Atheists, agnostics, & non-believers: do you enjoy reading any part of the Bible?

[Skald the Rhymer]

Suggested by several posts in the thread "What books have you lied about reading?" (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=532269)

I do. It's all fairy tales, of course, but there are vast stretches of it that are good reading. The David cycle stands out; it's an interesting story even if you think the son of Jesse is as mythical as the son of Odin.

Anybody else?

[Oakminster]

My family is not especially religious, but we do have a tradition of sitting around the tree on Christmas Eve while my father reads aloud the story of the birth of Jesus. I enjoy that.

[Syntropy]

I very much enjoy Ecclesiastes. It's my favorite book.

[Skald the Rhymer]

My family is not especially religious, but we do have a tradition of sitting around the tree on Christmas Eve while my father reads aloud the story of the birth of Jesus. I enjoy that.

Just out of idle curiosity, do y'all read the version in Luke or that in Matthew?

[Zsofia]

I love the language, particularly of the King James version, myself.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Not really. I read most of it in my youth, and didn't find it all that enthralling.

I did enjoy reading "Don't know much about the Bible" by Kenneth Davis, though. A great expository on how the various books came to be in the Bible, and when and how they may have been written.

[ZipperJJ]

I was raised Lutheran but leaning agnostic in my old age, and I still haven't gotten around to reading the entire Bible...many parts, especially at the beginning, are very dull.

But I really do enjoy Bible study, on an explanatory level, because for one thing it helps me figure out what I am thinking might be bullshit. I can't go around just assuming I think the Bible is bullshit unless I have actually read it and comprehended it. I also really dig the history, like Qadgop.

On the other hand, the more I read the more I am comfortable with the idea of the Bible as a nice book of parables and life lessons - not some set of un-breakable rules. Heck, I like one verse so much that I had it tattooed on my leg! It's great as a nice big book of Quotable Quotes :)

[Nzinga, Seated]

The story of David and Jonathan is dear to my heart. Actually, I love the entire story of David / Saul.

'Jesus' was a philosopher. He was deep. Till this day I have yet to meet a Christian that seemed to understand Jesus in the same way that I thought he was laying himself down in the bible.

Full disclosure, I guess I am more pantheist than atheist.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

My entire interest in the Bible and ancient history began with being enthralled by Bible stories in sunday school.

I still find much of the Bible very interesting as a window into a specific ancient culture, but a lot of it is dead boring as well.

[Sampiro]

Another vote for David as my favorite Biblical cycle. Also the story of Abraham in Genesis. Both have such raw human believable emotions.

[appleciders]

Sure. I find the Sermon on the Mount a compelling and radically moving account of an ethical position. And I love First Corinthians 13, especially in the New International Version- pure poetry.

[Lobsang]

I always imagine reading the bible to be like reading LOTR but worse. Tedious. Long-winded. Dull.

[Erdosain]

It's not like I pull it down from the shelf for fun, but parts of the Bible are very entertaining to read. Of course, I discovered all these parts back when I was a believer; otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to read it in the first place.

My list of cool Bible stories:

Elijah and the priests of Baal's altar contest
Elisha and the mocking children eaten by bears
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
Jael and driving the stake through the guy's head
Job (just to see how fucked up God can be)
Samson (I was shocked that someone on the Dope was unfamiliar with Samson)
Revelation

Like Zsofia, I only read the King James Version. Since I don't care about "accuracy" anymore, why not pick the version with the coolest language? Plus, most of the references in English literature also use the KJV, so it just makes sense.

[Larry Borgia]

I love the Bible, especially the KJV, which has some of the most beautiful English ever written. The OT contains a lot of boring bits, but these can be skipped unless you have a real fascination with ancient Jewish law. I also find it quite moving, though I don't believe that it's actually true.

If you can get your hands on this edited and abriged version of the KJV (http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Designed-Living-Literature-Testaments/dp/B000OL88B8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253293057&sr=8-1) it makes the thing really readable by cutting out the genealogies and laws, and reformatting the text for readability.

[Nzinga, Seated]

Some of the most famous ones (Jonah in the whale, Danielle in the lion's den) bored me to tears as a kid. But Job was my joint! Erdosain, thanks for reminding me of him.

And like Larry, I should have stressed the King James Version.

[Purgatory Creek]

Not the least bit interested. I remember that as a child my favorite parts of the bible were the sheets of vellum that were placed so as to protect the illustrations. I don't have any particular hatred of the bible; I just don't have any interest in it, the same way I don't have a desire to read automotive manuals or economics textbooks.

Interestingly, I usually do fairly well in the biblical categories on Jeopardy :D.

[DigitalC]

I can't enjoy anything as an adult that i was forced to do as a child. This goes for eating vegetables and reading the bible.

[StusBlues]

Oh, yes. The Judeo-Christian scriptures are among the great wisdom literature of the world canon. I've never had a real problem with them as a corpus. I only deny their authority.

[Kalypso]

I like the parables and stories, and I really love to read the rules in Leviticus and think about what ancient practical reason there might have been for each rule.

[CalMeacham]

Genesis, Exodus, The Evangelists. and, of course, Ecclesiastes. I'm not fond of the Psalms or the Proverbs, which I find tedious. But Genesis, Exodus, and the New Testament, besides having read many times, I also have on audio, and have listened to many times.

[Oakminster]

Just out of idle curiosity, do y'all read the version in Luke or that in Matthew?

Either and/or both sometimes, always in the King James version.

[MostlyClueless]

I read parts of it when I was a believer, but in recent years I find that the Brick Testament (http://www.thebricktestament.com/) is a much better read.

[rhubarbarin]

Yeah, and I reread it regularly. It's very interesting.

I usually skip Psalms, Ecclesiates, etc - I like the stories.

[janeslogin]

I enjoy the King James poetry, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and some many of the stories. I generally don't like other translations.

[Nava]

My grandfather loves reading Genesis and Exodus, specially any parts with blood, rape and massacres.

[Noone Special]

Since I'm culturally/ethnically Jewish, I'll treat your question as asking about the Old Testament -- to which my answer is, yes, I enjoy reading it, and I consider it to my culture's mythology -- much as I imagine a Norse may think of the stories of the Aesir.

[Gam Zeh Yaavor]

Job is good for reminding one's self of how the Problem Of Evil is unresolvable in monotheism. Revelations goes great with psychedelic drugs. The New Testament is interesting as a (thoroughly biased) history of a Roman-era charismatic cult leader.

[Procrustus]

never got past the second page.

[Superhal]

Agnostic-being-forced-against-their-will-into-Methodism here:

During Church, I usually read a few books of the Bible. I read an abridged version when I was like 10 years old, so I'm familiar with all the stories. However, I was shocked at how bad the "real" Bible was. The New Testament in particular is full of bias, accusations, and blame, and there are 5 different versions of what happened to Jesus.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Agnostic-being-forced-against-their-will-into-Methodism here:

During Church, I usually read a few books of the Bible. I read an abridged version when I was like 10 years old, so I'm familiar with all the stories. However, I was shocked at how bad the "real" Bible was. The New Testament in particular is full of bias, accusations, and blame, and there are 5 different versions of what happened to Jesus.

Um ... assuming that by "what happened to Jesus" you refer to the Passion, don't you mean four different versions?

[Sage Rat]

I enjoyed Job and Lamentations well enough. But most of it is too short in its descriptions to be all that interesting. Hundreds of different events take place in a few pages, involving hundreds of people, many of whom are only named once or twice and never seen again. That's just not very interesting, regardless of whether the actual invents should be impressive.

And in terms of philosophy, I thought that Confucius did a better job at conveying his thoughts in a way that was clear but also required some thought. But even at the age of 10 or whenever it was that I read Confucius, I realized that his ideals were unrealistic and really probably not all that advisable. Jesus' philosophy is essentially the same, but his parables are far less clear and less interesting.

[Shakes]

Mysteries of the Bible, is one of my favorite series on the A&E channel.

Personally, I've always found Greek mythology to be far more entertaining.

It's weired but the one thing I've always found interesting about the bible; is there anything of significance that you can learn from it that you CAN'T learn from Aesop's fables?

I only ponder this question because I'm pretty sure nobody in the history of the world ever killed anybody because their interpretation of Aesop's fables differed from someone else's.

I'm guessing this is because people used these stories as a tool rather than take them as something that is literal.

Funny that.

[Superhal]

Oh, and of what I've read so far, Luke is my favorite. :)

[Revenant Threshold]

Yes, although I find the parts i'm interested by have changed. I used to enjoy the various stories as a whole once; now i'm mostly more interested in particular turns of phrase and neat sentences. I think, to an extent, as a non-believer it sort of comes off as fantasy or historical lit at times, and having read a lot of that by now it doesn't always come off as well in comparison.

That said, i'll admit to not having read a good bit of it.

[NinjaChick]

Sure. There's some trippy stories. It's historically significant. Depending on the version some of the language is very beautiful. I enjoy many of the stories in the Old Testament the same way I enjoy various other mythologies. It's full of little interesting things, and I find the book of Job fascinating.

The New Testament interests me mostly for it's cultural significance, and while I find it to be kind of hit-and-miss, I fully admit that lots of what Jesus says resonates with me, at least on a philosophical level. I was raised Jewish and had very little knowledge of the NT before reading it in college, and I still find it tremendously interesting to compare my later-in-life, non-Christian, atheist interpretation of the stories with my raised-and-observant Christian friends.

[vifslan]

I like the poetic books of the Old Testament and the gospels, and one or two of the prophets, though I read them with the proviso that Christianity is a synchretist bag of divergent influences and layers, some better and some worse. Unfortunately the bottom layer is this crabby, patriarchal, provincial and unsophisticated Bronze Age tribal god that would be doing much better on the garbage heap of history. New Testament, not much better, though Jesus had his bright moments.

[Uzi]

never got past the second page.

I've gotten about 10-20 pages in before saying to myself, "You've got to be kidding me. People believe this crap!?" Then a browse through the rest as needed.
What I like about bibles in general is the feel of the book. The cover, the paper, it just feels goods to hold. Being the type who reads ebooks for the most part, I can understand how some people care about holding a book in their hands if they all felt as good.

[MrDibble]

I've read the whole thing, but enjoy? Nope. The bits that didn't horrify me, bored me.

[TheMadHun]

I've only read one page of the bible- I skimmed Solomon's Song, which I was told was racy, but it wasn't. Can't say it ever interested me. Like The Arabian Nights, you get too much shoved at you over the years without ever having to read it.

[jsgoddess]

No. I struggled to read it for theology classes in college and find it just awful. We read and discussed the entire Bible over the course of a semester, and it was incredibly tedious.

I like novels. I dislike short stories. In the end, the Bible is like a giant anthology of overwrought short stories mixed with the phone book.

[ratatoskK]

Revelations is really trippy, I like that a lot.

[Superhal]

Revelations is really trippy, I like that a lot.

I was expecting it to be more like Godzilla, but it was more like Angels in the Outfield.

6/10

[Attack from the 3rd dimension]

Ecclesiastes is a good buddhist book.

[jebert]

I was encouraged to start reading the bible after hearing a Julia Sweeny monologue in which she posed a rhetorical questions to bible toters, "Have you people actually read that book?" I was also encouraged after attending a Lutheran study on "human sexuality", which was really about homosexuality.

Of course the Old Testament proscriptions against homosexuality are right in there with the death penalty for adultery - Lev 20:10 - , laws banning anyone with a "blemish" from approaching the altar - Lev 21:17-23, and the business about unclean women.

The New Testament discussion of homosexuality, as far as I can tell, comes from the writings of Paul. Jesus says nothing directly about homosexuality. Upon reading the Gospels straight through for the first time, I was surprised to find that he says a lot more about divorce - Matthew 19:9, Mark 10:11-12. Somehow these verses never make it into the Sunday readings from the pulpit.

I found some inconsistencies as I read, which to me puts the claim of biblical inerrancy right out the window.

The story of Abraham was unsettling as well. God tells him to kill his beloved son, and just when he's about to follow through, he says, "Just kidding." What kind of god is that?

There are many references to slavery, none of which comes anywhere near saying that it's wrong.

I found myself actually starting to look for more inconsistencies and strange stories. I found them, but I also found a lot uplifting passages and truths along the way.

I am nowhere near finishing it, but I suspect I'd find plenty of additional things that would pull me both toward and away from the bible.