Mods – since I’m looking for sources on criticism and history of the Bible mainly as a cultural work of literature, I thought this would be the best forum for it. Please, feel free to change it if you see fit.
Also, the board just did a funny thing. If this should happen to post twice, once incomplete, please delete the incomplete one.
Okay, so I’m driving down the road with my, er, somebody. My friend-with-benefits? My on-again-off-again-lover? Anyway, we’ll call him J. Now, you should know that while J is quite intelligent and very articulate, he’s not well read or well educated. (I think he graduated high school by social promotion, as surely he didn’t meet attendance requirements.) So we’re talking about religion, tangentally. I’d known that he was the sort who believes in God by default but for various reasons dosen’t consider themselves a Christian (I think he feels it would be hypocritical to describe himself as a Christian while feeling no remorse in the slightest for what they would consider to be sins.) And he knew I’m an agnostic secular humanist, raised Presbyterian. But we hadn’t really talked doctrine before.
So out of nowhere, he kind of hesitantly says, “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Um, depends.”
“Well, you’re a GA at the library and all, right? And you’re, like, a historian, and you read a lot. And you’re training to be a librarian. Right?”
“Yeah?”
“So, you know a lot about books. Or theoretically you do. So, can you get me, or is there such a thing, as a way to read the Bible in the order it was written?”
So follows a discussion of what I know about how they date Biblical books, and how some of the poetry is much older than the rest of it, and how the whole thing is so influenced by contemporary culture and history and all. He tells me he’d really like to read the Bible in order, evidently with the idea that he’d maybe understand and get a handle on what he really believed if he approached it that way – seemed to kind of almost had a fundamentalist idea that the Book is the Thing. So I told him I’d get to work on it, but that what I really thought he should do is read it in tandem with some good books on the history and culture surrounding it. I got the feeling he thought that was way too much work, but I think approaching it blind is a prescription for ignorance.
Now, I like to think I know a good bit about biblical history and scholarship, but I’m not sure where to direct J. I’ve found a few lists online of book chronology, but what’s a good, approachable, complete source I can hand him? I’ve heard plenty of good things about Asimov’s guide to the Bible – how dense is it? I know Asimov was a Godless Atheist – while I hear the book’s very respectful, how biased is it? Is there another good source? Keep in mind that while J is plenty smart, and has quite a large vocabulary, he’s got the attention span of a gnat on speed sometimes, which is why he dosen’t read much. He reads the paper every day and that’s about it. (And if you’d told me a year ago I’d ever sleep with anybody who didn’t read not just as a hobby but as a definition of their life, I’d have laughed in your face.) He also works two jobs and dosen’t have much time, although he makes time for things that interest him. So it has to be pretty well written and compelling, as well as scholarly and comprehensive. Tall order, I know, but I’m sure that if I can find something somewhere it’ll be here.
