Holy Bible, Giant Print Presentation Edition: King James Version

by Anonymous

book data

3,128 ratings, 4.27 average rating, 609 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		69%
4		8%
3		8%
2		5%
1		7%

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published

January 13th 2000 by Oxford University Press; National Publishing Company (first published January 1611)

details

Leather Bound, 1392 pages

isbn

0834003503 (isbn13: 9780834003507)

description

The Giant Print Bible, Presentation Edition is the perfect choice for anyone who needs a value-priced book that's easy to read. Generously sized at 8 …more

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Aug 27, 2007

Dennis rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

Read in January, 1993

recommends it for: level a crooked table

Badly edited, poor continuity and internal consistency. Authors seem to change between books. Plot is cliched and thin, with virtually no character development save for Judas Iscariot. The main characters of Jesus and Moses are entirely one dimensional messianic figures. The novel opens with Adam and Eve, and then ignores them for the next thousand pages or so. The built-in bookmark was a nice touch, but a little pretentious.

Oddly, it wasn't shelved with the other fiction books.

Like this review? yes (88 people liked it)

66 comments

Jun 01, 2007

Keely rated it:

(review of isbn 0840726848)

bookshelves: contemporary-fiction, fantasy, religion, reviewed

recommends it for: the inconsolably confused

I usually like historical fiction, but this particular example has been so mitigated by the poorly-hidden didactic tautology of its too-many-cooks legion of anonymous authors and editors that it was rather difficult to enjoy. It also fell into a similar trap to the somewhat similar 'Da Vinci Code', in that it utilized a lot of poorly-researched materials and claimed them as fact.

A lot of the data matched up poorly with other historical accounts, especially when it came to numerical ...more I usually like historical fiction, but this particular example has been so mitigated by the poorly-hidden didactic tautology of its too-many-cooks legion of anonymous authors and editors that it was rather difficult to enjoy. It also fell into a similar trap to the somewhat similar 'Da Vinci Code', in that it utilized a lot of poorly-researched materials and claimed them as fact.

A lot of the data matched up poorly with other historical accounts, especially when it came to numerical data. It seems that the authors of this book had a need for an epic beyond epics, and several bodycounts beyond the capability of a pre-modern war.

There was also a problem with the moral and ethical position presented by the book. Normally, I'm not one to nit-pick about such things, since the exploration of ethicism is an important and interesting philosophical task; but, again, this book went in so many different directions with it that it was difficult to keep up. Though the intermittent noir-ish first-person narrative made a lot of moral claims about peace and justice and acceptance, the actual actions depicted by the self-same 'protagonist' were often in complete contrast, such as when he killed all the people in the world except one family.

In fact, the entire book seemed to be filled with sensationalist violence, sex, and incest. It's surprising that I haven't heard more crimes blamed on this book, which often orders the reader to kill people by throwing stones at them (I've heard the sequel, the Qur'an, is even worse).

Eventually, I began to suspect that the book was some sort of in-joke. I think that when all of the editors and writers saw what the other ones were doing in, they decided to take their names off the book. Eventually, I guess they just decided to pull a sort of ultimate Alan Smithee with it; but of course, once all culpability is gone, I think a lot of the authors lost their will to make this into a good book, and so it just got published 'as is'.

I know there are a lot of fans of this book, which makes sense, I guess, since it is really a lot like that Da Vinci Code book, which was also a bestseller. It is pretty fantastical and has a lot of really strong characters, like Jesus (though he's a bit of a Mary-Sue, isn't he?) and Onan. One of the main reasons I read it was because I read this really awesome Fanfic this guy Milton wrote about it, and apparently a lot of other authors were inspired by it, but I have to admit, this is one case where the Fanfic is a lot better than the original.

I guess it's like how sometimes, the first example of a genre ends up not really fitting because it feels so unsophisticated and erratic. I know that it can take a long time to try to get these ideas down pat. Maybe someone will rewrite it someday and try to get it to make some sense. Then again, it wasn't that great in the first place.

There was some really great writing in the book, though. Some of the poetic statements were really cool, like 'do unto others' or 'through a glass darkly', but I heard that those parts were stolen from Shakespeare, who stole them from Kyd, so I'm not really sure what to believe.

I think this is one of those cases where the controversy surrounding the book really trumps the book itself, like 'The Catcher in the Rye' or 'Gigli'. In fact, the Bible is a lot like Gigli.(less)

Like this review? yes (80 people liked it)

67 comments

Sep 19, 2007

Jessica rated it:

(review of isbn 0840726848)

bookshelves: 100-greatest-books-ever-written, favorites

recommends it for: Everyone

The Holy, Inspired and inerrant word of God! I can say no more than READ IT!

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our ...more

Like this review? yes (35 people liked it)

8 comments

Nov 22, 2009

Manny rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

bookshelves: linguistics-and-philosophy, science, science-fiction, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, why-not-call-it-poetry

Read in January, 1975

I've already done a review of the New Testament, so this one will focus on the first part of the book. Looking at other reviews, most of them seem to fall into a small number of categories. First, there are the people who are telling me that this is the word of God, and the greatest book ever written. Second, there are the ones reacting to the first group and telling me that it's worthless. Third (probably the largest contingent), we have the wise guys making flippant remarks. And fourth, we hav...more I've already done a review of the New Testament, so this one will focus on the first part of the book. Looking at other reviews, most of them seem to fall into a small number of categories. First, there are the people who are telling me that this is the word of God, and the greatest book ever written. Second, there are the ones reacting to the first group and telling me that it's worthless. Third (probably the largest contingent), we have the wise guys making flippant remarks. And fourth, we have a few purists recommending or disapproving of particular translations.

I don't really find any of these approaches very satisfying. I can't accept the statement that this is the word of God, and all literally true; to pick one of the standard examples, Joshua's making the sun stand still appears wildly far-fetched. I'm sorry if that offends the Christians in the audience. If it makes you feel any better, I'll offend the Scientologists too, and say that I don't believe that, 75 million years ago, Xenu, the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, brought billions of his people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them using hydrogen bombs. But I can't accept the reviewers in the second group either, who are telling me that, because of stories like Joshua, the Bible is worthless. In terms of plausibility, it's true that I am about equally impressed by the Joshua story and the Xenu story; they've both obviously been made up. Considered as literature, however, I greatly prefer the Joshua story, which is beautifully written. The Xenu story sounds like something hastily cobbled together by a talentless science-fiction hack.

OK, I'll admit that I also like making flippant remarks. But let's try and be serious for a moment, and apply normal critical standards to this work. That involves comparing it other, similar, books. What's similar to the Old Testament? It's a tricky question. To start off with, what genre does it belong to? It was written so long ago that modern categories don't apply. If you attempt to fit it into one of those categories, you find it's a bunch of things: an epic poem, a religious allegory, a history, and a work of science. Now, we think of those as being different. But when the Old Testament was written, they were all mixed up together. In particular, it's easy to forget that "Science", as a concept, is a very modern invention. As recently as the early eighteenth century, they called it Natural Philosophy.

Considered as an epic poem based on a religious allegory, the Old Testament is often brilliant. This is uncontroversial; even Richard Dawkins is happy to agree, and quotes numerous examples in the relevant chapter of The God Delusion. Obvious comparison points are Homer, Dante and Milton. (The only modern author I can think of is Tolkien). All of those are arguably better taken as a whole - in particular, they are more coherent - but, at least in my opinion, the best passages in the Old Testament are better than the best passages in the other books. If you disagree, just, off the top of your head, quote me a passage from The Iliad, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost or The Silmarillion which you consider superior to the Twenty-Third Psalm. ("The Lord is my shepherd", if you're no good with numbers). Maybe you can come up with something; I'm curious to see what it is. To me, though, the serious competitor is the New Testament. It's by no means inferior as poetry, and Jesus is a more complex and interesting character than Jehovah. The Old Testament position on moral and ethical issues now seems rather dated, and Jehovah, like Zeus and Odin, often comes across as not much more than a wise tribal chieftain with unusually powerful technology. Jesus, on the other hand, seems entirely relevant even today, and his bold and unconventional ideas still have the capacity to shock and amaze.

Given the popularity of Creationism, I guess I have to say something about the Bible as a work of science. I'm inspired here to follow Feynman's treatment of Newton in QED, which I read last week. Feynman is very respectful towards Newton, and says what a great man he was; but he also points out where Newton got it wrong. We just know more now. Well: put in its historical context, I think that the Old Testament was way ahead of its time. Quite apart from the fact that it's great poetry, Genesis is a remarkably sophisticated creation myth. Consider the first few verses.

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.

And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

People who know about modern cosmology may want to nitpick this. On the other hand, if you had to describe the first few minutes of the Universe to a bronze-age nomad, I'd like to see you do better. You aren't going to be able to explain inflation and nucleosynthesis to them; you'll have to improvise a bit, and take the odd liberty. But, later on, there are definite mistakes. For example, God makes the Earth before He makes the stars. That's just incorrect, and there's no reason why it couldn't have been presented in the opposite order. The author of Genesis hadn't got a telescope, and it was hard to figure this stuff out from first principles.

To sum up: considering that it was written well over two thousand years ago, the Old Testament is a startlingly good book that's still well worth reading today. Before you knock it too hard, consider how few other books there are from that period that can make similar claims. And, oh yes, I was planning to say something about translations. I think some are better than others, but the point I wanted to make has already been made so much more elegantly by Richard Curtis. I'll hand over now, and let him conclude by giving you his scholarly opinions on the New English Bible.
(less)

Like this review? yes (30 people liked it)

54 comments

May 29, 2007

Adrienne rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

bookshelves: currently-reading

recommends it for: EVERYONE

This is the only book you need for life. This is life's instruction manual. It will give you history, answers for EVERY issue of life, comfort in times of sorrow, encouragment, prophecy (only book with prophecies that all came true) and best of all the TRUTH of why we are here. This book is actually made of 66 books written by 40 authors over 1500 years!! It has stood the test of time. I encourage anyone to give it a try. Please do not knock it till you try it. And you dont have to start i...more

Like this review? yes (30 people liked it)

3 comments

Apr 09, 2008

Jeff Menter rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

Read in June, 1985

God's first foray into the world of literature has made quite a splash. People the world over are talking about this book (or series of books if you want to get pedantic) and for good reason; It makes some grandiose claims, it purports to be the complete authority on almost all areas of human endeavor (aside from how to choose an internet service provider), and even makes threats to the reader.

Of course, English is not God's native tongue and this book has been translated from the or...more

Like this review? yes (25 people liked it)

6 comments

Dec 25, 2007

Max rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

As a work of fiction it's laughably bad and poorly conceived. Giant logical fallacies, poor character development, and all the plots are scuttled by a magical, invisible entity that's petty, cruel, tyrannical, and amoral. There is no central narrative that is worthwhile (or even believable), and each of the chapters seem written by committee rather than a singular voice. Clearly the book was so bad to begin with a team of editors had to step in and make major changes - which means no part of thi...more

Like this review? yes (10 people liked it)

1 comment

May 14, 2008

Jen rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

bookshelves: currently-reading

recommends it for: All seeking God's purpose and will and wanting to live Godly

The Holy Bible is the written world inspired by God and written by many who walked and talked with God over the past 6000 years. The creation of man, man's fall, God's plan of salvation, the prophets, judges, kings. Christ and his disciples and his ordained Apostles and their works. The Bible is the human handbook of instruction for our daily life. It holds out hope it teaches truth, it shows us the comforter and how to walk uprightly in truth and rightousness. It is a book of Mystery, Murd...more

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

1 comment

Aug 28, 2007

Pete rated it:

(review of isbn 0840726848)

Read in January, 1999

inconsistent narrative; main character seems fickle. interminably long passages about wandering, followed by some pearls of wisdom, songs, lots of war, and plenty of stonings. passages can be interpreted or misinterpreted as mysogynistic, racist, and homophobic, if the reader tries real hard. apparently, every sperm is, in fact, "sacred". evolution and genetics called into question without convincing arguments or statistical data. last chapter seems to be written under the influence of...more

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

8 comments

May 10, 2008

Wes rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

Read in February, 1992

Certainly not life changing or anything. The plot was hard to follow and the editing was horrible. The characters were painfully one-dimensional and this Jesus guy delivered some of the worst dialogue I've ever read. All in all I found it too long and it took itself way too seriously. The fact that it sells so well is beyond me and the way people hold it up you'd think God himself had written the damn thing.

Like this review? yes (10 people liked it)

2 comments

Apr 25, 2007

Jonny rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: Nobody.

If it wasn't for the fact that some people actually took it seriously, this book would be a fantastic read. It's action packed, full of death and destruction, as well as advocating murder, vengeance, wars, sacrifice and rape, and even the stoning of adulterers and homosexuals - it's definetly a thrilling (if somewhat disturbing) read!

However, if you wish to read the original stories, then you may want to refer to Mithraic holy scripts, which predate the Bible by several thousand year...more

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

9 comments

Sep 14, 2007

bARRY rated it:

(review of isbn 0452006473)

recommends it for: GK Darby

No one whose testes are crushed or whose member is cut off shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. -Deuteronomy 23:2

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nak...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

3 comments

Sep 08, 2007

Gracula rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

Read in January, 1978

recommends it for: God Lover's and friends

It starts off with a big bang of a sort. I mean how many people get to say, "Let there be light." And it happens! I mean right there I was hooked. Then it gets a bit provocative when you got two naked people hanging out in a garden. Then they anger the head cheese and get the boot. That's women for ya. Then there is a flood and a guy builds an ark with two of every animal. Come on, do you how hard that would be but he fricking does it. Then this bloke, Moses, turns his staff i...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

4 comments

Jun 23, 2008

Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 1585161519)

bookshelves: biography, christianity, history, literature, philosophy, poetry

recommends it for: Everyone

I've been avoiding listing this one because there is a part of me that screams, "Why didn't you give this book 5 stars!?!?!" Certainly, that part of me has a point. I've read this book more than any other book save two - the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Generally, any book I find worth reading more than 4 or 5 times I also find worth giving 5 stars to. And, in terms of the power and sophistication of the stories contained within, the book is probably unmatched as a collection ...more

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Sep 24, 2007

Charlemagne added it (review of isbn 0452010624)

Read in January, 1985

These book makes a simple wise. A believer sees things and miracles happen. A light to guide our way.

The Psalmist once wrote and I quote: "How can a young man keep his way pure? by living according to your ways.."

"Thy word Have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you."

James once said: Thy word is like a mirror to our soul. yes I should have not sinned, or I should have make my path straight.. or I should not have been led astray...more

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Jul 11, 2009

Author Wright rated it:

(review of other edition)

Read in September, 2009

This King James Version (KJV) Bible has been an incredibly good read to me and I have been truly blessed. I am convinced that this English version of the Christian Bible is the primary one for me. I am very familiar with the vernacular contained in the KJV version and had very little difficulty with the language idiom of the 1611 era. Having read all of the other English translations of the Bible, I believe that the KJV version of the English Bible presents a full rendering of Holy Scripture per...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

9 comments

Feb 27, 2008

Michael rated it:

(review of isbn 1598560204)

I guess it's pretty cheeky to give the Bible a bad review, but why not?

It's boring, self-contradictory, petty, and mean.

I only read it out of some kind of weird obligation to understand how the other 98% lives.

I did learn a lot, however.

If guests come by and want to rape my angel, I will let them rape my daughter.

So say we all!

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Aug 03, 2007

Jeremy rated it:

(review of isbn 0452010624)

bookshelves: read-for-school, religion

It drags in places.

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

Jan 17, 2008

Jeremy added it (review of isbn 0840726848)

So it looks like the public has once again put a piece of crap atop the best seller list. Wow! No plausible or comprehensible story line, with hardly a semblance of order to the "book" if you can even call it that.Then there's the extremely vague and undefined characters, one of which disappears for 30 years with absolutely no explanation. It seems that the author suffers from a complete amnesia concerning the concept of a run on sentence(I went pages without seeing a period just an en...more

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Jan 10, 2008

C.S. rated it:

(review of isbn 0840726848)

recommended to C.S. by: paranoid schizophrenics and their talking squirrel friends
recommends it for: mystics, folks that can barely read, folks that can't read voltaire

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

**contains spoilers**

EXCERPTS:

Song of Solomon 8:8
"We have a young sister, and her boobs are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for? Should we feed her lamb's lard?"

Ezekiel 16:7
"You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your boobs were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare in need of no lamb's lard."

Ezekiel 23:3
"In that land thei...more