If you’re going to take on the monumental task of challenging the Bible, be prepared to support your findings.

Ken Smith, co-author the best selling Roadside America books, does not offer support for his whimsical conclusions to Bible passages in Ken’s Guide to the Bible.

In an effort to be comedic and cool, he falls short of both and winds up the to be the biggest farce of his whole book.

Ken’s Guide offers a novice’s explanation as to what spurred him to write it. Smith begs the question, “Do people who pray to bleeding statues give you the willies?” in the intro, and the text doesn’t get much better.

Proclaiming he’s no “religious scholar”—rather just curious—Smith says his book is a map to the Bible’s “bad secrets,” a leveler of the “scriptural playing field,” a reference and a “debunker” of Biblical myths.

The latter is the only readable part of the novella. The section labeled “Things that aren’t in the Bible” proves to be interesting and does dispel many of the events typically associated with the Bible. Among the things on the list are: Jesus carrying lambs, people waving palm branches and Saint Peter standing at the pearly gates of heaven.

The rest is a meaningless list of chapters, versus and lines that Smith chose specifically to refute “those who champion the Bible as a guide to family values.”

Publishing only the most extreme stories that support his agenda, Smith’s book is less of guide than it is a kiss and tell.

Using the all-the-rage icon system to notate his own feelings about raunchy, perverse or violent passages, Smith’s symbols include a stick figure being struck by a bolt of lightening to denote “Divine Wrath,” a crucifix with a pretzel on it for “Holy Distortion” and the word sex to mark sexual contents, just to name a few.

One interesting note: Smith claims his book “has been written to stand on its own.” That is, some readers may want to refer to an actual Bible as they read it, but it’s not necessary.

But once you read the passages he has chosen to print, natural impulse is to look and see if the Bible actually says that. And it does.

What’s missing is the historical context of the Bible. Smith states that one problem with the Bible is that “no two Bibles are exactly alike; each translation reflects the politics and doctrine of its sponsor.”

Well duh. That’s why we have religions.

Opening with the Old Testament and working through the New, the last chapter is called, “Jesus Hangover.”

Two appendixes are tacked on for Ken’s ego boost: “Embarrassing Bible Questions” (was Noah really 500 years old when he fathered his first child)and “Ken’s Concordance,” divided into categories sex and anti-abortionist horror.

Ken’s Guide to the Bible is an easy read and entertaining, but not too educational. The tidbits are interesting but taken out of context. If the boys from Animal House had a Bible, or something like it, Ken’s Guide was probably it.