69 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unorthodox but down to earth palin, May 4, 2009
This review is from: Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible (Hardcover)
When I was in a seminary, all the books I was referring were written by scholars who have assumed authority in interpreting the scripture. And that is where I was looking if I needed any help. But all that has changed as I was reading "The Good Book," by David Poltz. I ask, Is there a right way to read the Bible? The author, who is the editor of Slate, was thumbing through the Hebrew Bible when he came across the gruesome story of Dinah (in which a young woman is raped, betrothed to the rapist and then widowed thanks to her brothers' murderous rage). Plotz, a mostly unobservant Jew, was aghast--both at the bloody, morally ambiguous plotline and at his own ignorance of its existence. He realized that his biblical education had been woefully insufficient. "Needless to say," he writes, "this isn't a story they taught me at Temple Sinai's Hebrew school in 1980." So he challenged himself to sit down and read the Hebrew Bible from beginning (Genesis) to end (Chronicles). He read a verse or two a day and blogged about it.
Amusing, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, "The Good Book" succeeds because its tone straddles the line between irreverent and awestruck. Plotz as a lay reader is wandering in a strange land full of eccentric people and incomprehensible rules. From Samson and Delilah, he takes away these lessons: "1. Women are deceptive and heartless." And
"2. Men are too stupid and sex-crazed to realize this."
The story of Abraham and Isaac brings him--as it does everybody with a beating heart--to his knees: "As a father, I find this nearly impossible to read. Abraham does not try to distance himself from Isaac, to separate himself from the child he must kill. Isaac remains 'my son,' 'my son'."
Questions of authority will inevitably come up, especially among Jewish and Christian conservatives. Who is this Plotz?, readers may wonder. What right has he to interpret the Bible for the rest of us? Plotz, to his credit, does not claim any credentials; he flat-out confesses his ignorance. Still, my teachers at the seminary might caution against Plotz's offhand approach: a young man, a computer, a Bible and a big cup of coffee with no regard for traditional interpretation method with no theological background. But I am reminded here of the Protestant Reformation, which took "right" interpretations out of the hands of church authorities and gave the Bible to the people--in the languages they spoke at home. It was a revolution.
The Bible has of late been so mired in conversations about who's got it right and who's got it wrong that regular people who don't have a stake in the culture wars may have forgotten what a revelation it is to read. It's fun. It's inexplicable. It's dramatic. It's bloody and violent.
Though I don't agree on some of the author's interpretation, reading the "The Good Book" made me in complet agreement with Plotz, "The worst thing to do with a Bible," he says, "is to leave it on the shelf, thinking that someone else may have a better or smarter idea about it. The best thing? Read it. After reading, ask questions, argue and talk."
"The Good Book" is all about you and the bible.
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28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book, April 10, 2009
This review is from: Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible (Hardcover)
Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible
This is a wonderful book, thoughtful and insightful, yet light and easy to read. It examines the inconsistencies, paradoxes and illogicalities of the Old Testament, as well as pointing out the beauty and the grace of its writing. I enjoyed it so much, I bought two copies, one to give as a gift to a friend.
My only quibble is with the wording of the title. It should read "...Every Single Word of the Old Testament," rather than ..."every Single Word of the Bible," since the author takes refuge in his Jewish roots and confines his analysis to the first 39 books of the Bible. That's a pity, because I think his approach would have much to offer us in our understanding of the rest of "The Good Book."
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27 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspired and Inspiring, March 9, 2009
This review is from: Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible (Hardcover)
This is a hilarious, insightful, and fascinating journey thought The Book all of us should have read and most of us haven't. With great wit, Plotz explodes our assumptions about the Bible, helps us see our our favorite stories fresh, and takes us to parts of the Bible we've been afraid to enter alone. Good Book is a great book that will enhance your understanding of religion, art, and most of all, life.
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