Did everyone come through OK?
20 responses to “Which bits of the Bible do you miss out?”
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I think that I’m with you Father K, there is a time and place for everything and a service where the problems of a problematic passage can’t be addressed easily is not the place to read it, lectionary be hanged.
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My favourite bits of the Bible are the Song of Songs (which, in the medieval period, was interpreted by both Jews and Christians as an allegory of the soul’s relationship with God); the book of Ruth; the book of Esther; the story of David and Jonathan; Amos & Micah. Most of the New Testament leaves me completely cold, and some of it is actually offensive, especially the account of the silver-smiths of Ephesus, and the way that Paul appropriates pagan poetry in the marketplace of Athens.
I think the solution to your problem is not to read the “difficult” bits without some sort of homily about a better way to understand them, and how to read the Bible in general as a collection of texts situated in a particular historical situation.
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