Understanding The Bible - Softcover

Stephen Harris' text is the best-selling nonsectarian guide designed for students undertaking their first systematic study of the bible, and it is the only single-volume text that provides both a comprehensive historical-cultural background for the entire biblical era and a rigorous analysis of each individual work of the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament. The purpose of the text is twofold: to acquaint readers with the content and major themes of each biblical book and to familiarize them with important contemporary scholarship.

Stephen L. Harris is Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University, Sacramento, where he served ten years as department chair. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. A member of the Society of Biblical Literature, his publications include Understanding the Bible (8th edition, 2011); The Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (with Robert Platzner); Classical Mythology: Images and Insights (with Gloria Platzner); Exploring the Bible; and Fire Mountains of the West: The Cascade and Mono Lake Volcanoes, a survey of volcanic hazards on the U.S. Pacific Coast; and for National Geographic Books, Restless Earth, a study of global earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. He contributed the chapter on Archaeology and Volcanism to the Encyclopedia of Volcanoes (Academic Press, 2000).