by Eric Schenck
I started reading the Bible after Easter of this year. Five months later, I’m about halfway through-
And still waiting for my spiritual epiphany.
There was no particular reason I set this reading goal. I had read chunks before, but never the entire thing in one go-around. Making my way through the Bible simply felt like something I ought to do.
I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting to get from it. What I thought I was going to find. But almost half a year after I started, I have (many) more questions than answers:
- Why is there so much violence?
- Why is God obsessed with submission?
- Why are pagan worshippers considered evil?
- Why are Israelis the so-called “chosen people”?
- Why does God even have chosen people? Doesn’t that seem unfair to the rest of us?
None of these things make sense to me. The deeper I get into it, the less the Bible feels like a spiritual authority on truth…
And more like a bunch of illiterate farmers creating a flimsy justification to pursue tribal warfare.
(Which I suppose, historically, it kind of is. At least a little.)
But it’s not just that the Bible is illogical. Plenty of stories are, and still end up being enjoyable.
My problem is also that the Bible is, far too often, dull.
Leviticus takes thousands of words to describe the (overly detailed) rituals believers need to go through to be legitimate. You have chapter after chapter explaining the precise measurements of the tabernacle. This guy begot this guy, who begot this guy, who begot this guy…
And so it goes.
So far, too much of the Bible can only be described as mind-numbing. And for me, that really sucks. I wanted to like it. I’m trying to like it.
But rarely has my attention wandered so consistently while reading something. In fact, I’ve reached the point where anybody that says they’ve “read the entire Bible” instantly sets off alarms in my head.
Really? You made it through that slog? Who do you know that I don’t?
(Maybe that’s just me being self-conscious of my own lack of belief.)
In fairness, I haven’t made it out of the Old Testament yet. And that’s something I guess I can look forward to. I’ve heard many people say throughout my life that “their God” is more of a “New Testament version.”
But that in itself is highly unsettling. If you can essentially throw out entire sections of a holy book-
Doesn’t that call the entire thing into question?
Thankfully my 2026 reading hasn’t all been bad. As luck would have it, I’ve also gone through several popular science books. In no particular order, I’ve read about:
- Time dilation in space travel
- How humans developed speech
- The risks of accelerating AI development
- What life forms on other planets might look like
- The mind-boggling chunks of time involved in evolution
- How our brain has changed over the last seven million years
- Famous explorers and how they altered the course of human history
These are things that make me look around and think:
“Wow – what a fascinating world we live in.”
When I reflect on the things that set my brain on fire, these are the sort of topics that do it. Not the tribalistic blood bath that the Bible has been so far.
Of course, the immediate remark a religious person might have:
“Yes, it is a fascinating world. So fascinating, in fact, that it makes you believe there has to be a creator, right?”
Maybe.
But even that question seems to somehow miss the mark. To think that the human brain is even remotely capable of understanding something powerful enough to create a universe is laughable. But to then take it a step further, and to write a book that claims a divine truth about that power?
Well: that’s an entirely new level of hubris.
I’ve come across some version of this idea multiple times, and it’s taken a new kind of significance against the backdrop of the Bible.
A human trying to understand God is like an ant trying to understand calculus.
Maybe around Christmas-time this year, when I’ve finally finished the Bible and I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned, I’ll finally “get it.”
But my odds aren’t looking good.
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