How to Become Biblically Literate?

[bluejatheist]

To be brief, I seek to become knowledgeable on the content of the bible(and other religious texts, but I'll focus on the bible initially) and while obviously people spend years studying scripture and never get close to fully understanding it all, I seek to build a sturdy immediate knowledge of the most referenced and 'important' parts of the bible. Aside from the obvious step of simply reading it cover to cover, are there any good resources such as study guides and courses (minus the religious and pick-and-choose-the-good-parts aspects like one would find in a sunday school/church study) which could assist me in studying the parts of scripture most critical to know, especially when dealing with apologetic arguments? I already know about the Skeptic's Annotated Bible and it's quite useful, however if anyone has resources they find useful, particular books that are most important in counter-apologetics, etc, I'd appreciate if you'd share.

 

[Laurens]

There's some software called BibleWorks if you're able to pay to get it...

Or there's things like the Oxford Bible Commentary, The Jewish Study Bible (which might be useful to refute Christian distortions of Jewish texts)...

Then there's books by Bart D. Ehrman, or Karen Armstrong...

 

[nasher168]

Really, I've picked up what biblical literacy I have from a mixture of atheistic YouTube videos and simply picking it up from miscellaneous readings by being interested in our culture's background.

 

[Dean]

Really, I've picked up what biblical literacy I have from a mixture of atheistic YouTube videos and simply picking it up from miscellaneous readings by being interested in our culture's background.

I take it that would include ItsTheSuperFly, had he not deleted his account less than a week ago ... (did I mention this to you in chat)?

 

[nasher168]

Don't think you did... although I did find out from Twitter.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I would suggest subscribing to ProfMTH, DiscoveringReligion, brettppalmer, TheoreticalBullshit, and TrustingDoubt and watch the videos they already have.

 

[bluejatheist]

I'll be sure to use all the of resources provided, thanks. Generally I'm just trying to get to a point where when discussing apologetics in person and being able to refer to particular and damning bible verses and such from memory, it never hurts to know more about the bible than the christian you're debating.

 

[kenandkids]

My method was simple.

Pick up book.
Pick up three different highlighters.
Read book.
Highlight passages according to personally decided categories.

Re-read and attempt to apply apologetic "context" to the bad stuff while ignoring all context on "good" stuff.

When brain hurts from the effort, you are doing it right...

 

[Noth]

Useful tip when reading the gospels:
Read them horizontally rather than vertically.

What that means is start with the first bit in Matthew, then read the corresponding story (if there is one) in Mark, Luke and John. This way you'll very easily pick up on the discrepancies between the four gospels.