In a recent Gallup survey, 75% of the respondents said that the Bible is the inspired word of God; about half of those said it was literally the word of God. However, even the most generous estimates are that perhaps 10% of Americans report reading the Bible cover to cover. (I’d be willing to bet that some of those who said they did were violating the Eighth or Ninth Commandment.)
Regardless of your motive, reading the entire Bible (and Plotz, a nonobservant Jew, limited himself to the Old Testament) is a taxing and enlightening project. 26 books filled with the movements of a nomadic people constantly fighting with their neighbors, begetting generation after generation, and laying down precise rules about who and what could actually approach God can get pretty tiring. Besides, your Sunday School teacher or Hollywood took the important parts and left all the rest behind, right?
One of the first things Plotz discovers is that those stories aren’t quite as straightforward as most people would like to think. Two versions of the creation story? A parade of liars, cheats, dastards and worse as the Lord’s Chosen? Wrathful and genocidal zealots committing mass murder in His name? And that’s just the first book.
It gets worse as God continually writes and rewrites the Covenant, punishes the innocent and gives passes to the guilty, and accepts child sacrifice in violation of His own law. When the Israelites come into their own in Canaan, the fun really starts. Instead of a land flowing with milk and honey, the Israelites created a land flowing with blood. (That’s according to the Bible – it’s highly unlikely that the area could have supported the hundreds of thousands of Canaanites and Israelites cited in the various stories.)
The best part of the book is that Plotz doesn’t indulge in exegesis. He’s not qualified, as he himself says. Instead, he gives a chapter-by-chapter (OK sometimes he groups chapters together when they’re related) account of the Bible as he’s reading it. His tone varies from flip to bemused to outraged to wonder-filled as he works his way through the stories, poetry, inspiration and contradictions of a book which has provided continuity to the Jewish people and has influenced Western history for 2000 years. But he also finds that knowing how the stories fit together equips him to continue a tradition of doubting and challenging a world where righteousness is no guarantee of happiness or even survival.
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This is awesome. Stories are powerful and no matter what you believe, these stories have shaped much of human history. The bible is the penultimate example of how stories and their artful or fucked up interpretation can shape the world.
I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with youth group kids growing up about word of god versus human authors. Three of the gospels were written over a hundred and fifty years after the supposed date of the crucifixion and the earliest, Mark at 40 something years does not even include a resurrection story.
Also fish on fridays was an edict to bolster the Italian Fish economy and Priests couldn’t marry because the Church was sick of them giving church land away to their sons.
I am going to read this book then maybe I will attempt to read the bible, after War and Peace of course.
Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
Hello! I think that books of that type is very personal-oriented. I mean, he read Bible and write his own opinion and his thoughts. You can agree or disagree them, but this thoughts are belong to him and they are not “truth and nothing more”.
By the way, excuse me my English, it’s not my native language.
From the God that I imagine as creator, if creator exists at all, I’d expect much more sophisticated book. Thanks! I’ll read it. :)
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