I think that because the Bible is inextricably linked with Christianity, it is often written off before being given an honest chance

Just as it's link to religion also makes people, who would otherwise see it for the complete rubbish it seems to be, like it and call it great literature and/or art(to me).

If anything, bibles should be sold in the humor section of bookstores because of just how funny they are. That people actually believe it, the insane stories and ramblings of a god who just can't see to get things right despite his egotistical claims to omnipotence (yet he looks down on pride). His little quirks and how he just can't communicate properly to people among countless others; like some kind of sitcom, which I believe was already started in part by the mini-series "Mr.Deity"; youtube it for more info.

I would however recommend a more current reading (it's a quick read) into a more modern, applicable look into religion and culture. It's the Satanic Bible, and while I'm not a member, there's a great wisdom behind a lot of what's in that book (The first half of it at least, before it gets into the whole stint on magic and rituals).

I think that this is a more reasonable position as it is grounded in personal opinion. I disagree with you, but that is my opinion, and is probably due to my preference for different things than you. I have a tendency to cherish history and culture and the thoughts of past minds. To me, the Bible is great for many reasons. It contains a very interesting (to me) history of a people who have retained their identity over thousands of years. It also contains records of people's religious thoughts and experiences. It also has had an enormous impact on the world, shaping our culture in countless ways. I rather enjoy the stories and the thoughts expressed in it. I appreciate the counter-culture expressions of Job and the musings in Ecclesiastes. They are a nice break from popular religion. I like the epic stories as well.

I think that because the Bible is inextricably linked with Christianity, it is often written off before being given an honest chance.

Cheers,

Matt

I won't contend that the bible doesn't contain a glimpse of humanity, but I will contend this

At a minimum, the Bible is great from a secular viewpoint due to the glimpse of humanity it gives.

It's not great from my viewpoint. It's just another poorly written book with little grounding in reality. Sure, it can contain some historical accuracies about how people lived, but that doesn't make it great; you can find those same sources recorded elsewhere outside the bible. At a maximum, it gives us a look into the lives of people in the past sometimes, but it's nothing that can't be found elsewhere

Most of your criticism of the Bible misses the point. At a minimum, the Bible is great from a secular viewpoint due to the glimpse of humanity it gives.

Cheers,

Matt

These are verses from this book that you keep saying that I should appreciate as some ancient work of divine origin.

Not quite. I think that, at a minimum, you should appreciate the Bible as an ancient work which provides insight into an anctient culture and as part of the cultural foundation for our society. Anything beyond that is not in the scope of my argument here.

{Regarding the Bible as the Word of God, reading the Bible as it was written does not take away its divine origin.}

And what fact do you have to prove this divine origin?

This is not what I meant. There is a feeling among some groups in Christianity and elsewhere that to read the Bible as text with the author's original purpose in mind somehow removes the "divine inspiration" of the book. I was trying to communicate that *if* one thinks that the Bible is divinely inspired, then reading it as a specific genre of literature with a particular theme in mind does not take away from that inspiration, IMO. If you do not think it is divinely inspired, I am content to disagree on that point.

I find your presentation of the Bible as a work of art to be admired like some ancient Wonder of the World to be as misleading as possible. The bible is taught as Divinely Inspired which you yourself just stated.

That's not true. There are tons of people who see the Bible as simply a literary work from antiquity. I'm not trying to "trick" you into "liking" the Bible then subtly "brainwashing" you into thinking the way I do. That is ridiculous! I am simply pointing out the fact that even if there is no God of the Bible, the Bible is a valuable work.

Cheers,

Matt

You can't!
You're either supposed to worship it or despise it!

I mean, what are you're doing READING it? For perspective! For history or for cultural purposes. Geez, the next thing you know, you're going to tell me that you like "Siddhartha" or the writings of Homer, too. Or, that you like the classical Arabic of the Koran.

Look, you can't enjoy or be edified by something unless you believe it's 100% divine truth. So there.

You are truly a pleasure to correspond with. Hilarious.

Cheers,

Matt

I don't think I gave this full consideration; let's look into other points:

You are comparing a book from approximately 2000 - 3000 years ago which is comprised of literature from genres such as

poetry - There's a lot of bad poetry out there; loads of it in fact. Calling the bible great because it contains poetry is like calling it great because it has a lot of pages. Besides, as you said yourself, to read the bible for poetry is to read it outside of the genre it was written in, which was orginally to be the word of god. But we covered that it's not that already, so we're still at drivel.

history - Probably about as much accurate history in the bible as there is a coherent story line. That is to say very little that can be considered even reliable.

correspondence - I must admit, I'm stumped. How exactly do you mean?

apocalyptic literature - Nothing like a nice trip to barnes and noble to check out the apocalyptic literature section.

prophetic literature - that never seems to come true, much less give specifics and dates, allowing people to claim however many years it takes that there prophecy to take place. But hey, who needs specifics; it's prophecy. If they could be wrong or falsifiable I don't know what we would do.

wisdom sayings - For every good moral wisdom you could find in the bible you can find at least one that's bad. They're probably far outnumbered though, I don't foresee that being a 1:1 ratio. Just because it may occasionaly offer up a bit of wisdom that just about any person on this planet could offer up as well, doesn't mean there's anything particulary special about the bible.

It also is a deep part of much of our culture and by understanding the Bible you can understand many things about our culture. Also, by reading and understanding the thoughts of generations past, we learn about ourselves and we learn from the mistakes of others.

Perhaps if people were reading to bible to learn from mistakes of other cultures, but instead, they read it and take those mistakes from other cultures and intregrate them into our current one because they believe the bible is divinely inspired. Whether you do or not is irrelevant, the point remains people do. They're not learning anything; they're repeating them because they don't believe they were mistakes. So in that sense, it helps us understand about how it's hindering our culture and others around the world by forcing people into repeating mistakes of old.

There's nothing great about the bible

If you are reading the Bible as an "essay on morality" then no wonder you think it is worthless. If you willfully read a literary work as a genre which it is not, then you will naturally end up with meaningless drivel.

How are we to read the bible?
It's characters are painfully one-dimensional, the story is terrible, if you even want to call it a story, and were it to be published today as fiction it wouldn't even get consideration from reviewers. It's certainly not great art.

it's full of historical inaccuracies and outright fantasy, not to mention full of conflicting stories and statements about the same events without support from other sources. So it's certainly not what could be considered an accurate record of history by any accounts.

And I think we've already covered the point it's not the inspired word of some god; there are too many mistakes, conflicts, and lack of backing to reality. It supports a monsterous moral code and holds natural healthy behaviors to be evil and sinful. So it's not divine either.

So it's not divine, not a good story, not historically accurate, and poorly written. So just how are we supposed to read the bible again?

it is still relevant to us today due to the historical and cultural insight as well as understanding how the ancients addressed aspects of the human condition.

I can't really understand how relevant it is to us today. Matter of fact just about everything mentioned in the bible is not relevant to us today outside the fact that people still believe it as the word of god. Likewise, I don't see what would make the bible any more relevant, or even as relevant, as other accounts of history that actually back each other up and may even have some real evidence to go along with them.