The Skeptic's Annotated Bible Kindle Edition

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is the best book I have ever found for exploring what's wrong in the bible. It's so well researched and organized. I'm having so much fun with it! I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone who wants answers related to the bible. Kudos to author Steve Wells for producing this much needed work!

Accurate and fun. Gave my wife a good chuckle!

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.

This is a great resource for skeptics. The font is a little small for me. I wish they had a large font version too.

Very well researched book shows what a flawed document the Bible is and how it has to be written by man and not a divine text!!

I never questioned the Bible as much as I have after reading the things that are pointed out in this book. I don’t know if anyone will ever make sense or interpret the Bible correctly, but this book will make people think differently even if they don’t agree with some of the things that are said by the author.

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.

I’m so glad that someone finally had the balls to call religion out for what it is, a cult written my men not god. Steve wells did a brilliant job outlining all the outrageous claims the Bible makes in virtually every area of life. Contradictions, absurdity, cruelty and injustice, conflicts with science and history etc.

Gorgeous. Funny, informed and compulsive.The supplier clearly loves books. This is, without exception, the best packaged item I have ever received.A great book delivered majestically.

Wonderful book, better than the original

Nascido e educado em lar cristão sempre tive a Bíblia como livro inspirado, divino, inerrante, sagrado e todos outros adjetivos mais sublimes.Instigado por algumas leituras de autores cuja visão de mundo se opõem à minha tradicional tenho apreciado muito essa jornada conhecendo muitos aspectos jamais imaginados e nunca percebidos por mim em minhas leituras devocionais.Assim, tenho gostado muito de deixar-me compreender o pensamento dos céticos e isso tem-me feito modular minhas antigas percepções.Percepções essas que hoje as considero fundamentalistas, muitas delas sectárias, e outras tantas claramente movidas por intolerância religiosa, e ainda outras de puro desprezo por quem pensa de forma diferente da minha opinião.Sem dúvida "conhecereis a verdade, e a verdade vos libertará".THE SKEPTICS ANNOTATED BIBLE promove com muita propriedade a divulgação de percepções bastante interessantes sobre a Bíblia. Fornece detalhes importantes que geralmente passam despercebidos pela maioria esmagadora dos leitores convencionais da Bíblia.Gostei muitíssimo do livro. Uma obra para ser consultada com frequência a título de saber o contraditório.

Vorab, ich bin kein Atheist, aber nach einer kurzen Durchsicht des Buchs... : Es ist schwer, keiner zu werden. Ich habe im Netz nach einer Zusammenstellung der Widersprüche in der Bibel gesucht und dabei bin ich auf das Buch gestoßen. Da hat sich jemand große Mühe gemacht. Man findet was man sucht und alle Vorurteile werden bestätigt. Gott als Ursprung der Moral? Eher als abschreckendes Beispiel. Klar, wenn man immer in die selbe Kerbe haut, ist man nicht mehr unbefangen. Klar auch, dass Christen mit diesen Widersprüchen große Probleme haben - müssen... Wenn man dann noch die neusten Ergebnisse der Archäologie berücksichtigt (a. Finkelstein) - was bleibt dann noch übrig. Dazu sollte man andere Bücher lesen - aber bitte nicht nach dem Prinzip "Augen zu uns durch"! Dafür sind es einfach zu viele Widersprüche. Warum hat man ein so offensichtlich "fehlerhaftes" Buch geschrieben? Da wird es richtig interessant. Dieses Buch ist eine Fleißarbeit! Ein Buch, das auf dem von Steve Wells aufbaut und die Bibel nicht als baufälliges Dilettantenwerk zurücklässt, das verdient fünf Sterne,

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.