The Bible blasted as 'foolish' and 'ill-intentioned,' makes list of books 'you don't have to read

The editors of GQ generated a list of 21 overrated books "you don't have to read" — along with what titles you should read instead — and the Bible is one of the victims.

The magazine noted that "not all the Great Books have aged well. Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring. So we — and a group of un-boring writers — give you permission to strike these books from the canon."

What does GQ say about the Bible?

The entry for the Bible says that it's "rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced. It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned."

What book is suggested instead of the Bible?

The proposed substitute is Agota Kristof's "The Notebook," which is called a "marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough. The subtlety and cruelty of this story is like that famous sword stroke (from below the boat) that plunged upward through the bowels, the lungs, and the throat and into the brain of the rower."

Who wrote the entry for the Bible on GQ's list?

Jesse Ball — an author, poet and self-described "fabulist, absurdist" — penned the Bible entry. In regard to his literary tendencies, the Los Angeles Times notes that Ball has been accused of "nihilism" and that his novels "frequently depict people painfully locked in futile pursuits, unable to see or understand, much less affect, the systems that entrap them ..."

How did some Christians react to GQ's treatment of the Bible?

Fox News religion contributor Father Jonathan Morris told "Fox & Friends" Sunday that GQ placing the Bible on its list was “just foolish and a shame."

"Even if you don't believe this is an inspired word of God, in the last 50 years 3.9 billion people have read this book, 3.9 billion Bibles have been published," Morris added. "That dwarfs every other book has been read in the last 50 years."

Franklin Graham noted on Facebook that "there’s nothing more powerful, and there’s nothing more needed by mankind than the Word of God. Maybe the GQ editors need to read it, again."

And Christian speaker and writer Eric Metaxas — who penned an acclaimed biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — had this to say:

What other books made GQ's list of titles you don't need to read?

Let's see: "The Catcher in the Rye," "The Old Man and the Sea," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Lord of the Rings" series, "Catch-22," "Slaughterhouse-Five," and "Gulliver's Travels," to name a few.