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I’m completely with you on the reading of the Bible. It’s funny how it’s sold as being timeless and relevant, yet if you read it literally and pick up on the all the abhorrent or ridiculous things in it, suddenly it’s necessary to read it as a book ‘of it’s time’ and looked at through a historical lens.
I’m trying to read it (I have been on-and-off for the last 3 years) and it’s so bloody boring. Stories are told either mutiple times in excruciating detail or take a single paragraph. And so much of it is completely irrelevant. Look at Lev 13:47-59 and Lev 14:33-53: it’s all about how to deal with mildew! While I don’t deny that people still have problems with mildew I doubt they’ll treat it by having “all the interior walls scraped and the plaster dumped in an unclean place outside the city” (Lev 14:41).
I hear people like Dawkins claim that it’s a brilliant piece of literature but I haven’t been able to see it. There are occasional flashes of brilliance but they’re surrounded by stories desperately in need of an editor.
I think those rabbis have been watching way too much “Amish Mafia” but never figured out it’s all scripted bullshit (like most other TLC/Discovery “reality” shows).
Oh shit… how long until TLC comes out with a new reality show: Yeshiv-mafia? Rabbi-Enforcers? Oh Oh I know! The Kosher-Enforcers! Hey TLC, I want naming credits on that one! 😉
P. sure you would have caught less flak for your Revelation reading had you not gone with the assumption that your literal surface-deep reading of it was THE way to do it (with all the “omg these people in the past had no idea how stupid what they’re saying is and really thought that would literally happen”), and then drove that point in at the end with the whole “we’ve heard something about how there’s alternate ways to interpret this BUT THEY’RE BULLSHIT JUST LIKE THE NOSTRADAMUS KOOKERY” spiel. Just FYI.
Laugh at the people who read it literally, not at a groan-worthy strawman.