Understanding the Bible [Paperback]

Stephen L. Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0767405935 | ISBN-13: 978-0767405935 | Edition: 5th

A nonsectarian guide for students undertaking their first systematic study of the Bible, giving information on archaeological data and historical background, and providing material on the date, authorship, and theological content of each book of the Old and New Testaments. Learning features include review questions, and a glossary of major characters, terms, and concepts. This fifth edition includes a new section illustrating methods and goals of modern biblical scholarship, expanded coverage of authorship, and a more detailed survey of ancient history.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen L. Harris is Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University, Sacramento, where he served ten years as department chair. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. A member of the Society of Biblical Literature, his publications include Understanding the Bible (8th edition, 2011); The Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (with Robert Platzner); Classical Mythology: Images and Insights (with Gloria Platzner); Exploring the Bible; and Fire Mountains of the West: The Cascade and Mono Lake Volcanoes, a survey of volcanic hazards on the U.S. Pacific Coast; and for National Geographic Books, Restless Earth, a study of global earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. He contributed the chapter on “Archaeology and Volcanism” to the Encyclopedia of Volcanoes (Academic Press, 2000). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 610 pages
• Publisher: Mayfield Pub Co; 5th edition (July 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767405935
• ISBN-13: 978-0767405935
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,265,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fine textbook, July 10, 2003

By 

HDB III (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding The Bible (Paperback)

This book has been required reading in my Bible as Literature class for 15 years. It provides a good, basic introduction not only to each book of the Bible, but also to such topics as the formation of the cannon, the Documentary Hypothesis, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Harris quite sensibly has little to say about theological matters. His concerns are literary, historical, and archaeological.
I do agree with a previous reviewer that Harris has packed a bit too much into the most recent editions -- but that is my only complaint.

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Competent, Clear, and Challenging, but Cumbersome, May 10, 2001

By 

Micheal W. Palmer (Chapel Hill, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding the Bible (Paperback)

Harris' book has much to recommend it. He is a competent scholar who writes clearly, and the book fairly represents the scholarly consensus on most issues without loosing sight of the real-life concerns of most readers of the biblical texts. Each edition of the book has become more detialed, and the major problem with this current edition is precisely this: it is overly detailed for a freshman level college class. Earlier editions worked well at this level, but too many students struggled to complete assigned readings in this edition.

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Biblical Introduction Available, December 13, 2005

By 

Nachem (South Dakota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding The Bible (Paperback)

As a Harvard-Divinity-School-trained professor of Biblical Literature, I am constantly amazed by Harris's detailed, precise, and cogent analysis of the Bible. Those misguided Christians who believe the Bible to be the literal word of God will find the text very threatening. But for those of us who believe in studying the Bible from an academic or scholarly perspective, one that is secular and nonsectarian, and one based on "scientific method," the text is thrilling.

Engaging in an academic-scholarly-secular-scientific study of the Bible means that Harris views the Bible as a collection of written texts produced by the human imagination, within a historical, philosophical, and political context. Harris's study is admirably based primarily on the great European and American biblical scholarship of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (known as "higher criticism"), such as Wellhausen's "Documentary Hypothesis" and the great archeological and linguistic discoveries in the Near East.

Anyone interested in learning about the Bible in an academic and secular way will be pleased by the way Harris assumes in general the superior accuracy of modern historic and scientific method (including the fact of evolution), compared to science and history as they are represented in the Bible. As such, anyone reading the text must be willing to maintain a scholarly and academic objectivity throughout; indeed, Harris tries his best to reject all supernatural claims made in the Bible itself, and find scientific/anthropological/sociological explanations instead. Modern science rejects the supernatural, and embraces only natural phenomena and proof. This means that anyone reading the text must be ready to suspend supernatural religious beliefs they may now hold, and agree to read an interpretation of the Bible that may be difficult or uncomfortable for them, especially fundamentalists, evangelicals, and others anti-rationalists.