An Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy [Hardcover]

Isn't it funny that some of the critics of this book that give it one star when obviously by their comments have not read it. In fear they try to bring the ratings down without trusting their logic to challenge the issues addressed. Unfortunately, they only show how biased and ignorant people can be when they believe in faith (or just because).

The author could present the information in a more professional manner. However, there are points he makes that prove to me that the bible is to say the least poorly written and the old testament hardly supports the new testament. If the bible is poorly written then how can that be the word of God? After reading this book, the bible can only be perceived as well written to an individual does not read it seriously from an unbiased viewpoint. One of the issues Mckensy brings up is how Jesus refers to Isaiah as refering to him (page 409). When you read what jesus says and what Isaih really says it becomes apparent that the verse was manipulated to make it appear as a prediction of jesus. When one reads the chapter it is obvious it isn't about Jesus. Jesus changes the words and adds statements of healing the blind. If this is what Jesus, authors, and christians have to do to make people believe in their belief then I want no part of it. I want the truth for real and it amazes me how people who supposedly base their life on truth can convience themselves of obvious lies.

I was not sure of my faith when I began to read this book and other books by the christian author McDowell. It appears the ones who claim to have the truth are the ones who are ignoring IMPORTANT well argued issues as if they never existed in defense of thier emotional attachments to their crazy beliefs. I simply want the truth and do not see how one can be convienced the bible has it after reading this book.

Yet again, a book is reviewed by a few people who haven't actually read it. I ACTUALLY have read it (and bought it through amazon.com by the way) and can attest to the fact that the title is truthful to the contents inside of its covers. It truly is an encyclopedia of biblical errancy. What puts this book ahead of other biblical errancy books is that it not only shows the context of errant bible passages(to eliminate the 'out of context' defense) but also shows the laughable rationalizations that christian apologists use to try to portray the bible as being harmonious.

One funny rationalization by a bible apologist presented in this book was that because the copyists of the bible truthfully copied the obvious errors (made by copyists) that the copyists could be trusted in their copying. (Go ahead and read the last part again. It's just as funny the second time.)

I can also sympathize with the author when he says that he constantly gets the "that's not an accurate" bible defense and the author requests to see an "accurate" bible that the apologist never gets around to showing him.. Once I cornered someone in an argument into telling me where I can get an "accurate" bible since none of the ones that I presented were to her liking. She basically told me that I would have to fly to Israel and get permission to see some of the dead sea scrolls from some person whose name I can't remember. Silly me thinking that that she would be willing to defend the bible that she was preaching from.

I have read other books like 'The Bible Handbook' put out by American Atheist Press which isn't anywhere near as thorough as this is in dissecting bible verses as is this book. Yes, the price of the book is a little high, but it IS worth it.

I do have a few criticisms but they are minor. The first is that the author does lose his temper at times at ridiculous apologist rationalizations. Taken within the context of what he has lost his temper at it is understandable but not entirely excusable. The other criticism that I have is that I don't feel that every error that he finds is entirely an error. Some of his finding seem to me to fall into a gray area. I agree with about 95% of his findings, but I can't help but feel that the apologists will harp on the 5%. Because of that it is probably best to just to stick to the certain errors.

And to the gentleman from brazil with the incomprehensible english(even worse than mine) who didn't bother to read the book but has graced us with his opinion about it never the less, I have this to say - if having martyrs is proof of the infallibility of a religion than what of all those martyrs of other religions (islam, judaism, native american, etc.) who have died at the hands of christians because they believed in their religions and not the christian religion? The fact is that the number of christians who have died for their religion is much less than the number of non-christians who have died for their religion AT THE HANDS OF CHRISTIANS. If you don't know the history of christians turning non-christians into martyrs for their other faiths then maybe you should actually read some books rather than just criticize ones you haven't read.

(I can't help but wonder how 'martyr proven infallibility' hasn't helped the jews in their belief that jesus was NOT the messiah or god. One can only speculate....)

I just felt the need to respond the reader from Pasadena. I was so amused by the comments that I just had to respond. He or she claims that it took until the 20th century for someone to see the massive contradictions and errors of the Bible. This is patently false. The Bible's errors, if you believe such a thing , were attacked and discussed by Spinoza(1670)in his publication "Tractus Theologico-Politicus. The answer to this publication by the religious authorities was to try to quell it. This action also explains why criticism of the Bible was so slow in coming. The fear of torture and death tends to stop even the heartiest of souls from speaking their mind. He even wrote in Latin so there would less chance of him getting in trouble by the mob. Thomas Paine wrote a devastating critique of Christianity and the Bible in the late 18th century called "Age of Reason." Paine was able to write such a criticism because America actual gave more than lip service to the idea of freedom of speech. A little snippet from Paine:" Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity." I intentionally named two men who weren't atheists to prove that the Bible has been vociferously attacked by theists, deists, agnostics, and atheists alike. Ever since man has been given the freedom to speak and write, the Bible has been attacked. The greatest minds and philosophers of the last 200 years have had very little time for Christianity. People like Nietzsche, Shopenhauer, Darwin, Einstein, Russell, and Sartre have either spent their time ignoring Christianity or criticizing it. It's not my point to say that everyone who has been a Christian for the last two hundred years has been an idiot. I would hardly call Dostoevsky an idiot. He is one of the greatest writers in the history of literature, in my opinion. There have been many intelligent Christians from the past and there will many in the future. My point is that the majority of intellectuals in the last couple of centuries have not been particularly kind to the Bible or Christianity in general. Church authorities have had a long history of supressing any kind of criticism of the Bible or the official teachings of the Catholic Church or the Protestant beliefs that followed. It wasn't until the 17th century that such criticism was even allowed. This is why there was hardly any criticism of the Bible up until the 17th century. I wrote this "review" not to praise or criticize this book. As you noticed, I said nothing about it. I just felt the need to respond to the one reviewer's ingenuous statements.