AIBU to ask whether you own a Bible?

[BeanQuisine]

Just idle curiosity, really.

We often hear right-wingers insisting "This is a Christian country", whether we're in UK, Oz or the US etc.

So I'm wondering how many of us actually own Bibles, and whether we ever read them. I did read assorted bits of it in my youth, but don't currently own a Bible.

YABU: Whether Mumsnetters own Bibles or not is none of your business.

YANBU: It's a vaguely interesting question.

No, I have plenty of other fiction books to be getting on with.

We are atheist but have a children's bible stories book with the best stories beautifully illustrated. I wanted my daughters to learn the stories from a moral and cultural perspective and I enjoyed learning them. We've also read individual abridged stories from other religious texts but I couldn't find an equivalent book aimed at kids but I may look again.

I think you'll find that those (relatively few) eminent scientists who are religious believers would probably agree with me, when I say it's good that science and rational philosophy hold greater intellectual authority than religion in the modern world.

Powerful Church leaders and theologians once dictated which scientific truths should be accepted and which should be rejected, and those who disagreed with them were silenced and often put to death.

Religious authority of that kind has long been vanquished but we should nonetheless remain vigilant that it stays that way.

I have also got a Victorian book of common prayer, the size of a matchbox - it was in a box of stuff that I bought at a car boot sale. Victorians must have had outstanding eyesight.

See previous posts re 'fiction'

Yeah, but most of us aren't intellectuals.

Most of us read for pleasure before enlightenment. It's not weird to say we don't want homework.

I mean, the Bible is nothing like a Hollywood epic. Have you seen an Avengers movie? Where's the wisecracking and the SFX in the Bible?

I think the poster meant that the dismissal of the Bible as a load of fairy stories was a viewpoint that could result in being culturally impoverished, which I agree with. Not that the Bible was the only bit of culture going!

I mean if you wave away the Bible as simply being a load of old fairy stories you are hardly going to read all the other culturally significant religious texts.

I feel this way because I know people who do have either a strong faith or a lot of knowledge of their own cultural tradition even if they don't have a personal faith, and I feel impoverished beside them.

Note I didn't say Christian faith specification - many of the friends I'm talking about are of other faiths. So I reject the Christian supremacist label. I specifically wish to raise my children in the Christian faith rather than any other, but that's because their overall cultural inheritance is one that's embedded in the Christian faith (including in reactions to/against it) and so it is the most beneficial to them, not because I think Christians are inherently superior to everyone else (although I obviously believe that it's overall a positive religion).

I have my grandfather’s old Bible which is a lovely thing to have - a very fancy, old looking St James Bible.

I think DD has one from her RE GCSE too

I’m sorry to say I’ve never sat and read
the Bible as an adult. Bizarrely I did used to read a children’s bible when I was little when I was off sick from school (was a church school but I used to read it from choice, I think it had good pictures!)

I am agnostic, I would say. Very unsure what I think/ believe despite giving it plenty of thought. I find it hard to understand how anyone can be sure either way!

I like this post!

I think what the poster means is that if you want to have a full understanding of what many many authors mean when they reference a biblical story or character, a passing familiarity with it is useful. Martin Luther King's last speech referenced Moses seeing but not reaching the Promised Land, pretty meaningless if you don't know the Exodus story. Countless references to David and Goliath. Wisdom of Solomon, feeding the 5000, offering an olive branch, hill to die on, cross to bear..... embedded in British culture. That's not to say its the only one that matters or that you are less if your familiarity is with another culture or holy book, but tje OP was asking about the Bible and the UK. Its not wrong, racist or exclusionary to suggest that in the UK, Christian references are embedded.

I think it's fair to say that the Bible is not all that accessible to just go into cold. To the extent that I've returned to faith it's been through other works of Christian apologetics such as GK Chesterton and CS Lewis, and then reading various relevant passages afterwards, likewise hearing a sermon on a topic by a vicar who provides a modern interpretation, etc.

Starting at Genesis with a bunch of begats and smiting probably doesn't get anyone very far - which is how I became an annoying 14yo atheist (all part of the wonderful journey of life of course)

Yes.

Also a Qu'ran.

And a bhagavad gita knocking about somewhere (unread).

studied a fair bit of the Bible (both testaments).

Read the whole Qu'ran.

As someone who is not religious, I did much prefer the Bible to the Qu'ran.

I think anyone who believes the Bible is a "great read" should try some Stephen King or Jane Austen. Your mind will be blown.

Groan. This is a typical MN 'straw man' argument.🙄

Where do I say that I think the Bible is 'the only place you can find culture'? Those are your words after misunderstanding my post.

But OP's question relates to the Bible. If they wanted to discuss the Quran or other religious/cultural writings, I'd be referencing those.

We often hear right-wingers insisting "This is a Christian country", whether we're in UK, Oz or the US etc
UK is a Christian country though. Christianity has formed our culture and literature and thinking in many ways. I think if you went to a country founded on a different faith, the resultant cultural differences would become clearer to you.

Yes, fair enough. That's why I do want to read it properly. I take my comment back.

Perhaps we have.

You can enjoy all kinds of literature! The idea that if you've read the Bible, that's all you've read???

Quite.

I decided, during this heatwave, to re-read some Thomas Hardy novels to take me into a cool, green place.

Wow - some I hadn't read for decades, and it's so true that 'you never read the same book twice'. As an older person they seemed like entirely different books to me and with my increased cultural and life experience since being a student, I got so much more out of them.

And what struck me also were the huge number of Biblical references which on my first readings I'd either skated over or not understood. The depth and perceptiveness of Hardy's commentary on the action and characters with reference to Bible stories, psalms etc, was striking.

And Hardy himself was an atheist, but often went to church (as Richard Dawkins has admitted he does!) for all kinds of complicated reasons which are hard to explain but are surely cultural and ...horrible over-used term 'spiritual'. As in the poem 'Church Visiting' by Philip Larkin, there seems to be a need in humans for something enduring that's bigger than ourselves. Different people find this in all kinds of things, but I know that I certainly get it from visiting a church or reading the Bible stories, although I'm not a believer.

You can donate them via book aid - loads of people want them but can’t afford them or get easy access

www.book-aid.org/book-collection/

I have a copy yes, can’t remember where it came from! My DD was given one as a christening present too.
I wouldn’t say I’m Christian as in actually religious, I don’t believe in God and don’t go to church regularly.
But I suppose I am Christian in the sense that I was brought up Christian, l am christened and used to go to church as a child, I will usually go to church at Christmas too.
I think a lot of British people are similar,
loosely Christian but not religious

It's very poetic, but not the most authentic translations and quite old fashioned

Easier reading and understanding I would go for NIV

More modern - New Living Translation

Oh MasterBeth...are you for real??

The Bible is one long series of special effects, fgs. The creation story, Noah's Ark, Jacob's dream of the staircase to heaven with the angels going up and down, Moses and the burning bush, Moses going up Mt Sinai to receive the commandments, Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea which parted to allow them to cross, then closed and drowned the pursuing Egyptian army.

The massive oversized fruit in Canaan, the walls of Jericho falling down as if by magic, Elijah being swept up to heaven in a fiery chariot, the feast of Balshazzar, the boys in the furnace - and that's just the Old Testament.

I recommend The Children's Bible with some amazing over-the-top illustrations. Unputdownable!

Ps yes I have read some bits of the bible

Why would you feel impoverished? There is cultural knowledge you will surely have that they won’t? Why is lack of knowledge of the Christian faith specifically (or rather having read the bible) important?