Speaker: Jeff Jarvis
If you grew up with the bible, there are likely passages within it that have been meaningful, even enlightening to you at some point. But if you’ve never really read the bible, it’s content can be very confusing, if not horrifying. Stories of God-ordained bloodshed, slavery, polygamy and sex with fallen angels. There are talking snakes and whale swallowed survivors and many stories that betray modern science.
Not surprisingly, it’s content can be difficult for the modern mind to digest, let alone find useful.
And yet, it’s hard to deny the fascination that humanity has had with this ancient collection of stories and poems, prophecies and proverbs, letters and laws, written and compiled by countless authors spanning multiple centuries. The Bible has been translated into more than two thousand languages, it’s tales inspiring the art of Shakespeare and Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston and Blind Willie Johnson. It’s words are etched on gravestones, scribbled onto white posters carried into picket lines, even strategically incorporated into dating profiles. Like it or not, for better or worse, the writings within the Bible have influenced almost every corner of humanity for 1000’s of years…and still do today.
But how…especially for intelligent, rational people? With all of the Bible’s problematic and ancient/outdated content, how can it possibly play a meaningful role in the spiritual journeys of people who aren’t crazy?
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