the Good Book
When I first read the Bible, I was an atheist. As a scientifically minded young person, I thought that cosmology and evolution provided a clear description of how the world came to be, and that religion was just superstition.
I argued with classmates, most of whom were Christian, about religion. One classmate finally convinced me that if I were to approach the question “scientifically,” then I would want to examine all the evidence, including the evidence for competing hypotheses. She stated that the evidence for faith is the Bible. Different people could say all sorts of things: some wise, some foolish, but the Christian claim is that the Holy Bible is the revealed Word of God. You don’t have to believe it to read it. You can doubt it. Just approach it as you would approach any other book, with an open mind (and with a recognition that it was written long ago, so it doesn’t follow the “rules” of most books).
Once I accepted that argument, the next argument was mainly among the Christians, with me on the sidelines as an interested observer. What translation should the non-believer read? This was an important question, because Christian translations of the Bible differ. Many translations are in good modern English and are very popular, but their words seem to support theological opinions that did not exist back when the original words were written. As a group, my Christian classmates did not want to recommend that a non-believer read a sectarian translation.
The Catholic Christians among my classmates pointed out that Protestant Bibles leave out the deuterocanonical books, which were accepted as part of the Bible until the Protestant Reformation. These Christians wished to advise me that a standard Protestant Bible is incomplete, according to the understanding of the early Christians.
From all of this, my classmates were able to agree only on the King James Bible of 1611. Although it is a Protestant translation, it does include the deuterocanonical books. Although its English is almost 400 years old, its translation does not suffer from doctrinal distortions, as so many recent translations do.
So I read the King James Bible, cover to cover (over the course of several years). I learned a lot of practical information about how people and the world work, that I never understood from cosmology or evolution. I learned a lot about the American society that I live in, that was inexplicable without the Bible, but obvious in its light.
So to any non-believers out there, I’d say, “read the Bible.” Never mind faith; maybe that will come later, and maybe it won’t. You have free will, after all. (No one can force you to believe, if you don’t want to.) Never mind that it’s an old book; none of the newer books provide the practical understanding of the world that the Bible offers. Never mind the loudmouth evangelical Christians, who want you to read their “proving texts” in the New Testament, and dismiss the Old Testament as superfluous. If you want to understand the world, the whole Bible is an intensely useful book.
However, after I finished reading the King James Version, I was still somewhat confused, from all the thou’s and begat’s and other “old style” English. I’d gotten the message, but I still had a lot of questions. Enter the New Jerusalem Bible.
The Bible is an old book, and it reflects practical reality of two thousand and more years ago. Human nature has not changed at all in two thousand years, and the Bible shows human nature (good, bad, ugly, and beautiful) more clearly than anything else shows human nature. However, countless details of the world have changed over the millennia (for example, money and electricity).
The King James Version, like the New Jerusalem Bible, is an unbiased translation. But the New Jerusalem Bible is written in clear modern English (without the thou’s and begat’s). What’s more, the New Jerusalem Bible has excellent study notes to help you understand the details of the old world, so you’re not left with doubts about details. When something wouldn’t make sense to a modern reader, because it was a different world back then, the New Jerusalem Bible provides a footnote, explaining the facts of the world back then, or the reason why a word was translated the way it was.
If you are a skeptic, or if you want to understand your Christian faith, I recommend this Bible. If you are a member of another faith, I recommend this translation of the Christian Holy Book to you. It will help you understand Christians, and when they fall short of their faith (as they often do), you will be better able to hold them to account if you can quote chapter and verse of their holy book to them.
The philosopher Pascal said that if there is no God, then there is no penalty for being wrong about whether or not he exists. On the other hand, if there is a god, there could be adverse consequences for being wrong about that. So, logically, Pascal thought one should believe, just looking at it as a gambling proposition.
If that seems offensive as an argument for belief, it’s still a valid logical point. Anyway, there are a lot of Christians in this world, and if only to understand their worldview, and to encourage them to follow the good in their belief, I recommend everyone (especially Christians) read the Bible.