I’m not sure how the OP got “atheist because they never touched a Bible” out of that quote.
I’ve read it several times in several different versions. I’ve also read many of the “lost” books. None of it convinced me of the existence of any God(s).
In its favor, it is a better read than the holy books of some other religions.
Is poll supposed to be only for atheists? It doesn’t specifically say so.
It’s just a combination of this
and curiosity about how well-read atheists are when it comes to the Bible.
Me too. Surely the OP knows that correlation doesn’t imply causation. (If there is causation, I would have thought it more likely the other way around.)
But that exchange in the other thread got me wondering about “atheists and Bible familiarity,” too. I would suspect that, in general (with exceptions), atheists would tend to have less familiarity with the Bible than Christians.
I’ve read virtually all of it, but only because I went to parochial schools and I had to.
Hmm…you might want to learn a little bit more about it before claiming that a collected library of 73 separate books can be classified under one genre, not to mention a genre that, for all intents and purposes, didn’t even exist until the 17th century (historical fiction).
The genre existed-it just wasn’t labeled as such.
Even so, classifying all 73 books under one genre…
You are welcome to reclassify them for us…but I would personally prefer that you start up a new thread to do so, because I think it is an interesting topic on its own and would most likely eclipse this one.
I haven’t read all that much of the actual Bible. When I was a kid, we had a set of much thinner books (each about 1/4 inch thick, IIRC) that summarized each Book, with Chapters as headings and I think Verses noted off to the sides of the paragraphs. So I don’t know chapter and verse, but I learned most of the stories, enough to understand most Biblical references.
What I remember most were the illustrations, from Gustave Dore – just looking at that page brings back memories.
That’s just it really; with a lot of the Bible stories/traditions being well read is secondary possibly. So much has passed into daily life and remarks - heck the Good Samaritan was even the subject of a bad 60-second cartoon back when I was a kid (there was the companion one about hanging someone). Short of living in a cave and being raised by wolves …
I voted by accident; I’m not an atheist.
But I can say that of the avowed atheists I’ve known, they’ve all generally come from VERY religious backgrounds and were very turned off by the heavy-handed application of religion in their communities and/or families.
Most people I’ve known who came from less religiously intense backgrounds usually end up being some sort of half-assed theist at best; they don’t repudiate the idea of God, they just sort of become areligious and secular through not being involved. It’s a less active process, I suppose.
I’ve read the Bible. I’ve also read a few dozen books about the Bible (by believers and non-believers) which I feel is at least as educational as reading the Bible itself.
I admit it’s strange that a non-believer like myself has a significant interest in theology but there you go.
No need to reclassify them—there are plenty of sites that classify the Bible books by genre.
In-house classification that doesn’t allow the term “fiction”, let alone “historical fiction”.
I remember poking around in it a bit when I was a kid out of curiosity but most of what I know of the bible is from other references, anecdotes, pop references, wikipedia, whatever.
I’m closer to read than skimmed, so that’s what I put. I’ve read the entire new testament a couple of times and a lot of the old, but I skimmed a lot of the genealogy and Jewish law.
I’m kind of with EscAlaMike on the historical fiction bit. How can you say that the Psalms, for example, are historical fiction? That’s like saying Leaves of Grass is historical fiction.
If anyone is interested, I found This book to be a great way of getting at the meat of the Bible without having to deal with the repetitive boring bits or the inexplicable tiny print and numbering system.
As someone who grew up in a religious home with Church on Sundays and went to a Catholic high school, I’ve more than skimmed, but have never actually read the entire Bible, cover to cover in chronological order. I’d estimate that if I were to add up all the passages that I read, it would likely cover it all. My atheism is well-informed.
I’ve certainly read many portions of the Bible or had them read to me. I did attend Sunday school religiously 
as a child, because my family went. I don’t know if they’d have forced me to go after I’d reached a certain age, but I never made an issue of it. I stopped going when I went to college, but my beliefs were mostly formed by that stage of my life.
If atheist is defined as not believing in the god of the Bible (either new or old testament), then I’m an atheist. If you define atheist as someone who is 100% positive that no gods exist, then I’ll have to fall back on having someone give me a clear definition of a god first.
I certainly know the story of the Good Samaritan. In fact I’d say I probably know it better than most religious Christians. “Samaritan” has become come a word that is essentially synonymous with “good Samaritan.” That was almost certainly not the point of the original story.
Asimov is a much better writer than I. In his essay “Lost in Non-Translation”, he explained that there were no “good” Samaritans at that time at least to Jews of the time. In the South of the 1950s (and probably later), the story should have been translated as a preacher and someone else (a politician I think) ignoring the robbed man. The Samaritan wold be a poor black sharecropper.