The Bible thing

Recently, I had a conversation with someone who was distraught because someone she knew had summarily dismissed the bible as a piece of fiction writing that spoke of homosexuality, bestiality and a whole host of other immoral acts. This person with whom I was seeking has actually taken the time to read the entire bible. I was quite impressed. While I feel comfortable with my spirituality, I feel totally intimidated by the bible. Yes I know that it's the manual that I should use to live my life but truth be told, quite a bit of it, I don't understand.

As a lover of words, I realized early in life that the King James Version was just too shakesperean for me to quite get. The thee's and thou's totally lost me. The New English version is much easier to understand being written in a language that is more current. However, after years of going to church and listening to various ministers interpret the bible through their screens, I was at a loss as to what I should or could use for my own interpretation, after all, I was no biblical scholar.

In the same way that in school, you examined a book for its plot, characters, irony and all the other componenets of literature and then aligned said book with contemporary society, it is the same that must be done with the bible. My problem was that I didn't quite understand the context within which the stories in the bible were taken because like I said, I'm no biblical scholar. I actualy did Religion for my O levels because it was a requirement at my Catholic all-girls high school, but I didn't really learn much. Instead I could take the information given to me and regurgitate it as it related to historical facts.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was probably not correct that Moses parted the Red Sea, but in all likelihood it was the Reed Sea. Things like this baffled me. Then more recently, in my newly chosen church, I realized that you had to bring Greek and Roman culture circa 300 BC to really understand some of the teachings in teh bible since they related to a cultrue way before the one we know today.

Anyway, the person to whom I was speaking suggested that I start reading a Children's bible and actually read it from beginning to end to get the gist of all the stories and not just the big ones that everyone knows. She said that once I did this, then I should progress to another version. I am going to set this as a challenge for myself. To actually read the bible from cover to cover in a context which I understand. So that the next time somebody quotes the bible to me to justify some drivel or the other, I can say to them, that you can't take one verse in the bible to justify anything, you must take it in the context within which it was written.