Categories: blogs
Tags: blog, Bible, Christianity
Date: 28 July 2006 23:05:31
Dave blogged a few weeks ago about the "Blogging the Bible" project at Slate magazine (you'll find it in the "Art and Life" section), where a self-confessed "ignoramus", a not-particularly-observant Jewish guy, is reading the Bible and commenting on what he finds. From the initial blurb:
"My goal is pretty simple. I want to find out what happens when an ignorant person actually reads the book on which his religion is based. I think I'm in the same position as many other lazy but faithful people (Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus). I love Judaism; I love (most of) the lessons it has taught me about how to live in the world; and yet I realized I am fundamentally ignorant about its foundation, its essential document. So, what will happen if I approach my Bible empty, unmediated by teachers or rabbis or parents? What will delight and horrify me? How will the Bible relate to the religion I practice, and the lessons I thought I learned in synagogue and Hebrew School?"
I've really enjoyed reading his thoughts and observations, and am really rather jealous of the intriguing tension between the cultural aspects he knows inside out which gives a really interesting insight into some of the Biblical events which would pass me by totally, and the freshness of his approach, which is him really thinking about the implications of the various Biblical accounts for what seems like the first time. It's so easy to get bogged down with our past baggage, to interpret (or miss altogether) events in the light of that baggage, or take things for granted because we are so familiar with them. The getting back to the bare bones of what is in the Bible, what it actually says to me, rather than what the church told me it said (which was sometimes the same but often wasn't that simple) is a process I started to embrace when I left my former church a few years ago, and is a process I've found really rewarding, and surprising, and unsettling, and affirming, amongst other things. But I wish I had David Plotz's insight - it's interesting that someone who isn't particularly observant in his religion can see some things so clearly, whereas people like me who regularly attend church, study the Bible, read about theology, debate issues on the internet (well, play everlasting sentences anyway ;) ), miss so much of the depth and richness in those stories.
Here's the most recent entry from the project, which I particularly liked - he's got as far as Numbers 13 and 14. The last couple of paragraphs in particular I thought were very interesting observations.
NB If you want to subscribe to the RSS feed, you can only subscribe to the entire magazine's feed. Blogging the Bible appears every few days.