Understanding the Bible

Harris combines the best modern scholarship with a detailed analysis of the text to provide a reasonably clear picture of The Bible and its origins. Practicing Christians and others owe it to themselves to become familiar with the The Bible outside of the bounds of the strongly biased presentations that are more readily available. Folks here who criticize this as "liberal" or "not respecting the alternative viewpoints" are simply reacting to the fact that Harris is seeking to approach the topic with an objectivity and degree of scholarship that is uncommon. If someone's cherished misconceptions about The Bible turn out to be simply incorrect then we shouldn't blame Harris for revealing that fact. Don't shoot the messenger.

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.

this is a great book. Harris gives a clear sighted view of the development of the bible put in its historical context. One can clearly see how the historical and mythological backdrops that existed at the time helped to create the stories that the bible tells. the stories about jesus and his comparison with dionoysis is very good and bound to shake the foundations of fundamentalists. anyone who really wants to learn about the bible for real needs this book.

Harris's _Understand the Bible_ is thorough, extremely well documented, and much more digestible than the cumbersome textbook I'm using in Bible as Literature now. It's nicely laid out and contains great illustrations. I doubt readers who are secure in their beliefs would find such sound scholarship threatening. My only complaint is that, with our school's pre-set spending limits, I can't require this book and the Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard bible at the same time--though the book is a bargain for what it contains.

Literary scholars attempting to study the Bible for the first time should refer to this book. Chronologically ordered, the chapters in this book allow for easy reference, as they coincide with the order in which the books of the Bible are placed. Also, as it is fairly easy reading, I find that the insight and background information (such as the literary history) Harris presents for each work of the Bible is truly an asset to my studies.