"Can religious writings make sense to any reader who does not accept the reality of the deities to which they refer? Do Christians understand the Old Testament better than the Jews understand their Bible?" "The Bible, argues this book, may belong to the Church or synagogue as an instrument of religious practice, but as an object of academic study it belongs to the world as a whole, and so can function in theory and practice as a secular discourse." "Whose Bible is it Anyway? shows how a genuinely academic discourse - one that distances itself from received canons of interpretation - about biblical writings can: expose a subtext of deceit within the Creation narratives; re-conceptualize the relationship between Abraham and his deity; reveal lament psalms as texts of oppression; and identify the death of Daniel's God."--BOOK JACKET.