I’m specifically interested in the old testament. Don’t care so much about the new.
I recently stumbled across the podcast OMG WTF Bible, in which a former Orthodox Jew (now atheist) translates and reads the Bible with comedic footnotes and asides.
It’s very funny and fairly illuminating. There is a bunch of stuff that is in the Bible that I never knew, there is also a bunch of stuff I thought was in the Bible that isn’t (like the 10 commandments… Sort of. They are definitely in there but not like I was told.)
This makes me interested in learning more, but not from a theological perspective. There have to have been books and documentaries looking into the human history of the Bible and possible secular interpretations of what was going on when these stories were first written down. The problem is in the, admittedly short, bit of searching I have done, most of the stuff I have found is decidedly religious.
There is an excellent open online course called “Introduction to the Old Testament,” taught at Yale by Professor Christine Hayes. She is an excellent lecturer. The course is taught from a historical, scholarly perspective, not from a religious one.
This, and several other books by the same author. Lays out the four-source theory of the Torah beautifully, and also makes a convincing argument that one of the four sources also wrote Joshua and Judges.
You might also get what’s called a Chumash. It’s a Torah with the readings divided into the weekly Torah portions, with commentary. A good one will have traditional rabbinical commentary, as well as modern historical information, and will include Hebrew and English text with notes on translation.
Definitely a good place for a beginner to begin. Asimov acknowledges that he drew heavily from the Anchor Bible (Wiki page), a major scholarly compendium that includes the Bible text (in English (KJV?)) along with extensive commentary and historical analysis. (We’re talking about multiple massive volumes, filling whole shelves here.) If you can find an Anchor Bible somewhere (most likely in a major university academic library), you can easily spend the rest of your life studying it, it’s so extensive.
Bible stories I never knew were in the Bible (OT) until I actually read most of it:
(1) Samson and Delilah. (Judges 16) In fact, the whole life story of Samson. I always thought (assumed) it was ancient Greek or pre-Greek legend.
(2) The Handwriting on the Wall. (Daniel 5) I knew the common phrase, but never knew where it came from.
Story that I was always taught, and assumed was in the Bible, but isn’t:
– Young Abraham breaking the idols. This was such a fundamental story that I was taught! The very story that made Abraham the founder and patriarch of the Jewish religion (and hence, also the later derivatives, Christianity and Islam)!
The story actually appears in later Jewish commentary (Midrash), as discussed in this Wiki page. Here, Abraham meets Nimrod and the two have a Grasshopper moment:
(I never knew the source of this story until just now, doing the research needed to write this post! Ignorance fought!)
But there is a somewhat similar story at 1 Samuel 5: The Philistines, in possession of the Ark of the Covenant, place it in their temple along with their idol Dagon. When they return, they find Dagon fallen and smashed.
Please, more ideas would be great. I bought who wrote the Bible on Kindle and am ordering the Asimov book too. (no kindle version so I have to wait for it to ship out.) Those plus the lecture series seem like they will be a good start.
I will endorse the Asimov book. Very readable and accessible (of course. It’s Asimov) and a great place to start, although biblical analysis has come a long ways since then.
I would also have recommended Bart Ehrman, but he is mostly New Testament. If your interest ever grows to include it, check him out.
Also, out of curiosity, how do the actual ten commandments vary from what you were told about them?
The Catholic Church has “regional libraries” which have books from EVERY SINGLE RELIGION on earth, there was ever a book written about.
For example the Mount Angel Abbey, located in Mount Angel Oregon USA, has a larger library on JUST religious books than many city public libraries!
They also have very very old books in their collection which they are in the process of digitizing. Many of these old books were written by hand by monks (before printing presses were invented). Link below…
Join in and follow the bouncing ball of flame.
*Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A-B-C
When you sing you begin with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus
The first three books just happen to be
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus*
Well, they aren’t what was given to Moses on the mountain for starters. God just sort of shouted them down at one point. There wasn’t any special attention paid to them and they seem way less important than the rules for sabbath (which are way different than the rabbinic rules) and the instructions for the temple, the ark and the priest robes (which are what are actually on the tablets).
Also, in other weird stuff at the end of Exodus, Moses was so scarred from talking with God that he had to wear a mask for the rest of his life. Why does that never get mentioned? And the initiation into the priesthood was strangely bloody and violent. The second half of Exodus is in general pretty weird.
What translation did you read this in? Was this from that former orthodox Jew’s OMG WTF translation with the comedic footnotes that you heard on a podcast?
The usual (modern) understanding is that Moses’s face was radiant after his audience on the mountain. Certain older English translations got that he had horns on his head. I think that happened because certain earlier languages (Hebrew? Greek? Latin?) used the same word for “horns” (like in horns on a cow) also for “horns of light”, like we would say “rays of sunshine”. So it got translated that he had horns coming from his head, when is meant he had rays coming from his head.
Well, yes and my memory blurring things a bit too. He translates it as shine. There is then a discussion of the various ways it is translated (horns etc) and what they possibly mean. The conclusion that makes the most sense is that Moses was probably burned. The details of what the shine were got a bit fuzzy for me (stuff I listen to isn’t retained as well as stuff I actually read), the part that stuck with me was him having to wear a mask when he saw the people of Israel…though now I am not sure is Bible and not midrrash or commentary from Rashi.
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The conclusion that makes the most sense is that Moses was probably burned. The details of what the shine were got a bit fuzzy for me (stuff I listen to isn’t retained as well as stuff I actually read), the part that stuck with me was him having to wear a mask when he saw the people of Israel…though now I am not sure is Bible and not midrrash or commentary from Rashi.
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Yikes. Early morning posting. That should read, “the conclusion that makes the most sense to me” and “the details of what the shine was”
No, what’s written on the tablets are in fact the Ten Commandments (from Exodus 20:1-17/Deuteronomy 5:6-21). That’s clear from Deuteronomy 10:4.
Moses was at the top of Mount Sinai, and the Children of Israel gathered around its base, for G-d’s shouting of the Ten Commandments from the mountain. AFTER THAT, the Children of Israel told Moses that they could not bear to hear G-d’s voice any more and that he alone should hear it and convey the messages to them, and that’s when he went back up and G-d told him the instructions for the temple, ark, priestly robes, etc. But the tablets contained the text of the Ten Commandments, from that first, public communication.
You seem sincere in your desire to learn what’s actually in the Bible. But it seems like the snarky podcast guy you’re listening to is either ignorant of what it says, or is not doing a good job of conveying it (which could be quite possibly because he’s trying to amuse rather than instruct - but in that case, you should take what he says as not accurate).
Though it is worth pointing out that the commandments listed in Exodus 20 are not the same as the ones in Exodus 34 even though 34 says they are the same. Does anyone know of a book or article that address the potentially different sources of the different lists and which one is thought to be older?