Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book [Paperback]

Jason Boyett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2006

Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boyett (Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse) packs a surprising amount of information into this little guide. With humor always at the ready, he dashes through a glossary of biblical terms, a list of key characters and a summary of every book of the Bible. The introduction kicks off with a nod to the difficulties of biblical interpretation and a few of the less-than-stellar movements it helped inspire ("The Bible has motivated its readers to tend the sick.... It also motivated the Crusades"). This forthright tone continues throughout, though Boyett clearly writes from an evangelical perspective. The guide also includes an interesting history of the English Bible and summary of translations. Younger readers who would like to be more familiar with the biblical text will appreciate Boyett's tone, while older readers who have been in the church most of their lives will learn—or be reminded of—many things along the way. The book has a few weaknesses: the endless list of books and biblical events gets tedious; readers may have benefited more from thematic summaries. And there are a few references those outside the church won't understand. But overall, the guide is well written, fun and brief—which, when you're attempting to summarize the entire Bible, is quite an accomplishment. (June 6)
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From the Publisher

It's the world's all-time best seller. It's the most influential book in Western civilization. It's sitting in practically every home in America. Yet few of us have a clue about what's going on within our Bibles' gold-lined, onionskin pages. Until now. In Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book, author Jason Boyett hilariously spotlights the events, characters and themes of the Old and New Testaments.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 191 pages
• Publisher: Relevant Books (May 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976817543
• ISBN-13: 978-0976817543
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,412,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jason Boyett is the author of several books, the most recent of which is the Kindle e-book Pocket Guide to 2012. It joins several other books in his Pocket Guide series of titles (Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse, Pocket Guide to the Afterlife, etc.). Jason is also the author of O Me of Little Faith: True Confessions of a Spiritual Weakling (Zondervan). His writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Salon, Paste, the Daily Beast, and Relevant. He blogs at jasonboyett.com and tweets at twitter.com/jasonboyett.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More fun than realized eschatology, July 7, 2006

By 

Matt Wiggins "Part-time Crusader" (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book (Paperback)

Here's the thing you have to know about PGttB: it's fun to read. Yes, it's about the Bible. Yes, you actually learn stuff. But Boyett does the impossible and takes some very dry material and injects it with a huge dose of humor and gobs of intelligence. A lot of research clearly went into the book to pack it full of this much information. The book is well-organized as well. Here's the ToC:

Biblicabulary - "A glossary of the Good Book," pretty self-explanatory
Cast of Characters (A to J) - The major players of the Bible, plus some of the weirder minor ones too.
Cast of Characters (K to Z) - See above.
What Happens, Part 1 - "The Old Testament at breakneck speed," pretty much the Cliff Notes version of the Bible
What Happens, Part 2 - "The New Testament at breakneck speed."
The Brief History of the Holy Writ - "A timeline," basically the complete history of the Bible.
Versions and Perversions - "A selective survey of translations," this chapter runs through the major players in the translation game. Disappointingly doesn't cover the Hippie Bible, but I'm letting it slide.
List Ye Be Smitten - "Biblical Flotsam and Jetsam," a bunch of lists of really random stuff, really funny, weird things here.
Who to recommend this book to? I think that anyone could get something out of this book. People who know everything about the Bible will enjoy the dry wit applied to the subject. Those who know nothing about the Bible will find themselves amused and learning quite a bit in a short amount of time. Those who have no sense of humor about the subject will probably hate this book. I was caught off guard by some of the jokes myself (in terms of being surprised, not offended), but it's always good to have fun with fundamentalists. That is what fundamentalist starts with anyways.

So, in other words, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a few laughs at the expense of long-dead biblical characters while learning a thing here and there as well. Boyett does it again with a book that makes biblical theology fun.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Bible can be fun...and funny!, June 15, 2006

By 

Drew B. Moser "(www.drewmoser.com)" (Archbold, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book (Paperback)

Hypothetical situation: I'm a publisher. I come to you with an idea. You're going to write a book about the Bible. You know that the Bible is the most read, most controversial, most complex text ever written. It spans centuries and genres. Oh yeah, and you're supposed to make this book accessible to a mass audience, so take out all of the fancy words. Oh yeah...make it funny. A short guidebook to the Bible that's easy to understand and funny. We'll call it the Pocket Guide to the Bible.

Sounds ludicrous! But that's exactly what Jason Boyett sets out to accomplish in Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book. And, in most respects, he nails it, with a frankness and hilarity that many scholars could learn from.

If you're looking for a brief guide on biblical interpretation (aka: hermeneutics), keep looking. Boyett's not trying to dissect the difficult Hebrew and Greek syntax. But, if you're looking for a witty, lighthearted approach to a serious text (the Bible), then this book's for you.

Boyett pulls no punches in exposing some of the more ridiculous stories and texts in the Bible, yet at the same time tries to uphold it's authority and majesty. One part glossary (or, to use his term, `biblicabulary'), another part roll call of Biblical characters, and yet another part Biblical survey, and yet another part history of translations and versions, and finally, a concluding part humorous miscellany of quirky Biblical facts and observations, Boyett `guides' one through the Bible like no book on Scripture I've ever read.

At times I laughed out loud, and at other times I skimmed to the next chapter. That is to say, take this Pocket Guide for what it is: a Pocket Guide. It's not a page-turning thriller novel, nor is it a serious attempt at Biblical scholarship. It's simply one author's lighthearted attempt at viewing the Bible through the eyes of a humorist by looking at the Good Book from a number of different angles.

Overall, I'd say it's a very worthwhile read...Boyett's one-liners are alone worth the price of the book. Here are some zingers:

* When using the biblical term `flesh' in a sentence: "When Angelina Jolie showed up with her newly adopted AIDS orphan, my spirit empathized with her concern for the hurting children of the world, but my flesh kept staring at her bazongas." (p. 13)
* He even uses `IM' language: "LOL" (p.102)
* His reference to King Xerxes' parade of wives in the book of Esther: "a check-out-my-smokin'-wife show for visiting VIPs." (p. 103)
* "Bomp-chicka-bow-wow"...When referring to the book Song of Solomon.
* A word I know I've never seen in Christian publishing: "Apeshiznit" (109)
* When referring to the debate over circumcision in Galatians: "join the Snippy Brigade" (p.122)
* On Erasmus' real name, Gerrit: "Knowing this (his real name) exponentially increases his wedgie potential..." (p.144)

There's more where that came from...but you'll have to buy the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not perfect, but still pretty funny stuff, September 4, 2006

By 

gary medlock "pandorasdad" (tupelo, ms) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book (Paperback)

this book is a rather humorous little jaunt through the bible, but it has a tendency to be a bit dry here and there. it opens, promisingly enough, with a biblicabulary and cast, which cover all the major terms and folks of the bible with less than maximum reverence and, well, a bit of ribaldry. they and the miscellany "list ye be smitten" are the highlights, as they most illustrate the humor that can be drawn from the bible and its colorful cast of characters, which is what this whole book is really about. where it drags is in the telling of the tale. its description of "what happens" in the bible is where the author gets bogged down. although mr boyett throws in a few interesting tid-bits and humorous comments here and there, most of his retelling of the bible story sounds like a junior high smart-alec who isn't as funny as he is in his own mind. don't get me wrong, i enjoy this as a general rule, but mr boyett doesn't execute as well as he should, or as well as he did in his pocket guide to the apocalypse. as for bible teaching, there is nothing here that will do anything for anyone who has been reading the bible longer than a year, but his stuff is sound with only a few factual hiccups. but that's not why you should read the book. you should read the book because you appreciate the difference between irreverence and good-natured fun, and because, on the whole, it's pretty funny stuff.