I read the bible a few years ago too - as a Christian I felt that actually I really ought to have a better idea of what I believed than just what I heard at church.
What I realised mainly was that a lot of the OT stuff was based on oral tradition. That's why there are two versions of the creation story in the first couple of pages. One is a quick and basic, one is more detailed. I think that originally there was probably a longer story about Babel but it didn't make it to the final narration for some reason - the same way some of the Iliad's bits seem to have something missing.
I'm not sure I'd do it again, mind. The killer boring bits really are killer boring. (And that's a fantastic phrase. I have to minute meetings full of KB.)
Presumably if you were reading as a Christian then that meant you might have had reason to actually pay attention to all Paul's waffling in the epistles? I don't think I envy you that; that was definitely one of the bits I was relieved to be able to skip over.
Yes, I can't see myself sitting down for a leisurely reread either. To help avoid the need, I took notes as I went through, in the hope that they'd contain most of the things I might reasonably want to remember later. (Though even if those notes fail me I don't imagine I should have to reread the whole thing; it ought to be just a case of finding a particular passage and rereading that.)
Ah, now, a lot of his waffle I got to hear in church, so I felt okay about skimming. Also, a lot of what he wrote annoyed me beyond belief, so again, skimming.
Yes. Also, I think, oral tradition which considered itself to be recounting true history. If all you know is that there was a Balrog and it fell off a bridge then that's all you put in a history. Dramatic narrative is a different genre altogether (and one which was way less developed three or four thousand years ago than it is now).
"There was a Balrog. It was ungodly. Therefore God smote it and it fell off a bridge, and Gandalf laughed. So perish all the rest of you unbelieving scum."
And I happen to believe that the descriptions by the Hebrews of the God of the Old Testament, especially in Exodus, Chronicles and Kings, describe a *complete gibbering psychopath*.
"The Israelites are best, let's kill everyone else 'cos God said so." "Unclean? Stoning for you." *thud*.
I am not saying anything about God here - just about the OT descriptions of Him/Her/It.
One thing I particularly noticed when moving from OT to NT was that the concepts of heaven and hell were new in the NT. That is, they'd been mentioned once or twice in the OT, but only in passing; I suspect they were mostly seen as philosophical abstractions. They certainly didn't seem to be used as carrots or sticks very much.
So I suspect this explains why the OT God kept cursing people's descendants unto the fourth generation, or elevating three generations of someone's sons to the kingship despite them being manifestly unsuited for the job: if the guy at the head of the family tree does something sufficiently good or bad that his own life isn't long enough to reward or punish him in, the only thing you can do to increase the reward/punishment is to apply it to his children and his children's children, which it's assumed he will care about because people generally do. But then it kept falling down when the punished children were good and didn't deserve that sort of treatment, or the rewarded children turned into nasty spoiled brats; hence the NT cleverly invented the afterlife, so that it could redirect the entire punishment/reward to the person who actually did the thing, and treat their children as separate individuals with their own score sheets.
In conversation with a Jewish friend about the idea of Jewish tradition and especially the Talmud, we came up with this analogy: people think of it as a tarball, but it's not, it's source control.
I had never thought of this idea, neither has it come up in my theology class as a possbility. However, I think next time the disucssion on cursing one or more generations comes into play I'll see what others think. I think this is a fab concept though :-)
"What I realised mainly was that a lot of the OT stuff was based on oral tradition. That's why there are two versions of the creation story in the first couple of pages. One is a quick and basic, one is more detailed."
Are you kidding me? They are two completely different stories with different orders of how events progressed. The two origin stories being so radically different from each other should be the first clue to anyone that the bible is bullshit.
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What I realised mainly was that a lot of the OT stuff was based on oral tradition. That's why there are two versions of the creation story in the first couple of pages. One is a quick and basic, one is more detailed. I think that originally there was probably a longer story about Babel but it didn't make it to the final narration for some reason - the same way some of the Iliad's bits seem to have something missing.
I'm not sure I'd do it again, mind. The killer boring bits really are killer boring. (And that's a fantastic phrase. I have to minute meetings full of KB.)
Yes, I can't see myself sitting down for a leisurely reread either. To help avoid the need, I took notes as I went through, in the hope that they'd contain most of the things I might reasonably want to remember later. (Though even if those notes fail me I don't imagine I should have to reread the whole thing; it ought to be just a case of finding a particular passage and rereading that.)
Yes. Also, I think, oral tradition which considered itself to be recounting true history. If all you know is that there was a Balrog and it fell off a bridge then that's all you put in a history. Dramatic narrative is a different genre altogether (and one which was way less developed three or four thousand years ago than it is now).
"There was a Balrog. It was ungodly. Therefore God smote it and it fell off a bridge, and Gandalf laughed. So perish all the rest of you unbelieving scum."
And I happen to believe that the descriptions by the Hebrews of the God of the Old Testament, especially in Exodus, Chronicles and Kings, describe a *complete gibbering psychopath*.
"The Israelites are best, let's kill everyone else 'cos God said so." "Unclean? Stoning for you." *thud*.
I am not saying anything about God here - just about the OT descriptions of Him/Her/It.
One thing I particularly noticed when moving from OT to NT was that the concepts of heaven and hell were new in the NT. That is, they'd been mentioned once or twice in the OT, but only in passing; I suspect they were mostly seen as philosophical abstractions. They certainly didn't seem to be used as carrots or sticks very much.
So I suspect this explains why the OT God kept cursing people's descendants unto the fourth generation, or elevating three generations of someone's sons to the kingship despite them being manifestly unsuited for the job: if the guy at the head of the family tree does something sufficiently good or bad that his own life isn't long enough to reward or punish him in, the only thing you can do to increase the reward/punishment is to apply it to his children and his children's children, which it's assumed he will care about because people generally do. But then it kept falling down when the punished children were good and didn't deserve that sort of treatment, or the rewarded children turned into nasty spoiled brats; hence the NT cleverly invented the afterlife, so that it could redirect the entire punishment/reward to the person who actually did the thing, and treat their children as separate individuals with their own score sheets.
Are you kidding me? They are two completely different stories with different orders of how events progressed. The two origin stories being so radically different from each other should be the first clue to anyone that the bible is bullshit.