A few New Testament passages stood out for me. # I liked the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, which portrays real human anguish. It's completely missing from John, whose Jesus has no doubt, indecision, or sense of humor. # The miracle of the Gadarene swine killed 2000 pigs. That's a lot of pigs. Then the people begged Jesus to leave the region. # During the "cast the first stone" incident in John 8, what was Jesus writing on the ground with his finger, and why? # 1John 5:16 is mysterious. You should pray for your brother's sins, but "there is a sin unto death", which you shouldn't pray about. # Acts 19:34 made me laugh out loud. The crowd shouted "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians" in unison for "about two hours". The words lose their meaning after about two minutes of shouting in unison. # In Acts 20:5, Eutychus dozed off during Paul's lecture and fell out the window to his death. It's okay - Paul brought him back to life. This story is close to my heart. # James seems to directly contradict Paul on the question of whether faith or deeds are your ticket to heaven. No doubt this has been thoroughly debated. I didn't realise how little of the New Testament is the gospels, and how much is about Paul. It's interesting to see the early Christians struggle with the question of how Jewish they should be. Paul decided the main thing is to believe in Jesus, love one another, and not be gay. However in Matthew 5:17, Jesus says the old testament laws apply forever. I'm sure bible literalists can explain this. Also, some gay Christians take Paul's disgust at "unnatural" homosexual acts to mean that straight people should not have gay sex. To me, Paul just sounded like a bigot. One striking impression I got from the New Testament is that most of the writers sincerely believed Jesus was coming again very soon. There are a few passages that try to explain why He hasn't come yet, but they come across as defensive, as if they were written later. It sounds to me as though the religion went through a transition from being some sort of doomsday cult to being something more lasting. In conclusion, I wasn't on the lookout for direct contradictions, and none really jumped out at me except for a couple I mentioned. However plenty of it would drive you slightly crazy if you tried to believe it is the literal and inerrant word of God. I think fundamentalists are doing a pretty good job, given the absurdity of the task they set themselves. I enjoyed the bible. My favorite parts were some passages from Job, and of course Ecclesiastes. I think I liked the Epic of Gilgamesh better than any books of the bible. It has similar mythical resonance, but a pagan kind of morality that works better for me. So what should I read next? [purpler_spirit recommended Popul Vuh at sacred-texts.com, and quility gave kudos.]

[I'm closing my livejournal account, and copying over this biblical entry] I just finished reading the bible, all the way from "In the beginning" to "Amen". It's taken me about a year, on and off. Here are some thoughts. (SPOILER WARNING) First, apologies for anything blasphemous I might say. I'm just a born and raised atheist trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. Also, sorry this message is so long. (Hey, it's much shorter than the bible). On the whole, the bible was a great read. I skimmed through the really boring parts, like the genealogies, most of Leviticus, and the measurements of the temple. There was a lot of blood, and plenty of wackiness. I think that's what makes it so deeply "human" - so evocative of all the brutality, yearning, and confusion of human existence. Many familiar stories had a twist I wasn't aware of. For example, # Lot offered his daughters to a crowd of rapist. Later he impregnated them in what sounds to me like a flimsy excuse for pedophilia. # Samson was really stupid. # What's up with the lion and the donkey in 1Kings 13:23-30? # Elijah was nuts. # Psalm 137 is famous for Boney M's cover "By the rivers of Babylon", but less famous for the vindictive ending "happy is he ... who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks". # After Daniel miraculously survived the lion's den, his false accusers and their wives and children were thrown in to their deaths. # After his fish adventure, Jonah delivered God's message of doom to the city of Nineveh, and soon "every man and beast" was wearing sackcloth and calling urgently on God. Thus God changed His mind about destroying the city, much to the annoyance of Jonah, who felt he'd gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. I couldn't help but like King David. He made some mistakes, but went on with good humor. He liked harp music to calm his melancholia. On the down side, he committed genocide (which God liked) and had Uriah killed so he could marry Bathseba (which God punished by killing the resulting son and having David's wives publicly raped). From about Isaiah on, the Old Testament got a bit wearing. God was really angry with people for worshipping the wrong gods, and kept sending prophets to describe in detail what horrible things He was going to do. The prophets seemed to be ignored at the time, except for the previously mentioned story of Jonah and his spectacular success in converting all 120,000 residents of Nineveh. [New testament next...]