Why Non-Believers Should Study the Bible and Believers Study It With Them
Some people might say “the Bible is religion, is neither philosophy nor great literature, and therefore should not be considered a Great Book.” Others might say “the Bible is God’s revealed word, rises above what people call Great Books, and therefore should not be considered a Great Book.” Yet there are a variety of reasons why the Bible, especially books like Job, should be studied by all as a Great Book.
The Bible--both the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures, which Christians call the Old Testament--is one of the most influential books in history, certainly in the history of Europe, of societies around the Mediterranean, and generally of Western societies. Other great works reflect biblical ideas and refer to biblical stories. You cannot read great literature like John Milton’s Paradise Lost without knowing who Adam and Eve are, or understand the founding of the United States without knowing certain biblical stories such as the Exodus. In the American colonies and the early United States, the complete works of Shakespeare and the King James Bible were two of the most widely read literary works. You cannot understand the culture of those societies in different eras without recognizing that the Bible was an important source of their thinking and their aspirations.
In addition, believers and non-believers alike should study the Bible because it implicitly raises the same fundamental human questions raised by the great philosophers and literary figures throughout human history, and it explicitly places humanity in a particular relation to God in order to respond to those questions. The Bible implicitly raises the question of God’s existence but does not give any argument for God’s existence. It presumes God’s existence and tells you about God. The Bible begins by raising, implicitly, the question of the origin and purpose of all things and ends with the question of their destiny. In between, it explores not only God’s relation to humanity, but also humanity’s struggle with all forms of evil, our occasional triumph through the ways of love and courage and all the other virtues, our ongoing search to understand the truth about the many realities we encounter, especially our wondering about the existence and character of God.
Thirdly, the Bible contains some of the highest quality ancient literature and the best evidence of ancient thought about God and human life. The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrated that ancient Hebrew scribes composed and revised their scriptures with depth and sophistication and produced copies with surprising accuracy. The Hebrews held a consistent set of convictions about the loving yet demanding character of God and the dignified but subordinate place of humanity in creation. The Hebrew Scriptures express these convictions in a wide variety of ancient texts composed in different historical eras and places and brought together over several centuries. In addition, the Christian New Testament represents a paradigm shift in how people understand God: willing to become human in Jesus Christ and to suffer for human benefit while still remaining the transcendent, all-powerful God. Regardless of your personal thinking about God and the biblical view of God and human life, the Bible illustrates ancient views about the most fundamental of human questions.
Not only does the Bible illustrate ancient thought, it provides a baseline for recognizing some developments of later human thinking. The Bible preserves ancient beliefs in gods as many, domineering, and capricious, even as it advances the Hebrew belief in Yahweh as the only God, fundamentally concerned for the well-being of humanity and solicitous of his people. Today, more philosophically and experientially rich monotheistic or atheistic views have replaced the ancient views of the gods. The Bible also provides a baseline for observing the development of scientific thought. For example, physics has provided scientific explanations of physical forces shaping the universe and has enabled us to understand a timeline of development that is much longer than ancient peoples could imagine.
For all these reasons, non-believers and believers alike should study the Bible, together.