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The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues
Bible scholar and popular TikToker Dan McClellan confronts misconceptions about the Bible.
The Bible is the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public spaces, people try to cut debate short by claiming that "the Bible says so!" However, they commonly disagree about what it actually does and doesn't say, particularly when it comes to socially significant issues. For instance, does the Bible say we should be on the lookout for an antichrist associated with the number 666? Does it say women shouldn’t wear revealing clothing? Does it say it’s okay to hit your kids?
In The Bible Say So, Dan McClellan leverages his popular "data over dogma" approach, and his years of experience in the academy and on social media, to lay out in clear and accessible ways what the data indicate the Bible does and doesn't say about issues ranging from homosexuality, abortion, and slavery to monotheism, inspiration, and even God's wife. Smart, accessible, and informative, The Bible Says So is an invaluable resource for our fractious times.
The Bible is the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public spaces, people try to cut debate short by claiming that "the Bible says so!" However, they commonly disagree about what it actually does and doesn't say, particularly when it comes to socially significant issues. For instance, does the Bible say we should be on the lookout for an antichrist associated with the number 666? Does it say women shouldn’t wear revealing clothing? Does it say it’s okay to hit your kids?
In The Bible Say So, Dan McClellan leverages his popular "data over dogma" approach, and his years of experience in the academy and on social media, to lay out in clear and accessible ways what the data indicate the Bible does and doesn't say about issues ranging from homosexuality, abortion, and slavery to monotheism, inspiration, and even God's wife. Smart, accessible, and informative, The Bible Says So is an invaluable resource for our fractious times.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published April 29, 2025
1102 people are currently reading
14286 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 383 reviews
November 30, 2025
The author of this book, a biblical scholar, has a motto: data over dogma. That means looking at the Bible as its original readers would have seen it, rather than imposing his own religious and cultural ideas on it. This book explores some of the most common popular misinterpretations of Scripture, and the ways in which we err by approaching this complex historical document as a single, cohesive book.
You don’t need to be a Christian to enjoy this book, and in fact, you might have an easier time with it if you aren’t! As a progressive Christian, there were parts of this book that absolutely affirmed my prior ideas. The author’s most forceful argument is in favour of LGBTQ+ inclusion, and he notes that Biblical ideas of modest dress for women were about refraining from flaunting wealth more than refraining from showing skin. But there were parts of this book that also deeply challenged me, like the evidence that early Israelites likely believed God had a wife, or the idea that trinitarian theology is not necessarily clearly evident in the Gospels. This book is very deeply researched and uses additional sources like archaeological evidence, the Apocrypha, and documents from other ancient Southwest Asian cultures to inform the author’s ideas of how the Bible’s earliest readers would have seen things.
I wasn’t necessarily on board with all of the theological ideas in this book, but I am very much on board with the author’s key point: that the way the Bible is wielded in our culture, the verses that we choose to take literally and those we avoid (because let’s be real, even the biblical literalists are picking and choosing to some extent), are too often used as a tool of the powerful to keep others down. It’s my personal belief that the lens the author is advocating for, namely a deeper understanding of biblical history, and an openness to allowing Biblical norms to change with time (as with the abolition of slavery), can help our Christianity to look more like Christ.
Thank you to the publisher for gifting me an early copy of this book!
You don’t need to be a Christian to enjoy this book, and in fact, you might have an easier time with it if you aren’t! As a progressive Christian, there were parts of this book that absolutely affirmed my prior ideas. The author’s most forceful argument is in favour of LGBTQ+ inclusion, and he notes that Biblical ideas of modest dress for women were about refraining from flaunting wealth more than refraining from showing skin. But there were parts of this book that also deeply challenged me, like the evidence that early Israelites likely believed God had a wife, or the idea that trinitarian theology is not necessarily clearly evident in the Gospels. This book is very deeply researched and uses additional sources like archaeological evidence, the Apocrypha, and documents from other ancient Southwest Asian cultures to inform the author’s ideas of how the Bible’s earliest readers would have seen things.
I wasn’t necessarily on board with all of the theological ideas in this book, but I am very much on board with the author’s key point: that the way the Bible is wielded in our culture, the verses that we choose to take literally and those we avoid (because let’s be real, even the biblical literalists are picking and choosing to some extent), are too often used as a tool of the powerful to keep others down. It’s my personal belief that the lens the author is advocating for, namely a deeper understanding of biblical history, and an openness to allowing Biblical norms to change with time (as with the abolition of slavery), can help our Christianity to look more like Christ.
Thank you to the publisher for gifting me an early copy of this book!
April 26, 2025
You know when someone swears their book is based on “unbiased” and “purely critical scholarship,” but the second you crack it open, you realize it’s basically an opinion piece wrapped in academic name-dropping? Yeah. Welcome to The Bible Says So by Dan McClellan, a man who is apparently extremely proud to remind us every three pages that he’s a biblical scholar (and we’re all just drooling peasants in comparison).
First off, McClellan loves to tell us what the Bible really says. Because obviously, 2,000+ years of scholarship, tradition, and debate have just been sitting around waiting for Dan from TikTok to show up and set us straight with a bunch of condescending explanations about ancient Hebrew grammar. Spoiler alert: it’s mostly a lot of, “Well technically that’s a mistranslation,” sprinkled liberally with pop culture references so cringe-worthy that even a youth pastor would wince. Basically, it’s like if a Reddit thread and a peer-reviewed article had a baby, and that baby grew up to be insufferable. Cool story, bro.
Let’s talk about the “God lies” bit. According to McClellan, Adam ate the fruit and didn’t keel over instantly — therefore, God = liar? Instead of exploring the deep, layered meanings, he just flattens everything into a smug “gotcha” against Christians. Maybe Adam had a Matrix-style “red-pill” awakening? Ever think of that, Dan?
Also, who exactly was the intended audience for this book? Because it’s definitely not for the average reader unless you love feeling like you’re being lectured at a family reunion by the one cousin who just finished their first semester at Liberal Arts U. McClellan’s “data over dogma” shtick quickly turns into “my politics over yours,” with thinly veiled jabs at conservatives that would make even MSNBC producers go, “Tone it down, buddy.”
And for the record: I may not have a biblical studies degree, but I do have three master’s degrees, 21 years of teaching AP English, Media Specialist certification, and former Mensa membership (still smart, just allergic to annual dues). So yes, Dan, I know how to read a text. And I can also tell when someone is weaponizing “critical scholarship” to push a one-sided agenda while pretending they’re the only adult in the room.
The Bible, for all its contradictions, was never meant to be a one-note instruction manual. It’s a messy, beautiful anthology reflecting multiple viewpoints across centuries. Yes, it says war is good. Also, that peace is better. It’s complicated. Like life.
The Bible is a complex, messy, beautiful anthology with contradictions, tensions, and multiple viewpoints — that’s its richness, not a flaw to be smugly “fixed” by Mr. I-Know-What-Hebrew-Really-Means.
Final verdict? The Bible Says So is less “invaluable resource” and more “doorstop with a superiority complex.” Save yourself the time. Go read literally anything else.
First off, McClellan loves to tell us what the Bible really says. Because obviously, 2,000+ years of scholarship, tradition, and debate have just been sitting around waiting for Dan from TikTok to show up and set us straight with a bunch of condescending explanations about ancient Hebrew grammar. Spoiler alert: it’s mostly a lot of, “Well technically that’s a mistranslation,” sprinkled liberally with pop culture references so cringe-worthy that even a youth pastor would wince. Basically, it’s like if a Reddit thread and a peer-reviewed article had a baby, and that baby grew up to be insufferable. Cool story, bro.
Let’s talk about the “God lies” bit. According to McClellan, Adam ate the fruit and didn’t keel over instantly — therefore, God = liar? Instead of exploring the deep, layered meanings, he just flattens everything into a smug “gotcha” against Christians. Maybe Adam had a Matrix-style “red-pill” awakening? Ever think of that, Dan?
Also, who exactly was the intended audience for this book? Because it’s definitely not for the average reader unless you love feeling like you’re being lectured at a family reunion by the one cousin who just finished their first semester at Liberal Arts U. McClellan’s “data over dogma” shtick quickly turns into “my politics over yours,” with thinly veiled jabs at conservatives that would make even MSNBC producers go, “Tone it down, buddy.”
And for the record: I may not have a biblical studies degree, but I do have three master’s degrees, 21 years of teaching AP English, Media Specialist certification, and former Mensa membership (still smart, just allergic to annual dues). So yes, Dan, I know how to read a text. And I can also tell when someone is weaponizing “critical scholarship” to push a one-sided agenda while pretending they’re the only adult in the room.
The Bible, for all its contradictions, was never meant to be a one-note instruction manual. It’s a messy, beautiful anthology reflecting multiple viewpoints across centuries. Yes, it says war is good. Also, that peace is better. It’s complicated. Like life.
The Bible is a complex, messy, beautiful anthology with contradictions, tensions, and multiple viewpoints — that’s its richness, not a flaw to be smugly “fixed” by Mr. I-Know-What-Hebrew-Really-Means.
Final verdict? The Bible Says So is less “invaluable resource” and more “doorstop with a superiority complex.” Save yourself the time. Go read literally anything else.
March 7, 2025
Reviewed for the Association of Mormon Letters
https://www.associationmormonletters....
Anyone who’s been online on social media in the past few years has likely stumbled across Dan McClellan’s content. His videos usually start with some content creator asserting something about the Bible, followed by a shot of a sometimes bearded and (surprisingly) sometimes not McClellan clad in some sort of comic book t-shirt (he explains “the fit” at the end of each video) saying “Alright, let’s see it.” The content creator then continues to make some (usually outlandish) claim about something that proves some biblical prophecy or something that the Bible says that supports some kind of political or moral position (often tied to something racist, sexist, or bigoted). Dan then comes back and carefully, calmly, and thoroughly demolishes such claims, often (to the delight of his fans) employing catchphrases such as “laughably ignorant” and “pure and utter nonsense.” He is also, however, a good citizen of the internet who admits and apologizes when he gets something wrong.
McClellan is not just some random content creator who’s studied the Bible a lot. He really knows his stuff, having received advanced university degrees in biblical languages, theology, and the cognitive science of religion. His stated goal is to try to make the academic study of the Bible more accessible to the general public. He also explicitly works to debunk false claims about biblical history and interpretation, a job that keeps him very busy. His motto “Data Over Dogma” (also the name of his podcast) stresses his privileging of the scholarly data-based consensus on all biblical issues over any type of religious custom or orthodox belief about what some passage of the Bible may mean. He is articulate, compelling, accessible, and very entertaining.
Judging by the popularity of his content and the number of followers across platforms (9.3k on Facebook, 84k on YouTube, 212k on Instagram, and 866k on TikTok) McClellan has found a ready audience for his brand of no-nonsense biblical fact-checking. He works full-time making his content, trying to keep up with all of the videos he’s tagged in, creating weekly livestreams and episodes of his Data Over Dogma podcast and making appearances on a growing number of other podcasts. He’s probably well on his way (if not there already) to being one of the foremost biblical content creators online. In comparison to other biblical scholars, he has attained a minor celebrity status, as attested by photos of him being recognized in public or at conferences (always in his comic tees). He’s even been retweeted by Congresswoman AOC.
McClellan is also an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although this fact might seem to complicate things on his channel, he seems to have decided early on to make it as much of a non-issue as possible. His channel is generally strictly about biblical content, and he does not normally address his Mormon beliefs unless required to, usually by some content creator who blames his “heretical” beliefs about the Bible on his LDS membership.
His approach to biblical scholarship and interpretation places him squarely outside of the orthodox LDS position, which favors biblical literalism and fundamentalist interpretation over academic study and scholarly consensus. This, combined with his explicit privileging of marginalized groups when a scholarly consensus is unclear, makes him unpopular both with conservative Christians and Mormon apologists. For more progressive members of the church and anyone who is tired of the influence of conservative Christian opinion on law and politics, however, McClellan is a breath of fresh air. Moreover, for members of the LDS church, his status as an active member confers on him a position of respect and reliability as an authoritative source of information. In fact, his no-nonsense approach and strict adherence to the scholarly consensus has made him fans out of both active members and ex-Mormons.
It was no surprise, given his popularity, that McClellan was tapped to write a general-audience book based on his online content. His book The Bible Says So is just what his fans will be expecting. More importantly, it will provide a new way into McClellan’s work for people who are not on social media.
After a brief Introduction in which McClellan situates himself in terms of his background, training, and intentions and an opening chapter that summarizes the history of the biblical record, the book is broken into 18 chapters on various topics. The names of the chapters all follow the same pattern, beginning with “The Bible Says…” and then addressing a greatest hits of McClellan’s online content (biblical inspiration, slavery, abortion, homosexuality, God’s wife, women’s modesty, Jesus’s divine sonship, the virgin birth, and more). Most chapters are around 10 pages (the longest is around 20 and the shortest is 4) making the book an accessible and fast read. Each chapter has a helpful conclusion at the end that summarizes the chapter’s content and reinforces remembering the main points.
The book is written in a conversational style, frequently breaking out of scholarly discussion into colloquialisms or humorous asides (fans will smile each time they encounter one of his catchphrases in text). Most chapters incorporate examples and stories from McClellan’s online content and personal experience, further increasing accessibility and relatability. Each chapter also contains a number of notes and references to further articles and sources, but not too many that the presentation feels dense or inaccessible. One recurring feature that is sure to amuse is the use of movie and sitcom catchphrases, song titles, and lyrics as section headers, using everyone from Bob Dylan to Pearl Jam to Salt-N-Pepa to Metallica to AC/DC to Britney Spears to Blink 182 (with a tongue-in-cheek apology for each use).
All of this serves to make the book very accessible to a general audience while still providing substantive and rigorous scholarly arguments and discussions. The chapters are brief but feel thorough and comprehensive. One never gets the feeling that McClellan is pushing any kind of agenda, only summarizing the scholarly consensus. Indeed, the book could be used as a template by other scholars to increase their accessibility to a wider public audience.
Given the overlap in the book’s content and McClellan’s online material, I wondered if the book would feel redundant or repetitive. Though people familiar with his content will recognize much of what is presented here, the book format allows for more in-depth discussion of these issues and more citation of sources for skeptical or more interested readers. This results in the book being a useful addition to his online content, rather than simply a rehash. I can see this book being a go-to reference for people who want to know the scholarly consensus on various biblical issues. Furthermore, given that only a subset of the topics McClellan covers on his social media channels were able to be covered in this book and given the appetite and need for this content, I can see the possibility of future editions of this series.
Overall, The Bible Says So is a necessary and useful addition to McClellan’s online content and will likely bring many more people in contact with his unique and topical brand of biblical scholarship. I can see this book serving as the catalyst for discussions, being given as a gift to friends or parents who have expressed interest in these ideas, and as stated, serving as a reference for those already familiar with biblical scholarship. The many additional references and sources will help interested readers delve further into the world of biblical scholarship, a task that can seem daunting to even the most intrepid of readers. This book should go a long way to making this scholarship accessible to a wide audience.
For a specifically Latter-day Saint audience, the book is a needed corrective to fundamentalist and literalist interpretations of the Bible. These interpretations aren’t backed by data, are used to support politics and ideologies that are harmful to marginalized communities and reinforce an adherence to dogma and orthodoxy that stamps out inquiry and expansive interpretations of LDS doctrine and theology. McClellan’s work, coming from someone on the inside of the faith, is indispensable for helping to move the tradition forward in this regard. In addition, those who are deconstructing their Mormon faith in one way or another will find his work incredibly helpful, compelling, relieving, and ultimately freeing.
https://www.associationmormonletters....
Anyone who’s been online on social media in the past few years has likely stumbled across Dan McClellan’s content. His videos usually start with some content creator asserting something about the Bible, followed by a shot of a sometimes bearded and (surprisingly) sometimes not McClellan clad in some sort of comic book t-shirt (he explains “the fit” at the end of each video) saying “Alright, let’s see it.” The content creator then continues to make some (usually outlandish) claim about something that proves some biblical prophecy or something that the Bible says that supports some kind of political or moral position (often tied to something racist, sexist, or bigoted). Dan then comes back and carefully, calmly, and thoroughly demolishes such claims, often (to the delight of his fans) employing catchphrases such as “laughably ignorant” and “pure and utter nonsense.” He is also, however, a good citizen of the internet who admits and apologizes when he gets something wrong.
McClellan is not just some random content creator who’s studied the Bible a lot. He really knows his stuff, having received advanced university degrees in biblical languages, theology, and the cognitive science of religion. His stated goal is to try to make the academic study of the Bible more accessible to the general public. He also explicitly works to debunk false claims about biblical history and interpretation, a job that keeps him very busy. His motto “Data Over Dogma” (also the name of his podcast) stresses his privileging of the scholarly data-based consensus on all biblical issues over any type of religious custom or orthodox belief about what some passage of the Bible may mean. He is articulate, compelling, accessible, and very entertaining.
Judging by the popularity of his content and the number of followers across platforms (9.3k on Facebook, 84k on YouTube, 212k on Instagram, and 866k on TikTok) McClellan has found a ready audience for his brand of no-nonsense biblical fact-checking. He works full-time making his content, trying to keep up with all of the videos he’s tagged in, creating weekly livestreams and episodes of his Data Over Dogma podcast and making appearances on a growing number of other podcasts. He’s probably well on his way (if not there already) to being one of the foremost biblical content creators online. In comparison to other biblical scholars, he has attained a minor celebrity status, as attested by photos of him being recognized in public or at conferences (always in his comic tees). He’s even been retweeted by Congresswoman AOC.
McClellan is also an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although this fact might seem to complicate things on his channel, he seems to have decided early on to make it as much of a non-issue as possible. His channel is generally strictly about biblical content, and he does not normally address his Mormon beliefs unless required to, usually by some content creator who blames his “heretical” beliefs about the Bible on his LDS membership.
His approach to biblical scholarship and interpretation places him squarely outside of the orthodox LDS position, which favors biblical literalism and fundamentalist interpretation over academic study and scholarly consensus. This, combined with his explicit privileging of marginalized groups when a scholarly consensus is unclear, makes him unpopular both with conservative Christians and Mormon apologists. For more progressive members of the church and anyone who is tired of the influence of conservative Christian opinion on law and politics, however, McClellan is a breath of fresh air. Moreover, for members of the LDS church, his status as an active member confers on him a position of respect and reliability as an authoritative source of information. In fact, his no-nonsense approach and strict adherence to the scholarly consensus has made him fans out of both active members and ex-Mormons.
It was no surprise, given his popularity, that McClellan was tapped to write a general-audience book based on his online content. His book The Bible Says So is just what his fans will be expecting. More importantly, it will provide a new way into McClellan’s work for people who are not on social media.
After a brief Introduction in which McClellan situates himself in terms of his background, training, and intentions and an opening chapter that summarizes the history of the biblical record, the book is broken into 18 chapters on various topics. The names of the chapters all follow the same pattern, beginning with “The Bible Says…” and then addressing a greatest hits of McClellan’s online content (biblical inspiration, slavery, abortion, homosexuality, God’s wife, women’s modesty, Jesus’s divine sonship, the virgin birth, and more). Most chapters are around 10 pages (the longest is around 20 and the shortest is 4) making the book an accessible and fast read. Each chapter has a helpful conclusion at the end that summarizes the chapter’s content and reinforces remembering the main points.
The book is written in a conversational style, frequently breaking out of scholarly discussion into colloquialisms or humorous asides (fans will smile each time they encounter one of his catchphrases in text). Most chapters incorporate examples and stories from McClellan’s online content and personal experience, further increasing accessibility and relatability. Each chapter also contains a number of notes and references to further articles and sources, but not too many that the presentation feels dense or inaccessible. One recurring feature that is sure to amuse is the use of movie and sitcom catchphrases, song titles, and lyrics as section headers, using everyone from Bob Dylan to Pearl Jam to Salt-N-Pepa to Metallica to AC/DC to Britney Spears to Blink 182 (with a tongue-in-cheek apology for each use).
All of this serves to make the book very accessible to a general audience while still providing substantive and rigorous scholarly arguments and discussions. The chapters are brief but feel thorough and comprehensive. One never gets the feeling that McClellan is pushing any kind of agenda, only summarizing the scholarly consensus. Indeed, the book could be used as a template by other scholars to increase their accessibility to a wider public audience.
Given the overlap in the book’s content and McClellan’s online material, I wondered if the book would feel redundant or repetitive. Though people familiar with his content will recognize much of what is presented here, the book format allows for more in-depth discussion of these issues and more citation of sources for skeptical or more interested readers. This results in the book being a useful addition to his online content, rather than simply a rehash. I can see this book being a go-to reference for people who want to know the scholarly consensus on various biblical issues. Furthermore, given that only a subset of the topics McClellan covers on his social media channels were able to be covered in this book and given the appetite and need for this content, I can see the possibility of future editions of this series.
Overall, The Bible Says So is a necessary and useful addition to McClellan’s online content and will likely bring many more people in contact with his unique and topical brand of biblical scholarship. I can see this book serving as the catalyst for discussions, being given as a gift to friends or parents who have expressed interest in these ideas, and as stated, serving as a reference for those already familiar with biblical scholarship. The many additional references and sources will help interested readers delve further into the world of biblical scholarship, a task that can seem daunting to even the most intrepid of readers. This book should go a long way to making this scholarship accessible to a wide audience.
For a specifically Latter-day Saint audience, the book is a needed corrective to fundamentalist and literalist interpretations of the Bible. These interpretations aren’t backed by data, are used to support politics and ideologies that are harmful to marginalized communities and reinforce an adherence to dogma and orthodoxy that stamps out inquiry and expansive interpretations of LDS doctrine and theology. McClellan’s work, coming from someone on the inside of the faith, is indispensable for helping to move the tradition forward in this regard. In addition, those who are deconstructing their Mormon faith in one way or another will find his work incredibly helpful, compelling, relieving, and ultimately freeing.
December 11, 2025
Dan McClellan and his book really could have helped me as a kid. I started life as a PK (preacher’s kid), raised in a fundamentalist evangelical church and home. I was sincere and pious, with aspirations of becoming a minister myself someday. As such, I studied the Bible and took it seriously, believing it (as I’d been taught) to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Yet, studying it, I found problems that bothered me. I’d been taught that the Bible never contradicted itself, yet reading the text I found clear and obvious contradictions. Then there were the issues I found, like the fact that the Bible I was reading obviously supported slavery, including it in divine law codes. When I questioned my elders about what I was discovering, their answers were either glib or awkward, and totally unhelpful. Often it was implied that I shouldn’t even be asking such questions. These are some of the very questions that McClellan answers using his motto “Data over Dogma.”
McClellan describes himself as a scholar of the Bible, and he has the degrees to back up the claim. He is on TikTok and has a podcast called Data over Dogma, where he wields his knowledge and scholarship of the Bible both to teach and to combat those who have weaponized the Bible in service to the culture wars. (If you have seen Dan on social media, you know what you’re getting in this book, which is largely an expansion of the subjects he covers there.) His oft expressed motto is “data over dogma,” a short hand for using available data to understand what the Bible has to say rather than interpreting it to service and reinforce dogmas of various traditions. He says:
”I use a historical critical perspective because I think the earliest reconstructable meanings make for a useful point of departure for discussing what the Bible means to us and how it’s used by us today.”
”We take an awful lot of time to gather data, to see what other scholars have done, and then to go about reconstructing that meaning in a way that tries to minimize the role of our own needs and interests and tries to maximize what we think the earliest authors, editors, and audiences most likely understood by these texts.”
Using this approach, Dan examines fascinating ancient puzzles hidden in the Bible, like what was the divine council? Were the ancient Hebrews monotheist as we now understand it? Did God have a wife? Did the ancient Israelites practice child sacrifice? He also addresses issues such as Hell, Satan, the virgin birth, the number of the beast, and what exactly the Bible has to say about Jesus being God. Along the way he also jumps in to examine what the Bible actually has to say about hot button culture war issues, such as homosexuality and enforced female modesty. He presents an intriguing potpourri of issues with a unique combination of solid scholarship and an informal, approachable, and pop culture laced presentation.
This book isn’t for everyone. If you are utterly convinced by the dogmas of your tradition and have no issues with them, and no curiosity to look beyond them, don’t bother with this book. It will just make you angry and raise your blood pressure to no purpose. But if you are genuinely curious about this ancient book that has had such a central place in our culture, or, if like the kid I once was you are bothered by things you’ve found in it and want some answers, no matter where they might lead, then you are this book’s intended audience.
McClellan describes himself as a scholar of the Bible, and he has the degrees to back up the claim. He is on TikTok and has a podcast called Data over Dogma, where he wields his knowledge and scholarship of the Bible both to teach and to combat those who have weaponized the Bible in service to the culture wars. (If you have seen Dan on social media, you know what you’re getting in this book, which is largely an expansion of the subjects he covers there.) His oft expressed motto is “data over dogma,” a short hand for using available data to understand what the Bible has to say rather than interpreting it to service and reinforce dogmas of various traditions. He says:
”I use a historical critical perspective because I think the earliest reconstructable meanings make for a useful point of departure for discussing what the Bible means to us and how it’s used by us today.”
”We take an awful lot of time to gather data, to see what other scholars have done, and then to go about reconstructing that meaning in a way that tries to minimize the role of our own needs and interests and tries to maximize what we think the earliest authors, editors, and audiences most likely understood by these texts.”
Using this approach, Dan examines fascinating ancient puzzles hidden in the Bible, like what was the divine council? Were the ancient Hebrews monotheist as we now understand it? Did God have a wife? Did the ancient Israelites practice child sacrifice? He also addresses issues such as Hell, Satan, the virgin birth, the number of the beast, and what exactly the Bible has to say about Jesus being God. Along the way he also jumps in to examine what the Bible actually has to say about hot button culture war issues, such as homosexuality and enforced female modesty. He presents an intriguing potpourri of issues with a unique combination of solid scholarship and an informal, approachable, and pop culture laced presentation.
This book isn’t for everyone. If you are utterly convinced by the dogmas of your tradition and have no issues with them, and no curiosity to look beyond them, don’t bother with this book. It will just make you angry and raise your blood pressure to no purpose. But if you are genuinely curious about this ancient book that has had such a central place in our culture, or, if like the kid I once was you are bothered by things you’ve found in it and want some answers, no matter where they might lead, then you are this book’s intended audience.
May 30, 2025
This book tricked me (in a good way). I’d seen enough of Dan McClellan’s YouTube videos to know that he doesn’t mess around when it comes to scrutinizing ancient texts, but the brightly-colored cover and whimsical font made me expect a somewhat dumbed-down summary of Bible controversies. Not so! The author wades boldly into the weeds of textual criticism, bolstering his analysis of scripture with rigorous research and careful logic. There are chapters that you’d expect in a book like this (Biblical inspiration, homosexuality, slavery, abortion, hell, women’s rights, the divinity of Jesus), but there are also topics that I wouldn’t have predicted and thoroughly enjoyed (God’s body, God’s wife, divine deception, polytheism in the Old Testament, modest clothing, the mark of the beast, etc). McClellan’s challenges to Christian fundamentalism are incisive, and his nuanced argumentation was right up my alley.
That said, the book is consistently inviting. The author keeps things conversational, cracking jokes and referencing many TikTok duels with over-zealous and under-informed Christian apologists. Occasionally, his rhetoric turns sharp, especially when denouncing the religious oppression of vulnerable people, but overall the book’s tone is gracious. The short chapters make for an engaging listen. In an era when the Bible is increasingly wielded as a club to silence marginalized groups, McClellan’s “data over dogma” approach is both a breath of fresh air and an urgent rallying cry.
That said, the book is consistently inviting. The author keeps things conversational, cracking jokes and referencing many TikTok duels with over-zealous and under-informed Christian apologists. Occasionally, his rhetoric turns sharp, especially when denouncing the religious oppression of vulnerable people, but overall the book’s tone is gracious. The short chapters make for an engaging listen. In an era when the Bible is increasingly wielded as a club to silence marginalized groups, McClellan’s “data over dogma” approach is both a breath of fresh air and an urgent rallying cry.
January 10, 2025
ARC review- very well written with a strong attention to detail. in my opinion, the best part of this book is that Dan does not include his own beliefs, but instead gives you all of the information to form your own thoughts. This is definitely not a quick read. Just the introduction is 17 pages, but I feel like it helped me get into the right headspace for reading this book. Being born and raised Catholic I had one set of beliefs. As an adult, I enjoyed learning more about other religions and religious history, including the history of the Bible and it’s different versions. I won’t say that I went into this believing that I knew it all, because I most definitely do not haha but I was surprised at how much I learned from this book. I will say go in with an open mind. As we all know, ‘The Bible’ is the most passion inspiring, life-changing, war battling and most controversial set of stories ever written. An open mind and willingness to challenge what you may have been taught in the past or always believed, will make for a more enjoyable reading experience.
June 24, 2025
Pre-Read Notes:
I grabbed this book because I don't get along with the Bible. Reading it never has made me feel closer to God or clearer about my faith. I'm always questioning the Bible. In fact I would say questioning--doubt--is my clearest connection to faith.
"... I have to try to understand the Bible on its own terms. What that means is I try to understand it as its authors, editors, and earliest audiences understood it. I recognize that to understand the Bible on its own terms, I need to be willing to allow for those terms to diverge from my own. I have to be willing to distinguish “the Bible” from “my interpretation of the Bible” or “what I want the Bible to be.” " p5
Final Review
(thoughts & recs) I really learned so much about the Bible and how it can be misused or misinterpreted. I was engaged and interested the whole way through, but I won't lie, this is a bit of a slog. The authors understanding of Biblical verses is very layered-- what was going on at the time? what did the author's intend it to mean? how did early audiences interpret the Bible? He layers all these interests in his considerations of the Bible and discusses them in a clear way. But if I'm being real, this research is thick.
I think this is an important book that compares modern Christianity and ancient Christianity, a book that affects not just those who believe in God, but those on whom those believers set their gaze. I recommend this to anyone interested in an academic perspective on the Bible.
My 3 Favorite Things:
✔️ I always like books that inspire me to read further. As this is an analysis of the Bible written by a Mormon author, he thought it best to address that in the introduction. Because of this proposed conflict in ideologies, I was compelled to reap up on aspects of Mormonism with which I was unfamiliar. I just love learning new, weird stuff in books!
✔️ The provided comparisons of varying interpretations of different passages were a very intuitive way for me to learn.
✔️"Across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, God frequently treats human life as negligible and in some circumstances even orders humans to treat it the same way." p87 This is exactly my issue with the Bible. I've never heard anyone write this in a book let alone suggest it out loud. And it's perfectly put, except I would add that God treats all life as negligible in the Bible..
Notes:
1. Content Notes: religion, Christianity, the Bible, slavery, gr*pe (off page), patriarchy, violence against women(off-page), violence against children (off-page), there are more of course, it's the Bible.
Thank you to the author Daniel McClellan, publishers St. Martin's Essentials, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of THE BIBLE SAYS SO. All views are mine.
I grabbed this book because I don't get along with the Bible. Reading it never has made me feel closer to God or clearer about my faith. I'm always questioning the Bible. In fact I would say questioning--doubt--is my clearest connection to faith.
"... I have to try to understand the Bible on its own terms. What that means is I try to understand it as its authors, editors, and earliest audiences understood it. I recognize that to understand the Bible on its own terms, I need to be willing to allow for those terms to diverge from my own. I have to be willing to distinguish “the Bible” from “my interpretation of the Bible” or “what I want the Bible to be.” " p5
Final Review
(thoughts & recs) I really learned so much about the Bible and how it can be misused or misinterpreted. I was engaged and interested the whole way through, but I won't lie, this is a bit of a slog. The authors understanding of Biblical verses is very layered-- what was going on at the time? what did the author's intend it to mean? how did early audiences interpret the Bible? He layers all these interests in his considerations of the Bible and discusses them in a clear way. But if I'm being real, this research is thick.
I think this is an important book that compares modern Christianity and ancient Christianity, a book that affects not just those who believe in God, but those on whom those believers set their gaze. I recommend this to anyone interested in an academic perspective on the Bible.
My 3 Favorite Things:
✔️ I always like books that inspire me to read further. As this is an analysis of the Bible written by a Mormon author, he thought it best to address that in the introduction. Because of this proposed conflict in ideologies, I was compelled to reap up on aspects of Mormonism with which I was unfamiliar. I just love learning new, weird stuff in books!
✔️ The provided comparisons of varying interpretations of different passages were a very intuitive way for me to learn.
✔️"Across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, God frequently treats human life as negligible and in some circumstances even orders humans to treat it the same way." p87 This is exactly my issue with the Bible. I've never heard anyone write this in a book let alone suggest it out loud. And it's perfectly put, except I would add that God treats all life as negligible in the Bible..
Notes:
1. Content Notes: religion, Christianity, the Bible, slavery, gr*pe (off page), patriarchy, violence against women(off-page), violence against children (off-page), there are more of course, it's the Bible.
Thank you to the author Daniel McClellan, publishers St. Martin's Essentials, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of THE BIBLE SAYS SO. All views are mine.
June 3, 2025
Scripture doesn’t change over time but its interpretation inevitably does, and to believe in inerrancy is all too convenient if the text happens to support your every comfortable, convenient opinion. Dan sheds light succinctly and successfully as he addresses some of the core claims that modern Christians fling around with “the Bible says so!” as their infallible evidence and justification.
Does the Bible say what you say it says? Or do you just say it says what you want to say? ;)
Does the Bible say what you say it says? Or do you just say it says what you want to say? ;)
May 14, 2025
A nice collection of Dan's take on contemporary social/political/religious claims attributed to the Bible. Dan's writing is clean and he's talented at discussing academic ideas about the Bible and related topics in nonacademic ways. He's a fantastic communicator, as his social media following makes clear. He's also a mensch.
August 7, 2025
Dan McClellan, making public scholarship cool again!
I’ve been a fan of Dan’s TikTok work for some time now, so I was obviously excited to dig in to his new book. The Bible Says So is laid out in a way that makes it so you can either read straight though or jump to a chapter according to your interest/question. Definitely plan to read it with a Bible next to you (NRSVue preferred, obviously) to get the most out of it.
While Dan does get fairly technical in most chapters, as is necessary for the subject matter, he continues to make the scholarship as accessible as possible for the lay Bible reader. Really, The Bible Says So serves as a deeper dive into many of the topics he regularly discusses on social media (see especially chapters 13 and 17). Seeing it all written out, with references to the relevant research as well as other historic literature (the footnotes alone are worth the purchase price), makes following his arguments that much easier—and his many fans already know he has a talent for communicating the minutiae of biblical scholarship and its implications for Bible readers.
Dan’s overarching argument is made clear through the book’s introduction and conclusion—that we are all of us negotiating with biblical texts. This will inevitably be hard to read for the most conservative Bible readers; as Dan aptly observes, “The reality is that there’s no such thing as a biblical literalist. Everyone who treats the Bible as an inspired and/or authoritative document negotiates with it. There is no other possible choice.” So, yeah, I don’t know that I would hand this to a literalist, because Dan certainly calls out the logical fallacies of this belief system, and if you know literalists you know they won’t hear it until they’re ready. But for anyone who is ready, and especially for the progressive Christian who wants to reckon with the Bible seriously, chapter 2 is absolutely essential reading for helping you to learn how to grapple with the historical-critical approach to reading. Dan’s tone is delightfully irreverent in the best way (I like it when he says that something is “pure and utter nonsense”—it just makes me feel good), but no argument can be made for his disrespecting the text itself. The Bible is, after all, his life’s work. He simply makes plain what the Bible is: Texts.
It’s important also to note that Dan does not, as some try to say, only write what serves himself. He explains what the Bible actually says, calling out even the most well-meaning but incorrect interpretations. Writing about a particularly disturbing passage, he explains, “I don’t think insisting the authors actually meant something else entirely is a productive way to try to rehabilitate this passage, though. Nor do I think it’s consistent to dismiss the harmful ideology [found in this passage] as the product of the authors’ own time while simultaneously maintaining the inerrancy, inspiration, and authority of the words themselves. The words are simply wrong.” He returns to this idea throughout the book, explaining the ways that we might continue to negotiate with biblical texts while acknowledging, “Sometimes the Bible is the problem.”
In a world where we no longer have Rachel Held Evans to guide us, I like many other progressives am constantly seeking out voices to help me navigate my faith. (I’ve never been one to harbor any desire to meet my heroes, but what I would give to sit down and have a conversation with Dan!) While he may not be positioning himself as a faith leader, Dan McClellan stands out as one of the foremost voices helping us all understand this Book we love and struggle with.
*ARC via NetGalley* (and I enjoyed it so much, I’ll be buying a hard copy on release day)
I’ve been a fan of Dan’s TikTok work for some time now, so I was obviously excited to dig in to his new book. The Bible Says So is laid out in a way that makes it so you can either read straight though or jump to a chapter according to your interest/question. Definitely plan to read it with a Bible next to you (NRSVue preferred, obviously) to get the most out of it.
While Dan does get fairly technical in most chapters, as is necessary for the subject matter, he continues to make the scholarship as accessible as possible for the lay Bible reader. Really, The Bible Says So serves as a deeper dive into many of the topics he regularly discusses on social media (see especially chapters 13 and 17). Seeing it all written out, with references to the relevant research as well as other historic literature (the footnotes alone are worth the purchase price), makes following his arguments that much easier—and his many fans already know he has a talent for communicating the minutiae of biblical scholarship and its implications for Bible readers.
Dan’s overarching argument is made clear through the book’s introduction and conclusion—that we are all of us negotiating with biblical texts. This will inevitably be hard to read for the most conservative Bible readers; as Dan aptly observes, “The reality is that there’s no such thing as a biblical literalist. Everyone who treats the Bible as an inspired and/or authoritative document negotiates with it. There is no other possible choice.” So, yeah, I don’t know that I would hand this to a literalist, because Dan certainly calls out the logical fallacies of this belief system, and if you know literalists you know they won’t hear it until they’re ready. But for anyone who is ready, and especially for the progressive Christian who wants to reckon with the Bible seriously, chapter 2 is absolutely essential reading for helping you to learn how to grapple with the historical-critical approach to reading. Dan’s tone is delightfully irreverent in the best way (I like it when he says that something is “pure and utter nonsense”—it just makes me feel good), but no argument can be made for his disrespecting the text itself. The Bible is, after all, his life’s work. He simply makes plain what the Bible is: Texts.
It’s important also to note that Dan does not, as some try to say, only write what serves himself. He explains what the Bible actually says, calling out even the most well-meaning but incorrect interpretations. Writing about a particularly disturbing passage, he explains, “I don’t think insisting the authors actually meant something else entirely is a productive way to try to rehabilitate this passage, though. Nor do I think it’s consistent to dismiss the harmful ideology [found in this passage] as the product of the authors’ own time while simultaneously maintaining the inerrancy, inspiration, and authority of the words themselves. The words are simply wrong.” He returns to this idea throughout the book, explaining the ways that we might continue to negotiate with biblical texts while acknowledging, “Sometimes the Bible is the problem.”
In a world where we no longer have Rachel Held Evans to guide us, I like many other progressives am constantly seeking out voices to help me navigate my faith. (I’ve never been one to harbor any desire to meet my heroes, but what I would give to sit down and have a conversation with Dan!) While he may not be positioning himself as a faith leader, Dan McClellan stands out as one of the foremost voices helping us all understand this Book we love and struggle with.
*ARC via NetGalley* (and I enjoyed it so much, I’ll be buying a hard copy on release day)
September 26, 2025
Data >>>> dogma
I have been a long-time follower of Dan’s on Tik Tok so I was thrilled to learn he was putting out a non-academic book. He does a really excellent job of taking hot-bed Biblical controversies and summarizing what the current academic thoughts and research has to say about these topics.
As someone who grew up in a very Christian environment and still claims to be one today with many asterisks marks, Dan is a source a refreshing neutrality and unbiased explanations of what a biblical author was probably actually saying with a verse I’ve heard cherry-picked and twisted out of recognition for years.
He is very up front that he is not offering a religious or spiritual reading of the Bible, he is just provided historical context and linguistic translations of biblical passages to bring more perspective about claims to what the Bible “says”. If you’ve grown up questioning the very general statements to what thousands of pages of series of ancient texts unilaterally says, this book is for you. If you prefer a more spiritual interpretation, you will not find that. This book is academic research diluted for the common people like me. Some chapters definitely are denser and read more like a textbook than others, but none of it will read like a daily devotion.
No matter what message you’re hoping to hear Dan say, if you approach this book with the lighthearted attitude of “alright let’s see it” to a bold claim about what the Bible says, you’ll have a good time.
I have been a long-time follower of Dan’s on Tik Tok so I was thrilled to learn he was putting out a non-academic book. He does a really excellent job of taking hot-bed Biblical controversies and summarizing what the current academic thoughts and research has to say about these topics.
As someone who grew up in a very Christian environment and still claims to be one today with many asterisks marks, Dan is a source a refreshing neutrality and unbiased explanations of what a biblical author was probably actually saying with a verse I’ve heard cherry-picked and twisted out of recognition for years.
He is very up front that he is not offering a religious or spiritual reading of the Bible, he is just provided historical context and linguistic translations of biblical passages to bring more perspective about claims to what the Bible “says”. If you’ve grown up questioning the very general statements to what thousands of pages of series of ancient texts unilaterally says, this book is for you. If you prefer a more spiritual interpretation, you will not find that. This book is academic research diluted for the common people like me. Some chapters definitely are denser and read more like a textbook than others, but none of it will read like a daily devotion.
No matter what message you’re hoping to hear Dan say, if you approach this book with the lighthearted attitude of “alright let’s see it” to a bold claim about what the Bible says, you’ll have a good time.
October 14, 2025
I wasn’t familiar with Dan McClellan before picking up this book, but was not surprised to discover he’s a tik-tok personality. The thrust of his book seems primarily geared to gain the admiration of a social media audience rather than the applause of nail-scarred hands. Thus thrust of his analysis is this: the underlying documents that made up the Bible have been misinterpreted, and a true translation according to McClellan is one that affords the reader far more latitude in their lifestyle, and overall greater inclusion, things that are cat-nip to Tik-Tok’s majority audience. The problem, as one previous reviewer apply notes, is that the world has not been desperately seeking a biblical scholar who can take biblical passages to its root levels and finally give us the true answer. Instead there have been several biblical scholars that have gone before McClellan, whose work is vastly different, thereby pushing Mcclellans interpretations to the fringe of the field. While I appreciate his diligence, the reader comes away with the impression that the author’s goals is appeasement of a youthful demographic rather than true Biblical focus.
May 23, 2025
Książka, którą przydałoby się wydać w Polsce. Pół-prawdy, przekłamania i mity na temat Biblii mają się u nas bardzo dobrze. Autor w przystępny sposób tłumaczy zawiłe kwestie naukowo-historyczne mając na uwadze również dobro społeczne jakie może wyniknąć z właściwych interpretacji tekstów biblijnych.
December 18, 2025
I picked this up to see if it was an accessible book I could recommend to people to help them get a better taste of how mainstream scholarship reads and interacts with biblical texts. While it's certainly not perfect, I can definitely recommend it for this purpose.
Dan does a good job walking through some of the more controversial and counterintuitive issues in the Bible, and often does a good job summarizing contemporary scholarship and presenting the current academic consensus. His consistent attempt to steer readers away from presuppositions of univocality is a laudable goal and helpful corrective to a lot of contemporary engagements with biblical literature. Like any volume like this, the chapters are a bit uneven in terms of quality and rigor, and his expertise in the Hebrew Bible definitely makes those chapters stronger (e.g. The Bible Says God Has a Wife and The Bible Says to Sacrifice Your Firstborn Child). He tends to be on shakier ground when discussing the New Testament (and it gets worse when he talks about Early Christianity), but still shows enough competency to be a valuable conversation partner. What most excites me about the book is that he lays out in a clear and accessible manner some of the fundamental conclusions assumed by biblical scholarship that may confuse or upset people who think they have a good grasp on this literature from the perspective of their religious tradition.
There are few criticisms that are worth naming here. First, Dan overuses the term "rhetoric(al/ally)." At times it's just a superfluous adjective that doesn't contribute to the argument or meaning of a passage and at other times it essentially functions as a marker that something is not real or true (e.g. "It's just rhetoric," pg. 166). Ancient rhetoric, of course, was many things, and we lose heuristic value when we use it to express cynicism at the intent or sincerity of an author--especially for readers trying to understand how ancient authors actually reasoned. Dan is far from the only person who uses "rhetoric(al/ally)" in this way, but it's a pet peeve of mine that I found distracting throughout the book, especially given the ubiquity of its usage.
Second, Dan often portrays Greco-Roman philosophy as a corrupting influence on the biblical tradition. Often, people are described as being influenced by Greco-Roman philosophy to make up things not native to the biblical sources. Of course, Platonic, Peripatetic, and Stoic philosophy was foreign to the ANE texts and contexts of many of the books of the Hebrew Bible, but by the time we get to Second Temple Judaism Hellenistic philosophy WAS part of the culture and context. This bias against philosophy leads Dan to what is, in my view, a misreading or overlooking of some of the sources. For example, he claims that Clement of Alexandria and Origen leveraged Middle-Platonism to create the idea that God was incorporeal, but the Jewish (Platonist) author Philo strongly insisted on God's incorporeality in the first century CE, something that Dan suggests wasn't repudiated in Judaism until Maimonides (under the influence of Aristotle). These oversimplifications can skew the argument at points and impose the impression of hegemony where nuance would better serve both the historical context and Dan's argument.
Third, as an academic, I knew I was going to be frustrated with the citational paucity of a trade book like this. Even in this format, however, I felt as though citations could have been beefed up considerably. He wouldn't need to fall prey to over-citation to give better signposting to literature presenting the academic consensus. This could even be ameliorated with a suggested reading section at the end of each chapter that could direct interested readers to more academic treatments of the issue. There is some of this in the notes, but too little to satisfy many of the questions I'm sure the average non-scholar would have.
Finally, at times the tone can be condescending towards the very people I hope take this book and its argument seriously. Labelling fundamentalist positions as asinine and laughable may match the tone of online discourse when he is often responding to vitriolic and polemical content creators, but it's dismissive enough in print that I worry curious but dogmatically inclined readers may get too defensive to continue. Hopefully a warning of this facet of the book and encouragement that it is worthwhile engaging with can counteract that risk because it is valuable data for all readers of the Bible to wrestle with.
Ultimately, I'd happily recommend this book as a starting point for anyone interested in the topic. Like any good book, it sparks questions and conversation and, especially in the conclusion, Dan shows the scholarly humility to reject a dogmatic assumption that he's right on everything and to encourage further engagement with these interesting questions and sources.
Dan does a good job walking through some of the more controversial and counterintuitive issues in the Bible, and often does a good job summarizing contemporary scholarship and presenting the current academic consensus. His consistent attempt to steer readers away from presuppositions of univocality is a laudable goal and helpful corrective to a lot of contemporary engagements with biblical literature. Like any volume like this, the chapters are a bit uneven in terms of quality and rigor, and his expertise in the Hebrew Bible definitely makes those chapters stronger (e.g. The Bible Says God Has a Wife and The Bible Says to Sacrifice Your Firstborn Child). He tends to be on shakier ground when discussing the New Testament (and it gets worse when he talks about Early Christianity), but still shows enough competency to be a valuable conversation partner. What most excites me about the book is that he lays out in a clear and accessible manner some of the fundamental conclusions assumed by biblical scholarship that may confuse or upset people who think they have a good grasp on this literature from the perspective of their religious tradition.
There are few criticisms that are worth naming here. First, Dan overuses the term "rhetoric(al/ally)." At times it's just a superfluous adjective that doesn't contribute to the argument or meaning of a passage and at other times it essentially functions as a marker that something is not real or true (e.g. "It's just rhetoric," pg. 166). Ancient rhetoric, of course, was many things, and we lose heuristic value when we use it to express cynicism at the intent or sincerity of an author--especially for readers trying to understand how ancient authors actually reasoned. Dan is far from the only person who uses "rhetoric(al/ally)" in this way, but it's a pet peeve of mine that I found distracting throughout the book, especially given the ubiquity of its usage.
Second, Dan often portrays Greco-Roman philosophy as a corrupting influence on the biblical tradition. Often, people are described as being influenced by Greco-Roman philosophy to make up things not native to the biblical sources. Of course, Platonic, Peripatetic, and Stoic philosophy was foreign to the ANE texts and contexts of many of the books of the Hebrew Bible, but by the time we get to Second Temple Judaism Hellenistic philosophy WAS part of the culture and context. This bias against philosophy leads Dan to what is, in my view, a misreading or overlooking of some of the sources. For example, he claims that Clement of Alexandria and Origen leveraged Middle-Platonism to create the idea that God was incorporeal, but the Jewish (Platonist) author Philo strongly insisted on God's incorporeality in the first century CE, something that Dan suggests wasn't repudiated in Judaism until Maimonides (under the influence of Aristotle). These oversimplifications can skew the argument at points and impose the impression of hegemony where nuance would better serve both the historical context and Dan's argument.
Third, as an academic, I knew I was going to be frustrated with the citational paucity of a trade book like this. Even in this format, however, I felt as though citations could have been beefed up considerably. He wouldn't need to fall prey to over-citation to give better signposting to literature presenting the academic consensus. This could even be ameliorated with a suggested reading section at the end of each chapter that could direct interested readers to more academic treatments of the issue. There is some of this in the notes, but too little to satisfy many of the questions I'm sure the average non-scholar would have.
Finally, at times the tone can be condescending towards the very people I hope take this book and its argument seriously. Labelling fundamentalist positions as asinine and laughable may match the tone of online discourse when he is often responding to vitriolic and polemical content creators, but it's dismissive enough in print that I worry curious but dogmatically inclined readers may get too defensive to continue. Hopefully a warning of this facet of the book and encouragement that it is worthwhile engaging with can counteract that risk because it is valuable data for all readers of the Bible to wrestle with.
Ultimately, I'd happily recommend this book as a starting point for anyone interested in the topic. Like any good book, it sparks questions and conversation and, especially in the conclusion, Dan shows the scholarly humility to reject a dogmatic assumption that he's right on everything and to encourage further engagement with these interesting questions and sources.
July 7, 2025
I should’ve stopped reading when he said he was LDS
May 18, 2025
The author describes how there is no inerrancy in the Bible and we negotiate meaning with the text.
He addresses in each chapter various Biblical misunderstandings or controversies.
Well written. Accessible to lay readers.
He addresses in each chapter various Biblical misunderstandings or controversies.
Well written. Accessible to lay readers.
June 30, 2025
Dan offers his readers a mountain of insights about what the Bible says (and doesn’t say) about a host of topics. This is extremely helpful for all who will never study Hebrew or Greek and whose background and experiences limits their understanding of Scripture. There are times when the conclusion & interpretation of the data seems incomplete or misguided, but this book is best utilized by doing one’s own interpretation based on the data provided.
People who have never studied the Bible as an historical document and delved into academic criticism will find this book very challenging. It’s hopefully a good challenge that benefits and enriches faith & understanding, but readers ought to know!
People who have never studied the Bible as an historical document and delved into academic criticism will find this book very challenging. It’s hopefully a good challenge that benefits and enriches faith & understanding, but readers ought to know!
September 28, 2025
I was really excited to read this book as it’s a topic I love and I have appreciated several of his videos online, but unfortunately I can’t accept very many of his conclusions. I do appreciate how he says that there is no such thing as a straight literal reading of the Bible as all who approach it have to take some parts literally and other parts not. Reading with the appropriate genre of the different sections of the text in mind is a great start to doing this well. I appreciate that he is trying to figure out what the original authors would have understood from the text. “It cannot mean to us what it did not mean to them,” is a hermeneutical principle I also hold to. The book is worth a read if you want to learn more about the different opinions people have on the Bible, but I honestly don’t know why anyone would read the Bible with the conclusions this author comes to. I am very willing to be wrong, and he probably is right on some things where I am wrong, and vice versa but I need much more to convince me of his views than his appeal to the specific education he has received and how that has shaped how he interprets the original words.
“I think a better translation…” is something he often says in the book. He puts his own views above those of our church forefathers who have argued it out before our generation. I deeply appreciate his hard work and academic education, but I also appreciate the hard work and academic education of all the other Biblical scholars working to wrestle with the Bible. He often references that “scholars” disagree with “fill in the blank ‘traditional view’” making it sound like all Biblical scholars think like he does. However, that is not true. Maybe I read his intentions wrong, but he seems to dismiss the arguments of the long list of Biblical scholars who disagree with him. We all come to anything with biases, and the biases from his background are evident. Something he argued against at the beginning of the book, but biases can never be escaped. As a linguist, amateur admittedly, I hesitate to dismiss all the hard work of other scholars of the original Hebrew and Greek the Bible is written in and straight away accept his opinion of these ancient languages. And he does state how his translation results are his own opinion.
Several of his conclusions are opinions not first held by him, but have been wrestled with by the church before us and determined to be heresies. A couple examples: Jesus is not God, and Jesus was not divine by nature but adopted by God. Do with that as you will, I know it is not a point that all will have contention with as I do.
I really appreciate that the author is wrestling so much with the Biblical text, and I appreciate him as a person, but I disagree with several of his original assumptions which guide him to his ideas. I did like a lot of his conclusion chapter stating that we all have biases and make errors, including himself. When someone can admit that they can be wrong it is a good sign.
“I think a better translation…” is something he often says in the book. He puts his own views above those of our church forefathers who have argued it out before our generation. I deeply appreciate his hard work and academic education, but I also appreciate the hard work and academic education of all the other Biblical scholars working to wrestle with the Bible. He often references that “scholars” disagree with “fill in the blank ‘traditional view’” making it sound like all Biblical scholars think like he does. However, that is not true. Maybe I read his intentions wrong, but he seems to dismiss the arguments of the long list of Biblical scholars who disagree with him. We all come to anything with biases, and the biases from his background are evident. Something he argued against at the beginning of the book, but biases can never be escaped. As a linguist, amateur admittedly, I hesitate to dismiss all the hard work of other scholars of the original Hebrew and Greek the Bible is written in and straight away accept his opinion of these ancient languages. And he does state how his translation results are his own opinion.
Several of his conclusions are opinions not first held by him, but have been wrestled with by the church before us and determined to be heresies. A couple examples: Jesus is not God, and Jesus was not divine by nature but adopted by God. Do with that as you will, I know it is not a point that all will have contention with as I do.
I really appreciate that the author is wrestling so much with the Biblical text, and I appreciate him as a person, but I disagree with several of his original assumptions which guide him to his ideas. I did like a lot of his conclusion chapter stating that we all have biases and make errors, including himself. When someone can admit that they can be wrong it is a good sign.
May 3, 2025
This book is absolutely captivating. I couldn’t put it down.
As a teen and young adult, I shied away from reading the Old Testament because it was confusingly repetitive and if I knew what it said, I’d feel some responsibility to conform my life to its weird and archaic teachings. If you likewise find the Old Testament or parts of the New Testament confusing or intimidating, this book is a good entry point to modern Biblical scholarship. There are people who spend their entire lives deciphering and understanding the books of the Bible, each on its own terms. And one of them has spent years sharing those insights on social media, honing his message, and now offers the most salient points to us in this book.
Some key insights:
(*) No Biblical authors challenge slavery as an institution. Instead, they uphold the slave-master relationship as the divine ideal between a disciple and God.
(*) All Biblical authors depict God as having a body, albeit an invulnerable body composed of Spirit matter (think of wind and fire, both of which are fully material).
(*) The Trinity is a post-Biblical concept developed to resolve the tension in how Jesus is depicted as both God and not God. Paul depicts Jesus as invested with God’s divine name. Mark depicts Jesus as God’s son by adoption.
(*) The virgin birth is a combination mistranslation in the Greek Septuagint and proof-texting by Matthew that really is unsupportable.
(*) The Josiahic reforms inserted propaganda against Asherah, the female consort of El/Yahweh.
(*) The Biblical basis for condemning homosexuality is weak because the Biblical authors had no more understanding of sexual orientation than they did of calculus or iPhones. The frameworks at play for understanding and regulating sex in OT times and NT times are both so vastly different from modern ones as to make Biblical teachings irrelevant. There was no notion of consent or equality between sexual partners. Rather, OT concerns revolve around social hierarchies of dominance while Paul views prioritizes celibacy and only allows passionless sex as a relief valve for those two weak to withstand burning sexual desires.
As a teen and young adult, I shied away from reading the Old Testament because it was confusingly repetitive and if I knew what it said, I’d feel some responsibility to conform my life to its weird and archaic teachings. If you likewise find the Old Testament or parts of the New Testament confusing or intimidating, this book is a good entry point to modern Biblical scholarship. There are people who spend their entire lives deciphering and understanding the books of the Bible, each on its own terms. And one of them has spent years sharing those insights on social media, honing his message, and now offers the most salient points to us in this book.
Some key insights:
(*) No Biblical authors challenge slavery as an institution. Instead, they uphold the slave-master relationship as the divine ideal between a disciple and God.
(*) All Biblical authors depict God as having a body, albeit an invulnerable body composed of Spirit matter (think of wind and fire, both of which are fully material).
(*) The Trinity is a post-Biblical concept developed to resolve the tension in how Jesus is depicted as both God and not God. Paul depicts Jesus as invested with God’s divine name. Mark depicts Jesus as God’s son by adoption.
(*) The virgin birth is a combination mistranslation in the Greek Septuagint and proof-texting by Matthew that really is unsupportable.
(*) The Josiahic reforms inserted propaganda against Asherah, the female consort of El/Yahweh.
(*) The Biblical basis for condemning homosexuality is weak because the Biblical authors had no more understanding of sexual orientation than they did of calculus or iPhones. The frameworks at play for understanding and regulating sex in OT times and NT times are both so vastly different from modern ones as to make Biblical teachings irrelevant. There was no notion of consent or equality between sexual partners. Rather, OT concerns revolve around social hierarchies of dominance while Paul views prioritizes celibacy and only allows passionless sex as a relief valve for those two weak to withstand burning sexual desires.
August 21, 2025
Dan’s book tries to present itself the same way his videos do—scholarly, impartial, and grounded in “just the data.” But the reality is very different. Right on page two he admits that his approach is to “give the benefit of the doubt to the less powerful group.” Now, caring for the marginalized is a deeply biblical value. But when that becomes the starting point for interpretation instead of the outcome of good interpretation, it risks smuggling modern categories into ancient texts and ignoring what the original authors actually meant. That’s exactly what happens here, again and again, as Dan uses the Bible and his brand of scholarship to argue for abortion, same-sex relationships, and even the idea that Jesus wasn’t divine.
He admits later in the book: “Even scholars like me who choose a historical-critical approach and presume to speak more authoritatively about what the Bible ‘actually says’ are not really excavating meaning. We’re reconstructing it just like everyone else” (253). But if all we’re doing is reconstructing meaning, then why does he spend so much time telling everyone else they’re wrong? That’s a pretty big contradiction.
Another problem is the way Dan sets himself up. He often takes aim at random fundamentalists on social media who don’t have training in biblical studies, which makes the whole thing feel more like bullying than serious scholarship. Meanwhile, when it comes to actual scholars who disagree with him, Dan simply ignores them. More than once I found myself thinking, Why won’t he deal with this other view? The answer is hard to miss—he doesn’t want to wrestle with interpretations that challenge his own.
In the end, the book feels like an apologetics for progressive postmodern ideals dressed up in biblical studies language. At times it reads less like exegesis and more like a recruitment brochure for a certain moral vision. And the irony is that while Dan spends much of his time critiquing fundamentalism, he often slips into his own version of progressive fundamentalism.
He admits later in the book: “Even scholars like me who choose a historical-critical approach and presume to speak more authoritatively about what the Bible ‘actually says’ are not really excavating meaning. We’re reconstructing it just like everyone else” (253). But if all we’re doing is reconstructing meaning, then why does he spend so much time telling everyone else they’re wrong? That’s a pretty big contradiction.
Another problem is the way Dan sets himself up. He often takes aim at random fundamentalists on social media who don’t have training in biblical studies, which makes the whole thing feel more like bullying than serious scholarship. Meanwhile, when it comes to actual scholars who disagree with him, Dan simply ignores them. More than once I found myself thinking, Why won’t he deal with this other view? The answer is hard to miss—he doesn’t want to wrestle with interpretations that challenge his own.
In the end, the book feels like an apologetics for progressive postmodern ideals dressed up in biblical studies language. At times it reads less like exegesis and more like a recruitment brochure for a certain moral vision. And the irony is that while Dan spends much of his time critiquing fundamentalism, he often slips into his own version of progressive fundamentalism.
May 12, 2025
The kind of public service Dan McClellan does is incredibly helpful and brings us ever closer to a future in which there will be no ivory towers separating the few from the many in terms of knowledge on various academic subjects.
The book itself is an expansion of Dan's mission to make biblical scholarship more accessible to the majority of us who will probably never get a Biblical studies degree (or sometimes ever read a Bible for that matter).
It does well in addressing commonly held positions by not just Christians but even what non-religious people may believe about the Biblical texts and uses a data-driven approach to analyze questions of "Does the Bible say X?"
One thing we still ought to be cautious of is taking the word of one scholar to settle long-disputed academic debates, especially on the matter of interpretation of ancient texts from cultures that are nothing but a distant memory to us now.
Luckily McClellan puts in a ton of references in this work for the reader to double-check. I know the work isn't aimed at an academic audience but I do wish the reference citations were footnoted rather than a list in the back. Nevertheless, I think the book will inspire readers (hopefully, the especially dogmatic Evangelical ones.) to dig further into the references used and serve as a great jumping-off point for further research into these questions of "What do the various Biblical authors say about X?"
I am a big fan of McClellan's work on social media and his public scholarship motivates and gives me hope that the internet (for as much misinformation it has spread) can be revolutionary in terms of the ability to seriously self-educate oneself on academic topics. I wish him a very long career in being a public scholar and hope that through him the world learns a little bit more about how to put data over dogma.
The book itself is an expansion of Dan's mission to make biblical scholarship more accessible to the majority of us who will probably never get a Biblical studies degree (or sometimes ever read a Bible for that matter).
It does well in addressing commonly held positions by not just Christians but even what non-religious people may believe about the Biblical texts and uses a data-driven approach to analyze questions of "Does the Bible say X?"
One thing we still ought to be cautious of is taking the word of one scholar to settle long-disputed academic debates, especially on the matter of interpretation of ancient texts from cultures that are nothing but a distant memory to us now.
Luckily McClellan puts in a ton of references in this work for the reader to double-check. I know the work isn't aimed at an academic audience but I do wish the reference citations were footnoted rather than a list in the back. Nevertheless, I think the book will inspire readers (hopefully, the especially dogmatic Evangelical ones.) to dig further into the references used and serve as a great jumping-off point for further research into these questions of "What do the various Biblical authors say about X?"
I am a big fan of McClellan's work on social media and his public scholarship motivates and gives me hope that the internet (for as much misinformation it has spread) can be revolutionary in terms of the ability to seriously self-educate oneself on academic topics. I wish him a very long career in being a public scholar and hope that through him the world learns a little bit more about how to put data over dogma.
May 22, 2025
This is a great book that takes you through a series of claims people make about what the Bible “says,” often to reaffirm their own worldviews and maintain boundaries against other groups. This book comprehensively (more or less) covers everything from claims regarding biblical univocality, God’s body, God's wife, Slavery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, to hell and more. McClellan offers the historical context of biblical passages and the scholarly consensus view (as he understands it as a biblical scholar) surrounding these claims, and it’s really helpful in terms of both understanding the biblical texts as their original authors and audiences used and understood them, as well as interrogating the poor ways we often use the texts anachronistically to confirm our own worldviews, maintain boundaries, and structure power---among other things. It also offers some great insights into how everyone, including McClellan, negotiates with the biblical texts to make meaning. The bible, in this way, doesn't "say" anything. As McClellan concludes in this book:
"We can claim to be sharing what the Bible "says" if we're just quoting it verbatim, but the instant we paraphrase those words or try to explain what they mean to modern events, circumstances, relationships, or identities, or how they should be applied, the Bible is no longer "saying" anything at all; we're just using the Bible as a bullhorn to authorize, validate, and amplify what WE'RE saying" (253).
This is a book I’ll be coming back to again and again.
"We can claim to be sharing what the Bible "says" if we're just quoting it verbatim, but the instant we paraphrase those words or try to explain what they mean to modern events, circumstances, relationships, or identities, or how they should be applied, the Bible is no longer "saying" anything at all; we're just using the Bible as a bullhorn to authorize, validate, and amplify what WE'RE saying" (253).
This is a book I’ll be coming back to again and again.
August 3, 2025
Man, I never thought in a million years that I’d enjoy a book about The Bible, but I legitimately binged this book within a couple of days. Dan McClellan is a biblical scholar, and he’s also from the Mormon church. In this book, he basically takes everything you think you know about the Bible and it’s concepts and flips it on its head. I’m an atheist, and one of the reasons I’ve never been religious is because the way people interpret the Bible has turned me off, but this author breaks down how people are either misinterpreting the Bible, using it for their own motives, or both.
Each chapter breaks down a different concept from the Bible, like what it says about topics like homosexuality, beating kids, the mark of the beast, Satan, Hell, what women should wear, and so many other concepts. He then goes through the history of different versions of the Bible, what the Hebrew and other translations actually say, what we have evidence for and what we don’t, and it’s just so interesting.
That being said, I also really dislike books that discuss history, but this one kept me interested. It was really cool learning about all the things the Bible doesn’t even say or how people twist certain things from the Bible while having no evidence that the original texts actually means what they think it means.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I think a lot of others will, too. Whether you’re an atheist or super religious, this book will teach you some things.
Each chapter breaks down a different concept from the Bible, like what it says about topics like homosexuality, beating kids, the mark of the beast, Satan, Hell, what women should wear, and so many other concepts. He then goes through the history of different versions of the Bible, what the Hebrew and other translations actually say, what we have evidence for and what we don’t, and it’s just so interesting.
That being said, I also really dislike books that discuss history, but this one kept me interested. It was really cool learning about all the things the Bible doesn’t even say or how people twist certain things from the Bible while having no evidence that the original texts actually means what they think it means.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I think a lot of others will, too. Whether you’re an atheist or super religious, this book will teach you some things.
May 23, 2025
just an absolute must read if the bible has ever been used against you or been provided as the source for questions that have answers that just don't make sense.
dan mcclellan does an excellent job at making the text extremely accessible to understand, providing every angle possible, and leaving it up to you to decide how you want to use the bible going forward. his call to action in nearly every chapter on why using the bible as a weapon towards marginalized communities is something i wish we would see more often in other people of faith with a platform (or without, honestly).
while i have been deconstructing for years and already knew most of what the bible "says" has no real authority in lawmaking or society or how people are supposed to live their life, this book further solidified to me that the bible can't really agree on any one thing, and is one of the most unreliable historical texts we have, while simultaneously being the most impactful book in history.
thank you a million to the author for writing this book and being on the right side of the movement.
dan mcclellan does an excellent job at making the text extremely accessible to understand, providing every angle possible, and leaving it up to you to decide how you want to use the bible going forward. his call to action in nearly every chapter on why using the bible as a weapon towards marginalized communities is something i wish we would see more often in other people of faith with a platform (or without, honestly).
while i have been deconstructing for years and already knew most of what the bible "says" has no real authority in lawmaking or society or how people are supposed to live their life, this book further solidified to me that the bible can't really agree on any one thing, and is one of the most unreliable historical texts we have, while simultaneously being the most impactful book in history.
thank you a million to the author for writing this book and being on the right side of the movement.
August 15, 2025
Effectively nineteenish of McClellan's most prominent videos, but in written form. Maybe it's because I'm more accustomed to dealing with written sources than Youtube shorts (never mind TikToks), but when you see it all written out it does become hard to miss that what he calls academic consensus is pretty often just a broad tendency, or only a consensus with theologians and not historians, archaeologists, or philologists—the notion that בְּרֵאשִׁית bərēʔšît (or bereshit, if you like—I don't!) at the start of Genesis is in the construct state and the verse should be translated "when God began to create &c.", for instance, is something that every theologian I know is as convinced as Dan is is universally believed by scholars, while every philologist I know (both of them!) thinks it's a neat idea but not without significant problems of its own. (At least he doesn't repeat the stronger and unambiguously incorrect claim from some of his videos that רֵאשִׁית is itself the construct state of רִאשׁוֹנָה.)
Obviously McClellan's content is generally pretty solid, though, and if you like it you'll probably like this book. I do feel it's a missed opportunity to go beyond what short-form video is capable of, but I guess it's aimed at the same kind of audience.
Obviously McClellan's content is generally pretty solid, though, and if you like it you'll probably like this book. I do feel it's a missed opportunity to go beyond what short-form video is capable of, but I guess it's aimed at the same kind of audience.
September 25, 2025
If you are familiar with Dan thanks to his multitudes of video content, this book might leave you wishing he had gone into more detail throughout. However, it is at its core a bird’s-eye view of the data points available on various dogmas as they are understood by a consensus of scholars.
To paraphrase Dan, the way historical people interpreted the Bible has influenced western civilization greatly and American culture definitively. It is thus extremely important to understand these texts in their original contexts and how these original contextual participants likely understood them.
It is only in this understanding, without imposing frameworks of univocality and inerrancy, that we may begin to negotiate and renegotiate our own personal relationship with the texts contained between its covers. After all, those who handed down the dogmas we are familiar with today negotiated and renegotiated with the texts in order to achieve them.
I thank Dan for opening up my horizons and for showing me a new way to reengage with the texts in an ultimately more rewarding way, both spiritually and literarily.
To paraphrase Dan, the way historical people interpreted the Bible has influenced western civilization greatly and American culture definitively. It is thus extremely important to understand these texts in their original contexts and how these original contextual participants likely understood them.
It is only in this understanding, without imposing frameworks of univocality and inerrancy, that we may begin to negotiate and renegotiate our own personal relationship with the texts contained between its covers. After all, those who handed down the dogmas we are familiar with today negotiated and renegotiated with the texts in order to achieve them.
I thank Dan for opening up my horizons and for showing me a new way to reengage with the texts in an ultimately more rewarding way, both spiritually and literarily.
December 11, 2025
I enjoyed this book even though the author was very open about being Mormon, so I think that says something! It's sort of a collection of a lot of different things I've heard over time distilled and explained by someone who definitely knows what they're talking about, which makes it useful and utilitarian in a way while also being entertaining. I think a few of the arguments skew into the probably/maybe/perhaps realm, but that's also just par for the course with arguments about the Bible. I really enjoyed the audiobook performance, and I didn't mind the "cringe" jokes and pop culture references the author makes, probably because I'm a millennial lol. Overall I'd recommend this to anyone looking for answers about things the Bible ACTUALLY says (vs. what people say it says).
September 26, 2025
Quite possibly my platonic ideal of a popular scholarship book. Thoroughly sourced and nuanced but written with enough whit and clarity that the layperson can follow along with ease. The thorough evaluation of so many presupposed beliefs about the Bible was refreshing and eye opening. Extremely recommend to anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament
May 12, 2025
Not without flaws, but it’s still the best pop-scholarship work I’ve read to this day. Dan is truly a gift to non-specialists, I can only hope more scholars will follow suit in increasing public access to these academic conversations.
May 20, 2025
Accessibly written and informative. I highly recommend this book to anyone who either is Christian or lives in a Christian-dominant society.
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