Well that’s not true. We’re not living in 600s Europe where only the clergy can read (and not all of them could read that well). However, a major issue is how it’s read. Common practice in churches is to read the text and interpret it through a pre-existing set of beliefs informed by the reader’s current cultural and political background, as well as millennia of religious tradition which many modern Christians are barely aware of (people take the statements in the Nicene Creed for granted, but it’s not a statement of faith that the Bible could support without centuries of heated discussions, politicking and reinterpretations filling in the gaps) In biblical scholarship, this is referred to as eisegesis, where you read an interpretation into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself.
In contrast, exegesis is the method used by modern biblical scholars, as opposed to theologians. This is basically reading the Bible as you would any other historical piece of literature - when you frame the text in its historical, religious, cultural and literary context, it takes on a whole new dimension almost entirely missing from church readings of the Bible. Suddenly the creation stories aren’t just an account of how the world was made and how evil came about, but a polemic against the creation stories of Mesopotamia, which the biblical authors adopted and adapted in order to distinguish them from neighbouring mythologies. You stop needing to reconcile the irreconcilable Gods of the OT - the wrathful, vengeful, murderous God and the benevolent, merciful God - and instead can appreciate how the biblical authors have taken what originally seem to be two traditionally separate gods from Caananite-Israelite religion (El and Yahweh) and, over time, merged the traditions to fit the theology of a monotheistic cult which developed later within Israelite religion. By reading beyond the biblical canon, you can see evidence of varieties of Jewish and Christian tradition that didn’t survive into later mainstream religion (for example, the Gospel of Mary places more importance on women than the other gospels and didn’t make it into the biblical canon) I could go on, but realistically who will read this far?
TL;DR - yes, people do read the bible - in fact, it’s probably the most read book in the world - it’s just that people read into it rather than out of it, which stops them from appreciating what the many authors and books of the Bible are actually saying
In biblical scholarship, this is referred to as eisegesis, where you read an interpretation into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself.
This has reached such a level among US Christians that they often pick out single sentences to quote with little to no regard for the rest of the text it’s come from. Like, never mind reading the book with the context of its origin in mind, or even the context of the rest of the book, when the context of the sentences directly before and after the thing you’re referencing are being ignored.
There’s nothing wrong with multi grain bread of course, but that’s clearly not some sort of special holy bread recipe that will bless you if you eat it.
" I could go on, but realistically who will read this far?"
Me! I’ll read this far.
Joking aside, this was a good comment and I appreciate the time you spent writing it.
It tangentially reminds me of something I was reading recently about how Western Buddhism functions. The piece argued that Buddhists in Western countries engage with Buddhism in a manner that often involves trying hard to be scholarly in relation to reading canon — that there’s an instinct to cling to a sense of traditionalism as a source of legitimacy, which felt ironic to me. The result is that the practice of Buddhism in places like the United States looks super different to how it looks in places with a longer history and larger population of lay Buddhists.
I found it super interesting because it made me reflect on how the interpretation of Buddhism has had to change over the years to adapt to changing times, and how part of that ongoing change includes the interactions of Western Buddhism with more traditional sects of Buddhism. For example, I always used to find secular Buddhists odd because it felt like they were trying to pick and choose parts of a religion in a manner that was incompatible with how I viewed religion at the time. However, nowadays, I think it’s more practical to see these strands of secular Buddhist thought as being as legitimately Buddhist as anything else, because ultimately they’re a part of the conversation. It helps that since that time, I’ve seen many examples of people across many religions picking and choosing elements of their religion to adapt it to their particular cultural context — there’s far more nuance to it than I realised.
I read your entire comment and really enjoyed it. I even bookmarked it to read it again later. This stuff really interests me. Thank you for your comment :)
Glad to hear that! I’d recommend checking out the Yale introductions to the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament which are freely available on YT. They’re lecture series which introduce the concept of the historical critical method and explore the influences on different parts of the Bible, and it’s really fascinating stuff!
Oh, sweet! Thanks for the recommendations and links to them, I really appreciate that! That’s real cool of you. I’m looking forward to checking them out!
More importantly than that though, nobody’s fucking read it
Well that’s not true. We’re not living in 600s Europe where only the clergy can read (and not all of them could read that well). However, a major issue is how it’s read. Common practice in churches is to read the text and interpret it through a pre-existing set of beliefs informed by the reader’s current cultural and political background, as well as millennia of religious tradition which many modern Christians are barely aware of (people take the statements in the Nicene Creed for granted, but it’s not a statement of faith that the Bible could support without centuries of heated discussions, politicking and reinterpretations filling in the gaps) In biblical scholarship, this is referred to as eisegesis, where you read an interpretation into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself.
In contrast, exegesis is the method used by modern biblical scholars, as opposed to theologians. This is basically reading the Bible as you would any other historical piece of literature - when you frame the text in its historical, religious, cultural and literary context, it takes on a whole new dimension almost entirely missing from church readings of the Bible. Suddenly the creation stories aren’t just an account of how the world was made and how evil came about, but a polemic against the creation stories of Mesopotamia, which the biblical authors adopted and adapted in order to distinguish them from neighbouring mythologies. You stop needing to reconcile the irreconcilable Gods of the OT - the wrathful, vengeful, murderous God and the benevolent, merciful God - and instead can appreciate how the biblical authors have taken what originally seem to be two traditionally separate gods from Caananite-Israelite religion (El and Yahweh) and, over time, merged the traditions to fit the theology of a monotheistic cult which developed later within Israelite religion. By reading beyond the biblical canon, you can see evidence of varieties of Jewish and Christian tradition that didn’t survive into later mainstream religion (for example, the Gospel of Mary places more importance on women than the other gospels and didn’t make it into the biblical canon) I could go on, but realistically who will read this far?
TL;DR - yes, people do read the bible - in fact, it’s probably the most read book in the world - it’s just that people read into it rather than out of it, which stops them from appreciating what the many authors and books of the Bible are actually saying
This has reached such a level among US Christians that they often pick out single sentences to quote with little to no regard for the rest of the text it’s come from. Like, never mind reading the book with the context of its origin in mind, or even the context of the rest of the book, when the context of the sentences directly before and after the thing you’re referencing are being ignored.
When this is the text that’s being referenced: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+4%3A9-17&version=NIV
There’s nothing wrong with multi grain bread of course, but that’s clearly not some sort of special holy bread recipe that will bless you if you eat it.
Me! I’ll read this far.
Joking aside, this was a good comment and I appreciate the time you spent writing it.
It tangentially reminds me of something I was reading recently about how Western Buddhism functions. The piece argued that Buddhists in Western countries engage with Buddhism in a manner that often involves trying hard to be scholarly in relation to reading canon — that there’s an instinct to cling to a sense of traditionalism as a source of legitimacy, which felt ironic to me. The result is that the practice of Buddhism in places like the United States looks super different to how it looks in places with a longer history and larger population of lay Buddhists.
I found it super interesting because it made me reflect on how the interpretation of Buddhism has had to change over the years to adapt to changing times, and how part of that ongoing change includes the interactions of Western Buddhism with more traditional sects of Buddhism. For example, I always used to find secular Buddhists odd because it felt like they were trying to pick and choose parts of a religion in a manner that was incompatible with how I viewed religion at the time. However, nowadays, I think it’s more practical to see these strands of secular Buddhist thought as being as legitimately Buddhist as anything else, because ultimately they’re a part of the conversation. It helps that since that time, I’ve seen many examples of people across many religions picking and choosing elements of their religion to adapt it to their particular cultural context — there’s far more nuance to it than I realised.
I read your entire comment and really enjoyed it. I even bookmarked it to read it again later. This stuff really interests me. Thank you for your comment :)
Glad to hear that! I’d recommend checking out the Yale introductions to the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament which are freely available on YT. They’re lecture series which introduce the concept of the historical critical method and explore the influences on different parts of the Bible, and it’s really fascinating stuff!
Oh, sweet! Thanks for the recommendations and links to them, I really appreciate that! That’s real cool of you. I’m looking forward to checking them out!
Almost forgot to mention this banger of a video It’s basically about the origins and development of the biblical Yahweh, well-worth a watch.
Hey now plenty of atheists like me have read it