101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History

I love all of Gary Greenberg's books. As a biblical and legal scholar (Doctor of Law), he brings a uniquely rational and logical approach to everything he writes.The title is a bit unfortunate, as it has a negative connotation of debunking myths, but the truth is that the book gives you the historical and theological sources for each bible story. So, while we all may have read of Gilgamesh in relation to Noah's Ark story, Greenberg brings dozens of similar stories from the surrounding cultures of the time for EACH of the biblical stories.While I knew of some of the Ugaritic stories, the bulk of background information in this book is about Egyptian stories, most of which were new to me.If you are looking for tools to help you think about the bible in "rational" rather than "faith" terms, then you will probably find this book interesting, as I did.I like to think of the bible, besides as being the first-ever, greatest-ever and largest-scale-ever literary and poetic work, also as the "state of the art" of the most advanced thinkers of the day. If you think of it in that light, then you would want to know what others knew and were thinking at the time. Greenberg's book (like all his other books) gives you exactly the background you are probably missing to judge this claim. If the bible encompasses everything what was known and understood back THEN about creation, history, genealogy, theology, morality and law, then you would hope and expect it to contain all prior knowledge known to humanity at the time of its writing.

The use of the word "myth" in the title of this book is perhaps unfortunate. Readers who associate the word "myth" with falsehood may pass this interesting book by. The author has examined the biblical stories that we are all more or less familiar with and located earlier versions of those same stories in other cultures, particularly that of ancient Egypt. The evidence turns out to be surprisingly compelling.This is not a book that attempts to debunk the Bible, but rather treats the stories sympathically. While this approach may offend the strict literalistic reader, other believers will be struck by the mythic power that these stories possess. It is also true that the open-minded reader will be impressed by the evidence that connects Bible stories to earlier accounts of the gods of the Egyptians and others. To me this was fascinating stuff!One more point: The organization of this book makes it very easy to read. By having each chapter deal with a very specific story or "myth" and by presenting the antecedent myths and related evidence with the confines of the chapter, this book is very easy to read. One can turn to any chapter at random and read it with a complete understanding of the author's contention on that particular story. This makes the book an easy and informative read.

“101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History” by Gary Greenberg, is an interesting book. He is the president of the Biblical Archeology Society of New York.He contends, like many other people, that God did not compose the Bible. He tells us about the scholarly view that the Bible is composed of writing from many sources called J, E, P, and D, with many scholars believing that each of the four was not a single person but several people who added and edited the works over a period of time. He adds to the scholars who support this idea, called the Documentary Hypothesis, that the human writers drew from ancient myths in other cultures to create the narratives they included in the Bible. He seems to be saying that the Bible writers were not original authors of the tales; they at most modified the preexisting stories to fit their world view.Readers can agree with this view of Greenberg in whole or in part, or disagree entirely. They might feel that there are some similarities between stories but they are slight, often so slight as to require a use of the imagination to see the similarities. For example, he states that Bible authors took the idea of the snake in Eden from an Egyptian God who took the form of a snake. Also, Jacob wrestling with a stranger was drawn from a myth between the forces of day and night.Besides comparing biblical tales to ancient myths of other cultures, Greenberg also sometimes points out problem biblical text, such as seeing two creation stories, two Flood stories, and two tales of what kind of animals to bring into the ark, two or seven of a kind.Whether one agrees with Greenberg or not, he certainly prompts his readers to think, and this is good.

Great summer reading.... open minded,free thought reading should be instilled in schools... I am a natural born atheist. Dogmas and superstition have no place in a supposed free-educated society. My thoghts.

When I saw this was available for Kindle, I bought it again. This book does a fantastic job pointing out inconsistencies in the bible. I'm not saying there aren't good moral lessons to be gleaned from any ancient texts, but those who insist that "their book" is infallible need to read some opposing views and try to develop a more objective perspective. Greenberg methodically points out the contradictions without making judgments. If one looks at the OT specifically as how it was viewed when it was a contemporary document, the context and intent is much clearer.

Pick it up, start reading, and you'll not want to put it down.Religious, non religious, you'll all like it.You cannot fight the facts, the history, and it will help open your eyes to your faith, and or, more importantly, may help open your eyes to saying, "It's OK to not have that faith".I'm not anti-religious, just pro-knowledge. This book will increase your knowledge, even if you decide to keep the 'faith'.It's all OK, nobody gets out alive :-)

Most people read the bible but actually do not read the bible. This book explains a lot. Highly reccommnt it.

The Genesis of Genesis effectively.Well written summary of the development of various primary myths, which were developed by fertile minds, to become the Best Selling piece of fiction of all time. Worth following some of the references in this book for other myth sources. Some of the obvious links, available elsewhere, have been left out and it is not obvious whether this is intentional.

This describes the origins of the creation story and other stories made up by the Jews and used in their holy book, which became the bible. Most christians have only a Sunday school knowledge of their religion along with some old wives tales. This should be compulsory reading for them.

Could use more documentation / listing of sources

An interesting book but probably better to dip into as it does get a bit 'samey' after a period of time as often each bible storey is broken down into five or more parts and there is a lot of duplication comparing each part to the 'original' source.