Former Slate editor David Plotz blogged about reading the Old Testament from beginning to end. He said that although he was still an agnostic when he finished, “I’ve become a full-on Bible thumper. Everyone should read it — all of it!”
In The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, coauthor E. D. Hirsch Jr. said that no one can be considered culturally literate without a basic knowledge of the Bible.
So even if you’re not a believer, maybe you’ll bear with me as I tell about my dip into the Old Testament (aka Hebrew Bible, First Testament).
The stories in Genesis and Exodus are in the cultural currency and familiar to most of us. Churchgoers hear brief readings from the other books and Psalms. But these are only a small fraction of the 39-book Hebrew Bible. More than 80 percent is not in the schedule of Sunday Bible readings in most Christian churches.
My impression of the Old Testament as violent and brutal didn’t inspire me to go deeper. When I heard about a novelized Bible, though, I decided to give it a try.
Walter Wangerin’s The Book of God is a chronological collection of stories told with the description, pacing, and dialogue of fiction. Wangerin eliminated the boring genealogies and the lists of rules. He also was selective about the stories to include, starting with Abraham instead of creation, to keep the focus on God’s covenant with Israel.
The problem remains for me that the stories of course are the same, full of violence and destruction. God orders the Jews to exterminate those living in the promised land. Jealous Saul wants to murder David. Lusting after Bathsheba, David has her husband murdered. David’s son rapes his sister.
Then there are all those battles with hostile neighbors, immoral kings marrying foreign wives and worshipping their pagan gods, warnings from prophets, repenting, God coming to the rescue again — a continuous cycle of sin, suffering, and redemption.
Wondering why David Plotz is so enamored, I went back to his Slate blog. Why does he think that everyone should read the Bible?
His first reason is the same as E. D. Hirsch’s: “You are truly blind to your culture without it. So much of the language we use, the references we make come out of the Bible.”
The second is that he feels more connected to his Jewish roots now that he understands the origin of prayers, rituals, and holidays.
Finally, he says that reading the Bible “has given me a chance to start an argument with God about the most important questions there are.”
The third reason encourages me to try again, maybe not right away. I am thinking about how to approach reading the Hebrew Bible differently.
It would feel less daunting to start with the most important parts instead of aiming to read all 39 books. I’ve seen advice to read from Genesis through Kings and then skip to Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah. But that’s still hundreds of pages, so another thought is to abandon a continuous narrative and read selections. Googling “most important Old Testament chapters” provides reading lists.
Or maybe I could try what a former pastor advised: read a children’s Bible. At least it wouldn’t be long.
Asimov's guide to the bible is interesting but like the bible it is long. When people write about god, I think they are saying more about themselves than they are about god. If you want to make war, then you imagine a god that wants war. If you think your people are great, then you imagine a god that thinks that way as well. If you want to keep women subservient, then you use god to justify it. When you read the bible, I think you will find that some of it is written by people who imagine a loving god while other authors are just justifying the what they want to do.
ReplyDeleteI think that even believers (at least some believers) would admit that the writings reflects their human authors' predilections and the times when they were written.
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