I don’t plan on taking it as a serious source of life advice, and I imagine there’s a lot I can safely skip, but there’s gotta be some good stories in there right? Must be a reason it’s so popular?
It won’t help you understand American Christians, but it will give you the language to own them.
Eh. They’re really not good from a storytelling perspective. They’re fascinating from a historical perspective, but that’s about it.
Just skip to the wisdom section of the old testament to get some bronze age existentialism
Reading the old testament is only for masochists that read The Silmarillion and think "yeah, but what if I could have this with none of the redeeming qualities? "
All nerds belong in the gulag, no exceptions
Ecclesiastes is pretty much a must-read. It is the most secular book of the Bible, and thus the most relevant book for secular people.
Aside from that, I like the story of Jeremiah.
Read Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Job and the Gospels at least
