Sunday, January 22, 2006

What are we looking for?

An overview of an important religous book? It could be argued that the bible isn't a book, it's a collection of books. So what do we gain by reading through them all in the course of a year? Is it pride? So that I can boast? Or is it that I want to have read the bible for myself, perhaps to decide whether my teachers have been telling the truth? Am I automatically going to get a balanced view by reading through the whole bible, instead of focussing on selected texts, according to Sunday's preacher, or the church lectionary, or my bible reading notes?

Certainly, reading through Genesis at this rate confers a broad sweep - the story-telling shines through. It's pleasant just to read it as a story - not always trying to find a lesson. Again, there's the sense of pieces of a jigsaw fitting together. Countries previously explored as separate entities understood as belonging to a single continent.

A work in progress.

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