Kip

Where can I find information about what percentage of Christians really read the Bible?

I am writing an essay for a scholarship. The essay is about what book you would recommend all policy makers to read. My idea is to say that these people should read the Bible - not because I am a fundamentalist Christian and think the Bible is important, but because I am an atheist and think the Bible is a piece of trash that Christians would disagree with - if they only read the damn thing! Considering how people in Washington are attending "Bible Study" classes now, I think that my essay topic is good idea but I need help finding that info.

freemonkey

I'm probably not answering your question at all, but I have a comment on "Bible Study" classes.

I have friends who have, or are, attending such classes. Through their churches. "Taught" by church members. It is clear to me that they are not reading the book using any critical thinking skills, or even reading it in it's entirety. Any questions they have are "answered" by the teacher.

Kosh

Indeed. Reading should not be confused with reading comprehension

AtlanticCitySlave

Here are two sites (<a href="http://www.metrovoice.net/0501stlweb/0501features/studyfinds.html" target="_blank">one </a> and <a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac.htm" target="_blank">two</a>).

These suggest a little over 40% read it, while 65% of born again Christians do. I have a hard time believing any of these figures, although I imagine many people would put "yes" even if they only read one passage a week.
Speaking from personal experience, when I used to attend bible studies I don't think anyone in the group had read the bible or even parts of it that they really remembered (aside from the easter story and common things like that).
I have also had ministers express the same opinion, saying that they don't think the majority of the congregation really care, really know anything about Theology/Christian philosophy, and that it hasn't and probably won't change.
Unfortunately, these studies don't mention kids, which I think would be interesting, since, again in my experience, it was very often the case that the kids were reading the bible, "finding jesus", more than it seemed the parents were.
Regardless, I'm not surprised that the figure is low, or even if it was lower, since most people don't like to read at all, whether it be the bible or some other book.

Seeker630

"Where can I find information about what percentage of Christians really read the Bible?"

It has been my experience that few Christians of any stripe have ever read the entire thing. They base their faith mostly on what has been spoon fed to them as children, and later as adults by priests/ministers. Most of them have not clue one as to what is in the Bible beyond the classics like the Christmas story, Easter and Noah's Flood. And most of them can't agree on any one version of any of those.

Most Catholics (which I was at one time) have never ready ANY of it, as the Bible is not used as a basic text, per se, in their Catechism classes. They use (or at least in my childhood)only selected parts, mostly from the New Testament to teach with. I went to a Catholic school for 8 years and never once saw a Bible anywhere. My parents never owned one either.

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: Seeker630 ]</p>

Bree

It's been my experience that, if a Christian is going to read through the entire thing, it's usually spoon-fed to them using some kind of learning method, i.e. "The Bible in 1 Full Year" courses, et cetera. Those courses are 100% BS - sure, you read the whole Bible by yourself, but you get unnecessary commentary along with it, which pretty much explains over the bad parts.

Takes the "reading with comprehension" thing right out of it.

HelenM

You might find some helpful stats here:

<a href="http://www.barna.org/" target="_blank">Barna Research Group</a>

By the way, it's a Christian site.

Their purpose is to highlight concerns they have about Christians in general, through research and statistics. Therefore, stats showing how few Christians really read the Bible would be just the sort of thing they might have on their site. I.e. they aren't trying to make Christians 'look good'.

take care
Helen

One of the last sane

Ha. I remember doing a Bible study course. What they did was ask you to look up a series of verses from all different books of the Bible and answer a simple question on each. Then you'd end up with a coherent message from the exercise. It was only when I read the New Testament cover to cover that I realized what a deceiving method that had been and how much contradiction it concealed. Then I started on the Old Testament and that was even worse.

alek0

What I don't understand are those Christians who claim that they have read entire bible, then when you mention particular attrocity or disgusting verses they say they don't remember ever reading suc h thing, then wehn you actually show them the verses in question, they say you take things out of context and that there must have been a reason for it. And then the next step you don't see the whole picture, the message of the bible is love, god loves us so much that he died for us. Yeah, right, he loves us so much to threaten eternal suffering if we dare to doubt a book written 2000 years ago which happens to be full of contradictions and violence.

I just simply don't understand it...

CuriosityKills

My father wanted me to read the Bible so much that he bought a book called "The Message" for me. This is some kind of laymans Bible. His logic was that I wan't reading the Bible because I couldn't understand the language and that it was too long. He couldn't really accept the fact that I had tried and understood and thought it was crap. I don't read the Bible for the same reason I don't read Anne Rice books.

The most hilarious thing was that he hadn't read the Bible himself. He had just memorized a few quotes that he could throw at you if you questioned him on things like homosexuality or womens rights.