WishboneDawn

Are christians welcome Malachi? I keep hearing you talk about this and it sounds interesting.

gregor

Militant -

While Crossan's great, and read TBoC, realize that it's written in partial rebuttal to a number of existing works and positions of the likes of Luke T Johnson, NT Wright, the Jesus Seminar, William Lane Craig, and a host of others. It's like arriving in at the start of the third act of a play without having seen the first two acts.

I'd caution a start with Helms, then Ehrman, then Crossan.

Malachi151

We don't have the details worked out yet as to where we will be doing this, and it depends on that somewhat. I mean I wouldn't turn them away unless they started being a problem, the issue is whether any will even be aware of it.

Depending on where we have it, they might be. We may have it at a UU, and we may have it at a progressive coffee shop where other such groups meet, and we may have it at someone's home.

If we have it at UU, some will probably come, if we have ti at the coffee shop, it depends on if they let us put of fliers, if we have ti at a home, I doubt any would be aware of it or come.

Here is the overview so far:

Atheist-led Bible Study Outline

1.Introduction
a)Overview of Bible translations
b)Overview of the Bible structure
c)Overview of Bible related history
d)Recommendations for further reading
2.New Testament
a) Thessalonian
b) 1 Corinthians
c) Galatians
d) Romans
e) Matthew
f) Acts
g) Revelation
h) John
i) 2 John
j) 2 Peter
3.Old Testament
a)Pentateuch
Genesis 1 – 9
Exodus 1 – 14, 19 – 21, 32-34
Deuteronomy 6 – 10, 13, 20, 28, 31 – 34
b)Historical Books
Joshua 1, 5 – 10, 13
Ruth 1 – 4
Deuterocanonical
1 Maccabees
c)Wisdom Books
Job (read as far as you can, then skip to the end)
Psalms 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 22, 23, 34, 43, 44, 58, 69, 104, 109, 110, 137
Ecclesiastes
d)Prophets
Isaiah (esp 7, 52 – 53)
Daniel (esp 7 – 9)
Ezekiel (esp 25 – 29)
Malachi

Any suggestions are also welcome BTW.

Ruhan

There are some great books recommended by some of the posters thus far.

I have compiled an overview overview of the arguments contained in these sources on my site:

http://www.atheistoolbox.com/fcbible.php

Regards,

Ruhan

WishboneDawn

Consider me interested if you do this online (I don't think I could do the commute ). Looking at it it from a perspective that doesn't assume faith would be cool.

yalla

How entrenched are your existing prejudices?

I don't mean that rudely but to point out that even before we start a study of this topic we have been prejudiced by the common assumptions, myths and fallacies of the Christian culture of our society.
For example can you name the 4 canonical gospels?






Now when I asked that question I suspect, if you knew the answer, you said, in your head "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John".
In that order.
But a fair chunk of NT criticism claims:
1. Those are not the names of the gospel authors.
2. That's not the chronological sequence.
So if you start studying with those presumptions [MMLJ] your learning is already directed along a particular "line" which can create a mindset that then has to be consciously broken.
And that is hard.
Another example.
If you read the gospels first [as per the sequence in the Bible], and read books on them, then you will be introduced into the assumption that a historical Jesus existed as per the gospels stories. If you then went to read the Pauline stuff forming an unprejudiced opinion of whether Paul had a real live HJ in mind becomes difficult to conceive, you are already seeing the Pauline material through "gospel coloured glasses".
I like Malachi's approach above but would suggest that perhaps an overview of the Tanakh/OT, before tackling the NT, might be appropriate.
And I would suggest that reading the primary material first before reading any critical and interpretive books might help you form an opinion before the propagandists and apologists get their claws into you.
What I mean is begin to know the raw material before others lead you down the paths of their particular interpretations.
I suspect you would then be better equipped to recognize those paths and not, in some cases at least, have to try to "unlearn" them later.

I started this stuff about 6 years ago from scratch and I wish I had done it in a more organized manner than what turned out to be, and still is, a haphazard approach.
Anyway good reading.
cheers
yalla