Good Book - David Plotz

[goodreads]

Title: Good Book
Author: David Plotz
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 320
Date read: August, 2010

At a time when wars are fought over scriptural interpretation, when the influence of religion on American politics has never been greater, when many Americans still believe in the Bible's literal truth, it has never been more important to get to know the Bible. Good Book is what happens when a regular guy - an average Job - actually reads the book on which his religion, his culture, and his world are based. Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid?

Very interesting book, especially when read (like I did) on the heels of The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I'm not sure what I would have thought of it if I hadn't been as familiar with the Old Testament though - I have a feeling it could get a bit difficult to follow otherwise, but I do think it would be a great (although occasionally irreverent) commentary to a read-through of the OT. I didn't always agree with David Plotz on his conclusions, but at the same time, he did occasionally manage to point things out to me that I'd never noticed before (e.g. that there are two sets of 10 Commandments found in Exodus - one in chapter 20 and one in chapter 34).

Good book for anybody interested in the Old Testament - no matter whether they'd consider themselves religious or not.

After finishing the book, I discovered that David Plotz is also the author of one of my favourite blogs, Blogging the Bible, which I should really have guessed, but I just never added 2 and 2 to get 4.