'How the Bible was Invented' is a collection of lectures by Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian, an American rationalist and secularist of Armenian descent. He was pastor at a Presbyterian church in Philadelphia from 1882 to 1885, when he resigned, becoming an independent preacher and a lecturer on "independent religion" in New York. Here, he shares his views about the Bible, which are best summed up in the first paragraph of this book: "Many good people believe that the Bible was given by inspiration of God. The wording of my subject suggests that it is the work of men, and not always of honest men, either. Am I trying to offend people by intimating that the Bible was invented? On the contrary, I am exposing myself to criticism by telling these good people the truth about the Bible, which their own preachers, for some reason or other, have withheld from them."