Explanation
Posted by joepinion in bible, bible as literature, literature, new testament, old testsament
Welcome to Honest Synopsis. It's about reading the Bible straight up, and responding. This introductory post will put forth the purpose of this blog, give background info on me and why I'm interested in finding out what's in the Bible, detail exactly what I'll be doing, list my materials, and ask four things from you the reader.
Purpose
1. This project is for Christians like me who have come to the conclusion that the typical interpretation, application, and explanation of the Bible is more or less backwards and nonsensical, and that in order to understand what the Bible is actually about, we need to read it with fresh, keen, perceptive eyes.
2. This project is for outsiders to Christianity who are genuinely confused or outraged by Christianity and the Bible, and those who think that the God of the Bible and of Christians is an idiot or weak or just cruel, but who are also willing to listen to someone else's alternative thoughts.
The Person
I am a 22-year-old American male in Columbus, Ohio. I am a campus minster intern with a major religious organization. I majored in English and religion at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. I've been a part of mainline denominations, quasi-charismatic churches, home churches, and your basic non-denominational evangelical Christianity-factory.
My professor of Biblical studies and my English literature major have helped lead me to scratch my head regarding how Christians tend to read the Bible. We read it in very short bursts, with no rhyme or reason to where we start or stop. We take parts as literal that should be taken as metaphors, and we take parts as metaphors that should be taken literally. We attach our beliefs to what we read instead of the other way around. We ignore parts we don't like. We have no sense of thread, rhythm, motif, or purpose. We base our Bible-reading experience on our emotional response instead of on what the Bible is about. We treat the Bible like an endless collection of magical self-help fortune cookies.
Why not read the Bible for what it is: dozens of pieces of foreign literature of varying genres, requiring the same basic reading principles as Winesburg, Ohio or Hamlet? Sure, as a Christian, I expect that it's divine and relevant, but if so, it can probably defend itself on those counts. My job is more less to understand what it's saying.
The Task
Over the next year or so, I will read the whole Bible. I will take detailed notes and make lots of outlines and charts and lists of characters and plot threads. I will write summaries. I will look for themes and underlying messages. And I will post what I'm discovering on this blog every day or two. I will also post the responses that the book is drawing from me, and my response to the world view it is inviting me into..
This blog is not an educational tool on Hebrew culture or an exposition on prophetic writing. I am not an expert, nor do I have the time to explain all that. You'll be hearing very short summaries of what I read, what I think it's saying, and how it connects to everything else I've read. I won't skip any parts. And perhaps most importantly I'll discuss what kind of effect it's having on my life.
In the end, I'll hopefully fill several 5-subject notebooks and this blog with what the Bible is actually about. If you're a Christian, hopefully it'll inspire you to do the same. If you're not, hopefully it will answer some questions about Christianity and inform you about what's (actually) in the Bible, and how what is inside it can influence someone's life.
The Materials
I'll be reading The Books of the Bible: A Presentation of Today's New International Version, largely because it doesn't have any chapters or verse numbers, so that I can read the books without being tempted to segment them. It also changes the order of the books a bit.
Supplementing my reading will be Introducing the Old Testament: Completely Revised and Updated by John Drane and Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology by Paul J. Achtermeier and others. These will mostly be used as a guide for when I'm just confused about what's being referred to, or for when I need some historical or genre-related context.
The Requirements
Christian or not, to be a good blog reader, you'll have to agree to a few things:
- This is a blog detailing what I find the Bible to be saying, on its own terms, from its own perspective. Any opinion or response will be clearly marked. It is not a cynical attack or an attempt to poke holes in these books. I will tell about passages I'm struggling with or what confuses me, but if you'd rather be entertained by people whose goal is to paint God as a mean bully picking on humans or that demons are ridiculous, check out another blog... I am not here to evaluate the plausibility of God's love or demons but to treat them as a major theme and minor characters, respectively, in a piece of literature, the Bible. At the end of my journey I will reflect more on how it all matches my world view.
- The Bible is not the center of Christianity - Jesus Christ as our only chance at knowing God is. The Bible is simply our most trustworthy source about who Jesus is.
- I will not be referring to the New Testament much as I read the Old (First) Testament. The authors of the First Testament were not yet aware of the New Testament.
- Please leave comments.
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