Take My Old Testament- Please!

It's Wednesday night, and I'm supposed to be at Bible study.

But I'm not.

I signed up for a 14-week course on the Bible. It was just the sort of thing I wanted: The Bible by historical timeline, rather than by book. No ploughing through freakin' Deuteronomy just for the sake of it. Dates, empires, rulers, and battles. That's my OT.

Okay, not really, but come on, it's a lot of fun that way.

The course meet Wednesday nights over in St Paul. It's quite a well-known course. taught by a former Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism. Obviously this put him out of work. So he became a professor of Bible studies.

The trouble was the material.

I just couldnt' take it any more. This guy told the worst jokes I've heard in years.

"I stopped at a health food store and bought this Nutria bar, but it turned out to be for women! I was afraid to eat it- I thought I'd get all moody!"

Ba-dum-bum.

"Remember, by this time the Isrealites had been in Egypt a long time. They talked like Egyptians. They even [arm gestures] walked like Egyptians!"

Ba-dum-bum.

"Yes, the Israelites ate manna in the desert, and yes, they got bored with it. But they could always make manana bread!"

Stop. Stop. You're killing me.

No, REALLY. You're killing me.

It's not that I can't take the occasional bad joke. But this was after 9pm, in the middle of the week, and I had a long drive home ahead of me... my resistance was just too low.

I feel kind of bad about dropping out. I really want to learn more about Scripture, and I had my Bible all indexed with those cute little tags and everything. Maybe someday someone else will come along with a good course. And I'll be a better person and more patient and all that.

Until then I'm enjoying my little index tags. Might even read more, too.


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Comments

  1. It's also useful if you can find a Jesuit who is not a total loony. (We're fortunate here in SoFla that way, but I realize sane Jesuits are pretty thin on the ground in the rest of the Anglosphere.)

    SOMEWHERE online I found a really cool Bible Study thing...I found it flipping around from Scott Hahn's site. [shrug] Try it, what's the worst that could happen?

    -J.

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  2. Here it is: http://css.catholicexchange.com/

    No direct experience with it, etc. YMMV, yadda, yadda, yadda...

    -J.

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  3. I'd always advise people to start with the New Testament - especially someone from an RC background - and most are - here in Ireland. One the gospels, such as Luke, then Acts and maybe an odd chapter in the Old Testament - I did read through the Bible a few times but it can get very tedious - I don't think it was meant to be read like this - some do read 3 chapters a day and 5 on a Sunday - that'll get you through in a year.

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