Anybody Recommend an Atheist Explanation/Interpretation of the Bible?

[fakenamefornow]

Taking into account all the historical context.

Historical context- time lines are muddled, dates and ideas confused.

There little evidence to support much of what is written in the bible, and much of what is written is untrue- the great flood is historical nonsense as is the idea of two homo sapiens arriving in a garden and spawning a species. Although possible that a prophet existed in the middle East 2000 years ago, no real evidence to support that, and certainly none of a resurrection.

At what age are you pitching this explanation?

My take with my DC but not necessarily atheist - more open minded and trying to be respectful of beliefs, whilst not being a believer myself, is....

Throughout the ages, story telling has been used as an education tool. Through stories, we learn about consequences, respect, friendship, love and all the building blocks of society. The internet, even TV and to an extent accessible printed media to wider society are relatively modern things.

Religion is a form of society where people have a set of stories that form a part of their education and they feel represent the way they wish to conduct themselves. Stories are an easy way to remember lessons.

There are many useful stories that can be interpreted as relevant today from many of our countries religions. The Christmas story from the Christian book of stories - The Bible, is a classical one. We can take from it a time to stop and think about what we have and where we came from, to give and share what we have with those around us in need, family time. That anyone, no matter how lowly their birth, can rise and be a leader making a difference to the world - bringing people together who would previously have not connected.

Some people meet on a regular basis to reflect on these stories and learn from them, often called an act of worship. Sometimes this involves interpreting how the stories are relevant to us today and maybe even tweaking them to be relevant.

Stories that have been retold over the centuries have no doubt been slowly amended and made more fanciful to grasp the audience's attention.

Did these things actually happen, were the people in the stories real, are there any facts to back this up? Who knows. That's very personal and for each one of us to decide.

Does religion have a part to play in modern society? Absolutely. It's a strength for many people. It provides solidarity, support, community.

Overall individuals beliefs are deeply personal. No one person has the right to inflict their views on another be that in favour of a religion or questioning the validity of another's religious beliefs.

There's a great power we each hold in having self-confidence and belief in ourselves and our own convictions, something we see in many of the characters from the stories across the religions, no one has the ability to take that away from you unless you let them.

DF Strauss, Life of Jesus
Or Reimarus on the historical Jesus. Both 19th century though!

You could try the Oxford Annotated Bible.

It's not 'selling' a particular interpretation. It treats the Bible more like an ancient work of literature and has a scholarly tone.

And there’s always the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible on line.

www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

Be warned, the tone in this one is scurrilous, so if that is not what you are after, look elsewhere!

I quite like this one. It's not particularly academic though but the guy who writes these does tend to research.

waitbutwhy.com/2014/10/how-religion-got-in-the-way.html

I'd look at it as a historical text - a 'how to' manual of its time. Like how we would read Mrs Beaton and be gobsmacked by the things in there.

I would second the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

But really there is very little in the bible worth reading from a historical perspective. Your time would be better spent on any one of the thousands of historically accurate books.

What level do you want this pitched at? All academic Bible commentaries take account of genre, authorship, translation, dating etc. Something like John Drane's Introduction to the NewTestament and Introduction to the Old Testament are good and available from most libraries so you can see if it does what you want.

If you are looking at any academic work then don't look at 19th century stuff. Realistically it is material published or revised in the last 20 years that takes priority.

It depends what you're looking for.

I would say that if you someone who wants all your ideas confirmed then The Sceptics Bible is for you. For the most up to dat scholarship something like The Oxford Bible Commentary is a good bet. For something in between - neither rabidly atheist nor card-carrying Christian, but still really knowledgeable I'd recommend Karen Armstrong's The Bible:a Biography. Really clear and well written, Armstrong knows her stuff, but written from an agnostic perspective.

A book written by stone age men and used as a way of controlling the populace.

Thank you all. Sorry late coming back to this thread, I didn't think I'd had any replies.

It's for myself. I don't know much about the Bible but I think historical books often make much more sense if you know the context. I read once that the Muslim and Jewish tradition of banning certain food made a lot of sense at the time as they were foods that harbour a lot of bacteria and so were particularly easy to get sick from. The culture of religious washing comes from the same place apparently. The four wives thing and the obligation to marry your dead brothers wife was a way to protect women and children from destitution and death. All these rules sound very sensible against that background, although much less so today.

I'd like a better understanding of the Bible and also the evidence (if any) to support if the Bible stories did happen and were they might have come from. I once heard that our story of Cinderella originally came from China, and passed through many retellings and alterations and is a reference to foot binding and beautiful (so was believed) tiny feet. I imagine the Bible stories passed through similar retelling, I wonder if much of it is just too old to decode though.

You might like 'The Bible Unearthed' Finkelstein and Silberman which looks at the lack of archeological evidence for parts of the OT. I used it as a source when writing OT essays at vicar training college.