Bishop Spong began his religious life as a Bible-studying fundamentalist. His earliest doubts about the inerrancy of the Bible as a literal document resulted not from the influence of the outside world, but from the Bible's intrinsic conflicts.Internal contradictions, pre-scientific assumptions, and pre-second-century social thought are all barriers to the modern Christian's literal acceptance of the Bible. Therefore Bishop Spong rightly employs them to underline his point that there must be a better way to understand Western civilization's most important book.RESCUING THE BIBLE FROM FUNDAMENTALISM is an earnest attempt to give thinking Christians a way to get beyond the humanly limited dimensions of the Bible, and into the inspired ones.