r/askphilosophy • u/myriadisanadjective • 1d ago

How to read the Bible?

I'm in a little bit of a weird position where I am extremely culturally Catholic and have had profound spiritual experiences through Catholic rites and rituals, and have been called back to the Church repeatedly (despite being rabidly queer and generally not the type of person you'd think would find comfort or meaning there).

But I've never seriously read the Bible. I don't want to approach it as "Bible study" the way churches do it, but it is an important philosophical and theological text and I'd like to read and understand it the best I can.

How would a philosopher approach reading the Bible? I obviously can't come to it from a place of total faith and belief, but I would at least like to come to it in a spirit of intellectual and personal curiosity.

Thank you!

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u/CalvinSays phil. of religion 1d ago

A work that may interest you is Dru Johnson's Biblical Philosophy where he seeks to expound the philosophy of the Bible much as one would the philosophy of the Vedas or the Homeric epics. While the Bible certainly presents itself as teaching us about God, in doing so it explicitly and implicit teaches a philosophy of how to know, what the good life is, etc. So this might be what you're after.

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u/myriadisanadjective 1d ago

Thank you so much!