Monday 23 July 2007

Reading big bits of Bible

Yes, I finished Isaiah while watching the Tour de France time trials.

dark knight commented:

So did you accomplish the feat?

It wasn't that hard, and I don't say this because I consider myself to be a great reader. The secret for me is to let your eye run over the text fast, and every page or so stop and ask 'do I remember anything at all from the last five minutes of my existence?'

But I realize not everyone is like me. After I suggested this idea at church, 2 people separately came up and told me that they listened to Isaiah on mp3, whether walking, or sitting in a car and driving, or something else. Which is fantastic. There is a snobbishness associated with literacy that Christians mustn't buy into.

oh—not suggesting the people who spoke to me were illiterate! But the fact that I feel I need to say that says something about how highly we prize literacy.

The original hearers of the prophecies were most likely illiterate (the ones that weren't royalty), and I love it that technology has given us the means of coping with that in a way that not only isn't embarrassing, but even brings us closer to the experience of the original hearers.

Although I will keep reading, because I'm impatient and because it is faster and more precise if you have a memory as dodgy as mine.

dark knight also said

One of the best tips for exegesis I ever picked up was to read a whole work through in one go. I once read Luke-Acts that way, it was great. I suspect Luke churned out more words than all of the Isaiahs put together.

Yes, isn't this a brilliant idea. It is a way of letting ourselves be captivated by the text, as Harry Potter readers know.

By the way have you read Robert Tannehill on Luke-Acts? Spellbinding.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey gordo
I sometimes read a whole book aloud into ipod recorder then listen back later. Never as smooth as dowloadable versions but the discipline of reading aloud forces you to follow emphasis etc. Revelation took about an hour.