Then there are free seminary courses like the ones offered at Biblical Training (http://www.biblicaltraining.org), Gordon-Conwell (http://ockenga.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/dimensions/) and Covenant Seminary (http://www.worldwide-classroom.com). Unlike Yale, they have strong evangelical biases. Nevertheless, they are very informative.

For books, I recommend Reading the Old Testament by Lawrence Boadt and Reading the New Testament by Pheme Perkins. You also need a good study bible. The New Oxford Annotated Bible is the academic standard, with the Harper Collins Study Bible a good alternative. The Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible Standard Edition are also well annotated. Finally, there the free-to-download NET Bible with massive annotations.

Gregory Dawes’ Introduction to the Bible sounds kinda like what you’re looking for.

Preferably something fairly non-controversial, maybe with an evidence-based approach? I’d rather not be indoctrinated in either direction.

And, oh, yeah, I had an entire BOX of letters that I gave that man on our wedding day. GAG me. I wish I still had it so I could snark at myself. ;)

Minister’s wife to atheist? That’s one I haven’t heard yet, especially if the minister is still ministering.

I remember the Joshua Harris dating rules. I also remember writing prayers in my journal for my hoped-for future spouse.

The bottom line, I think pastors should take more of a teaching role instead of a preaching role. When you preach, it’s one sided. When you teach, you actually INFORM your congregation of what’s in the Bible and how it came about, like it or not. I never understood how they think the God they believe in will be happy with them for withholding information, causing their faith to crumble all the more when they’re hit in the head with it later on down the road.

Omgredxface: eh, I find myself not caring if the church falls apart….how does this affect me as an atheist?  

Unfortunately, this sort of “dishonesty” (if you want to call it that) likely has more of an effect than just making the church fall apart. If people remain ignorant of these facts about biblical scholarship…well, they’re likely to embrace the ignorance, and we all know what that can lead to. Yes, telling them the truth may lead some away from religion, but it may also lead others to cling closer to it if it’s not done in the right way. This information needs to be given by an authority that they trust – an atheist coming up and telling them is likely going to cause a flat-out rejection of it. If we can encourage pastors to tell their congregations this information, we are helping to create more informed religious people, and perhaps more irreligious people, both of which I think are good. And both of which affect you.

“A silent pact often exists between the pastor and the congregation in which certain difficult issues are to be left unmentioned. Failure to discuss such sensitive issues is itself a half-lie. Half-lies are often more devastating than bold lies.”

I don’t think that Pastors remain silent to shun certain members who ask questions challenging Christian beliefs. But if Jack thinks Pastors need to do more than that, the pulpit is not supposed to be a place to preach doubts but to encourage Faith. Christian Apologists are doing a much better job than the Pastors would have done provided the nature of their job.

g: More kudos, on the other *other* hand, for then actually saying something relevant to the article.

The idiom you’re looking for may be on the gripping hand.

These denominations are too busy pandering to the destructive Christian critics, and recently, the evangelical lutheran church of America has succumbed to become an heretical cult with the appointment of gays to be leaders.

Jack Good’s thesis of “dishonest church” is a misplaced one. He, too, seems to be succumbing to atheist bullying tactics and as a response he blames the Church. There are so many Christians all over the world who are not in a good position to understand the deeper theology or scholarly aspects of the Bible but their lives represent Jesus best on the contemporary world. What will Jack Good say of Pakistani Christians, who despite having little to no deeper knowledge on Biblical Theology, are daily surviving the Faith against death in the face of Islamists?

lukeprog: He’s still a Christian. Check his website.  

Interesting. I like his suggestions. I hope they find a wide audience.

I don’t think I once complained about the content or tone of your posts. I complained that you were dishonest in pretending to be 10 different people. You are free to say damn near anything you want here. And I didn’t even ban you for being dishonest.

“Please tell your members the truth about the Bible, the Historical Jesus, and the mysteries about the nature of God.”

The truth is that the Bible is full of glaring untruths and gross errors regarding natural History as well as the History of the Israelite people. The Historical Jesus may actually be nothing more than a myth made flesh. And lastly, whatever or wherever or whoever “God” may be, it does not appear that this collection of undated and largely anonymous writings that we call “The Holy Bible” has any information in it to illuminate the subject of “God”. Anyone of these notions, however true, essentially destroy the validity of the Christian Church. How would a local church accommodate these ideas without closing its doors?

I think that when people start gaining the understanding of how unreliable & bogus the roots of the faith really are, they find it more than a little difficult to play along with the rest of the Church game and take it seriously.

It’s Bible BS. Let’s get over it & try another way to make this planet a better place to live – for all of us.

-evan

I certainly, being amongst your more disparaging critic’s, am appreciative of your decision to indulge my request, i.e. stopping the nonsense. However, that was an awfully underhanded apology for reasons articulated by Lee and g. But being the good Christians that we are, I’m sure we can forgive you your blogging sins.

J.

Lee A. P.: I know I’m not Luke though.

Hey, I also know I’m not Luke. We can trivially prove that if you still really think the opposite is possible, Mark. But kudos to you for returning to your original name.

Mark: Also, Lee AP. You said “Bro, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Luke does not post as anyone other than Luke at this blog.” You seem very confident of this. May I ask: how do you know for sure this is the case? Have you physically *SEEN* the unique IP addresses of each poster, or are you going on *FAITH ALONE* when you say Luke doesn’t post as anyone else?  (Quote)

You just accused Luke of aliasing as several different blog posters all the while admitting thats what you have been doing the past several days, and one of the blog posters you accuse him of being is me.

No I haven’t seen the IPs, have YOU? I know I’m not Luke though.

Also, the poor intellectual quality of books that are supposed to answer all the hard questions written by pastors of mega-churches (Lee Strobel, Timothy Keller, etc.) that are so highly recommended.

Lee A. P.: How do you know that one of you are not chewing on the corner of Jesus’ asshole or his ball sack?

Well, considering that there were many Catholic churches who claimed to have Jesus’ circumcised foreskin during the Middle Ages, I’m not so sure that they would really care. Lol.

Anyway, I was thinking about this whole “hiding stuff from the laity” a little more, and I dunno really what to think. Sunday services in my own experience were often pretty dumb. The pastor takes a passage from the Bible, draws out three or five or seven principles from it (depending on how ambitious he is that week I suppose) and wraps it up with a lovely “Jesus loves you”, and perhaps an altar call if he feels like his sermon went over well….I mean, if he feels the Holy Spirit leading him to do so… But I get the feeling that the intent of other church events like Bible studies and such are meant to get more “in-depth”, so to speak. The only problem is that, with the churches I know of, most of these Bible studies are done by lay-members of the church who are not likely to know these things about church history, Biblical scholarship, etc. It seems like it would be a great place to learn these things, but the leader likely doesn’t know any more about it than the members do.

A couple years back, a Catholic friend of mine invited me to an “ask the priest” event, where we could write down our questions and stuff and he would answer them. It was an interesting event, and some tough issues got brought up, but the priest at least seemed to handle them well, and didn’t seem afraid to say some controversial (but honest) things. So perhaps the case is not entirely that the pastor is hiding information from people, but that he feels that the information isn’t as appropriate for a Sunday morning service. But then there’s no other real opportunity for it unless the pastor himself does a more in-depth “discipleship”-type program.

So I typed this and realized I had no point to it; I’m just rambling. So I guess I’ll stop lol.

You seem very confident of this. May I ask: how do you know for sure this is the case? Have you physically *SEEN* the unique IP addresses of each poster, or are you going on *FAITH ALONE* when you say Luke doesn’t post as anyone else?

Anyway.

I know free thought allows everything and anything, but for the sake of dialog can we keep the communication here just slightly above the sewage line? Doesn’t seem like like much to ask.

As for the cannibal implication, Jesus never asked anyone to literally drink his actual blood and eat his actual flesh. Jesus’ “body and blood” are not like your body and blood. They represent something far more magnificent in scope. When we consume “the body and blood of Christ” in the eucharist, we are entering into communion (unity) with the **SPIRIT** of Jesus Christ.. which is the spirit of **LOVE**. Christianity isn’t about the FLESH, it is about the SPIRIT.

Bro, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Luke does not post as anyone other than Luke at this blog.

I am the sophomoric shit head that called for Satan to anally rape you with his jagged Luciferian ding dong.

You have to understand that Luke and many of us, me included, came from different faith traditions — Primarily evangelical/fundamentalist.

I like Catholicism as far as denominations go because they enjoy the occasional binge drinking session, which I respect. I like the tight nit family thing they have going on. My girlfriend is Catholic. They also accept evolution and modern science. Their weddings are fun (again because of the massive drinking parties afterwards)

Their discourage of condoms in Africa is abhorrent. At least they have a purgatory for some of us instead of sending non-believers straight to hell. But if you believe that a cracker and some wine magically transforms into Jesus’ body and his blood then I only have one question for you: How do you know that one of you are not chewing on the corner of Jesus’ asshole or his ball sack?

Hey, that may sound vulgar but I’m simply taking your doctrine of transubstantiation to its logical conclusion. So tell me, who is eating Jesus’ taint?