"important and fascinating ... [Heath] has offered a brilliantly researched, original, engaging, witty and frequently humorous engagement with the abuses of the Bible by contemporary believers. I strongly applaud his humanistic integrity, erudition and righteous indignation with ignorance and intolerance ... I know of no text that better introduces these two monumental repositories of ancient myths, one Jewish and one Greek, to the cultural capital evoked by the Gospel authors or that would more profoundly shake students into critical engagement and disturbing discovery."

- Dennis R. MacDonald, Claremont School of Theology at Willamette University, USA, The Classical Review 2020

John Heath is Professor of Classics at Santa Clara University, USA. His previous books include a study of the literary adaptations of classical myth (Actaeon, the Unmannerly Intruder, 1992), a popular defense of the study of classics (Who Killed Homer? co-authored with Victor Davis Hanson, 1998), an examination of the links between speech, animalization, and status in Greek literature and society (The Talking Greeks, 2005), and an exploration of the common themes underlying American bestselling books (Why We Read What We Read, co-authored with Lisa Adams, 2007).