ATD at the Frankfurter Buchmesse

[David Casseres]

On 10/12/06, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Coming from a long line of Jewish atheists, I've never had the stomach to read The New
>Testament.  I've read sections of The Old Testament for an
anthropology class and to
>alleviate boredom during the occasional bar mitzvah service.  Also, I
saw the cheesy
>movie The Bible, but I guess that only covers the OT anyway.  I'd
hate to think that reading
>Pynchon requires a heavy grounding in the Bible.

My father, an ironclad atheist of Jewish descent (though his mother
was a Presbyterian missionary) taught me to read the Bible.  King
James Version, please.  Because, he said, if there is any evidence for
the claim that the Bible is divinely inspired, it's the fact that a
bunch of hairy old men in smelly robes sat in a room for years,
translating the Greek and Hebrew, and produced English poetry.

He was right.  Everyone who reads literature that belongs to the
Christian or Jewish world should read the damn thing.  It's
unavoidable, really.