" **There are portions which make you laugh, doubt yourself, find your faith, and come out only wondering at the end. Guys asking other guys to have their kids for them, fathers killing sons, self-confinement and self-denying for the sake of a cause. Of course! The whole work is challenging!"

"I found nothing particularly funny, although I suspect that very little humor successfully crosses such a large cultural and linguistic gap."


Well, you're short-changing yourself. Remember, these are historically and scientifically-proven real people here. Whether or not you take the divinity of the Bible or the players to heart, look at the scenarios and stories of these people. I found a list of crazy and funny versus. Putting them in context, they really are humorous <link>

No matter how you read the Bible. No matter what you take from it. And no matter what level of divinity you take from the work, the questions should be the same: What is he trying to say? Why is this important? How can this part be reconciled with that part? What do I get or gain from this work? It is no different than reading the AP summer reading list. And "If you read any given contemporary novel under the assumption that it was God's message to mankind," it would be no different, in terms of challenge. Look at Plotz's 'Blogging the Bible' article series on Job: <link>

This is one of the most agonizing, inspiring, debated, joyful, and flat-out confusing books of the Bible. Plotz takes this to a very meaningful, yet down to earth level for many readers. At the end of the day, the divinity does not always have to take a front row seat. This is a mere piece from your puzzle in why the Bible means so many different things to so many different people.

p.s., I believe your other post response is a double. You may want to delete the duplicate post to avoid confusion.