The Bible Project

My friend A___ and I seem to end up getting involved in those sorts of email discussions where, although the tone is friendly, there is a competitive edge to it. He likes arguing, and so do I. I could deny it, but it would be a lie. The main difference is that he's more likely to argue a point simply for the craic, whereas I tend to argue for things I actually support.

A recent example of such an argument started from a very small acorn. A question was put on a mailing list that many of my friends are on; "Tell us one book you think everyone should read at least once." I said the Bible, and it all took off from there. Alan responded, "Why is everyone saying The Bible???? Weird! Have you really read the whole thing?"

As it happens, I have read the Bible all the way through, though not for a long time. Nowadays, it tends to be that I read it for the purpose of rebutting creationists or other literalists. However, when someone on a blog I read mentioned she was going to start reading the Bible from scratch and invited other people to join her, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do precisely that and so did a number of others.

To that end, we've set up a blog and plan to start reading on January 1st. We've got a schedule and we're going to read the whole thing over the course of a year, and we're going to blog it as we go.

As I said to A___, I think it's important people know the Bible, not least because so much of our literature and idioms borrow from it and also because reading it is instructive. Randolph Churchill, son of Winston, had never read the Bible and was persuaded to do so by the very religious Evelyn Waugh who reported the experience thus:

"In the hope of keeping him quiet for a few hours Freddy & I have bet Randolph 20 [pounds sterling] that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. It would have been worth it at the price. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud 'I say I bet you didn't know this came in the Bible, "bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave'" or merely slapping his side and chortling, 'God, isn't God a shit!'"

"Why not the Koran?" asked A___.

I have read the Koran too, but there's a number of reasons. Firstly, the Koran steals liberally from the Bible, including things such as Noah's flood. If the Bible is wrong about such things - and it clearly is - then we need not bother with the Koran from the perspective of whether it is a truthful document. Secondly, British culture is historically informed by Judeo-Christian culture, and while Islam has become significantly more important in recent years, it doesn't have the same cultural ramifications as the Bible does. That's why the Bible.

Actually, I think I'd like to read the Koran next; it would be useful to have a more in depth knowledge of it. I recently debunked the claims of a Muslim who reckons the Koran is scientifically acurate, but most of it, I can't recall at all.

Anyway, so if I abandon reason and suddenly start posting about how evolution is a lie or how you're all infidels, you'll know why.