It’s official! A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible hits shelves both virtual and real, February 2021. I’m happy to say that even ahead of publicaion, it’s received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and some nice remarks (calling it “insightful and instructive”) from the Library Journal. Published by Oxford University Press, it’s a book for anyone curious about the curious. Because let’s admit: the Bible’s really weird. As someone who grew up rather unquestioningly “believing in” the Bible, then subjecting it to the barrage of questions that arise whenever a person begins to really read the thing, then studying it to the point of a Ph.D., then teaching it as a professor in a secular university (an excellent way to learn yet more!), to finally arriving at a kind of awe of the Bible. That’s where this books takes off. I find the Bible to be nothing short of amazing. But not because reading it will make you feel good, necessarily. Or bad. But for all the very reasons that make it such an odd bird among available tomes out there, religious or otherwise. A Most Peculiar Book addresses straight-on both what’s strange about the Bible and what’s strange in it. I hope you’ll have a look! Maybe tell me what you think?
