For those wanting to learn about the Bible without reading the Bible

I think that many of my fellow Gen Zers think that reading the Bible puts you on a slippery slope to becoming an anti-vax -flat-earther-pro-life Republican. Unfortunately, these negative correlations of Christianity and religion, in general, prevent people from wanting to read the Bible or other holy texts at all.

I think that\’s too bad; even if you don\’t believe in God you can get something from reading the Bible. And Rob Bell does an excellent job in this book proving that.He lowers the sense of intimidation people might have from reading the Bible in this casual and light book.  I highly recommend it for anyone, especially those who don\’t believe in God to have a more complete mental model for the world\’s most-followed religion.Here are some passages and notes that I thought were important.

The Bible is a library of books written by forty or so authors over roughly 1500 years and three continents. Authors who were selecting and editing and making decisions on what to keep and what to leave out.When you read the Bible, you can do it at different \”heights\”, from the up-close scrutiny of a single word, or a ten thousand foot view of the entire bookThe act of \”turning the gem\”(seeing all sides and complexities of the Bible) reading the stories from different angles, challenging it, probing it, letting it get under our skin, reading it and letting it read usYou don\’t have to read it so literally, can we only affirm things that make sense to us? If we reject all inexplicable elements to stories, we run the risk of shrinking the world, the universe down to what we can comprehend. That\’s no fun.Bible is an unfolding story, growth, and expansion of perspectives all about humans and our relationship to God.inerrant-a comment made about the Bible that robs the Bible of depth and joy, there are four accounts of Jesus\’ resurrection alone, to say it is inerrant is to ignore the human experience of storytellingGood questions to ask while reading the BibleWhy did people find this important to write down?Why did this passage endure?What does it say about what it means to be human?How do these stories help us understand our own stories?What was happening in the world at that time?What does it teach us about love, compassion, pain, loss, or forgiveness?