The Good Book: A Humanist Bible

by A. C. Grayling

Overview

Few, if any, thinkers and writers today would have the imagination, the
breadth of knowledge, the literary skill, and-yes-the audacity to
conceive of a powerful, secular alternative to the Bible. But that is
exactly what A.C. Grayling has done by creating a non-religious Bible,
drawn from the wealth of secular literature and philosophy in both
Western and Eastern traditions, using the same techniques of editing,
redaction, and adaptation that produced the holy books of the
Judaeo-Christian and Islamic religions. The Good Book consciously
takes its design and presentation from the Bible, in its beauty of
language and arrangement into short chapters and verses for ease of
reading and quotability, offering to the non-religious seeker all the
wisdom, insight, solace, inspiration, and perspective of secular
humanist traditions that are older, far richer and more various than
Christianity. Organized in 12 main sections----Genesis, Histories,
Widsom, The Sages, Parables, Consolations, Lamentations, Proverbs,
Songs, Epistles, Acts, and the Good----The Good Book opens with
meditations on the origin and progress of the world and human life in
it, then devotes attention to the question of how life should be lived,
how we relate to one another, and how vicissitudes are to be faced and
joys appreciated. Incorporating the writing of Herodotus and Lucretius,
Confucius and Mencius, Seneca and Cicero, Montaigne, Bacon, and so many
others, The Good Book will fulfill its audacious purpose in every way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802778383
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/05/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	608
File size:	746 KB

About the Author

A.C. Grayling is professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of the acclaimed Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan, Descartes: The Life and Times of a Genius, and Toward the Light of Liberty: The Struggles for Freedom and Rights That Made the Modern Western World.
A fellow of the World Economic Forum and past chairman of the human
rights organization June Fourth, he contributes frequently to the Times, Financial Times, Economist, New Statesman,
and Prospect. Grayling's play "Grace," co-written with Mick Gordon, has
played to full houses in London and New York, starring Lynn Redgrave;
its central debate over the virtue of religion gives Grayling a strong
platform for The Good Book. He lives in London.
A. C. Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities, UK. He has written and edited numerous works of philosophy and is the author of biographies of Descartes and William Hazlitt. He believes that philosophy should take an active, useful role in society. He has been a regular contributor to The Times, Financial Times, Observer, Independent on Sunday, Economist, Literary Review, New Statesman and Prospect, and is a frequent and popular contributor to radio and television programmes, including Newsnight, Today, In Our Time, Start the Week and CNN news. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum at Davos, and advises on many committees ranging from Drug Testing at Work to human rights groups.

Editorial Reviews

Grayling (philosophy, Birkbeck Coll., Univ. of London; Ideas That Matter) has risen to controversial eminence as a public intellectual. This book, which his publisher rightly describes as "audacious," continues his humanist explorations with his creation of an entire scripture for atheists and agnostics. Grayling's "Genesis" has Isaac Newton's apple, rather than Eve's; the wars of Persia against Greece take the place of the rise of Davidic Israel; the lives of Lycurgus, Pericles, and Cicero stand for the wanderings of Jesus's disciples. Grayling's cagey "Epistle to the Reader" does not suggest why his humanist replacements, e.g., the defeat of Persia—in which no one emerges with much credit—have more power than, say, the death of Absalom. Throughout are faint echoes of Chinese poets, Seneca the Younger, Herodotus, Thucydides, and the Bible itself, which will simply leave many hungry for the originals. VERDICT This reasonable, rationalistic, and dull "scripture" is likely to make informed readers long for the spiky, idiosyncratic poems, histories, essays, and narratives Grayling's work at once springs from and criticizes. Some convinced humanists may enjoy this, and it may appeal to nontheistic denominations and congregations in search of a worship resource. Not likely to be of interest to the general reader.—Graham Christian, Pelham, MA

Library Journal