I’m starting with Genesis. I’m doing it tonight, at bedtime, while my darling fiance plays Mario Cart. I don’t entirely like Mario Cart all that much, but there is a good chance it will be a powerful temptation tonight.
(Actually, when we get to the prophets, that is usually when I start checking out big time.)
If anyone has a good suggestion of a guide (historical? religious?) to have as a reading companion, I will take you up on it!
I’m also, to sort of balance this out, or not, reading Patience with God (faith for people who don’t like religion or atheism) by Frank Schaeffer, and Believer Beware; First person dispatches from the margins offaith, selected by Jeff Sharlet, Peter Manseau and the Editors of Killing the Buddha..
(Killing the Buddha is a web site that rivals the internet monk in it’s current hold on my religious imagination).
I’ll keep you posted on this experiment in getting into the brains of other religious people (always, in my experience, a pretty strange and dislocating experience!).
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When I think about a proper search for religious truth, I think about it in the following terms: it is simaltaneously inward: an expression and articulation of what feels true to you, followed by a ruthless exploration of *why* it feels true to you, and outward: an exploration of how the divine reveals itself to others, and what that means, and what is the Divine trying to say. I think that both approaches are crucial. But why? Why is that so important to me?
I guess that’s a good question to look into to.
I don’t have any commentaries to recommend, but I do wish you happy reading! (Er, perhaps ‘happy’ isn’t the right word. ‘Satisfying’ maybe? ‘Enlightening’? Anyway!)
Thank you! I kind of conked out last night before I could get going on Genesis, but I did read some of Shaffer’s book today and have enjoyed it thoroughly, but only in the “preaching to the choir” way. He articulates some things really concisely in a way that I envy!