Whatever you do, DON'T "go it alone"!

The Internet has dozens or possibly hundreds of links offering to teach you how to study the Bible. They are probably links to "Christian" pages saying things like, read the Bible as if it were a novel, accept the dogma we promote without thinking, don't worry about learning Hebrew and Greek, the 1611 King James translation is as perfect as God is, above all skip the chapters and verses that contradict our theology....

The Episcopal church has a low-cost four-year program called Education For Ministry. The first year covers the Hebrew Scriptures; the second year covers the Christian Testament; the third year covers the history and development of the Christian church; and the final year covers modern theology. I loved EFM, especially ending each class with “theological reflection” — taking an incident in your life and examining what good came of it, what bad came from it, what's worth regretting, what's worth celebrating. Can you think of something in the Bible that sheds light on the incident?

In fact, I loved EFM so much that I went to seminary and became a Master of Theological Studies. (The non-future-clergy degree.)

I loved seminary so much that I would probably be teaching today if there were an accredited seminary near me.

I believe that the Roman Catholic church has a similar program to EFM, called RCIA, and probably other mainstream denominations also have something similar. You should find EFM or a similar program whose leaders are either clergy educated at an accredited seminary (no matchbook covers!) or well educated in their religion.

Because, face it, just because you can read the translated words doesn't mean you understand the history, cultures, and languages of the ancient Fertile Crescent. Some of the Hebrew Scriptures were written in the Stone Age! How can any of us understand what holy scriptures meant to their original Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age audiences if all we do is memorize selected verses in the Christian Testament?

There's a scene in the Bible where Moses's wife gets furious with him and calls him her “bridegroom of blood.” What did that mean, around 1500-1200 BCE? Scholars aren't sure. Then Zipporah picked “a flint" up from the ground and circumcised someone or other — Exodus is vague on whether she circumcised Moses, their son, or some random passer-by. “A flint" (rather than a knife) is evidence that this incident happened in the Stone Age. Why was Zipporah furious with Moses? Why did they all think that circumcising some random dude would solve whatever the problem was?

(Incidentally, I've always wondered whether “the bush that burned but did not consume itself” was covered with Christmas tree lights. Just because the Stone Age didn't know about electricity doesn't mean that God didn't.)

Another thing you'll learn in a class like EFM is the differences between history, myth, and fiction. Myths are not fiction! Myths are a way of conveying theological ideas to an audience that includes children, fools, and ignoramuses. For example, would you like me to give you a dry and probably boring lecture about God's aseity, or sit around the campfire with your fellow nomads and listen to the story about the burning bush and God telling Moses “I am that I am”?

In other words, don't try to study the Bible all alone, and don't trust "teachers" with an axe to grind. There's too much you don't know that you don't even know you don't know. (I hope that last sentence made sense!) If you get deeply into studying the Bible, as I did, learn at least koine Greek so you can see for yourself what the original authors of the Christian Testament wanted to tell you. If you're better at languages than I am, study Hebrew too, so you can read for yourself what the ancient authors thought was important. Remember: the Hebrew Scriptures were the only Bible that Jesus ever knew.