What you know might not be so: 220 misinterpretations of Bible texts explained

by David C. Downing

Book by Downing, David C

215 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1987

About the author

I am a professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This is on the edge of "Amish country," and I sometimes pass a horse and buggy on my way to and from campus.

I grew up in Colorado, went to college in Santa Barbara, CA, and earned my PhD from UCLA. I currently teach professional and creative writing at Elizabethtown, as well as a first-year seminar on quest narratives.

I first read the Narnia Chronicles as a college sophomore. I was so enthralled, I read all seven books in a month, then re-read them again the next month. I published my first article on C. S. Lewis that same year. I tackled Lord of the Rings in my junior year of college, and I still remember reading all night, the sun coming up just when I discovered that Gandalf had returned. What a glorious dawn that was!

Living less that an hour from Gettysburg, I have become one of many Civil War buffs in this part of the country. I published A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy in 2007, a study of Southerners who supported the Union during the war.

My wife, Crystal, is a professor of English and film studies at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. She is the author of Writing Performances: The Stages of Dorothy L. Sayers (2004) and How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith (2006).

Reviews

[Eric Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an insightful look at common misconceptions we have about familiar Bible stories. The book points out many problems with our culture's collective memory of these stories. For me, it was largely a reminder and a confirmation. I have studied the Bible as a piece of literature and understand it better than many of the most pious people I know.

It's amazing to me how many churchgoers regularly discuss and incorrectly quote various parts of the Bible, either getting something wrong from memory or displaying no knowledge of the context of a particular passage. Sometimes Downing points out a problem with the translation offered by the King James Bible, and other times he shows the Bible text doesn't match the "popular" belief about a story.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful little book that clarifies a host of misconceptions about biblical passages, phrases, or associated ideas. Most are non-controversial but there is the odd one here and there that are actually contentious even though the author doesn't consider them so.