bible study

Today's reading from the OneYearBibleBlog includes the story of the Tower of Babel . In that story, God seems almost to be motivated out of a sense of fear. Earlier, in the Flood story, the motivation seems to be anger.

The OneYearBibleBlog reading for January 4^th included Genesis 9:6

Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind. (NRSV)

Well, I've finished reading "Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire" by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, and I thought I'd give my thoughts on it. Please understand that this is from the perspective of someone completely untrained in theology.

As many of you will know, I've long been a supporter of the position that the Bible is not a historical or scientific text, and that treating it as such does it a disservice. That there's a fundamental difference between "truth" and "fact."

TheOOZE has an article entitled "THE BIBLE IS NOT A JIGSAW PUZZLE: A New Approach to the New Testament." I recommend it.
While I don't know that I agree that this is all that "new" of an approach, it does help to articulate some of the issues with the way that the Bible is (mis)handled today. Unfortunately, coming at the Bible the way the author recommends involves a lot more work that just "cherry-picking" verses to support a position.

I've decided to start following a "Bible in a Year" blog/mailing list that will start up in January. Anyone care to join me?
I've done a Bible in a year program before, but it ended up being more like a race or a competition. Yes, I read it, but I didn't study it or even think about what I was reading. I hope to do better with this one. I plan on posting comments here, and anyone else is welcome to do the same.