secular bible commentary?

I always get, "Jesus fulfills such and such scripture," and i always find the application of whatever "prophecy" they refer to to be within its context, in the vicinity of a few chapters. Once I rule out each prophecy's application to Jesus by showing its more specific application, then my creationist friends just pop up with a new one rather than being hindered. This week's is Isaiah 9 giving mention to where Jesus was to come from.
Anyway, are there any commentaries out there that don't take the christian (or skeptical) standpoint, but the secular?

Look up Asimov's Guide to the Bible at amazon.com and read the reviews. I think it would fit your needs admirably. Every book of the bible, OT and NT, is covered, as is the Apocrypha (the Catholic Deuterocanon). I'm surprised to see such a low price on it, it was much more expensive when I bought it several years ago. It's quite a big book.

that's the second time that book's been suggested for my needs, i'll go order it right now. thanks!

Any good standard college level introduction to the OT or NT should work. Christians typically have absolutely bizarre interpretations of some books of the Bible, like Daniel.

Bizarre is relevant to whether one believes in the supernatural or not. Ideologically narrow minded and short sighted secularist folks have this humanistic idea that in all this vast wonderful immense universe us itty bitty earthling human kinds are the highest form of life existing and unless we can see it and explain it with our finite little minds, it can't exist.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

Belief in the supernatural has nothing to do with it. There is nothing, say, stopping you from believing in something like Reincarnation yet rejecting the bizarre interpretations of the Bible espoused by fundamentalists. What you simply mean is a rejection of the a priori belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Only someone with this belief could hold the idea that, say, the book of Daniel was written in the 6th century BCE.Even going as far as saying there is a God and that sometimes people do make accurate predictions of future events wouldn't in anyway support the notion that Daniel was written in the 6th century BCE. There is simply no way to methodologically do history to support such a notion, except via a priori belief in the doctrine of inerrancy.Of course, allowing for the supernatural violates the very idea of history, making it literally impossible to decide on the probablity of any past event.This message has been edited by Intelligitimate, 05-05-2004 07:15 PM

Hahaha! In almost all of my posts bugzaw responds and then there's a fistfight!

Hi,Just to let you know that Asimov's book is not exactly a detailed introduction to the Bible. It only gives a very basic outline to each book.I have no idea where you live, but if it is in the UK I will send you my copy of Asimov's book, I bought it but it is really useless as an academic resource.If you are not in the UK let me know, and if there is any other member who does live in the UK they are welcome to have my copy if they get in touch.Brian.