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Summary

Serve with Froot Loops

Book Description:
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If lunacy is your stock in trade, don't miss Biblical Religion: The Great Lie. Despite the title, Kalopoulos isn't about "Biblical Religion" much here; it's more about the patriarchs who were the foundation for it in the Old Testament. The theses advanced are formulated on the Copycat principle, but with new players: Thus for example, some guy named "Hermes Trismegistus" is said to have "supplied the raw material for the great religions of West and East" based on vague comments by the likes of Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus (we're talking people in the fifth and sixth century here, mind you) that this fellow designed canals, taught math, and also, when he wasn't busy doin' dat, taught "secret legislation of God." (Don't get too excited; scholars aren't even sure if this Hermes guy was a man or a god, and there's plenty of room for vagueness -- see here for a popular summary.) So Kalopoulos is on shaky ground with his sourcework from the start.

You'll see Kalopoulos rant about some of the usual OT "problems" that better minds have contemplated for thousands of years (eg, the problem of evil), and you won't miss much by missing it as his rants don't add an iota to the debate. You'll see an amazing claim that the Greek version of the Flood story, starring Deucalion as Noah, in fact was the source for the Biblical account, as well as the Sumerian versions. (A little irratiomal hometown pride from Kalopoulos, apparently, since no scholar would ever claim such a crazy thing. By the way, Kalopoulos is not a typical atheist screed-screamer; he's more like Acharya S mixed with Erich von Daniken; he does not believe in a global flood, but does believe in a series of smaller monumental floods, and buys into the idea of a great and ancient lost civilization. Among his "proofs" for this are similarities between Minoan axe-heads and axe-heads found in Ohio (I guess there are dozens of ways to design an axe, eh) and alleged parallels between, for example, words in Greek and words in Hawaiian. (I checked these claims for Hawaiian at the dictionary here. Kalopolous claims parallels for the Hawaiian words for eagle, mind, learn, melody, and people. According to this dictionary, there is no word for "eagle" in Hawaiian; "mind" is not nous as in Greek, but mana'o; "learn" is not manao but a'o mai....so where does he get this junk? The only source I could find close is here and it declares the examples of "eagle" and "melody" as coincidences.)

But we've saved the best and funniest for last. Kalopoulos singles out for special scorn the figures of the Old Testament, for example Abraham, whom he supposes to be an evil genius ahead of his time, one who:

• Used his special expertise in poisons to create "plagues" in the households of the Egyptians and Philistines, and thereby extorted wealth from them;
• Provided Lot with sodium hydroxide or calcium oxide dust, which was used to blind the men of Sodom
• Used bitumen to set Sodom and Gomorrah aflame

There's no doubt more of the same to be found in this book (I looked ahead and saw Moses accused of enacting the death of the Egyptian firstborn with "dietary segregation"), but having found the mother of all conspiracy theories to be the theme, I stopped reading at 124 pages so that I could do something more productive. We recommend that you do me one better by not reading it at all. Unless you need some comedy relief, that is.