The Gospel of Doubt

What This Book Covers

1. Prologue
2. Chapter One - Spinoza - The Banished One
3. Chapter Two - Paine - The American Heretic
4. Chapter Three - Voltaire - The Firebreather
5. Chapter Four - Hume - The Miracle Killer
6. Chapter Five - Ingersoll - The Great Dissenter
7. Chapter Six - Darrow - The Man Who Shamed the Cross
8. Chapter Seven - Twain - The Trickster
9. Chapter Eight - Barker - The Preacher Who Quit
10. Chapter Nine - Loftus - The Deconversion Blueprint
11. Chapter Ten - Avalos - The Bible Is Dangerous
12. Chapter Eleven - Ehrman - The Bible’s Worst Nightmare
13. Chapter Twelve - Carrier - The Mythmaker
14. Chapter Thirteen - Stavrakopoulou - The God Who Had a Wife
15. Chapter Fourteen - Coogan - The Editor’s Bible
16. Chapter Fifteen - The Thread That Snapped

Excerpt

PROLOGUE FOR MUCH OF history, there was one book people weren’t allowed to question. It was called sacred. Final. Divine. It shaped laws, governments, families, and lives. And for a long time, very few people ever asked where it actually came from. The Bible wasn’t treated as a book about God. It was treated as the word of God. Every page assumed to be perfect. Every verse beyond scrutiny. But slowly, and often quietly, that began to change. Some of the earliest challenges didn’t come from enemies of religion. They came from scholars, philosophers, and believers. People who read the Bible not with hostility, but with curiosity. And the more they looked, the more questions appeared. Why do...