Keryg 2020: How often, how systematically, and why do you read and study the Bible?
Friendly_Persuader
Shipmate
I am a Quaker and so part of a tradition in which the Bible does not have a central role in collective worship which sets us a little apart from most other groups with a Christian background.
However, since 2013 I have been part of a small Bible study group in my Meeting (we call ourselves the "Book Group"). I joined the group just after they had completed the Old Testament and Apocrypha. We read through and discussed the books of the New Testament, then spent a year or so messing about bits of Richard Rohr, some Quaker stuff and a little Richard Holloway. We then reembarked on the Old Testament (with four on their second time round). We did Samson tonight and will do the last few chapters of Judges in a fortnight. We meet twice a month, in the past for two hours but only 90 minutes on Zoom. We read, research and then turn up to the meetings to argue with each other and with the text reflecting on different interpretations. I don't think we see it as a "Holy" text or the "Word of God"and we treat the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as a fascinating entity in itself rather than as an arrow pointing to the New Testament. Obviously we are fundamentally anti-fundamentalist.
For me it is a fascinating ongoing experience but it has taken a long time and a lot of work. It seems to me that if you take it seriously, even from a Quaker perspective it has to be hard work.
I assume most of those posting here are from more Biblocentric traditions, as I can't think of a tradition that is less so than ours. So I'd be interested to find out what you do and how you do it. What status the words of the book have in your tradition. And how important the texts are for you personally.
Also do you feel as embarrassed as I did tonight when reading a Bible on public transport?
However, since 2013 I have been part of a small Bible study group in my Meeting (we call ourselves the "Book Group"). I joined the group just after they had completed the Old Testament and Apocrypha. We read through and discussed the books of the New Testament, then spent a year or so messing about bits of Richard Rohr, some Quaker stuff and a little Richard Holloway. We then reembarked on the Old Testament (with four on their second time round). We did Samson tonight and will do the last few chapters of Judges in a fortnight. We meet twice a month, in the past for two hours but only 90 minutes on Zoom. We read, research and then turn up to the meetings to argue with each other and with the text reflecting on different interpretations. I don't think we see it as a "Holy" text or the "Word of God"and we treat the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as a fascinating entity in itself rather than as an arrow pointing to the New Testament. Obviously we are fundamentally anti-fundamentalist.
For me it is a fascinating ongoing experience but it has taken a long time and a lot of work. It seems to me that if you take it seriously, even from a Quaker perspective it has to be hard work.
I assume most of those posting here are from more Biblocentric traditions, as I can't think of a tradition that is less so than ours. So I'd be interested to find out what you do and how you do it. What status the words of the book have in your tradition. And how important the texts are for you personally.
Also do you feel as embarrassed as I did tonight when reading a Bible on public transport?
Comments
I am that rare beastie on the Ship, an inerrantist (Lutheran). That's due mainly to the way I came to faith (long story, disbelieved by some on the Ship, but it was centered on sooper sekrit Bible reading in the lav when I was young and didn't want my parents, siblings, etc. to find out. I've been reading ever since.
Being a suspicious-minded person, I had no faith in translators (what if they're all secretly lying to me?) and so I majored in Greek and Hebrew in college (until my sister-in-law pointed out that no one marrying a Vietnamese pastor dared graduate with such an unsalable degree) at which point I added English. The Bible has been the foundation of everything I've done ministry-wise ever since, and today I write material based on it for study and devotional purposes. I really prefer the freaky difficult passages for those purposes, because you can usually find some really cool stuff if you dig (and beg the Holy Spirit!) long enough.
I'll shut up now.
This may be a bit of a tangent, but it seems to me that reading the Bible in the original languages would almost necessarily change your views of the text. Did it? And if so, would you mind saying in what way?
But you probably mean something else. One of the things I really appreciated was the precision of the Greek--there are places where you can tell, for instance, if Jesus said something before or while he was in the act of sitting down (or whatever), or what the women did when on the way to their visit to the empty tomb--which is surprising to me, given the more waffly nature of English. Not that these tiny things make a huge theological difference, but I think visually, and the more little details I have, the easier it is for me to picture it in my head. I also learned to do proper word studies (you know, checking out all the occurrences of a Greek word in their various contexts?) which helped a lot with, say, the controversy over women as teachers. I love the fact that the Gospel writers tend to slip into the present tense when the action gets going--like teenagers, "So Jesus, he says this, and the other guys, they do this, and right way Peter says..." It feels a bit like being there. You hear the voice of the writer. I think maybe that doesn't come through so well in translation, because things like that get flattened out.
Now Hebrew, aieee, that's another story. Hebrew words remind me of those subatomic particles that you can never locate precisely without sacrificing certainty about its momentum, and vice versa. More like word clouds, clouds of meaning (rather like Vietnamese in that way!) where you have to look at the whole sentence, and passage, and maybe book, who knows? to get the best reading on what that particular stinker of a word means. Greek seems to me the language of daylight; Hebrew, of moonlight (with occasional clouds, just to keep you guessing). But this is all of course the impressions of a person who is NOT fluent and I suspect Galilit, for instance, may be able to set me straighter.
I feel OK about that as I'm in a different season of life now from the one I was in then.
What continually draws me to it, though, is that in over 50 years of reading I continue to be surprised, amazed, and transformed by new things that emerge from the text, or new understandings I gain from it that I believe help me follow Christ. I am not a fundamentalist but I am, like many serious liberals as I discover, a "textualist", in other words I strive to see what the text actually says as opposed to what I remember I think it says.
I believe increasingly in the value of interpretation, but to interpret well one has to have a good understanding of the original text. To answer @Ruth out of turn, I think a major difference between the Bible and the Koran is that there's no requirement to read the text in the original language to make it properly "holy", and indeed the fact that the text contains different languages and even translations of itself that differ from the original (the LXX) is a feature, not a bug, and one that legitimises interpretation.
However, looking at the original language can give fresh insights. Just this week I was blown away by the discovery that the verse in Mark about the young man clad in a raiment fleeing naked at the arrest of Jesus isn't just gratuitous comedy (or, as some think, a cameo of Mark himself): the Greek words for "young man" and "raiment" are used in only one other place in the gospel: to refer to the "young man" claid in a white "raiment" that the disciples find in the empty tomb and who announces the Resurrection. I'd never heard that, it makes perfect sense, the symbolism is powerful, it bookends the passion in Mark so perfectly, and it speaks of the care with which the Scriptures were written.
So why do I read the Bible, and study it with others? Because like Pilgrim Father John Robison, “I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of His Holy Word”.
Now, I am less magical but more mystical in my view of scripture. I am certainly not an inerrantist, and see scripture as the product of very fallible and human hands. Nonetheless, in ways that I cannot properly unpack, I believe that the Lord can speak through scripture when it is read "illuminated by the Holy Spirit," as the Congregationalists used to say.
Like LC, I find it valuable to read (or, more precisely for me, decipher) scripture in the original languages. I am far from fluent in Greek and Hebrew, and have no knowledge of Aramaic. Nonetheless, struggling with the original is both a good spiritual discipline for me and a source of new appreciation (though not in a way that is radically at odds with what has been available to me in translation.)
If you have not yet discovered it, let me introduce you to the NET Bible. This is a wonderful work that has a great many translation notes (marked as tn) that give very hgh-quality current understanding of word meanings and nuances; textual comments (marked as tc) that explain the variations in the text and why they think the version they chose to translate is the most appropriate); and study notes (marked as sn) that give the translation team's theological take on a passage. This last is the least useful. The translation is the work of the Dallas Theological Seminary faculty. DTS is ground zero for Dispensationalism, so I was expecting the whole translation to be crap. It's not -- it's wonderfully rigorous. The study notes are the most argumentative of the lot, and sometimes show the Dispensatinalist leanings of the team. But you are alerted to that by the sn notation. And, honestly, most of their study notes make sound and interesting points. The main way that the team disappointed me was that they were originally going to translate the Apocrypha, but after a few books, they got so much grief from their con evo compadres that they abandoned the project.
FWIW
And, yes, I too was greatly disappointed that they gave up on the Apocrypha. Being RC myself, I am conscious that the NET Bible is not a Catholic Bible but the value of the footnotes (especially the translation notes) makes it a valuable reference source for me. I am reading my way through Genesis currently.
First, while Hedgehog's point about the NET Bible being available in hard copy is on-target, you can also get the full version including maps in computer form. I have it in the esword environment, which does not require you to be online in order to access the text. While esword is free, the NET Bible costs something like $50 to download for esword (which is about what it costs in hard copy.) BTW, there are various editions of the NET Bible. Don't get the "reader" version, which largely foregoes the notes. There is a wonderful English/Greek version of the NT, with the versions on facing pages. And there is the standard study Bible version of the complete Protestant Bible in a variety of bindings.
Second, if you are not familiar with the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the TaNaKh, it is well worth picking up. Its study Bible has wonderful notes from a rather secular Jewish perspective. They also have a first rate English/Hebrew version, again with the languages on facing pages, but with very sparse notes. The JPS Study Bible is a must-have for the OT.
Third, the translation of the TaNaKh that Robert Alter just finished is delightful. It has massive notes on the text and is quite literate in style. Alter's goal was to make the literary feel of the original more available in English.
And finally, the ArtScroll/Stone edition of the TaNakh is a worthy entry with a more orthodox Jewish slant on the OT. The notes are from the rich rabbinical tradition of Judaism. The text is facing pages English/Hebrew.
Free software under the GNU public licence. You can download for a computer operating system or phone, and then get as many translations and versions as you like. Used it for years.
I systematically / non-systematically tumble my way though psalms and can't stop myself from Ecclesiastes, periodically Job, and I enjoy poetry of the NT such as beatitudes, and probably unreasonably, the genealogical sequences in Luke and Matthew. I'm one of those who does well with rhythms of words, spoken (mostly in the head). The poetry of lines is as important as their content (oft times more) in providing me comfort.
Not sure when the next will happen. Plus I also write imaginative takes on Bible passages. My current one is on the Rachel and Leah story.
The rest of the time I dip in and out, read books on parts of the text, spend some time studying discrete books and so on. So much like Jengie really.
My old pastor insisted that it was far more important to hear the word than to read it.
Both are as a pleasant day's punting on the River Cam compared to Sirach (in the Apocrypha).
Mind, I was once slightly put out when I grumbled to a friend who is a theologian by profession that I found Ephesians difficult to understand an a bit mystifying. He looked a bit shocked by that admission. He said that Ephesians is fantastic but he then admitted that he thought Proverbs was just dull, and he couldn't see why it was there.
I don't get a great deal from reading theology books. For me, they don't engage with my spirit the way the raw text does.
Recursive statement detected.
How so?
Well, yout assertion is also a disputable generalisation, and besides, I'm particularly fond of the prayer of Agar son of Jakeh in those chapters, which gets a lot less airtime than the Prayer of Jabez.
Also, I think a lot of bits of the Bible that appear boring reward careful readers. It was only by slogging through the 9 chapters of genealogy at the beginning of Chronicles that I discovered Uriah was one of David's most trusted friends.
It's a letter of instruction and encouragement from Paul to the very early church at Ephesus.
What I would much appreciate are some suggestions about where I can find interpretations of what I am reading. Sometimes I bump into You Tube talks which discusses topics in the Bible, and these can be very helpful. Perhaps there are speakers or websites that someone could recommend?
Thank you. I'm currently zooming with a morning service & a couple of other meetings, at my local cathedral. I can't see anything on their website about Bible reading - but I must ask one of the priests. It may be that there is an informal group that meets to discuss this.
Caroline, part of the difficulty with first-time Bible reading is that you're jumping into an ancient culture where a lot of things get referenced and you don't (yet) know what they are, because they're in the other books of the Bible. So choosing a section where you're already interested and likely to persevere is important.
For my money, I wouldn't have suggested John (unless you're into inspiration/philosophy). John gets into some really deep concepts and has much less in the way of events and stories--the kind of narrative that keeps me interested?--and so it's hard for some people. I would have suggested Luke, which has far more characters in its cast, lots of small episodes, and less-over-my-head idea-izing. Luke also has the benefit of being written for non-Jews, so you get less of the esoteric references that tend to show up in Matthew.
As far as interpretation--are you looking for stuff that says, "here's what a phylactery is, and this is the reason why the Pharisees were mad at Jesus, oh, and by the way, 5 drachmas is X amount in modern money"? Or are you looking for "Here's what the main point of that whole episode was, and what (we think) God is trying to say through it" ?
Many thanks for responding. You're right, there are a lot of references which go over my head. The Bible seems to refer to other parts of the Bible more than any other series of books that I've read. This doesn't worry me. The places and people referred to are vaguely familiar (as they are to most people who did scripture at school), and hopefully I will get a better picture as I read more.
I am far more interested in what you describe in your last sentence, "Here's what the main point of that whole episode was, and what (we think) God is trying to say through it" ..... Ideally I would appreciate some fairly dynamic suggestions/ideas/explanations, that would make me sit up and think.
I am going to approach my local cathedral (where I currently go to zoom services), & see if they have any Bible reading classes, but I think it would help me to read some books too, or maybe watch some talks on You Tube or whatever. A couple of years ago I read Buechner's The Magnificent Defeat, and that was incredibly thought-provoking.
I am, though going to make an extra suggestion. This is that "Here's what the main point of that whole episode was, and what (we think) God is trying to say through it" isn't the only way to read a gospel. It may get in the way of your encountering God through it. Neither the Bible nor Jesus are primarily about philosophy, ideas or even explanations. Explanations help us. Often, we need them. But the Bible isn't just about what God means. It is about what God is like. Jesus is the Son of God. So if you want to know what God is like, Jesus is what he is like. Somebody else's thoughts, however worthy or even inspirational can all too easily get in the way of this.
So what I'm going to suggest is that you read a gospel, Luke say, and just get a feel for who the Jesus you meet in the pages is, what he is like. Let that Jesus speak to your heart, your inner ears. Who is this person?
Don't rush your reading. Don't feel 'I've got to read a whole chapter each day'. Equally, if something doesn't seem to be saying anything to you, don't feel, 'I've got to understand this before I go on to what comes next'. If it doesn't register, go on. And don't assume that what didn't say anything to you last month will never say anything to you, this month or next week even.
The Bible Project podcasts, and my wife and I have both become avid listeners. They have a number of “How to Read” series, including series on the parables, the epistles, and Apocalyptic Literature. I found series on the Tree of Life particularly fascinating and helpful.
I highly recommend exploring their website and podcasts for resources.
And @caroline444, I’m a big Buechner fan.
The whole "How to Read" series is pretty good, if you scroll down far enough you'll see that they've collected together the first 41(!) of that into one giant group, though they show the subheadings. Then the final ones that recently completed that whole epic series - parables, letters, and apocalyptic literature - are still shown separately.
But they started with basic discussions of what the Bible even is, and then talking about literary style and stuff like that, before they started dissecting particular kinds of books in the Bible.
Then other series are thematic. Currently I'm partway through "The Character of God", which is examining God's own description of himself in Exodus that is quoted and requoted in various ways throughout the rest of the Bible. Quite interesting.
Occasionally I think they go wandering off into the weeds, but more often than not there's some real insight there, and a lot of it is aimed at correcting notions that circulate around the church that really aren't terribly Biblical. One of the hosts is a complete Old Testament nerd and very keen to get back into understanding the culture and the language. Not least because he thinks the New Testament writers were also often Old Testament nerds themselves. They knew their Septuagint.
I'm going to PM you a suggestion, though it isn't for overall reading but rather for individual passages. Though I prefer Enoch's suggestion instead, that you just pick it up and read it (preferably Luke or something else you can get into) and skip anything you can't immediately make out.
I have ordered Tom Wrights book on the beginning of John - thank you!
@Enoch
Thank you so much for suggesting that perspective....about learning about God through studying the nature of Jesus as shown in the Bible, and doing that ideally from first hand experience. I really hadn't thought of that, and it was very helpful.
@Nick Tamen
I checked out The Bible Project Podcasts. I think maybe it's a bit ahead for me right now, but have bookmarked them for the future. I really like good podcasts.
@cgitchard
Thank you - I listened to part of that talk & it sounded very good - also the fact that you can raise questions if you have them. I will definitely go back and check more of them out in view of what I have so far read of John.
It is interesting to notice also how other people in the Bible react to Jesus. This first struck me when I considered the story of children coming to Jesus. Many children are shy with strangers, but somehow they didn't feel shy around him.
Will do. In fact I must go back and look at some of the existing threads...
I should spend less time on here, and more reading the Bible!
Looking forward to joining a study again in the future.
I find Zoom tolerable for hum drum business stuff, but frustrating for more in depth discussions