Dennis McKinsey has organized and summarized his work of over a decade, putting it together so that we now have a genuine and substantial resource for challenging the notion that the Bible is supernaturally free of error.

It's time for more of us to become more religiously literate, more aware of how Bible errors and Bible atrocities connect with today's political strife. McKinsey's Encyclopedia is a timely tool for this civic duty.

The book is organized by topic, like the Macropedia of the Britannica, rather than alphabetically. There is a thorough general index and an index of Bible citations. Some of the topics are Jesus (five chapters), social issues (two chapters), Paul, prophecies, salvation, injustice, and science. There is some repetition, as the same Bible errors are relevant to different topics. Here are a few that took me by surprise.

Predestination: I had the impression that most Christians had outgrown John Calvin's doctrine of predestination; it certainly isn't popular. McKinsey spends eight pages on it, showing that it has overwhelming Bible support, and is an ineradicable part of Christian theology. He provides 25 Bible quotes and several Bible citations in one part, and a whole bunch more under "elect," "chosen," "called," and "given." The Bible plainly teaches that God decided in advance who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. It also teaches that we have free will, and this constitutes a major and notorious Bible contradiction. McKinsey quotes several woebegone comments by fundamentalist Bible-explainers on this topic. You "outgrow" predestination only by ignoring the Bible. Many Christians do just that.

In a chapter titled "The Character of Biblical Figures," McKinsey leads off with God. On one page he lists over fifty evil acts committed by the Creator of the universe, some of them vicious and stomach turning, with Bible quotes for most of these. Great Bible heroes: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, and many others receive similar treatment. Remember, these are the heroes, not the villains.

The chapter on the Sabbath is a real eye-opener. It provides massive Bible evidence that Saturday is the day reserved by God for people to rest in remembrance of Him. It debunks the pathetic attempts of Christian apologists to defend the change to Sunday, using evidence provided by other Christian apologists, showing that this change has no Biblical support whatever, and that, although the calendar has been changed a lot, the seven-day week has not. McKinsey shows that the Roman Catholic Church by fiat moved the "Sabbath" day to Sunday, and even quotes a Catholic source saying that observance of Sunday by Protestants shows their continued subservience to Rome!

I haven't said much about contradictions. There are hundreds if not thousands of them, and a good many make it into the book. Some are picky, some are huge; all are troublesome to inerrantists.

What are we to do about all this? The last chapter gives McKinsey's suggestions, some of them very sobering. For those of us content to leave well enough alone ("let the dead bury their dead"), he offers 24 reasons why it is bad not to challenge the Bible-pounders.

In discussing tactics, McKinsey says: "...a number of topics should be relegated to the back burner. Good examples are: ...the history of church atrocities and bad popes, pagan influences on early Christianity, the similarity of beliefs between Christianity and other religions,... the theological beliefs of America's founding fathers,... and the creation vs. evolution controversy." McKinsey strongly believes that internal evidence of Bible error and evil is better at raising doubt in the minds of believers than these other issues. I think he has a point, but several of our editors and columnists disagree, as you can see in some of our recent Truth Seeker articles.

McKinsey goes on to urge the use of radio and television to spread the word of Biblical errancy, and to go one- on-one with as many Christians as one can get a hold of. Other how-toe include building bridges, avoiding humor (I can't do it!), staying on topic, knowing the Bible well, avoiding discussions of atheism, etc., and keeping the burden of proof on the believer.

McKinsey hits hard — much harder than I do. And he is relentless — a bulldog. Good. The target is tough. Buy this book. At least see to it that your library has a copy.

The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy by C. Dennis McKinsey. @1995. Published by Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY 14228-2197. ISBN 087975-926-7. 553 pp. hardback.