A Most Peculiar Book

The Bible, we are constantly reminded, is the best-selling book of all time. It is read with intense devotion by hundreds of millions of people, stands as the authoritative text for Judaism and Christianity, and informs and affects the politics and lives of the religious and non-religious around the world. But how well do we really know it? The Bible is so familiar, so ubiquitous that we have begun to take our knowledge of it for granted. The Bible we think we know is a pale imitation of the real thing.

In A Most Peculiar Book, Kristin Swenson addresses the dirty little secret of biblical studies-that the Bible is a weird book. It is full of surprises and contradictions, unexplained impossibilities, terrifying supernatural creatures, and heroes doing horrible deeds. It is far from a systematic worldview. Still Swenson notices a tendency of readers to reduce the complexities of the Bible to aphorisms, bumper stickers, and slogans. But taken as a collection of ancient stories and poetry written by multiple authors, held together by the tenuous string of tradition, the Bible often undermines our modern assumptions. What does it mean to be "unclean"? Who really killed Goliath? Does Jesus condemn nonbelievers to Hell?

Rather than dismiss the Bible as an outlandish or irrelevant relic of antiquity, Swenson leans into the messiness full-throttle, guiding her readers through a Bible that will to many feel brand new. Making ample room for discomfort, wonder, and weirdness, A Most Peculiar Book is an admirable response to the Bible's current status quo.