I inadvertently deleted my link post from yesterday’s google reading – I reposted it, but it didn’t pull in everything I’d highlighted. Of particular interest was the account from a non-practicing Jew of his year of reading through the Bible (only the OT). He blogged the experience. And he’s written a book.
And engaged in an interesting discussion with some people here. It’s worth reading. Especially when he answers the following question/statement from an angry atheist:
“Washington, D.C.: Wow, I find your assertion that everyone should read the Bible as smacking of so much relativism, I can’t believe it. I have read the beginning of the Bible and I found it so silly and laughable that I stopped. I’d really rather the chatters and your readers get caught up on history, science, literature, etc. instead of a book of fables. Would you also push for the teaching of satanic texts? I’m so tired of people acting so high and mighty about their religious preferences. Write an article on the truly important texts that people have never read (Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, da Vinci, etc.) and I’ll take you seriously.
David Plotz: This seems to me a peculiar criticism. You live in a society that is shaped in every possible way by the Bible. The language you use, the laws you obey (and disobey), the founding principles of your nation, the disputes about abortion, homosexuality, adultery—these and so much else in your world are rooted in the Bible. You don’t have to read it for its truth value. You should read it to understand how your world got the way it is, the way you would read the constitution or Shakespeare.”