A Most Peculiar Book

December 18, 2020

Based on her ongoing research on Christianity in general as well the contradictions that she discovered while reading the Bible as a child and, later, as an adult, this latest work by Swenson (Virginia Commonwealth Univ.; Bible Babel) maintains that the Bible is a complex book that cannot be understood in a simple or literal manner. Her book primarily concerns hermeneutics, the methods of interpreting the Bible. She shows that the Bible is comprised of many books, compiled for more than a thousand years, and that it provides multiple and sometimes inconsistent perspectives. The four sections of the book are "A Book Like No Other," "Beings Odd and Otherwise," "Troubling Texts," and "But the Bible Says." Swenson states that by reading the Bible in a personal, intelligent, and curious way, questioning and even arguing with it, readers will discover new insights and gain a greater understanding of it, even with all of its inconsistencies. The author writes this insightful and instructive book for the believer, the unbeliever, and the ones in between, since they all might have interest in its methods of interpretation. VERDICT An original approach to understand the various meanings and methods of the Bible.--John Jaeger, Johnson Univ., Knoxville, TN

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Starred review from October 19, 2020
Swenson (God of Earth), an associate professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and PW reviewer, unpacks “what’s so weird, difficult, and disconcerting” about the Bible in this rigorous, stimulating work. Swenson relays the Bible’s origin as a series of scriptures compiled by largely unknown editors who had collected texts composed over many centuries by mostly anonymous authors writing in a variety of languages. She challenges assumptions commonly held by American Christians, such as the notion of one singular Bible—when, in fact, there are substantive differences between the Hebrew, Protestant, and Catholic Bibles—and one version of the Ten Commandments (Swenson identifies three). Pointing to conflicting biblical accounts, such as two different creation stories within Genesis and the Bible’s complex portrayals of God, Swenson discourages simplistic interpretations about what the Bible says, and urges readers to embrace curiosity and to question: “as long as people keep engaging with the text, God keeps speaking.” Swenson concludes with her own “Ten Commandments for Reading the Bible,” including “Thou shalt not make the Bible God” and “Thou shalt not presume that any given translation is the text itself.” Both religious and secular readers will benefit from Swenson’s illuminating analysis of the Bible’s contradictions and oddities.