Asimovs Guide to the Bible: A
Historical Look at the Old and New
Testaments by Isaac Asimov
The Genius Of Doubting Isaac
Isaac Asimov thinks big; readers of his science fiction works are familiar
with his grasp and mastery of scale and how the individual stories unfold
within the epic work. In Asimovs Guide to the Bible he utilizes this skill to
pare down and untangle the many intertwined threads of biblical history
and mythology. He views this guide as a way to illuminate the world of the
Bible by incorporating the secular aspects of history, biography, and
geography into a deeper understanding. Asimovs Guide to the Bible is not
a book to be read in continuum but an indispensable companion to any
journey through the Bible. Situating the writers of the various books of the
Bible in time and space, Asimov gives its writings context and also
explains how that context has morphed with time. While some of his
conclusions and qualified speculations may challenge certain traditional
assumptions (for example, there is no reference in the gospels to Mary

Magdalene as a prostitute; rather, she was a madwoman whom Jesus
cured by casting out seven demons), his aim is not to tear it apart but to
flush out some of its mysteries, give it a context that the average Bible
reader can understand, and therefore make it more real. --Jodie Buller
Personal Review: Asimovs Guide to the Bible: A Historical Look
at the Old and New Testaments by Isaac Asimov
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.

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