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| |  | Audio & Video | Home » » » Asimov's Guide to the Bible: A Historical Look at the Old and New Testaments | | | | | | | Description: | | In Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Isaac Asimov explores the historical, geographical, and biographical aspects of the events described in the Old and New Testaments. Asimov's attempts to illuminate the Bible's many obscure, mysterious passages prove absorbing reading for anyone interested in religion and history. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Isaac Asimov | | Hardcover:
| 1296 pages | | Publisher:
| Gramercy | | Publication Date:
| December 12, 1988 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 051734582X | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.7 inches | | Package Weight:
| 2.85 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 57 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 The genius of Doubting IsaacAug 06, 2009
Isaac Asimov's "Guide to the Bible" is one of the best works to get a grasp of the large and complicated book, the Bible. Asimov is out to put the Bible in concrete historical terms and explain what was happening sans mysticism or superstition. Asimov takes many liberties in trying to explain occurrences giving them rational or scientific validation and these as he usually will admit should be just taken as possibilities. Asimov does put events into an historical context, which he does well. Nothing, as Asimov said, is really new his writing and most of it has been said before but the conciseness of it was worth while. Asimov paints Jesus as a spin master in Mathew rather than take him at his word, which as things went along does have a prophetic quality, although Asimov doesn't pursue this. Also Asimov doesn't discount the reality that a few people were profoundly moved by the reserection, or what they believed to be one. He seems to hold up Mark as the most historically accurate Gospel Luke and Mathew each had a spin to put on and John is totally political with little if any historical accuracy in his, Asimov's, view. Revelations is about things that have happened on the ground recently, with the strong possibility that it is talking about the Christian persecution by Nero and other things in the recent past or predictions about the near future and 666 is Greek alphabetical code meaning Nero.
There is probably a better historical interpretation of the Bible, but I don't know what that would be, it would seem there should be. This was pretty good, but again Asimov does do a lot of guessing and scientific explaininations as well as good historical research - the two need to be taken seperately. For instance Asimov speculates that St Paul went blind due to an epileptic siezure and then, at least partially, rejects that idea by saying that a man who did as much traveling as Paul must be in the finest shape - he just grasps at straws. Some of Asimov's ideas were far off track, and yet some obvious points that support Jesus as Messiah were not pursued at all.
Asimov refers to the fact that the founders of Christianity really thought of them selves as Jews, Christians are Jews it is a question of semantics (Pagans would see little difference); so the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Judaism which I think to Paul would be a prophetic if not a miraculous conclusion. He leaves his book saying that some dramatic conclusion was expectant yet didn't happen and seems to mock believers for this, yet 350 years after Caligula tried to build a statue of himself as god in the Temple of Jerusalem a Roman Emporer converts to Judaism.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
An incredible read, allows to understand the historical context of the bibleJan 30, 2009
I was amazed by the incredible erudition necessary to write this book. Asimov gives us a historical tour of biblical times, taking each book of the bible one at time, for which the book is absolutely incredible and accessible (it would be priceless in my opinion for the chapters on the books of Kings alone). His objectives weren't to analyze the spiritual and humanistic aspects of the bible, only to narrate and contextualize the environment in which the biblical stories take place.
The maps, especially from the Old Testament segment, are very interesting; but together with the coherent and continuous narrative this is an incredible way to dive into a historical context unfamiliar to most.
Since Asimov's ambition is to narrate historical events, he at times must point out discrepancies between known historical chronology and the order in which biblical events take place. His take on the synoptic gospels is to comment on a possible historical Jesus, the reasonableness of the described census that takes Mary and John to make their travel, the historical Herod, and many interesting facts. Don't go in expecting any spiritual analysis; he is going for the historical realities and a possible non-miraculous "historical Jesus". This is the basic proposal of the book; it is a valuable, informative and fun read regardless of the religious convictions of the reader, but you should go in expecting a Historical Guide to the Bible.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Fascinating glimpse into the history of the Bible, with some flawsNov 14, 2008
As other reviewers have noted, "Asimov's Guide to the Bible" provides an interesting historical context for many of the people and places described in the Bible. It does so unevenly, sometimes providing pages of analysis on a single word, then skipping whole chapters. But this is an inevitable necessity given the length and depth of the subject; even with its selective focus, the book comes in at over 1200 pages. If Mr. Asimov had covered all topics equally, it would have spanned a dozen volumes and he never would have had time to write all the wonderfully imaginative science fiction he's deservedly famous for.
Which leads me to my only serious complaint about the book: Asimov occasionally allows his imagination to get the better of him. There are several points where he offers a possible scientific explanation for Biblical events that are apparently completely unfounded speculation.
For example he offers his own hypothesis that Noah's flood may have been caused by a meteor strike in the Persian Gulf. Possible, but he gives no supporting evidence to back this unnecessarily exotic explanation.
Later, he suggests that Joshua may have brought down the walls of Jericho with sappers while his marching army distracted the city's guards with horns and shouting. Again, he doesn't give any evidence (in fact, archaeological evidence suggests Jericho was uninhabited at the time the events in Joshua take place).
Despite these occasional unsupported injections, for the large part Asimov's writing is clear, engaging and most importantly, educating. While it might not be my first choice for an historical bible companion, I would definitely recommend it.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Asimov's GuideDec 28, 2007
My daughter suggested that I give her a Bible concordance as a Christmas gift. I bought one for her and then looked for Asimov's guide, which I have in my library and consider the best available guide to the Bible. Fortunately, I found it on Amazon. She was fascinated with it. Asimov knew what he was writing about. He wrote 200 books and I consider this among his best. He didn't just "translate the King James version into modern English"; he shared his vast knowledge of ancient history, geography, and languages.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Asimov's outdated guide; it's still a good readDec 21, 2007
This work was published in 2 volumes: OT 1967 and NT 1969 and sadly, the information in this book is outdated because so many new discoveries and evidence about this subject has exploded in the 1990s and 2000s. So, to a student of biblical criticism this book was rather a bore at times but, if you are new to the game I would recommend this book to get you started.
I am sure this would have been a great read in the 1960s - 1980s.
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