The Bible Doesn't Say That

40 Biblical Mistranslations, Misconceptions, and Other Misunderstandings

By: Joel M. Hoffman

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

A vast listenership wants better access to the ancient words and ideas of the Bible. In The Bible Doesn't Say That, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman walks the listener through dozens of instances of mistranslations, misconceptions, and other misunderstandings about the Bible. In 40 short chapters, Hoffman covers fundamental theology, morality, lifestyle, and biblical imagery:

• The famous New Testament quotation "God so loved the world" is a mistranslation, as are the titles "Son of Man" and "Son of God".
• The Bible doesn't call homosexuality a sin, and it doesn't advocate for the one-man-one-woman model of the family that has been dubbed "biblical".
• Jesus had siblings, in spite of the Catholic rhetoric about the "ever-Virgin Mary".
• The Ten Commandments don't prohibit killing or coveting.

Even many of the Bible's details end up distorted: The fruit in the Garden of Eden wasn't an apple, it wasn't a whale that swallowed Jonah, and many animals marched onto Noah's ark in groups of seven, not pairs. The Bible Doesn't Say That succinctly explains each misunderstanding, detailing the nature of what went wrong and offering insight into the original meaning of the world's most popular book.

©2016 Joel M. Hoffman (P)2016 Recorded Books

It’s not inaccurate, but it is irritating

The author feels like they are padding out the length of the book constantly. Every chapter, they give us a summary of events in the Bible, and then quote the Bible word for word of the same event that they just summarized, and then explain intricate, obscure, hyper specific grammatical differences between common translations of that passage and the original writing. They tend to over emphasize the importance and relevance of these differences by using comparison examples that stretch from fair to absurd, such as citing Calvin and Hobbs and quoting a punch line about sex education. What in the world is going on? I love Calvin and Hobbs. But why is it here?

I got into the habit of skipping a chapter if it turned out that it was just fussing over obscure language differences. If I had to guess, these chapters are included so they can pad out the number of inaccuracies within common understandings of the Bible.

Also, the narrator is usually fine, but they had a section where they were quoting German people, and they took on this stereotypical, absurd, and exaggerated accent to make it sound like they were German. I found this highly irritating. I have a friend born and raised in Germany that I routinely talk to over the phone, and they sound nothing like that.

Enjoyed The Scriptural Commitment

It was not a like/dislike type of book. It was an expose of the subject matter. Well done.

Very interesting

I enjoyed thinking through the arguments presented in this book, though upon listening to them I didn't not always arrive at the same conclusion as the author because there were certainly others verses that didn't seem to be addressed though, in my opinion, relevant.

Excellent!!!

A must read/listen!! I’d definitely listen to this again and again! Raises great questions and provide informative explanations.

Quite interesting

never knew how much is actually misunderstood by the lack of a proper translation. still maintaining my stance as an atheist, it is good to hear some of the highly quoted verses abrogating, abdicating and even justifying against certain issues, are actually being quite discombobulated by certain people.