The invisible bestseller : searching for the Bible in America / Kenneth A. Briggs.

Author
Briggs, Kenneth A. [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016.
Description
xvi, 239 pages ; 24 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks BS511.3 .B75 2016 Browse related items Request

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    Summary note
    How can a book -- one that's found in courthouses, libraries, and millions of households across the land -- be everywhere and nowhere at the same time? In this book, veteran religion writer Kenneth Briggs asks how, even as the Bible remains the best-selling book of all time, fewer Americans than ever can correctly articulate what it says, much less how it might offer guidance for their lives. In a quest to make sense of the Bible's relative disappearance from public life, Briggs shares with readers his own two-year cross-country journey to a variety of places. Brigg's narrative incorporates pertinent interviews throughout with preachers, pollsters, scholars, and ordinary citizens from California to Texas to Florida to Massachusetts. As he probes and reflects on his varied findings, Briggs offers keen insight into why and how the Bible's place in American public life has shifted and shrunk -- and he suggests what role the Bible may play in the US in years to come. -- adapted from book flap.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 234-235) and index.
    Contents
    • America's Bible: loving it and leaving it
    • The story told by numbers
    • Does it make any difference?
    • Bibles galore
    • What if nobody read it?
    • The perfect is the enemy of the good
    • Moses in cyberspace
    • Who says what the Bible says?
    • Canon fodder
    • The eye of the Bible beholder
    • The fragility of teaching and learning scripture
    • Speaking personally
    • Song and dance
    • The story of the greatest story ever told awaits a new chapter.
    ISBN
    • 9780802869135 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    • 0802869130 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016008041
    OCLC
    946031853
    Other standard number
    • 40026498187
    Statement on language in description
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