# Atheists, agnostics, & non-believers: do you enjoy reading any part of the Bible? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 18, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606 "2009-09-18T16:08:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/21 "2009-09-18T18:10:55Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/22 "2009-09-18T19:45:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/23 "2009-09-18T20:25:33Z")
Yeah, and I reread it regularly. It’s very interesting. I usually skip Psalms, Ecclesiates, etc - I like the stories. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/24 "2009-09-19T17:17:51Z")
I enjoy the King James poetry, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and some many of the stories. I generally don’t like other translations. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/25 "2009-09-19T19:02:03Z")
My grandfather loves reading Genesis and Exodus, specially any parts with blood, rape and massacres. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/26 "2009-09-19T19:13:24Z")
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_. ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/27 "2009-09-19T19:25:45Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/28 "2009-09-19T19:41:47Z")
never got past the second page. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/29 "2009-09-19T21:24:21Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/30 "2009-09-19T21:32:03Z")
> [@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. Um … assuming that by “what happened to Jesus” you refer to the Passion, don’t you mean four different versions? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/31 "2009-09-19T21:41:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/32 "2009-09-19T22:43:55Z")
**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. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/33 "2009-09-19T22:50:55Z")
Oh, and of what I’ve read so far, Luke is my favorite. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/34 "2009-09-19T23:01:47Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/35 "2009-09-19T23:42:25Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![vifslan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f4b2a3/32.png) [@vifslan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vifslan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/36 "2009-09-20T12:28:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/37 "2009-09-20T16:53:40Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/38 "2009-09-20T17:53:07Z")
I’ve read the whole thing, but _enjoy_? Nope. The bits that didn’t horrify me, bored me. ---
**Author:** ![TheMadHun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/39 "2009-09-20T17:59:02Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606/40 "2009-09-20T18:06:41Z")
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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-agnostics-non-believers-do-you-enjoy-reading-any-part-of-the-bible/510606.md?page=3)