Tolle Lege!.

I think this is the best deal on Audible. I'm not a believer whatsoever, but I always appreciate opening up my world to different viewpoints.

I read a lot of books on atheism (and theology) and they really don't put the whole of the New Testament in proper context when they criticize Christianity because they often look at the pieces that make up the whole instead of the whole being explained by the pieces (before you can understand a sentence you first must understand the words and to understand the words you must first understand the sentence). This audio book gave me a chance to understand the whole because it was so easy to listen to and I got to finish the New Testament in about a week on my daily bike rides (I ride a lot of miles on my bike every week).

Science is indeterminate. A basic statement that is shown to be factually wrong doesn't mean that the whole edifice is incorrect. It just means that within the whole edifice there is a misunderstanding somewhere within the web of belief ('epistemic holism'). For example, within Quantum physics there is no cause and effect, superposition and duality exist (particle is both a wave and particle at the same time). Each of these are against the fundamental laws of logic, but it doesn't mean that all of physics is wrong. It just means there is a misunderstanding somewhere.

I started with the Old Testament but that was sort of a mistake. I found it tedious beyond belief and gave up on this audio book. In the mean time, I read "On the Nature of Things" (written slightly before Jesus) and that made me want to listen to the book of Ecclesiastics (by far my favorite book in the Old Testament) and that made me realize how pleasant this audio book could really be.

The Acts of the Apostles is probably the most important book in the bible for its historicity (at least that's my opinion, and I suspect Wiki would say so too). The story as spoken really flows beautifully. I never really picked up on that as I had previously would just randomly read pieces of the New Testament but never really read it cover to cover as it really needs to be in order to fully understood. I never realized how intelligent The Book of Hebrews was (I would say it's the most intelligently written of the New Testament books, and Wiki seemed to support that too).

My only point is that by listening to this version of the Bible one really gets to understand the Bible as a whole and gets a feeling for why it's such an interesting book. Reading it never gave me that perspective the way listening to this has (when I read I take the feeling out, but listening puts it back in for me).

Paul seemed to have gotten repetitive in his Epistles. He seemed mostly to talk about what he believed not necessarily what he thought was truth as such. He doesn't seem to think women are the equal of men, slavery seems to be okay, a whole lot of people are "deserving of death" (fornicators, drunkards (too bad for me), idolators, and others). A lot of his arguments appeal to the Old Testament truth of Adam and Eve. There is definitely a belief in prophecies (don't go to Jerusalem or you'll be arrested warned a person and they took it seriously), and the Holy Spirit can kill if you lie about holding back money while giving to the Church (or Peter and James).

Everyone who believes has their strong beliefs about the bible. I don't believe therefore I don't have a strong opinion regarding the bible one way or another, but I really enjoyed this version of the Bible because I got a peek into why it means almost nothing to me except for helping me to better understand Western Civilization since it had such a large role in forming our civilization and who we became. Also, I would recommend this audio version for any one including believers as well as non-believers because it flows beautifully together as a whole and allows one to listen fairly fast thus helping understand the book as a whole not in pieces as often happens when one reads the Bible on ones own.