Originally posted by Neon Ignition
View Post
I grew up in a Catholic environment in the UK, and we weren't really supposed to read the bible outside of guided study, or special annotated versions for young people. I suspect if I'd been found to be reading it, it would've been taken off me and I'd have had one of those annotated versions thrust into my hands.
(in weak defense of those people, the annotated versions are unabridged; they just have heavy-handed extras to provide context in places)
Most Christians have never read the bible outside of services, and out of those, most only read excerpts.
The Catholic church has a thing called the "Lectionary". It's a list, which contains readings for two solid years of services, so that a Priest etc. knows which parts of the bible they have to read on a given day at a service (they can't just choose). Now, the Catholics are obviously going to be rigid about this because that's kinda their thing, but many other brands of Christianity have similar things.
This is important to understand, re: Christians and the bible, because the Lectionary is carefully curated. It artfully misses out all of the stuff that's, and I'm being nice here, bat**** mental. There are loads of bizarre things in the bible that most Christians have never even heard of. Some of this stuff could challenge beliefs, but much of it is just confusing and/or nonsense, derived from multiple translations.
Obviously it also removes much of the explicit sex and violence.
Like, did you know that in the bible, there are two sets of ten commandments? Not just one? This kind of thing. Some of the really foundational stuff "that everyone knows" is just a simplification to streamline the stories, often removing things that, if you read them, are kinda important.
Comment