Book excerpt: "Rationalising the Bible" is a collection of volumes that cover the books of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible. Written by mostly unidentified authors, the Bible is generally attributed with being the moral compass of the world of Judeo-Christian religious adherents. In fact, the Bible is mostly mythological history, inaccurate science, exaggerated reports of violence and discrimination against the people who settled the Fertile Crescent, and a set of laws plagiarised from those already in existence in the area. Even the writing of it, claimed to be that of the patriarchs, can clearly be identified, in the reading of it, as belonging rather to a period when all people in the civilised world were writing their stories. It was not written, as atheists often charge, by illiterate nomadic tribespeople in pre-history. Instead, it was written by politicians and priests at a time when the western civilisations were making their mark on the world's politics.