theptar

I’ve been working on this off and on for the last month. Right now I’m exactly half way through it and I just need to put the other books I’m reading aside and concentrate on finishing it.

I firmly believe that everyone should read and try to understand the entire Bible at some point in their life. If nothing else, its influence on Western culture warrants the study.

When I read it last year, I was fortunate enough to have the time to dive into the project with everything I had. In the end, it took me about two months to read the Bible and Asimov’s Guide to the Bible cover to cover. I would not really recommend doing it at that pace for several reasons; not the least of which being that my friends and family must have thought that I’d lost my mind. I would strongly suggest, however, that if you’re truly going to try to understand what you’re reading, then you have to read some sort of historical guide book alongside it.

I searched high and low for a suitable guide, and in the end decided on Asimov’s guide for one main reason; he approached the material with absolutely no bias. Trust me, that is really hard to come by. Obviously you can’t really blame Christian authors for being biased on the subject, but it does make it difficult to trust a source when they have an agenda. That goes for atheist guides as well. In fact, I generally find those to be of even less value because they typically are trying to nitpick and attack the Bible, so they tend to not be helpful for actually gaining an understanding about what you’re reading.

Asimov was very fair throughout his entire analysis of both the Old and New Testament. True, he does point out what we would today consider to be historical inaccuracies, but he also takes pain to emphasize that the books weren’t being written to be understood as history in the same sense that we think of it today. For my money, you’re not likely to find a better author write a better discussion of the Bible anywhere. His approach is simply to put the material in the context in which it was written, never does he try to attack the Bible or Christianity.

All in all, I found the process of reading the Bible to be very enjoyable and educational one many levels. If you can approach it with an open and critical mind, all the better. I can’t know what its like to read it from the point of view of the faithful, but it certainly seems like if you’re going to base your belief system around a book, then you might as well read it. You may take away something completely different than I did from the experience, but I’m certain that you’ll be better off no matter what.

I like cuddling with my girlfriend more than being productive. Its a lot more rewarding anyway.