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The Bible, we are constantly reminded, is the best-selling book of all time. It is read with intense devotion by hundreds of millions of people, stands as the authoritative text for Judaism and Christianity, and informs and affects the politics and lives of the religious and non-religious around the world. But how well do we really know it? The Bible is so familiar, so ubiquitous that we have begun to take our knowledge of it for granted. The Bible we think we know is a pale imitation of the real thing.
In The Misunderstood Bible, Kristin M. Swenson addresses the dirty little secret of biblical studies-that the Bible is a weird book. It is full of surprises and contradictions, unexplained impossibilities, terrifying supernatural creatures, and heroes doing horrible deeds. It is far from a systematic worldview. Still Swenson notices a tendency of readers to reduce the complexities of the Bible to aphorisms, bumper stickers, and slogans. But taken as a collection of ancient stories and poetry written by multiple authors, held together by the tenuous string of tradition, the Bible often undermines our modern assumptions. What does it mean to be "unclean"? Who really killed Goliath? Does Jesus condemn nonbelievers to Hell?
Rather than dismiss the Bible as an outlandish or irrelevant relic of antiquity, Swenson leans into the messiness full-throttle, guiding her readers through a Bible that will to many feel brand new. Making ample room for discomfort, wonder, and weirdness, The Misunderstood Bible is an admirable response to the Bible's current status quo.
A Most Peculiar Book The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible
by Swenson, KristinFormat: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 2021-02-01
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
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Summary
Author Biography
Kristin M. Swenson is Associate Professor of Religious at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the author of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time and Living through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 - A Problematic Book
Chapter 2 - God
Chapter 3 - Angels, Demons, and a Talking Ass
Chapter 4 - Good People Behaving Badly
Chapter 5 - Impossibilities, Normalized
Chapter 6 - Misconception, Misapprehensions
Chapter 7 - And General Befuddlements
Chapter 8 - Arguments Behind Closed Doors
Chapter 9 - Biblical (Im)morality
Chapter 10 - But in the Original...
Chapter 11 - The Perennial Bestseller
Chapter 12 - Ten Commandments for [Best Word Here] the Bible
In Conclusion, Sola Scriputra
Notes
Index
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