introduction

Why?

It is common even among those who dismiss the Bible as a source of religious truth or authority to admit that it is a beautifully written book and a compendium of uplifting moral lessons. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To take the last assertion first, for every uplifting moral lesson contained in the Bible, there are ten such lessons that are appalling. The Bible was written by a misogynistic, xenophobic culture; its origins lie in the Bronze Age. The Bible contains little that is applicable to modern society, and that is of such a general nature that it could have come from any belief system. When people speak of Biblical law, they are often ignorant of just what such law would entail. The same people who praise Biblical law would condemn Islamic sharia in the same breadth, without having the knowledge to realize how much the two systems have in common. Both are full of shocking elements that have little or no applicability to modern, democratic society.

As for its literary merits, to put it succinctly the Bible is horribly written. It is a confused jumble of turgid prose. I am going to focus on conservative Christians’ favorite version, the King James Version, but what I say describes every other version as well. Even when the Early Modern English of the KJV is replaced by contemporary English – even if it were read in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, for that matter – it cannot disguise its cut-and-paste nature. At some point in the past, the original text of the Bible seems to have been lost. At a later date, fragments of at least four different versions that remained extant were stitched together in an attempt to form a coherent whole. This was rarely successful. Furthermore, the Bible gets stuck on particular subjects and begins to read like the transcript of a scratched record; the first couple of books read fairly quickly, but the second half of Exodus and pretty much all of Leviticus are ridiculously repetitive.

I have long held that theology is no more valid a subject of study than baseball trivia or Star Trek fandom; in every case, you encounter a group of people obsessively devoted to something that really doesn’t matter to anyone not inside that group. Theology is worse, because it claims an importance that it does not deserve, and people tend to give it a wide birth; insulting someone else’s religion remains largely taboo even today. I do not intend to take cheap shots as I read the Bible and record my observations, but, at the same time, I will not pull any punches for fear that I might cause offense.

So why should the atheist Ponzo read the Bible? Well, because I’m bored. I’ve pretty much run out of video games to play, there is nothing on TV and I’ve worked my way through my DVD collection, and I’m not ready to start the book I purchased recently. I have no schedule planned, and I will work my way through the Bible at my own pace, starting with the Torah/Pentateuch and moving on from there. I reserve the right to skip ahead, but I am going to try not to do so.

I will generally link to the KJV as transcribed by the authors of the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. When appropriate, I will refer to other versions; I may or may not link to these, but the SAB provides links to these other versions. The SAB also contains links to additional skeptical resources, as well as apologetic resources; it is because of this breadth of coverage that I prefer the SAB.

I will also generally discuss subjects, not chapters. This is because many subjects span multiple chapters, the division of the Bible into chapters having been highly arbitrary (such divisions were not extant in the original Hebrew text, nor were verses numbered).

It is also very important to note that, when I use the term “myth”, it is not to belittle a particular story contained in the Bible. Only in the general vernacular does the term “myth” imply untruth or a lack of substance or seriousness. The term has a very precise meaning in the fields of religion, folklore, and mythology, and it is in that sense that I am using it: to describe stories with deep symbolic value.

My goal here is not mockery. It is to produce a relatively serious examination of the Bible from the point of view of someone who doesn’t take any of it seriously. It is also to prove a point: most people who identify themselves as Christians have never actually read what they consider to be the “word of God”, and don’t know what the book contains other than what they have been told. They are amazed that atheists know so much about Christianity, even as they display a shocking ignorance of the tenets of their own religion. Yet they often claim that simply reading the Bible leads to some sort of eye-opening spiritual epiphany. How wrong they are!

I also hope to show any believers who stumble upon my project how their beliefs are viewed by outsiders. Apologists tend to give more credence to their arguments than those arguments deserve; those not biased by faith tend to see through them to their weaknesses. Contrary to how it may seem, I can respect faith, but I do not respect cheap apologetics or proselytizing. I respect arguments which do not rely on those sorts of theatrics, and enjoy engaging in thoughtful discussions.

Who knows: by the time I reach the end of my project, I might even be a convert. I wouldn’t start holding my breath, though.