The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: The King James Version from a Skeptic's Point of View Hardcover – February 15, 2013

It’s not just the Christian faith that this excellent resource shows to be based on absurdities, it’s also Islam and Judaism. The “Abrahamic” religions all have in common their belief that the Pentateuch (Torah) is divinely inspired. These five books alone have enough outrageous, violent and perverse nonsense in them to see all of these religions for what they are: bizarre superstitions.Steve Wells did an incredible job putting this book together. He said in a video that he wondered why no one came up with the idea before to put this kind of a book together (we should all wonder why, given the absolutely inane content of the Bible). It took me over 40 years of being trapped by Christianity (mainly because of a belief in hell) to finally realize how absurd and dangerous this religion is. It began with my discovery that this place called “hell,” a place of eternal torment and pain, isn’t even mentioned in the Old Testament, but that it is spoken of frequently by Jesus, the meek and mild savior of the mindless (that’s right, it’s blind faith, not reason, that turns someone into a Jesus worshipper).Imagine the peace of mind that a person is robbed of when he is told about this place of eternal torment and unbearable pain, a place he is going to end up in if the doesn’t “get right with Jesus” by “repenting of his sins” and saying that ridiculous “sinner’s prayer”? I know, because I went through it all, often wondering throughout all those years if I might not really be one of God’s “chosen” and end up in hell after I died. After reading a number of “extimonies” (the opposite of testimonies) and taking a critical look at scripture (something I thought only a hell-bound nonbeliever would do), I woke up to the reality that the Bible is anything but the inspired, inerrant word of a god that is claimed to be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.Though the diehard Christian would probably not put it this way, their religion teaches a compulsion to love their god or suffer in hell forever. How is it even possible to love such a creature? Imagine a woman being able to love a man who proposes to her and then warns her that if she doesn’t accept his proposal he will abduct her, chain her up in his basement, and torture her until she dies (hell is worse, because it’s unending torture).I discovered another absurdity when I looked a little closer at Christ’s alleged sacrifice. The definition of sacrifice is “the act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or person.” Doesn’t sacrifice require the permanent loss of something? Was Jephthah's daughter brought back to life after her father offered her up to god “as a burnt offering” (Judges 11: 30-39)? What do you say about a savior that is not willing to meet the terms he laid down for all of humanity? He gave us two choices: love this god or go to this god’s hell for eternity. If it’s like the “good book” teaches us, that Jesus took our punishment for sin, then why isn’t Jesus suffering in hell for eternity? The “good book” teaches us that he went right to heaven.But the whole idea of taking a terrible person’s (the Bible teaches that we are all terrible and deserving of hell) place and suffering in his stead is just one of many absurdities in the Bible. Can you imagine in a court of law a person being allowed by the judge to suffer in the stead of a criminal that was a repeat offender who had molested children? Or a serial killer who said he enjoyed what he did? Doesn’t belief in substitute atonement simply absolve people of responsibility? At the very least, it will make a man who had lived his life committing horrific crimes feel pretty good about himself if all he has to do is “lay it all at the foot of the cross” by saying that ridiculous “sinner’s prayer.” He’ll immediately have the respect of his fellow believers and be assured by them that he will be ushered into heaven upon his death.Steve Wells is a hero among those who have been delivered of their superstitions and set free from a life of baseless guilt (like for the sin of Adam that we are all said to be born with) and worrying about possibly going to this eternal torture chamber if we are on the wrong side of the Christian god.I highly recommend reading Mr. Wells’ excellent book and complementing it with some videos of debates between Christians and Christopher Hitchens, David Silverman, and Sam Harris.. And for some laughs, watch George Carlin’s video “Religion is Bulls***,” and the videos of a guy who calls himself NonStampCollector.

People don't really read the Bible anymore - damn thing's too long, too boring, and too old-fashioned.Better instead to go to church on Sunday and rock out with that edgy youth pastor, you know the one, the guy with the goatee and the ear piercing.Because of this mindset, the modern day Christian isn't exposed to the hideous glory of The Bible.So how much of the Bible do most people really know? At most, a few carefully chosen passages, repeated ad nauseum.The vast majority of the weighty tome is wholly ignored, and only picked up to move it out of the way of the hymnals or other publications held in the church pew.This book remedies that; it encourages people to read the Bible - or causes them to bury their head even further in the sand. It is nothing less than the entirety of the King James Bible, annotated and cross referenced to point out all the illogical, immoral, and indefensible passages contained within its self-contradictory pages. And by doing so, it issues a challenge to the religious: "Have you actually *read* this thing? No? Maybe you should, then, considering you've decided to shape your life around it."And, oh, there is so much horror in the Bible. The subjugation of women is so consistent throughout that it appears more as backdrop to the other horrors than as the cornerstone of patriarchy and male privilege to which it actually functions. Women are property, and their value is determined in how well they keep quiet and chaste. Want to know how to sell your daughter into slavery? Deuteronomy has you covered, friend! Want to justify keeping women from any position of authority or responsibility in society whatsoever? Well then Timothy is going to give you all the justification you need. And the Skeptic's Annotated Bible points it all out, just in case you missed or conveniently ignored it.Of course, this is but one example among many. Maybe you're looking to justify rape, murder, hell, even genocide - well, God's put his stamp of approval on all those acts and more. What about slavery? Sure, both the New and Old Testament can help you out there.What if you care less about all the stuff that society generally condems, and are simply interested in whether the bible contradicts itself? Well, there's 500+ examples of that, from little things like how many Philistine foreskin David had to pay in order to buy his bride (Is it 100 or 200? We'll never know!) to big things like whether you should judge one another (Depends on His Mood, I guess!)Now, to be fair, the notes can be a bit snarky at times, or sometimes stretch to make a point. But the vast majority are useful and educational. Also, you should be careful with the book's spine - you need to properly limber it up by opening a few pages at a time, from front and back towards the center page of the book, or you'll likely destroy the binding in little to no time. This is pretty standard care for a large, leather bound volume - some of the complaints about the the binding in these reviews just come from people who don't treat their books properly.Put simply: this is a great book, nicely constructed and eminently useful.

Although a well put-together work, as a life-long atheist, I didn't find anything in here that was new to me. Whole shelves of books on Biblical analysis have dealt (often in great detail) with skeptical positions on pretty much every point raised in this volume. I was tempted to only give four stars for that reason. On the other hand, I didn't want to slight a book which obviously took a tremendous amount of work to assemble simply because -I- already have a library of atheist writings. And indeed, this book provides a very handy single-volume reference for material which would otherwise have to be searched out over many books.The book is printed in Biblical format -- parallel columns -- with the Biblical text on one side of the page, and the skeptical deconstruction on the other. The author identifies various categories of issue: contradictions; injustices; cruelties; conflicts with science; etc., points them out in the Biblical context, and then explains clearly -why- he chose to so categorize them. Perhaps most importantly, this book allows these skeptical arguments to be related to the Biblical text /in context/, which is much preferable to (and more scholarly than) merely criticizing isolated passages of the Bible.Of course few Biblical literalists are likely to be swayed from their beliefs by this (or, indeed any other) skeptical book. But those believers who feel that parts of the Bible are allegorical may find this analysis interesting, and perhaps even helpful. And for skeptical freethinkers, its a handy reference to use when having a Bible discussion or debate. If you were only going to have one skeptical religious reference on your shelf, The Skeptic's Annotated Bible would definitely be one of the better choices you could make.

Thank you for putting all this research together. You've helped me tremendously when pointing things out in the bible. I also really enjoy that you have it all on your website. Again thank you.

Es reconfortante leer una opinión crítica sobre la Biblia en vez del dogmatismo fanático que agobia y embrutece."La Biblia no es un libro de ciencia ni de historia, es un libro de IDEAS", me lo dijo un rabino.

Very good one with all intra reference.

Even though the printed version has its charm, having the book in a digital format makes the process of constantly checking the references way easier. Strongly recommended.

I have quite a few bibles now. This is by far the best.