Good Books to Read about the Bible

So my friend Mike organized this cool 5-minute speech event for tonight, and I got 5 minutes to talk about the Bible. It was a lot of fun. I had one woman come up to me afterward and tell me that although she wasn't a very religious person, she really identified with the apostle Thomas, who was a doubter, and in fact had named her son after him. If Jesus loved Thomas, her reasoning went, then he can handle me, too, with my doubts. It didn't hit me until a few minutes later how brilliant that was.

So, here were my suggested books for further reading on the Bible:

Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg.
Borg, a Lutheran theology professor, lays out some basics for approaching the Bible.

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McClaren
McClaren discusses new research into the core of Jesus’ teaching – his message about the Kingdom of God. Turns out, it has very little to do with clouds and angels.

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
Jacobs, a mostly secular Jew, spends a year trying to follow the laws of the Bible as literally as possible.

Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman
This book describes the process of assembling the first five books of the Bible, along with some other later works. Accessible, but somewhat academic.

The Good Book by Peter Gomes
My preaching prof! Gomes delves into some of the controversies surrounding the interpretation of the Bible in such areas as race, anti-Semitism, homosexuality and women.


Translations

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Message by Eugene Peterson (paraphrase)