In the beginning... (Introduction)

Okay, this may be more of a test post than anything else.

Not having written a blog before, I'm not sure what the standards are. Honestly, I still don't quite understand what a blog is, whether it's different from a web journal and if so, how. Yet here I must post an introduction to this project I'm undertaking, so I guess I'll just say what's on my mind.

I'd been intending for some time to try to dedicate a little more time to Bible study. I really haven't done nearly enough of it lately, and I think the practice of my faith is suffering for it. It occurred to me that one of the things I'd always enjoyed greatly in the past was taking the Bible as an intellectual study; pulling it apart and analyzing it as best I could and dealing with the issues it raises. I don't think an unexamined faith is a healthy one, and whatever religion a person happens to subscribe to (and I include atheism in the category of "religion", whether the reader agrees or not) they should take time regularly to ponder whether it really stands to reason.

One of the more interesting ways that I have done this in the past was to discuss Biblical matters with people who were not Christians. The fact is that while discussing the Bible with fellow Christians is something that every Christian should spend some time doing on a regular basis, no matter how much we try to be intellectually honest, when a bunch of Christians sit down to discuss the Bible together there's a tendency to settle into a state in which we all nod our heads and say, "Isn't God great?" and move on, because it's a rhetorical question when we all already share that belief. I don't think it's intellectual dishonesty per se, but just something akin to the way we don't notice the smell of our own house, even though every house does have a distinctive odor. You invite an atheist in, and they say, "What's that smell?!" You reply, "Oh, it's 2 Kings 2:23-24; I totally forgot I left that there..."

So, getting to my point after several awkward run-on sentences and a questionable metaphor (probably par for my writing), I intend to work my way through the Bible in study, essentially using the Skeptic's Annotated Bible as my study guide. Well, assuming that editor Steve Wells approves of my doing so, which I think he will. I have contacted him via e-mail, and he seems to be pleased with the idea. If not, I'll find another source, I suppose, or use some of the concepts in the SAB without direct quotation so as to avoid any form of theft of his intellectual property. Oh, and I'll have to change the name of the blog, which I might do anyway.

Well, off to play a bit with the settings to see how this stuff works. My next post or two will be an overview of what I'm thinking rather than hitting any particular passage, but I hope to hit Genesis 1 by early next week.