketing technique to choose a title that
forces the reader into an embarrassing self-classification? With his
popular "Don't Know Much About... " series, Mr. Davis
introduced a presumably unintentional double meaning that could be
construed as reflecting on the author as well. .... In my own case,
having just finished reading the Old and New Testaments straight
through but lacking historical background, I readily admitted
ignorance in the hope of reducing it. I wasn't disappointed.

Davis
tries to give the reader a sense of when, where, and by whom the 39
Old Testament and 27 New Testament "books" were written. In
doing this he has no choice but to reveal how factually thin the
information base available to Bible scholars really is. Since
uncertainty usually breeds controversy, the shrillness of the more
acid criticisms directed at the author by self-styled Bible buffs is
not surprising. Perhaps the scholarly types are also annoyed by
Davis's effort to keep the tone light, and to emphasize anomalies
bound to surprise readers who have absorbed only the second-hand
biblical bromides that permeate popular culture. For example, Eve's
snake-induced snack was not named as an apple, only as
"fruit"; there are two semi-contradictory versions of
Genesis; there weren't enough people to provide Cain with a wife;
Moses probably didn't cross the Red Sea, and Jesus may not have been
an only child. Davis also maintains interest by highlighting the
Bible's copious sex and violence content. I would characterize the
author's overall tone as bemused but respectful.

There are a couple
of places in the book where I question Mr. Davis's reasoning. On
pages 116 and 118 he supports the view that bad people such as the
medieval crusaders, who committed atrocities in the name of religion,
were merely blasphemers pretending to be followers of God. The
implication seems to be that a religious person can't be evil, because
if he is evil, then he's not truly religious. Logically speaking, you
can't get more speciously circular than that. Shall we argue that
when Jehovah orders the slaughter of promised-land citizens down to
the last man, woman, and guiltless child (Deuteronomy 20:16), he's
just taking a little time out to blaspheme himself?

The author takes
another puzzling position on page 126, saying

"....Many
passages in the Bible condone slavery, one reason it was justified by
American Christian slaveholders. We can only consider slavery an
inhumane and immoral institution, a very clear case of something that
was acceptable in the time of Moses but is now considered
reprehensible."

There's nothing wrong with this comment in
itself, but it ignores a huge underlying issue. Consider the
fundamental premise of the Bible. A single being, Jehovah, created
the entire universe and populated a small part of it with intelligent
humans crafted in his own image. He interacted extensively with a
preferred group of these humans, talking to some of them directly,
teaching, making rules, in fact micro-managing them relentlessly (see
any part of Leviticus or Numbers). The people of Biblical times were
fully as intelligent as we, and fully as capable of understanding
moral principles.

The underlying issue, then, is that to accomplish
what he is said to have done, Jehovah must have been a master of all
disciplines known to us, and must have been knowledgeable in every
conceivable area. Humans have all sorts of excuses for being
ignorant, but Jehovah has none, and had none in the time of Moses. So
why didn't Jehovah rule and teach unequivocally against slavery?
After all, he issued a formidable roster of laws, many of them fixated
on ceremonial trivia and imposing draconian penalties for minor
infractions (again, see Leviticus). This is a small part of a much
larger question: Are Jehovah's character, actions and words, taken at
face value from Scripture, consistent with the knowledge and abilities
claimed for him? I would have been very interested in Mr. Davis's
opinion.

In the end, the parts of the book most directly helpful to
me were the factual aids provided by the author to broaden a reader's
perspective. These included:

An eight-installment timeline
("Milestones") relating biblical events to well-known
people, places and cultural developments outside the scope of the
Scriptures.

A discussion of various versions of the Bible with
guidelines on their interpretive strengths and weaknesses (Davis
prefers the New Oxford Annotated edition).

A table of 35
New-Testament miracles, showing in which of the four Gospels each
event is mentioned. This creates an interesting ranking topped by the
ultra-certified, four-Gospel miracle of feeding five thousand people
from five loaves of bread and two fish.

If you are already an expert
in the Scriptures, the title alone should vector you away from this
book. But for the rest of us, I recommend it.

A relatively easy read for those who are already quite familiar with the Bible and its stories. For those who are not already familiar with the Bible it would be difficult to fully understand what he is addressing as he does not go into a lot of detail about the stories and how they have been traditionally understood. This is a bit of a `digest' version of some of the research that has been carried out on the Bible. Some of it was not new information and has been around religious circles for awhile. Other information I found quite intriguing and was motivated to do more in-depth research on my own (i.e., the authors/methods of the creation of the Pentateuch). The author flags areas of interest for future research but does not go into a lot of depth.

I was a bit put off by the glee he expresses when he illuminates discrepancies in the Bible. I am not bothered by the fact that there are discrepancies (as I am not an inerrantist) but rather by his crowing over their exposure. His reaction causes me to question his credibility in presenting all the information in as neutral a manner as possible. In the end I felt he posits a bit too confidently his own conclusions that fit his own religious paradigm, rather than putting forth the information and allowing the reader to form their own perspective.

Overall, an interesting read.

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.

My high school English teachers used to say that the Bible is the greatest book ever written, but it is poorly edited. This is true - partly because different religions were trying to edit "their" Bible in a hurry, over much disagreement.

This book is a great introduction to Biblical scholarship. Although I've read books from the Bible, I haven't read the whole thing cover-to-cover: it is just too massive to attempt unaided. Don't Know Much about the Bible is your guide.

It provides several functions. First, it addresses the question of "Whose Bible Is It?" It examines the differences between the different books and translations of the Jewish and Christian Bibles. Second, it goes through the Bible, book by book, and provides a summary of each. Third, it provides a historical background as to who may have written each book, when, and why.

This is not an overly religious book; some people may be offended. Yet, it is not an entirely secular book either - even while pointing out the seeming "contradictions" of the Bible, Davis never denies the belief in God. His main point is that the Bible is a work of faith, not history.

It's telling that some of the reviewers of this book feel that Davis is condemning the Bible and other reviewers feel that he has a sympathetic view towards the Bible. That's because this is not a religious book per se. It isn't written with the aim to present a particular view. Instead, this is simply a fairly balanced look at what the Bible actually says. What the reader wishes to believe is a decision left to the reader. This attempt at being an objective view of the scriptures is unique amongst most books on religious matters, which often have a particular point of view.

Kenneth Davis writes well, and the book is an easy read. Certainly much easier to wade through than the Bible. So if you've not familiar with the Bible, this would serve as a good starting point. You can then go to the Bible on the points that are of greatest interest.

My only real complaints with the book are that 1) the book doesn't always give specific verse numbers with its presentations, making the reader do a little unnecessary work in tracking down the passage. And 2) it doesn't go into enough detail on some of the more interesting topics. Perhaps it could have been divided into a version for each testament.

I'd give it 4 1/2 stars were that choice available.