Alert reader Grania Spingies called my attention to a hilarious page: the Amazon reviews of the King James Bible. I think a bunch of atheists must have weighed in, for here are the ratings:

And even funnier are the reviews (see the one-star reviews here). The good part is that they review the Bible as a work of fiction, which of course it is. Here are a few excerpts:

There is little plot to this book, save for in the second half, much of which revolves around God’s son, Jesus, an interesting fellow. Definitely, the story has finally hit a stride, so the New Testament reads like a novella. Everywhere this Jesus guy goes, he travels with his posse of “Apostles,” who aren’t your standard yes men. Although they all sing his praises when the going’s good, one gives a great “I don’t know about no Jesus” performance (Peter) worthy of a scruffy rat like Steve Buscemi. Another (Judas) sells out Jesus for a bunch of dead presidents, like Sean Penn did in “Carlito’s Way.” Unfortunately, Jesus gets rubbed out by an Italian gang, “The Romans,” who torture him and nail him to a cross in revenge for representing on their turf. Lots of high drama here.”Revelations” was pretty weird, sort of like watching “Fantasia” while doing mushrooms, only a lot scarier. Altogether, an excellent read.

For those of you who don’t know, this is God’s second novel after the Old Testament. It’s a marked improvement, in my opinion. He got rid of a lot of his previous angst and scorn, and has really begun to show some of the maturity present in his later works. He’s become a much more loving and kind God, and, noticeably, he doesn’t throw nearly as many tantrums as he did in the first book. That said, there is still vast room for improvement. Plot wise, there isn’t really much suspense, and the story can be incredibly repetitive. In like four chapters, he just rewords the same basic story over and over again. To top that off, he puts those chapters one right after the other. Like we wouldn’t notice!

. . . As well as that, the dialogue between characters is paper thin. Take the New Testament, when Mary finds out she’s pregnant. She tells Joseph that she’s been knocked up by an angel, and he just flat out believes her! Not even a “hold on sista, we’re going on Maury” – he just takes it at face value! How are any of us meant to believe that? Honestly, I swear some of the scripting was done by a monkey with a typewriter. Take this gem from 2 Samuel: ”Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.” I mean, who speaks like that? Honestly! And as if the dialogue wasn’t bad enough, the whole tone is preachy and moralising, rather than engaging and well written.

After that there are some very depressing poems and some prose which is equally depressing. There is a VERY sensual book called Song of Solomon. He is basically describing the minutiae of his lover’s body (female, presumably; although possibly a man with gynecomastia and a tight rear) and talking about secksing her up really good, and there’s like a massage to completion and it’s very disturbing. Not an easy read, felt like I was reading smut when I pulled it out in public (probably shouldn’t have been touching myself in public anyway, but come on; bible readers, back me up on this!).

I picked this up because I heard it advertised as the Gospel, which translates to “good news.” It opens up by telling the reader how the human race is doomed because two poorly developed characters ate an apple that a snake told them to eat.That’s not good news.I can’t say I found much good news at all in this. It actually closes by telling us that the world is going to end, and how we should all be prepared.I would not recommend this book to others. It does not deliver on many of its advertised promises, and features weak characters and archaic diction.