Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [4]
Questions like these resonate deeply with many people, whether well schooled in the Bible or embarrassed by their lack of biblical knowledge. Don’t Know Much About the Bible is aimed at answering these questions for an audience that still considers the Bible sacred and important but just doesn’t know what it says. For instance, most people are astonished to learn that Genesis contains not one but two Creation stories, significantly different in details and meaning. In the first of these Creations, men and women are created simultaneously in “God’s image.” This is followed by a second Garden of Eden surprise: there was no apple. A few of the other widely held Bible misconceptions are equally remarkable. The commandment does not say “Thou shalt not kill.” David didn’t slay Goliath. Jonah wasn’t in the belly of a whale. David didn’t write the Psalms of David. Solomon didn’t write Song of Solomon. Isaiah didn’t write Isaiah. And King David and Jesus were both descended from prostitutes.
To clear away the cobwebs of misconception surrounding the Bible, this book traces the history of the Bible itself and how it came to be. Many of the events described in the Bible, such as the fifty-year captivity of the Jewish people in Babylon or New Testament events occurring during the heights of the Roman empire, can be matched to recorded history. While the ancient Israelites existed as a fairly small group of nomadic herders, the Egyptians built one of the most extraordinary civilizations in human history. (Do you find it curious that the Bible never mentions the pyramids?) Jesus lived and preached in a small outpost of the mighty Roman empire, whose language and laws continue to influence our lives.
By examining the Bible historically, one aim of this book is to show which Biblical teachings may have been just fine for an ancient, seminomadic world, and which may still apply to life at the dawn of the twenty-first century. There are many biblical laws that modern Jews and Christians no longer accept. For instance, even the most hard-core fundamentalists would probably agree that it is no longer necessary for a father to prove his daughter’s virginity by displaying a bloody sheet in the town square. It is safe to say that most of us no longer believe that a mother must make a burnt offering after bearing a child or that a woman is “unclean” while menstruating. All these are drawn from the Laws of Moses.
Have you let your animals breed with a different kind? Sown your fields with two kinds of seed? Have you put on a garment made of two different materials? Well then, you’ve broken some of God’s statutes as laid out by Moses in Leviticus.
How many still think that adultery should be punished by stoning, as Jewish Law provides? (Probably quite a few in the “First Wives Club”!) Anyone who wants a sense of biblical justice in the modern world might look at Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban, Islamic fundamentalists whose ideas of appropriate behavior and punishment are not too different from those of the ancient Israelites.
The questions I raise in Don’t Know Much About the Bible, whether profound or irreverent, are aimed at dusting off some timeworn misimpressions and refreshing rusty recollections. Often these questions address “household” names and events from the Bible, such as what the Exodus was or who the “Good Samaritan” was, or what the Sermon on the Mount says. We know they’re important, but we can’t put our finger on exactly what they are and why we should know about them. But going beyond those, I pry open some bigger cans of worms. Why are there two Creation stories in Genesis? Why can’t Moses enter the “Promised Land”? Was Jesus really born on Christmas? Why Mary Magdalene naughty or nice?
Of course, these