The Atheist's Bible Companion

A new kind of Bible commentary

Tired of all the "study Bibles" and Bible "commentaries" that ignore or even cover up the contradictions and inconsistencies found in the Bible? The Atheist's Bible Companion (ABC) is a comprehensive resource for atheists, agnostics, and even for wavering Christians. It puts the many logical, historical, and theological difficulties of the Bible at your fingertips, and is a great source of ammunition for debating Christian fundamentalists. In addition to highlighting biblical difficulties, it also provides historical and linguistic background information for your own personal Bible research. This is an ongoing project that begins with the four gospels, and will continue with other books of the New Testament, which will be added as they are completed. After completion of the New Testament commentary, we'll start on the Old Testament. We hope you'll find The Atheist's Bible Companion to be a useful tool for your own Bible study, and that you'll be back to visit often as it grows in scope.

Use it with any edition or translation of the Bible.

This commentary can be used with any translation or edition of the Bible. In order to save space, and avoid copyright issues we have not reproduced the biblical text along with these notes. So BYOB (Bring Your Own Bible) and follow along as we expose the contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities of the New Testament.

Sources

The major source for the ABC is the Bible itself. When biblical passages are quoted in the commentary, they are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) unless otherwise noted. Secondary sources are occasionally cited to provide additional background on historical and linguistic issues, or to provide exegetical insight into theologically significant passages. Most of these sources represent mainstream biblical scholarship and are widely known standard references. The ones most heavily relied on are listed here. Any additional references are cited in the commentary. When they are not fully spelled out in the comments, they may be abbreviated as follows:

The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973) (OAB)
The Interpreter’s Bible (New York: Abington Press, 1951) (TIB)
Oxford Bible Commentary, edited by John Barton & John Muddiman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) (OBC)
An Introduction to the New Testament, by Raymond E. Brown (Yale University Press, 1997) (INT)
The Atheist's Introduction to the New Testament, by Mike Davis (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2008) (AINT)
Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) (ABD)

The most often cited English translations of the Bible are abbreviated as follows:

King James (Authorized) Version (KJV)
Revised Standard Version (RSV)
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
New International Version (NIV)

The following references were consulted for the Greek text of the New Testament:

The Greek New Testament, 4th Revised edition, edited by Aland et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/United Bible Societies, 2001)
NASB-NIV Parallel New Testament in Greek and English with interlinear translation by Alfred Marshall (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986)
William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993)
Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996)