Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [0]
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GOOD BOOK BUT NEVER LEARNED
Kenneth C. Davis
Dedication
To Joann—
A capable wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
(Proverbs 31:10-11)
Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all,
(Proverbs 31:29)
CONTENTS
Dedication
Epigraph
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: Whose Bible Is It Anyway?
PART TWO: The Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament
Two Creations…NoApple (Genesis)
Let My People Go (Exodus)
Forty Years on the Road (Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)
Over the River (Joshua)
Why, Why, Why, Delilah? (Judges, Ruth)
Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears a Crown…Part 1 ( 1 & 2 Samuel)
Uneasy Lies the Head…Part 2 (1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Lamentations)
Eight Men Out (The Pre-Exile Prophets)
Amos
Hosea
Isaiah
Micah
Nahum
Zephaniah
Habakkuk
Jeremiah
You Can Go Home Again (Ezra, Nehemiah)
From Dry Bones to Fish Bellies (The Post-Exile Prophets)
Ezekiel
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Obadiah
Joel
Jonah
A Godless Book (Esther)
The Devil Made Me Do It (Job)
Out of the Mouths of Babes (Psalms)
Happy Are Those Who Find Wisdom (Proverbs)
Nothing New Under the Sun (Ecclesiastes)
The Love Machine, Another Godless Book (Song of Solomon)
Hebrew 1-Lions 0 (Daniel)
Between the Books (The Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical Books)
PART THREE: The New Testament
The World According to Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)
Jesus Is Coming—Look Busy (Acts of the Apostles)
You Have Mail! (The Epistles of Paul)
The “Pastoral Letters” (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus)
More Mail (The General Epistles)
Apocalypse Now? (Revelation)
Afterword: Whose God Is It Anyway?
Appendix 1: The Ten Commandments
Appendix 2: The Twenty-third Psalm
Appendix 3: The Lord’s Prayer
Appendix 4: The Prologue to John’s Gospel
Glossary
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Searchable Terms
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Epigraph
There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosphy.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
HAMLET
It ain’t necessarily so—
The things that you’re liable
to read in the Bible—
It ain’t necessarily so,
—IRA GERSHWIN,
“IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO,” 1935
One of the reasons why religion seems irrelevant today is that many of us
no longer have the sense that we are surrounded by the unseen.
—KAREN ARMSTRONG,
A HISTORY OF GOD
INTRODUCTION
When I was in the sixth grade, a building was going up across the street from my school. Like most ten- or eleven-year-old boys, I preferred watching bulldozers in action and concrete being poured to whatever was being written on the blackboard. I spent a lot of sixth grade gazing out the window. I don’t think I learned anything that year.
The redbrick structure I watched rising with such absorbed fascination was a church. Unlike the soaring Gothic cathedrals of Europe or the formidable fortress-like stone church my family attended, this was not a typical church. It was being built in the shape of a mighty boat. Presumably, it was Noah’s ark. Most of us have a mental picture of Noah’s ark and we all think it looks like a cute tugboat with a little house on top.
Except that Noah’s ark didn’t look anything like that. You can look it up yourself. Right there in Genesis, you’ll find God’s Little Instruction Book, a set of divine plans for building an ark. Unfortunately, like most directions that come with bicycles or appliances, these are a little sketchy, providing little more than the rough dimensions of 300 by 50 by 30 cubits (or roughly 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high). God told Noah to add a roof and put in three decks. Beyond that, God’s instructions came without a diagram, unless Noah threw away the blueprints when he finished. So we should count Noah putting this thing together in time to beat the rains as one of the first miracles.
Many years after I gazed out that classroom window, I discovered that the original Hebrew word for “ark” literally