Author(s): Kristin Swenson

Bible Study

For a book that has consistently topped the best-seller lists since the invention of the modern printing press, the Bible remains wildly misunderstood. Inconsistencies and unexplained impossibilities are often set aside, with readers picking and choosing aphorisms and slogans at will. Such a pick-and-choose mentality is concerning, given the fact that the Bible remains influential in people's private lives and in public policy and discourse. Kristin Swenson's new book seeks to remind readers of the oddities and complications in the Bible, suggesting that those uncomfortable spots can offer remarkable opportunity for spiritual growth. 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 authoritative 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 many of us 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 DL that the Bible is a weird book. It is full of surprises and contradictions, unexplained impossibilities, intriguing supernatural creatures, and heroes doing horrible deeds. It does not provide a simple worldview: what "the Bible says" on a given topic is multi-faceted, sometimes even contradictory. Yet, Swenson argues, we have a tendency to reduce the complexities of the Bible to aphorisms, bumper stickers, and slogans. Swenson helps readers look at the text with fresh eyes. 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. And is all the more marvelous and powerful for it.Rather than dismiss the Bible as an outlandish or irrelevant relic of antiquity, Swenson leans into the messiness full-throttle. Making ample room for discomfort, wonder, and weirdness, A Most Peculiar Book guides readers through a Bible that will feel, to many, brand new.