In the beginning...

Disclaimer:

The writings that follows are my questions, concerns, and interpretations during my first reading of the Bible. There is no reason to take offense, because this isn't an attack on anything, just myself trying to see where I stand after reading the Bible cover to cover.

My Introduction:

To begin with, it would be best to offer a little background about myself. When I began this journal, I was 32 years old. I grew up as a Christian, sort of. Between birth and 17 years of age I might have attended a church service six times. I really don't remember. For example, I do remember attending a catholic service once with a friend as a teenager; and I know that I went to a service in 3rd grade, because it was summer and my mom was trying to get me out of the house for a while. The church was right across the street from the house that we lived in that year.

Around age 17, a friend of mine who played guitar and drums asked me if I could help him run the sound board at his church. He was in the church band and they were having trouble teaching/keeping a sound guy. I thought I knew a little bit about running a sound board, but I really didn't know anything about balancing the sound for a church service. This church also recorded the sermon and service, so I spent a lot of time listening to the sound quality and not very much time listening to the message each week. I don't remember how long I ran the board at that church but it wasn't every Sunday and I don't think it was more than four months. I could be wrong.

Something else that happened when I was 17 was that I joined the National Guard. This is important because three days after I graduated high school I was off to basic training. I attended a lot of church during my basic and advanced training. Not because I needed God to make it through though. My battle buddy and I were working the system. Ya see, we were allowed to choose from any church service on base on Sunday. If you didn't go to church then you would be in the barracks... with a drill sergeant... who was working a weekend shift...

So I went to a lot of church services during my eight months of training. In fact, not only did it get me out of the barracks, but the service that we went to let out after the chow hall closed for lunch. This meant that the drill sergeant had to let us go to the PX and eat lunch in the food court. Yes, I used church to eat pizza and burgers during my army training. I always seem to be working the system. I also bought and still own my first bible at that time.

At the age of 20, I stopped calling myself a Christian. I did it out of respect for the faith. This might sound a little weird, but I didn't know the Bible or what it meant to be Christian. I could have just as easily said I was Buddhist or Muslim because I knew just as much about those religions. I thought that saying I was agnostic was a better description of who I was. The word agnostic means to be without knowledge, and that is what I was, without knowledge. Some people call themselves agnostic as if it were a religious position. This is a misnomer, and I think these people use it as an easy way out of a difficult answer. A better answer would be to call themselves a deist.

That was the extent of my religious underpinnings until I met my wife at age 27. A few months after we got together, my wife wanted us to find a church for our family. I didn't have much of an opinion on the matter, and she noticed my indifference quickly, but we started the search for a church that would fit us both anyway. This began about two years of church shopping. We went everywhere, from small start up church to a local mega church. We tried them all. In the end we settled on a beautiful older church. It had a very traditional service but was socially liberal. We wanted a church that reflected our family values about homosexuality and other social issues. I enjoyed the services, and the adult Sunday school must of all, but being a libertarian some of the left wing social agenda got to me.

Now I haven't yet mentioned my profession. I am a truck driver by trade. I drove over the road for a couple of years when I was younger, and while I did take seven years off from truck driving, it has always been the profession that I identified with. At the time of this writing, I worked for a beverage company. I had just begun a new position as a transport driver delivering product between warehouses. I was working ten hours a day, driving eight hours a day, 4-5 days a week. That is 1600 to 2000 miles a week. That is low compared to driving over the road, but I was home every day and off on the weekends. This profession is not for everyone, but it afforded me the opportunity to finally read, or should I say listen to as audio books, all the classics.

I started with books like Dante's Inferno and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales', but what I really enjoyed was the Modern Scholar series. Listening to lectures by real professors on a wide range of topics. One of the first that I listened to was about the historical Jesus and Mohammad. It was about the evidence for the existence of Jesus and Mohammad, and any historical accuracy to the claims of their lives and traveling ministries. I have always been interested in religions of all sorts, but only ever skimmed the surface when studying them, including the one I claimed. It was after listening to these lectures that I decide to listen to the whole bible, cover to cover, sort of. I started with the New Testament, and then listened to the Old Testament. Here is the reason why. It took me three days to listen to the New Testament. It took me a little over two weeks to listen to the Old Testament.

While I listened to the Bible, I took notes on interesting things that I learned. As well as things I didn't understand so that I could research them more in-depth later. What follows is the results of that discovery process.

Now, like I said before I am a truck driver, but I have studied physics, calculus, astrophysics, M-Theory, evolutionary biology, and many other topics. I love history of every culture and I tend to remember the most obscure facts when learning something new, just ask my wife. I have no degree, I have a little bit of college credit, but I also have trouble sitting in a classroom and caring about someone talking to me and thirty other students. I would rather learn something on my own and come to my own conclusions. I also try to read both sides of an argument, something that doesn't seem very popular in undergraduate courses today. If there is something controversial about a topic, then you have to know both sides before you make up your mind where you stand on it. It is important that we decide for ourselves what we believe. What follows is my understanding of the Bible and its history and teachings through my first examination.

I want to explain a little about my intellectual process of reading the Bible. First, I wanted to keep the text in context. Whenever I have been to a sermon they pick and choose verses from all over the Bible. I never knew the context of the verse and context is always important. I don't want this writing to feel like a presidential campaign ad (I hate all of those five second blurbs taken out of context). Second, I tried to remember that this text was written down for the first time anywhere from 1000 B.C.E. to 330 B.C.E. depending on which book of the Old Testament you are talking about. Also, I don't want to focus on things of pure faith. The burning bush or the miracles of the New Testament are simply outside the realm of discovery and must be taken on faith. Instead I wanted to focus on knowing the Bible better.

I know that there are highly educated authors writing about how the Bible is or is not historically accurate. There are scholars that know the details of early Jewish or Christian life far better than I. There are incredibly intelligent and well read people arguing on both sides of any debate of religion. This writing is simply my understanding of the subject and the things that I have found interesting, or troubling.

I think too many people say that they are Christian without knowing what that really is. I doubt many Christians today have read the Bible cover to cover. Many people say that they believe the Bible literally, or that they try to live according to the Bible or at least the teachings of Jesus. Let us see what it is that these people claim to believe.

"...the Bible itself will turn you atheist faster than anything..."

Penn Jillette

So let us set aside our Id, to engage the Superego and find an axiom of truth. Let the wild ride begin.