From Publishers Weekly
According to this engaging but not always convincing liberal gloss on the Good Book, biblical literalism is an idolatrous departure from the Bible's "enduring but non-literal wisdom," which progressives can reclaim through informed interpretations of biblical metaphor and symbolism. Drawing on historical and contemporary Bible scholarship, Buehrens, a Unitarian minister and co-author of A Chosen Faith, gives an illuminating if brief rundown of each book in the Bible, one informed by feminist, literary and lefty political critiques. The results are mixed. Themes of liberation and social justice emerge in the Exodus narrative, the Prophetic books and the Gospels. But on fundamentalist hot-button issues like homosexuality and women's rights, the Bible's clear statements defy interpretive rehabilitation. Faced with outright prohibition on a man "lying with a man as with a woman," Buehrens suggests that "the inner spirit of what is intended" there might be different. He champions "reading against the grain": with that interpretive strategy, the New Testament's urging of submissiveness on wives and servants, for example, attests to husbands' and masters' anxiety over the egalitarianism of Church congregations. And his anti-literalist, Bible-as-metaphor approach sometimes throws the religion out with the bathwater, as when nonbelievers are reassured that stories of miracles and resurrections can also be seen as metaphorical rather than actual events. Unfortunately, Buehrens's laudable attempt at "reading the Bible to overcome oppression" drains away much substantive content. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In his introduction, Buehrens offers several compelling reasons for studying the Bible. You aren't fully literate without it; if you can't or won't understand it, others will interpret it for you. And to his mind, most importantly, you can't be spiritually mature by simply rejecting the Bible as oppressive. Buehrens, who is affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist church, offers humanist or liberal interpretations solidly based on the original texts, and he also draws on other historical and literary sources to bolster his explanations. Although this is by necessity an overview, Buehrens does a masterful job of coursing through both Testaments, placing events and pronouncements in context of both prevailing theology and the times. An interesting balance to biblical interpretations that are weighted in the other direction. Ilene Cooper
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Book Description
"An introductory survey of biblical scholarship, [Understanding the Bible] says that you don"t have to believe in the supernatural to appreciate the wisdom of the Bible." — Rich Barlow, Boston GlobeThis warm, straightforward guide invites readers to rediscover our culture"s central religious and spiritual text and makes accessible some of the best contemporary historical, literary, political, and feminist readings of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures."[Buehrens] demonstrates that it is both intellectually respectable and politically savvy to know your Bible well." —Joyce Smothers, Library Journal"Forsaking the Bible means forsaking the best-selling book of all time . . . It is difficult to understand much of Western literature and culture without knowing Scripture . . . [Buehrens"s] book is a readable, salient introduction to biblical study and history." —Religion News Service

FROM THE PUBLISHER