Do You Really Know What You Believe?
Posted by: Denelle
I love slate.com. Their articles and bloggers are usually very educated and witty.
Today, while looking around for something interesting to read, I stumbled across a blog entitled "Blogging the Bible." I clicked on the link and found myself reading a blog on the fourth and fifth chapters of Deuteronomy. Intrigued by what the author had to say and wondering what prompted this form of a blog I went in search of an answer. And here is what I found:
And so began the journey of David Plotz to read and blog his way through the Bible.
And This Applies to Me How?
I have to admit that I admire what he's doing.
Having grown up in church I often feel exactly the same David says he did. Of course I "know" things about the Bible. I even spent eight years memorizing large portions of it for Bible Quizzing. And yet, there are times when feel as if perhaps I don't know that much at all. I'll come across a story that I don't remember and I'm shocked by it's content. How is it possible to have truly been immersed in a religious culture all of my life and to still be so ignorant?
It is interesting that the passage of scripture that started Plotz on this journey (the story of Dinah - Genesis 34) is the same one that my siblings and I discussed in fascination just a year or so ago as we wondered why it is that as a religion we teach so strictly against lying, violence, revenge, etc . . . and yet the Bible is chocked full of examples of God-fearing, religious men who do exactly those things to accomplish their goals, often in the name of religion.
Plotz is currently entrenched in Deuteronomy - having already covered Genesis through Numbers - and his entries are entertaining, revealing and surprisingrelevantent as he strives to tie Biblical principals and instructions to today's world. His latest entry even discusses how Moses continually drives home the fact that the Jews are unfailingly monotheistic.
Now that I've discovered this blog I intend to continue following David's journey through the Bible. Maybe along the way I can even learn some more myself.
I love slate.com. Their articles and bloggers are usually very educated and witty.
Today, while looking around for something interesting to read, I stumbled across a blog entitled "Blogging the Bible." I clicked on the link and found myself reading a blog on the fourth and fifth chapters of Deuteronomy. Intrigued by what the author had to say and wondering what prompted this form of a blog I went in search of an answer. And here is what I found:
Like many lax but well-educated Jews (and Christians), I have long assumed I knew what was in the Bible more or less. I read parts of the Torah as a child in Hebrew school, then attended a rigorous Christian high school where I had to study the Old and New Testaments. Many of the highlights stuck in my head Adam and Eve, Cain vs., Abel, Jacob vs. Esau, Jonah vs. whale, 40 days and nights, 10 plagues and Commandments, 12 tribes and apostles, Red Sea walked under, Galilee Sea walked on, bush into fire, rock into water, water into wine. And, of course, I absorbed other bits of Bible everywhere from stories I heard in churches and synagogues, movies and TV shows, tidbits my parents and teachers told me. All this left me with a general sense that I knew the Good Book well enough, and that it was a font of crackling stories, Jewish heroes, and moral lessons.
So, the tale of Dinah unsettled me, to say the least. If this story was
strutting cheerfully through the back half of Genesis, what else had I forgotten or never learned? I decided I would, for the first time as an adult, read the Bible. And I would blog about it as I went along.
And so began the journey of David Plotz to read and blog his way through the Bible.
And This Applies to Me How?
I have to admit that I admire what he's doing.
Having grown up in church I often feel exactly the same David says he did. Of course I "know" things about the Bible. I even spent eight years memorizing large portions of it for Bible Quizzing. And yet, there are times when feel as if perhaps I don't know that much at all. I'll come across a story that I don't remember and I'm shocked by it's content. How is it possible to have truly been immersed in a religious culture all of my life and to still be so ignorant?
It is interesting that the passage of scripture that started Plotz on this journey (the story of Dinah - Genesis 34) is the same one that my siblings and I discussed in fascination just a year or so ago as we wondered why it is that as a religion we teach so strictly against lying, violence, revenge, etc . . . and yet the Bible is chocked full of examples of God-fearing, religious men who do exactly those things to accomplish their goals, often in the name of religion.
Plotz is currently entrenched in Deuteronomy - having already covered Genesis through Numbers - and his entries are entertaining, revealing and surprisingrelevantent as he strives to tie Biblical principals and instructions to today's world. His latest entry even discusses how Moses continually drives home the fact that the Jews are unfailingly monotheistic.
Now that I've discovered this blog I intend to continue following David's journey through the Bible. Maybe along the way I can even learn some more myself.
