I love literature. I especially like large complex novels. (Infinte Jest by David Foster Wallace, any of Thomas Pynchon's large volumes, Moby Dick, etc). These novels provide so much rich detail that whole books are written about them. Groups exist to discuss the various characters and details. And what's great about them —unlike "The Bible", which is a collection of various mythic stories written centuries ago, often by people who heard the details by word of mouth over decades— is that nobody attepts to make them into moral roadmaps for themselves or verbal righteousness truncheons to beat others with. I've been out and in and out of religious thought a few times (Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton and Simone Weill were the writers that pulled me in) but here I am approaching the end of my seventh decade on the planet - absolutely amazed at this nitpicking of this text for some ultimate truth. And living in the UsofA, where "christians" can delight in things like mega churches and Trump, well . . . it seems like the believers in the Jesus/Christ myth are not getting anything good from this book.

I recomend finding a better book to study, endlessly try to re-interpret, and reflect on. There is much better writing, stories, characters, and moral depth in many other books.

Unless you think that big black book was inspired by the creator of the universe, in which case, oh well . . .

That said, I stumbled upon this on Medium, and am glad to see your perspectives for trying to get away from the archaic and harmful views people locate in that text.