Oh boy… where do I start with this one? Maybe it's not a myth. Maybe I didn't read it "right"… if "right" means reading it in a way to bypass all the issues instead of seeing it as a book of a lot of ancient, outdated, irrelevant, creative writing.
My relationship with the Bible comes with a lot of baggage. Let’s start with some history.
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- I grew up in a Lutheran home, but at home when I was growing up, the Bible didn’t seem central to our life. It wasn’t until my parents retired that I saw them incorporate daily bible reading into their life.
- I was given a bibles from my parents, but no guidance as to what to do with them. That seemed the job of the Sunday School teachers.
- Mom got me the Picture Bible when I was a teen. Years later she commented that she gave it to me because she noticed that I didn’t like reading the Bible so she got me on with pictures. I guess she figured pictures would get me interested. Maybe what I really needed back then was to see them read it.
- The Picture Bible, though fun to read itself, didn’t endear me to reading the Bible without pictures.
- The Bibles I had been given as a youth had been the paraphrased Living Bible.
- After high school, I went to Bible School, but not for the reason of studying the Bible. I had wanted to go right to college… but my two choices would also include either one of two guys I had already spend three years of high school with. I chose a third option: Bible School.
- I spent the first four months at Bible School with my Living Bible paraphrase. I experienced the same feeling of being shunned as I did in Grade One when I showed up to school with brown bread sandwiches. I did get a NIV study bible for Christmas, but the damage was already done.
- Bible school was social-focused not study-focused. Like grade school and high school, I wasn’t excited about most of the material. I just survived the academic part.
- I quit Bible School during my second year due to a relationship conflict.
- Frank Peretti did more to draw me into the passion of reading big books than the Bible ever did.
- I memorized most of the book of Matthew in my thirties. I quit around chapter 25. (yes, I even had the genealogy memorized… boy did that impress my family!)
- It wasn’t until I read authors like Pete Enns, Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans and eventually Bart Ehrman who wrote books ABOUT the Bible that it even became something worth learning about for me. But I stopped at the author's books; I didn't pick up The Book.
- I have signed up for all of Bart Ehrman’s online courses and also enjoy listening to his podcast “Misquoting Jesus”.
- I am currently enjoying the Secular Bible Study that Brandon from the "Mindshift" podcast is doing.
- My favourite Bible is one I can’t read. It’s my Dad’s German Bible that he got from his dad, My Opa.
- I did read the entire Bible. I only know that, because I highlighted the books I read in my study Bible and eventually I highlighted them all.
-Job was the first book that I embraced as a story instead of factual history. Thanks to Pete Enns and Bart Ehrman… it was a landslide after that.
- I started out reading the Living Bible.. moved through the NIV… even got a Greek New Testament that I still have, with the hopes of learning Greek one day, but that didn't happen. In my twenties and thirties, I collected translations, one for every time I had a lull in my bible reading enthusiasm level. At the tail end of my bible reading, I used the Message. I almost got back to reading with the publication of the "First Nations Version" of the New Testament. I bought three copies, but I gave them away.
- As it stands right now, I still don't want to pick up a Bible and read it. There is still too much baggage. But I still enjoy Post Christians enlightening me on the literature value and stories.
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There you have it.. the synopsis of my relationship with the Bible. Did I read it wrong? Bart Ehrman has more passion for the Bible as an atheist, than I ever did as a Christian. I think my issues in life always had to do with relevance. When I needed to connect with God, I needed it to be relevant to my life. I was saddled with a old story that lacked relevance. It was more of a burden than a help. I don't really know how one reads the bible "right" so they don't lose their faith. That must take a special kind of glasses.
(written December 19, 2023)
(my apologies.. this one got a little long...)
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