Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible »

David Plotz is the editor of Slate. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, The Washington Post, and GQ, and is the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. He won the National Press Club's Hume Award for political journalism and has been a National Magazine Award finalist. He lives with his wife, the journalist Hanna Rosin, and their children in Washington, D.C.

At a time when wars are fought over scriptural interpretation, when the influence of religion on American politics has never been greater, when many Americans still believe in the Bible’s literal truth, it has never been more important to get to know the Bible. Good Book is what happens when a regular guy—an average Job—actually reads the book on which his religion, his culture, and his world are based. Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid?

The New York Times - Rich Cohen

It's CliffsNotes for Scripture—screenplay by Plotz, story by God—which is by turns entertaining, serious, shallow, profound, literal-minded, cute, ingratiating, hilarious.

Introduction: In the Beginning 1

1 The Book of Genesis: God's First Try 7

2 The Book of Exodus: Let My Complaining, Whining, No-Goodnik People Go! 35

3 The Book of Leviticus: Lovers and Lepers 55

4 The Book of Numbers: The Source of All Jewish Comedy 69

5 The Book of Deuteronomy: The Bible's Fifth Beatle 85

6 The Book of Joshua: Why So Many Bible Hookers? 99

7 The Book of Judges: The Meathead and the Left-Handed Assassin 109

8 The Book of 1 Samuel: The Bible's Bill Clinton 123

9 The Book of 2 Samuel: God's Favorite King 139

10 The Book of 1 Kings: Kings of Pain 151

11 The Book of 2 Kings: The End of Israel 167

12 Digging the Bible 177

13 The Book of Isaiah: The Jesus Preview 189

14 The Book of Jeremiah: The Prophet and the Lustful She-Camel 201

15 The Book of Ezekiel: God's Whole-Grain Hippie Prophet 209

16 The Minor Prophets: All Those Books You've Never Heard Of, Plus Jonah and the Whale 219

17 The Book of Psalms: 150 Short Poems about God 229

18 The Book of Proverbs: Chicken Soup for the Hebrew Soul 241

19 The Book of Job: God's Bad Bet 247

20 The Song of Songs: Hot and Holy 259

21 The Book of Ruth: My Favorite Bible Story 265

22 The Books of Lamentations and Ecclesiastes: Bible Books for Rock Stars 269

23 The Book of Esther: The First Miss Universe Pageant 275

24 The Book of Daniel: Nice Pussycat! 283

25 The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah: Coming Home 289

26 The Books of 1 and 2 Chronicles: Return of the Kings 295

27 Should You Read the Bible? 299

Appendix Useful (and Not So Useful) Bible Lists 307

Acknowledgements 321