Those things are God and religion, and Donal Knuth discussed them in a series of lectures at Harvard, the transcripts of which make this book. The lectures amount to a Director’s Comment edition of another one of his books, 3:16, so if you’ve read that one your yield is sure to be higher than mine: I hadn’t. In 3:16, he makes a thorough analysis of verse 3:16 from each book of the Bible. So yes, that makes “Things a computer scientist…” a book containing lectures about a book that deals with books of The Book.
Knuth is religious and also a brilliant computer scientist, and he brings a programmer’s mind to the Bible. Alas, I don’t have the mind of a programmer: the only parts of the book I could follow and enjoy were those dealing with typography, another one of Knuth’s interests. It did raise my interest enough to look for a religious physician’s take on Christianity, and what do you know: the boss of my boss’s boss wrote one. It’s on the pile now, but not before I scratch my typographic itch.
Written by Donald E. Knuth, 2003