Have you read the Bible?

[metacristi]

Well, have you?

By "read" let's assume that I mean that you have read the majority of it. I've read all of it, but I admit to skimming all of the boring begats. I consider this to be having read the Bible.

Select one of the "I am/have been a Christian" options if at any time in your life, including currently, you have been an active Christian churchgoer for any substantial period of time. Otherwise, select "I am not/have never been a Christian".

If you're not sure, please ask what I mean before voting.

I read part of it when I was a kid around 12 years old ( and chunks of it later, depending on what I needed to know, usually on skepticsannotatedbible ). That was from pure curiosity, living in a communist country at the time I had no pressure in this direction, but since my parents and especially my grandmother often told me about the value of the bible I was interested to know more about how the world appeared.

And to tell the truth at the beginning I was impressed with what I read (no critical thinking of course)...that until a friend of mine (one of my neighbours, his father half Jew) gave me 'The Amusing Bible' by Leo Taxil. I read only part of it too but the effect was like an 'awakening from a dogmatic slumber'. I never saw the bible with the same eyes again although i needed much more years to go beyond the 'spiritual phase' (trying to understand other religions, journeying from Brahmanism, Buddhism etc, New Age via Rudolf Steiner, The Kybalion and Urantia Book till Science without bounds before the current phase).

The remnants of this spiritual phase are still with me even today, I still think the world is much more mysterious than many skeptics accept, in my view (owing also to western Philosophy, especially of Science, which I really discovered only after my university years) we should be much more open to metaphysical ideas.

indeed for example a teleology of some sort, or forms of idealism etc are still open directions of research for me even if they are by no means the first choice in Science at this time. But of course if some sort of Creator does really exist it is doubtable that she/he exist at the ultimate level of Reality and is omnipotent, a possible god is far from what the current religions teach.

So basically I am technically a 'sophisticated' atheist, still taking generic theism seriously But finally I think that the Bible had its share of positive impact on civilization and the making of Modernity (worldviews do count at the practical level) that cannot be negated by would be rational people so that yes, to paraphrase Lubos Motl if I am not wrong, I'm also a (staunchly secular) Christian Atheist

 

[Damien Evans]

I was raised Catholic, and I have read all of the NRSV Catholic Edition, including the deuterocanonicals.

 

[epepke]

I may have answered your poll incorrectly. I marked the first. I have been a Christian, but I was never any sort of regular churchgoer. Even when I was a Christian, I was too much of a freethinker to hand over interpretation and understanding to someone else's dogma.

 

[Apathia]

I read it through at least 9 times when I was a teen.
I also read Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible around then.

http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Guide-Bible-Volumes-Testaments/dp/051734582X

 

[tsig]

Read it; former Christian (Catholic), including 12 years of Catholic school; 8 years altar boy. Bible discussions are interesting because we were taught that the so-called Word of God in the Bible was always meant to be interpreted symbolically. (Hint 1 - talking snake in chapter 1.) Catholics really don't understand literal interpretations* of the Bible - fundamentalists befuddle us.

*MASSIVE contradiction surrounding "This IS my body" notwithstanding.

Anyway, no better way to make a former Christian than to have him/her read the bible.

(Also read the Koran and the Book of Mormon and have my own copies. They're bollocks too if anyone is wondering.)

Catholics say that the church produced the bible the bible did not produce the church. This means that your primary source of truth is the church and not the bible. It wasn't reading the bible but all the little things the church did that caused me to leave

 

[RickM]

Abrahamic Faiths:

Jewish/Protestant Old Testament (Tanakh): yes
Catholic Old Testament (includes Deuterocanonicals): yes
Eastern Orthodoxy Old Testament (includes Anagignoskomena): yes
New Testament: yes
Talmud (several books summarizing): yes
Qur’an: yes

 

[Cleon]

Could you clarify what you mean by "the Bible?"

I've never been a Christian, but I studied Torah as a child.

 

[Howie Felterbush]

I once sat down to read the whole thing, in my early 20s. I got as far as the "golden hemorrhoid" bit in I Samuel. I could never take it, or any religious person, seriously again. Even now, though I go to Mass regularly to appease Mrs. JHunter1163 (who is a cradle Catholic), in the back of my mind I'm thinking "Golden hemorrhoids?"

What? You never heard of piles of gold?

 

[Tricky]

Read the whole damn thing when I was 13, though I confess, I don't remember many parts. I was studying to be confirmed into the Episcopal Church and that reading, along with the stuff they said in confirmation class was what made me finally realize that I was truly an atheist.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Jewish. I've read a lot of the Torah in various pieces.

The "real" bible, you mean!

Relegating it to just being the "old testament" was a stroke of genius by these newcomers, dontcha think?

 

[LSSBB]

Read the Catholic bible in my thirties, and looked things up in my ex-wifes Unger's Bible Encyclopedia, which is Protestant. That's how I came to know not all Christians have the same books in their Bibles. I also learned about Gnosticism and all their books that aren't in the current Bibles. I came to understand that the Bibles, such as they are, are the product of politics within denominations and not any sort of divine guidance.

 

[Rincewind]

What? You never heard of piles of gold?

I never realised that King Midas was mentioned in the Bible!

 

[Leumas]

I never realised that King Midas was mentioned in the Bible!

He spoke Greek... he was a king of sorts... and he had a magic touch... and his name ended in 's'.... guess who it is.

Mark 1:41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.

 

[Leumas]

I never realised that King Midas was mentioned in the Bible!

Emerods is KJV for hemorrhoids (piles)

1 Samuel 6:4 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

 

[Rincewind]

Emerods is KJV for hemorrhoids (piles)

1 Samuel 6:4 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

Thanks for the information - and the five golden mice are?

 

[Akhenaten]

Lifelong unbeliever and I've read the whole thing.

The bits stolen from the ancient Egyptians are my favourites, although the Chaldean and Babylonian sections were also entertaining.

The original parts (both paragraphs) were quite boring.

 

[Leumas]

Thanks for the information - and the five golden mice are?

The story is about how YHWH smote the Philistines (for the umpteenth time much like Israel is still doing even today but with bombs which may also cause the poor Philistines to have hemorrhoids I guess if you think about it) with multiple plagues much like he did the Egyptians.

A plague of hemorrhoids is mentioned explicitly in the fairy tale with a plague of mice/rats being implied by the need to make a blackmail payment to YHWH of golden mice/rats along with the golden hemorrhoids representing the plagues and the quantity of each representing the five cities of the Philistines.

 

[Leumas]

Lifelong unbeliever and I've read the whole thing.

The bits stolen from the ancient Egyptians are my favourites, although the Chaldean and Babylonian sections were also entertaining.

The original parts (both paragraphs) were quite boring.

I suspect that had Alexander not burned down Persepolis with almost all the Zoroastrian writings we might have found that those seemingly original two paragraphs were not original after all.

 

[Correa Neto]

Holy ****, folks, two pages and no comment abot Crumb's Book of Genesis Illustrated?

 

[dlorde]

Was nominally a Christian as a child (Catholic altar boy, in fact), which is to say that I not only took for granted what I was told to believe, but that I believed it. By the age of about fourteen or so, I realized the difference.

And I've always loved to read; but I was never able to get through the whole Bible, just enough to know that it wasn't going to change what I took for granted into what I could believe. And, as Cayvmann says, there's at least as much to be learned about life from Stephen King novels as the Bible; not to mention the difference in readability.

This^ - except I haven't read Stephen King either...