Bible in a Year

-- My experience

Mon 14 August 2023 In #religion

So I listened to the Bible in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz where Fr. Mike Schmitz reads the entire bible across 365 days. I had read the Bible before, many years ago, but having it in audio format had a few advantages.

you can "read" the Bible while doing other things -- mowing the lawn, driving, etc...
you don't skip through the long lists of names and the repetition
you hear explanations of the readings, especially reminders of difficult person- or place-names or when the story repeats from a previous chapter

Along the way I took random notes and cross-checked some things with other sources and I am collecting these notes here for anyone interested. I didn't write about every single day (frankly, some of my responses got repetitive) but I did write across the entire year.

The full schedule of the podcast can be downloaded here.

Where I refer to "commentary" or to "Fr. Mike Schmitz" I'm referring to the analysis after each reading. The format of each day is a short intro (mostly the same), the reading, and then a commentary. Here's the TLDR.

I really do appreciate Fr. Mike Schmitz's earnestness and his sense of humor. Even though I don’t agree with nearly anything he says, in terms of content, I do thank him for the amount of time and effort that he put into this and his honest communication.
There is nothing in the Bible that even suggests that the person writing this knew more than me or anyone else in history, let alone an omniscient being. If someone could point to anything in this book that indicates omniscient input, I'd love to hear it.
I don’t think I will ever do this again. It’s an incredible amount of time even with the advantage of the podcast.
I am unclear about the lessons in the Bible -- there is an incredible amount of barbarism which, in any other book, I would have stopped reading. Even the lessons of Jesus are suspect, and the repetition is incredibly inefficient.
As one reads the notes below, there is a lot of justification given for things that are clearly terrible. Again, if any other book said these things there is no way a moral person like Fr. Mike Schmitz would put forward such justifications and rationalizations.

Day 1 - Genesis 1–2 Psalm 19

There is nothing in the creation narratives that even suggests that the person writing this knew more than me, let alone being omniscient. there is no hint of other planets, of heliocentrism, of galaxies -- even though that would have been trivial for a god to communicate.
The entire story sounds like Aesop's fables, or other ancient creation myths.
The commentary said that this creation account is unique in the ancient world because the world was not created out of fighting or sexual interaction. this is just not true, as the Genesis story is a slight change from some of the Babylonian creation accounts (the Ionians had stories just like this). what makes it Jewish is that it reinforced the 7-day week, so that Jews in exile would still keep the Sabbath.

Day 2 - Genesis 3–4 Psalm 104

Who was the honest one and who was dishonest in the story of Adam and Eve? It's clear that the snake (which is nowhere stated to be either Satan or Lucifer) is honest whereas Yahweh is not.
Apparently the use of the word "snake" here is related to Tiamat or Levaiathan -- the great sea creature, also known as the agent of chaos. The ancient creation myths often have god (or gods) of order fighting chaos. Even in genesis, it is God who lays out the order over the waters (not ex nihilo).

As I was reading this, I also listened to Robert M Price's 9-part Genesis Study, where I got most of what I know about the ancient creation myths.

Day 3 - Genesis 5–6 Psalm 136

Hearing the genealogies and the start of the Noah story, I wonder where all the people came from since it started with two (Adam and Eve) and both Cain and Seth came from Eve, so where did their wives come from?
Also, wouldn't god know that the flood wouldn't solve his problems?

Day 4 - Genesis 7–9 Psalm 1

Of course there's all the ridiculousness of the flood, making it clearly a myth, but I want to focus on another piece. There's a point where it says when one sheds man's blood that one's blood will be shed by man.
Genesis 9:6

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

The commentary says this is a prohibition against murder. But I think it's pretty clear that it's not a prohibition against murder, but rather an endorsement of blood revenge.

Day 5 - Genesis 10–11 Psalm 2

So the Tower of Babel story seems to be another one of these Aesop's fables, or just so stories. God comes down to confuse them deliberately, because they are being successful, and then the spin in the commentary is all about how their success was because of lust for power, and not just for excellence. It's amazing how these commentaries paint everything in a positive light rather than a straightforward reading of the text.
It's also interesting that Enoch, who lives 365 years has the same properties as the sun gods in the Assyrian and Babylonian mythologies, including being taken up to heaven, and conquering the flood. In this way, Robert M Price suggests that Enoch was probably the original hero of the flood story and the story was rewritten for Noah.
Another interesting point is the mention of the "sons of God", and the "daughters of men", which are parallel to the existence of Demi-gods and huge warriors, such as Gilgamesh, and serves as the origin of evil in the world. The story comes right before the flood, and serves as a justification for the flood.
Also interesting is that there are two flood stories interweaved. One version talks about 150 days and to buy two of every single animal. The other version includes clean and unclean animals, which, if the later parts of the Bible are believed, this distinction shouldn't have happened until Moses -- the kosher laws didn't exist until Moses.
Also, the flood story in the epic of Gilgamesh is remarkably similar.
In the really weird story about Noah, getting drunk and his son Ham seeing him I never noticed that Noah's response was to curse Canaan. Robert M price suspects that there is something that isn't actually said that has been omitted, and that Canaan, who is Ham's son may have done whatever terrible thing or the original story had Canaan as the fourth son.

Day 9 - Genesis 18–19 Job 7–8 Proverbs 2:1-5

Got Covid so no responses for a while.
Lots of circumcisions. None of this sounds like an all-knowing being writing or inspiring this.
Why all this animal sacrifice?
The name, Isaac, means "one who laughs". Which is a literary nod to Abraham laughing.
Also the story with Abraham arguing with God just sounds ridiculous to me right now. Although, there is a treatment of this scenario which explores the idea of being good without God in the Beyond Belief 2006 Conference, with Susan Neiman's presentation. In this treatment, the moral reasoning of the story is explored thoughtfully, but I get the feeling that one could read this sort of thing into nearly any story.
Lot gave his daughters to protect the men who came?
Still this story sounds like just-so stories -- explaining why a city was destroyed.
What is up with the story of Lots daughters sleeping with him? Weird!
Those countries are enemies of Israel so maybe another just so story
From Robert M Price -- apparently it was a common practice for a priest or shaman to help infertile women conceive (presumably by sleeping with her either with or without husbands permission). This is related to the many pagan stories of gods impregnating women. My addition -- the connection to the Jesus story is pretty obvious here.

Day 11 - Genesis 22–23 Job 11–12 Proverbs 2:9-15

So I learned from Robert M Price that there is a parallel story for the Isaac and Abraham story, coming from Greece. In this story, there was a king (Athamas of Boeotia), with a son named Phrixus. Apparently the son was from his first wife, but his second wife, after the first wife died, was discontent and wanted her own son with the king be the heir. So she arranged to have the priest make up a fake decree that the firstborn son had to be sacrificed. The king took the son out, and just before the blade struck he was stopped by Hercules, who said that Zeus does not want human sacrifice. He then provided a ram as a replacement, and then the king and the son came back home. This story either exists at the same time or earlier than the one in the Bible, it's pretty incredible that there's such a parallel story at the same time. This means that one copied from the other or they both were part of a soup of stories, where you had common themes across many cultures.

Day 13 - Genesis 25–26 Job 15–16 Proverbs 2:20-22

The Joseph story is a retelling of the Osiris-Horus story.
As a side comment, there are so many times where I believe in the translation on this podcast they just say "the Lord" in different sources, where the originals used different name, e.g. Yahweh, Elohim, etc... In the text sometimes a different font is used.
Esau and Isaac are both Sun gods, and Jacob is a moon God.
Many of the stories are retellings of other stories of these gods made into stories about people.

Day 32 - Exodus 9 Leviticus 7 Psalm 49

Talking about how God hardens pharaoh's heart, and how this is not about taking away his free will came up in the commentary, which is really pretty lame.
First, they say God is all good and perfect, even though the story doesn't sound like that at all like not even remotely. He's bragging about how he's showing off his power He's being petulant and even his power seems pretty weak. I'm pretty sure I could think of other ways to demonstrate power that would not involve frogs and locusts.
But anyway back to the hardening of the heart. The analogy Mike Schmitz uses is of wax and clay in the sun. You have something like wax which softens in the heat of the sun and you have something like clay, which hardens in the heat of the sun. So when God hardens pharaoh's heart it is just that pharaohs heart has a propensity to harden in the presence of God and God is not eliminating the free will of the pharaoh. I'm not convinced by this analogy, but it is at least an attempt.
God says "I have made sport of the Egyptians". I'm pretty sure Marcion had it correct when he said that the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, was not the same God as the God Jesus is talking about. It's hard to imagine Jesus of the story endorsing such barbarious actions.

Day 34 - Exodus 12 Leviticus 9 Psalm 114

So the story here is of the Passover where God kills the firstborn of all the Egyptians. And then father Mike Schmitz says that this was 100% justice that God is 100% just. And the reason that this is "just" was because pharaoh didn't let the people go, and he was warned that this was going to happen. Doesn't matter what happened to the babies it seems! That doesn't seem like justice to me. That seems like petty retribution. Why didn't God just punish the pharaoh directly? Why does he have to punish other people? Why does he have to punish innocence? This is not justice. But those who take this document as the inspired word of God have to say that this is justice and turn off their moral compass.

Day 39 - Exodus 21 Leviticus 14 Psalm 75

The commentary has the typical apologetic that the slavery at that time was more like an indentured servitude. It is suggested that you would give your services because you're too poor. However, Fr Schmitz doesn't seem to recognize that the Bible clearly states many times that the slaves are your property and you can hand them down as such and that the girls are your sex slaves. It ignores the totally immoral laws like if you beat your slaves and they don't die immediately and they live for a few days you will not be punished because the slave is your property. This apologetic is what you get when you blindly believe that this book has to be perfect, or has to be entirely correct and you have to bend over backwards and ignore your own morality in order to make these ridiculous arguments. Frankly, it's disgusting. I mean ask yourself the question is it ever, in any context, justifiable to own someone as property?
Fr Schmitz goes further, giving excuses for God, that the people in the stories don't really know him, and that the gods around are unfair, and God's coming from a place of justice. This is very hard to tell from the rules God's giving. That somehow the fact that these were more barbaric peoples is an excuse for basically talking down to them. This is God, who can supposedly make entire universes. And you're saying he can't find a way to convince people who are used to slavery that, "hey, maybe owning people as property should be one of the more important of the 10 Commandments"? He seems to be able to convince them to do all sorts of crazy animal sacrifices, and not to have blended fabrics, and this is beyond him? The excuse making is just outrageous, and repugnant, given the nature of the material in these books.
Fr Schmitz does say that God has to come down to the level. The analogy is that you would not criticize a first grader for doing arithmetic while you're doing calculus. The problem is that there were other cultures at that time that actually had moral systems superior to this, so it clearly wasn't beyond these people. It's just as an excuse that is being given for this outrageous book.
Fr Schmitz literally says that the slaves are not your property in his explanation of indentured servitude.

Exodus 21:20-21: 20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
It's these kind of morally repugnant stances that make me want to stop listening to this podcast. What he's doing is reading into the text what he wants it to be and not actually reading what it says. I would think that would be blasphemy?

Day 40 - Exodus 22 Leviticus 15 Psalm 76

Lots of male discharges. 😂🤮
This really is the best that God can do?

Day 41 - Exodus 23 Leviticus 16 Psalm 77

Exodus 34:26 You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Glad I got that one stated -- I was just about to do that! 😀

Day 42 - Exodus 24 Leviticus 17–18 Psalm 78

It's all rules about who can sleep with whom, mostly prohibition against incest. Mike Schmitz makes a point that there are some rules that are eternal (moral laws) and some rules that are specific to the Jewish people or to the temple (temple laws). So the example of mixed fabrics is something that passed away because Israel passed away.
Makes me wonder then what is the status of the 10 Commandments? Are such laws eternal given that most do not have to do with moral questions. It also makes me wonder about the rules about stoning your daughter who is not a virgin. The social rules have to be moral rules, right? I doubt that the Bible is very specific about these things.

Day 48 - Exodus 33–34 Leviticus 24 Psalm 80

Exodus 34:26 You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

A direct command by God, seemingly more important than "you should not own people as property."

Day 49 - Exodus 35–36 Leviticus 25 Psalm 81

Lots of putting people to death for various transgressions. It's really hard to imagine a God of peace and justice saying these things. Again I'm thinking the Marcionites had correct.
There's a lot of Aoife (actually ephah, which is a measurement in Israel). I'm not sure what the word actually is but it's a measure of some kind of grain or liquid.
And we have more stuff about slavery in this one, including a case where someone said, if your brother is poor, you can take him as a servant, but not a slave and he can work and repay things and then go back to his family. This seems to go against the idea that "slavery" refers to indentured servitude in all contexts, because this is an example where it is contrasted, almost specifically, with indentured servitude
And the fact that the book specifies how to treat slaves from Israel versus slaves from other countries goes against the interpretation that slavery is indentured servitude
Fr Schmitz also says that the reason that things repeat is because you repeat the important things. I think we can pretty much dispense with that idea, because there are many things that repeat that are really not that important. It seems much more reasonable that things repeat because they came from different sources that were cobbled together and in some cases they merged the stories and in other cases they just put them back to back, not wanting to get rid of any particular source.
This entire discussion about slaves is really terrible and wrong. First Fr. Schmitz is saying that this is the only way God could have done this -- by essentially endorsing slavery temporarily, possibly so that these people can grow, even though there were people in other countries who did not have slaves even at that time. Seems like he's selling God short and have a lack of imagination.
The problem with all of this is that if you assume that this book is written by the creator of the universe, who is all-just and all-good, you will have to bend your own morality into knots.
Fr. Schmitz says that the Bible is good and true, but sometimes you have to read between the lines. What that means is that you read what you want to read. It's more like reading around the lines. He said that there are many churches that try to guess what God wants -- seems like this is what he's doing as well.
The idea that a God would want to be worshiped seems perverse to me. How can any thinking being want to be worshiped? Why would they want a creation of theirs to worship them? for me I can't imagine making something myself and then wanting to have it worship me.

Day 56 - Numbers 5 Deuteronomy 5 Psalm 90

It is really interesting to hear Fr. Schmitz bending over backwards to justify the use of idols in the Catholic Church and how it’s not a violation of one of the commandments. Now I don’t really care one way or another whether it’s true, but it does show that you can twist any text to mean pretty much the opposite of what it says. This particular case is just such a great example of that.

Day 61 - Numbers 11 Deuteronomy 10 Psalm 33

Deuteronomy 10:16 - 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

What a great and odd phrase "foreskin of your heart"

Day 70 - Numbers 22 Deuteronomy 23 Psalm 105

So we get a story of a talking donkey. Is this a book we need to take seriously?

Day 71 - Numbers 23 Deuteronomy 24–25 Psalm 106

There’s a quote about being put to death only for your own sin, which I think is indirect contradiction to the idea of original sin.

Deuteronomy 24 - 6 Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

Day 84 - Joshua 10–11 Psalm 128

Fr. Schmitz discussing the sun standing still as possibly against science, and then he sites Galileo incorrectly, and says that it was more about ego versus ego, rather than about faith versus science. But then he says that Copernicus, who was also a priest had already made that observation of a heliocentric solar system, and there was no backlash against him. What Fr. Schmitz fails to realize is that Copernicus did not publish his work until after he died because he was afraid of the backlash. He knew there would be a backlash.
Fr. Schmitz then refers to the Fatima miracle as being similar. Or he says it could be allegorical. Seems to me that if this is allegorical why not the entire story? Also the story of Fatima has its own issues.

Day 97 - 1 Samuel 3–5 Psalm 150

1 Samuel 3:1 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

That’s a really interesting quote and reminds me of the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

Day 99 - John 1–3 Proverbs 5:1-6

The Gospel of John says “truly truly I say to you“ so many times.
It’s interesting that Jesus overturned the temple in John Chapter 2 and not at the end as in the other Gospels
In the Gospel of John, he is constantly saying that he is the Son of the Father and the Father works through him and the Father and I are one. I don’t think this happens in Mark.

Day 130 - 2 Samuel 12 1 Chronicles 16 Psalm 51

We have a lovely story about David committing adultery that was in the previous day and in this day he’s punished by God. How is he punished? The baby that he was having with his current-wife was killed. After the readings, Fr. Mike Schmitz talks about how God loves you and wants to set you back on the right path and all I could think of was "what about that baby?" Is that baby going to hell? Did God love that baby? Did that baby deserve what happened? Was David actually punished? The morality of this book is pretty atrocious.
I get about a week behind, and then I binge a number of episodes. The problem is one of motivation is because the Bible is such a painful book. There is no indication that anyone smarter than ancient goat herders wrote this thing. I can’t even tell most of the time what the message is supposed to be, or even if there is supposed to be a message. What’s the point? The interpretations seem strained at best. It’s just so hard to spend any time on this stuff.

Day 153 - 1 Kings 11 Ecclesiastes 10–12 Psalm 9

it seems that Yahweh likes punishing some for the sins of others. Solomon started following other gods, so Yahweh decides to break up the kingdom -- but not while Solomon is alive, but to his son. This all seems like someone writing to explain why a sequel kingdom failed by attributing the failure to the sins of Solomon. I think this is a super common theme at this point in the Bible -- when things go well, they attribute it to God, when things go badly, they attribute it to the missteps of the leaders with respect to their service to god.
Still, there has been absolutely nothing that even hints at an omniscient writer or influencer.

Day 161 - Mark 15–16 Psalm 22

Fr. Schmitz says that Psalm 22 is so close to what Jesus went through that it was prophecy. It seems so clear to me that Mark wrote the Psalm into the story. How could you tell the difference?
This version of the Bible had the long version of Mark that I hadn’t heard. It has the handling snakes and drinking poison parts. Interesting that the actual Gospel ends with sending the women out and "they said nothing to anyone".
Fr. Schmitz also says that it is an amazing sacrifice for God to have his son killed but I thing David Smalley puts it best as "a bad weekend at human camp".

Day 165 - 1 Kings 15–16 2 Chronicles 16–17 Song of Solomon 4

There’s a point where Fr. Schmitz says that God doesn’t need these animals that are sacrificed. But it is a symbol of their trust in him, because those are the most valuable things that they sacrifice. Perhaps that's a metaphor that Jordan Peterson could make something out of. You need to sacrifice yourself to others, or to the greater good. It doesn’t mean anything unless it’s an actual sacrifice of something that’s meaningful to you. But I think as a statement of reality, I just don’t see the wisdom of it.

Day 166 - 1 Kings 17–18 2 Chronicles 18–19 Song of Solomon 5

So there’s a showdown between Elisha and the prophets of Baal. He proposes a test, which of course Yahweh succeeds. It makes me think that if Yahweh was totally fine with this sort of test in the past why can’t we do it now? Why did they say you should not test the Lord thy God? And yet such stories occur in the Old Testament. Did God change?

Day 169 - 1 Kings 22 2 Chronicles 23 Song of Solomon 8

Seems as if God sends a lying spirit to the prophets of the enemy to undermine them. How is that at all different than God lying himself? How would you ever know if the prophets you have are telling the truth if this is a live option?
The Song of Solomon seems to really like pomegranates

Day 170 - 2 Kings 1 2 Chronicles 24 Psalm 69

In the Psalms, it talked about giving vinegar to drink as a prophecy for the story of Jesus, and it makes me wonder if you were making the story of Jesus and you had only the Old Testament stories to go on, how much of the Jesus story would you be able to make? It almost seems as if the New Testament is fanfiction of the Old Testament. The miracles of Elisha seem very similar. The Psalms give almost every part of the crucifixion story. So if you were to say, write fanfiction in the style of the Old Testament, but set in the Roman time, you would pretty much get exactly the Gospel of Mark. Just add some legendary embellishments, and some appearances and things like that and you get the other gospels.

Day 171 - 2 Kings 2 2 Chronicles 25 Psalm 70

We have the story of the Bears sent to kill 42 children because they called Elijah "baldy". And in the name of the Lord, this was done. What are we to make of a story like that?
Another one that reiterates the message that has occurred in a number of places, that the descendants of someone will not be killed for the transgressions of their ancestors. And yet we get the opposite message many times, because God seems to punish the children and the children’s children for the transgressions of the ancestor.
Fr. Schmitz has a pretty impressive dodge of the she-bear story. He essentially says that it may not be young boys, but could be young men -- basically ruffians -- and it wasn’t about an insult. It was about proper worship of God versus improper worship of God given where they were in the north as opposed to the south. I still think the moral argument against the story runs no matter what, but I find it really interesting that he has to do these contortions to try to get out of a fairly straightforward story and its consequences.

Day 173 - 2 Kings 4 2 Chronicles 28 Psalm 127

There’s a story of one of the kings of Judah, where he set up molten offerings to the old gods and sacrifices his own sons. In the commentary, Fr. Schmitz relates to the stories and comes very close to saying that it was terrible that the king sacrifices his sons in this way. This would then clearly call into question the story of Jesus, so Fr. Schmitz says the problem is not that he sacrificed his sons but that he sacrificed his sons to the wrong God. It is very interesting hearing the contortions again trying to avoid saying anything bad about Jehovah.

Day 174 - 2 Kings 5 Hosea 1–3 Psalm 101

Fr. Schmitz says that one of the common messages for the prophets is warning North Israel to change the ways or else God will let them go. He then stresses that this is not in conflict with God's patience being infinite, but that the story comes to an end just like our life comes to an end, and that we get whatever we’ve chosen and we get that for eternity. And I’m wondering why does it have to be like that? Why over such a tiny amount of time are we judged for eternity? Why not do it in a more gradual way? The first hundred years and then you get some kind of signal and then the next hundred years and another one? Or maybe it should be like in The Good Place? It just seems that Fr. Schmitz is insistent on making sure his view of God is reasonable

Day 182 - 2 Kings 16 Micah 1–4 Psalm 139

In what way is the king sacrificing his sons is any worse than God sacrificing Jesus?

Day 183 - 2 Kings 17 Micah 5–7 Psalm 140

Finally an interesting tidbit. The kingdom of Samaria of the north was broken up into five nations. Then in Jesus, his story about the woman who is the Samaritan, he says that she has had five husbands before and the one she is with now it’s not her husband. It just shows that so many stories are not just morality tales. They are literally drawn from aspects of the Old Testament stories.
And then we having Micah prophecy of the one who will come from Bethlehem. Of course Fr. Schmitz takes this as prophecy but it’s so much easier to understand it, as the New Testament writers simply reading the Old Testament in writing stories.
I have to say that I really haven’t learned a whole lot from reading the Bible. I feel as if I could’ve learned just as much in a much shorter way. This is the reason why I just want to get it done so I can say that I did it. This is not a meditation for me really.

Day 185 - 2 Kings 19 2 Chronicles 30 Psalm 143

There’s a story or prayer about how the Syrians are attacking a particular city, and a prayer states that God will not allow them to take the city. There’s a story about how an angel of the Lord came down and wiped out much of the Syrians and the rest got sent home. It seems as if they are in every single case when the people have a victory it’s God's doing, and when they have a defeat it’s because the people failed to do something. This is classic religious thinking.

Day 195 - Isaiah 7–8 Tobit 7–9 Proverbs 10:5-8

We have the Isaiah so-called prophecy,

Isaiah 7 - 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
I say "so-called" because the sign is for military victory for the king, and it actually happens in the next verse. There’s no hint at all that this was meant to be a prophecy for the future. It is much more reasonable to think that someone looking for details to put into the New Testament story would latch onto this and add it to the story.
Just for reference, there is a long list of failed prophecies online: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_prophecies#Wrong_prophecies

Day 197 - Isaiah 11–13 Tobit 13–14 Proverbs 10:13-16

We have a number of statements about the rise and fall of various countries, many of which are true, some of which are demonstrably false. This really causes us to question the entire idea of prophecy in the Old Testament.

Day 202 - Isaiah 23–24 Habakkuk 1–2 Proverbs 11:1-4

Isaiah 24 - Behold, the Lord will empty the earth[a] and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.

They claim that the Earth will be scorched and bunch of things happen to "the Earth" but why is there not any mention of China or the Americas or any other lands other than the local lands of the author? Did God not know about these?

Day 213 - Isaiah 47–48 Ezekiel 8–9 Proverbs 12:13-16

Son of man term used in a vision. Not sure what this means
I have to say that these prophets are super tiring. It’s the same message again and again. Praise god for his greatness. Israel, you’ve stopped following him and follow false gods and you will be or are being punished. Rinse repeat repent.

Day 218 - Isaiah 57–58 Ezekiel 17–18 Proverbs 13:5-8

Ezekiel 18:20 - 20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

Tell that to everyone who has original sin. Geesh.
Another common theme in the prophets is how God will bring his people back to Israel from the scattered places, and there everyone will live happily ever after.

Day 223 - Isaiah 66 Ezekiel 25–26 Proverbs 14:1-4

The prediction that Tyre will be forever destroyed. Let’s ask the people who live there today. 😀

Day 241 - Jeremiah 24–25 Daniel 6–7 Proverbs 16:5-8

God is going to show his wrath over the whole earth. All of the inhabitants of the earth. Of course, none of this is written in any other continent.

Day 243 - Jeremiah 28–29 Daniel 10–11 Proverbs 16:13-16

About Daniel 11, Fr. Schmitz says that the prophecies are so great that skeptics say it had to be written after the fact.

Just after writing that last comment I read another author talking about Daniel. I wanted to see how it was dated. There is this gem:

Many critical scholars attribute the obvious historical errors of the book of Daniel to naïveté. I find it more likely that the author generally knew what he was doing and wrote honest anachronistic inspirational fiction, the literary equivalent of the faith-promoting Left Behind series of our own time. His friends and contemporaries already expected God to set up the messianic kingdom very soon in their own lifetimes, and his cycle of short stories regarding Daniel merely gave literary expression to their preexisting beliefs.

Day 251 - Jeremiah 41–42 Judith 12–14 Proverbs 17:13-16

So we are finishing up the book of Judith. And essentially it’s a story about this Jewish woman who goes and infiltrates the Assyrians and devises a way to be alone with the leader, and then chops his head off delivers the head to the Jewish people so that they can win. They claim that God is with them and hasn’t left them. What am I supposed to learn from this? As far as I can tell this is yet another barbaric story from a barbaric people justifying their barbaric actions by saying that God is with them. Is this really the best that an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent agent can do? There’s just no hint that this is inspired by anything greater than the barbaric people that they’re talking about.
I’m reminded about some thing Matt Dillahunty had said about how religion distorts morality. The theist always claims that the source of morality is God and that you can’t be moral without God. Or they say that the atheist is either not moral or borrowing it from religion. But when I look at this, we pretty much have an act that is directly murder. It is a violation of one of the 10 Commandments. It is immoral. It is brutal. And then it is celebrated. And then Fr. Schmitz has the audacity to say things like Judith‘s virtuousness was never lost. Her purity was never lost. And that this murderous act was a theme with several other cases where someone chopped off their head or put a spike through their head, or Mary steps on the head of the snake.
Pretty much if you can argue an action and it’s direct opposite are both moral then you have lost your way.
Not sure if I mentioned this but way back when when they were list of names in the Vhronicles, Fr. Schmitz said something about he had a prayer where he was thanking God and he mentioned how these names were important, even though we only had a name and we didn’t know anything else about them. The problem with that is that if they were important, then we would have more than just names, and the fact that we only have the names really does speak to the level of ineptitude of the communication with ancient books. It also speaks to the fact that Fr. Schmitz is going to say everything is important in this book whether it seems so or not.

Day 259 - Matthew 5–7 Proverbs 18:21-24

This is the one with the sermon on the mount. I’m reminded of Matt Dillahunty’s covering of the Sermon on the Mount.

Notes from that video follow here:

The early part of the sermon essentially says that while things are bad now, they will get better -- either in this life or the next
This makes it so that people are less likely to try to get out of bad situations -- it helped keep women and slaves in marginalized positions for centuries
Matt 5:7-9 - a naive reward system for good behavior. Be merciful so that you'll get mercy from god, etc...
10-12 -- Encourages divisiveness through the expectation of persecution. When they think they are being persecuted (either correctly or incorrectly) they believe they are doing the right thing by God
Matt 5:16 says let your light shine.... Matt 6:1 says the opposite, and is confusing at best
5:21-26: Thought crimes as equivalent to murder.
5:27-28: More thought crimes, lust is not adultery. Also it's sexist (whomsoever looks at a woman lustfully) -- why is God sexist here? Same with 31-32. Also bad advice -- suffer through marriages that don't include infidelity, no matter how bad they are.
5:37 - Good advice, keep your word. of course the "don't swear oaths dictate" is not followed by Christians -- they swear on bibles, etc...
38-39: Justice doesn't have to fall on the extremes of vengeance and pacifism.
Encourages victimization.
43-44: Love your enemies is not reasonable or practiced (even by Jesus who will torture enemies forever)
Matt 6:6 -- pray in private. good advice that is not taken.

"proper adherence to this verse implies that prayer shouldn't be in school at all it means that we shouldn't be swearing people and on Bibles shouldn't open city council meetings with prayers we shouldn't have a Christian television network public prayer meetings the National Day of Prayer etc Christians who support these goals are hypocrites they're willfully disobeying a direct order that they believe is from Jesus it's not like they're disobeying Paul or John this is supposed to be the words of their Savior and they chuck it aside proving that they are their own God making their own rules
6:25-34: Live for today, God will take care of you. Bad advice.
7:1-6: Don't be a hypocrite -- good advice
Don't cast your pearls before swine
7:12: Golden rule is not original with jesus, or the Old Testament.

"Jesus's version while fairly good is actually one of the poorer versions I've seen. Saying "do unto others what you would have them do to you" isn't nearly as wise as "do unto others as they would have you do unto them". I might like somebody to be brutally honest with me but they might prefer that I sugarcoat my words and it's better to treat them in the way that they want and encourage them to treat you in the way that you want"

there are other things other sayings that may be even better like "strive to do as much good as possible and as little harm as possible". Why didn't Jesus say something like that?

Matt 7:15-23 the second part contradicts the first. Either you are judged by your works or you aren't. It also calls into question the belief necessity for salvation.

Day 261 - Matthew 11–13 Proverbs 19:5-8

Matthew 12 - 38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

If you look at the resurrection narratives this doesn't add up (you can see my posts about the Resurrection here) -- Friday night to Sunday morning is not "three days and three nights"
Jesus was asked why speak in parables, and he essentially gave the classic conspiracy theory answer, which is so that you would have secret knowledge, and the others would be ignorant. This is one way that groups that share conspiracy theories maintain their community by giving its members the illusion that they have secret knowledge that no one else has. This may have helped Christianity to spread.
Fr. Schmitz says that in the story there are those that saw miracles and didn’t believe. So if you think that you’ll believe if you see a miracle that may not be true. At least for me if I see a verified miracle I would at least pay attention. Otherwise, how can I possibly take any of this stuff seriously?

Day 262 - Matthew 14–17 Proverbs 19:9-12

Seems as if the Peter "on this rock" quote is omitted in the Gospel of Mark? seems like an odd omission.

Day 266 - Matthew 27–28 Proverbs 19:25-29

So the story with Barabbas, which means "son of the father" and a parallel with Passover it makes it so obvious this is a literary construction and not historical. Also, the resurrection description in Matthew has guards and an angel and the rolling away of the stone and all this other stuff which Mark does not mention. (you can see my posts about the Resurrection here)
Are the Saints coming out of their graves and wandering around the town something that Mark wouldn’t have wanted to write about?

Day 271 - Ezra 9–10 Zechariah 9–11 Proverbs 20:16-19

Zechariah 9 - Behold, your king is coming to you;
    righteous and having salvation is he,
    humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah 11:13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.

Here in the Old Testament, we have the riding in on a colt, the foal of a colt and even have 30 pieces of silver reference. I wonder how many of the New Testament stories are literally just re-reading older Old Testament stories. The loaves and fishes seems to come from Elijah, all of the crucifixion narratives seem to come from the Psalms. It’s actually impressive what little there is left if you take away all of the Old Testament stories.
Although most of my comments are negative, there are a number of good things about this particular podcast. First, I really like the commentary and the fact that Fr. Schmitz repeats a lot of who the names are and warns you about things that are confusing. It’s also very useful to be an audio format so that you can listen to it when you’re driving or you’re just doing yard work or something that is mindless so that way you can focus on the text. I find that I won’t tend to skip forward where, if I’m reading, I might skim or skip passages. It’s also interesting because I was brought up Catholic but my recent exposure has been with fundamentalist evangelicals and so hearing the Catholic interpretation of some of the passages is pretty interesting.
However, I find that much of this is a waste of time. The book is so repetitive and doesn’t have a lot of content. I could’ve probably gotten the content in less than a 10th of the time if it was presented in a different way.
One of the nice things about the Bible in a day is that it breaks up the books and reads from several in a day. Things like proverbs or the long list of names in chronicles is more valuable reading a small amount per day rather than going through in order.

Day 280 - Nehemiah 12 Esther 9–11 Proverbs 21:21-24

So we have a story about Esther, who is a Jew, and is also queen and some people arrange to have all the Jews killed, so what does she do? She goes to the king and has a guy who organized that executed and then the king organizes essentially a mass slaughter of everyone who was against the Jews. This is one barbaric story after another one, One side doesn’t like the other side so they’re going to kill them all and then then whoever has the power just kills the other people. I mean it’s just a ludicrous story if you’re trying to get any kind of moral message out of this. Is this really the best that the creator of the universe, the all-good God can arrange?
Son of god, Prince of peace, Ushered in the good news of the world. These terms were applied to Caesar Augustus, before Jesus came. And Fr. Schmitz spins this as setting the stage for Jesus. It seems more likely that these terms were simply lifted, and applied to Jesus so that people would make the connection.

Day 291 - 1 Maccabees 10 Sirach 26–27 Proverbs 23:5-8

Lots of stuff about the good wife. This is in the book of Sirach. So Fr. Schmitz spins this as talking about both wives and husbands, or at least applicable to husbands as well. It’s pretty amazing when the book says something and you don’t like it you just make up that it says something different.

Day 305 - 2 Maccabees 8 Wisdom 5–6 Proverbs 24:30-34

Fr. Schmitz says

"it is difficult to see God's working in our lives, what is he really doing? Is this God's justice, is this just an accident of evil, is this part of his mercy? But to have the eyes that are looking to see, eyes looking to understand, but they always are the eyes of trust. Here's what I mean. Sometimes we can say 'Gosh I think I must have done something wrong to be experiencing this pain, or maybe I'm being corrected by the Lord himself.' But we dont have any idea why, we're just guessing at this. So it's kind of sometimes a risk to look at our lives and say 'This is what God is doing' but it is not a risk to say 'God is present and active'. Hopefully that make sense. I don't always know, God what are you doing in this moment but be able to say 'God I know that you're here and you're doing something'. That is something we can really rest on, that is where the trust comes being able to say this is not you abandoning me, Lord, this is not you giving up on me this is not being disqualified from your word or from your promises, but you're here and you're active. you're present and you're doing something.

Is there anything you couldn't believe using thinking like this? Is this a way to think that brings you closer to truth, or to confirmation bias, and exaggerated pattern recognition?
1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are interesting -- I haven't read them before. I'm noting most of the New Testament names, which undermines Bauckham's thesis. 2 Maccabees has the same stories but interpreting all of them as God acting. There are some stirring stories of martyrdom in 2 Maccabees. Still a lot of repetition, and wishful thinking, and post-hoc rationalizations.
So they say that parables are a common way for rabbis to communicate. They draw people in. I think another reason is that they are vague enough to be interpreted in multiple ways so they’re more flexible. I think that Christianity's success has more to do with the fact that one can apply the messages to any situation. Fr. Schmitz also commented how the visitation to Mary of John the Baptist's mother parallels second Samuel 6 -- a number of the phrases are the same. Again much more Old Testament being used to construct the stories for the New Testament.

Day 314 - Luke 3–5 Proverbs 25:27-28

The census in the gospel of Luke makes no sense. There’s no way that you would be called back to the town of your ancestors from 800 years ago. That’s just ludicrous.
The lineage is also problematic. It disagrees with Matthews and it has different numbers of generations and it disagrees even on the grandfather.

Day 319 - Luke 17–19 Proverbs 26:13-16

Parable of the rich man. One of Fr. Schmitz’s responses is that it’s not about just hearing the word of God it is about acting on the word of God . I think that’s a pretty good statement for pretty much any reading or life advice, or anything else. It’s not enough to just read advice -- you need to act on it.

Day 320 - Luke 20–22:38 Proverbs 26:17-19

Listening to Jesus, his description of the destruction of the temple sounds a lot like the various prophets in the Old Testament. Especially when he says this generation will not pass before they see the kingdom of God coming again. Essentially the things that the author knew about and wrote down are correct and the things in the future that are predicted and are not correct. It’s actually amazing how it follows that same pattern.
It’s also interesting to see that the form of the predictions are all the same. Essentially decrying the bad behavior of the people and God coming in and enacting punishment This is followed by a prediction that God is going to come back and beat all the bad guys and everyone will live happily ever after. Except of course the bad guys.

Day 321 - Luke 22:39–24:50 Proverbs 26:20-23

The robber on the cross. "Today you will be with me."" But isn’t Jesus dead for three days?
The two travelers on the road to Amaus has a direct parallel with Roman story about Romulus
Lots of appearances where he wants to demonstrate that he has a body -- while at the same time disappearing and walking through walls.
There is a contrast between the directions Jesus gives on where to meet afterward -- Luke says Jerusalem and Matthew says Galilee

Day 322 - Acts 1 Romans 1 Proverbs 26:24-26

Robert M Price describes Acts as the Catholic response to Marcione. Essentially the goal is to take people who like Paul, and say that Peter is just like Paul. And to take people who like Peter and say, Paul is just like Peter. Essentially whitewashing the real disagreement between these two different groups of original Christians -- the ones that were all for the adherence to the Jewish laws (including circumcision) and those that were not.
Acts of the Apostles has a different reason for why the field of blood is called the field of blood. This has to do with Judas hangING himself, and his guts spilling all over the field as opposed to the field being purchased by the blood money.

Day 324 - Acts 3 Romans 4–5 Proverbs 27:1-3

So there’s a story about Peter healing someone who can walk. This happens all the way up to the temple. Fr. Schmitz asked why is he coming up to the temple? That is because they’re Jews and that the old law is still in effect. So part of the goal of that is to counter the Christian sect of the Marciones, who believed that the Old Testament God was not the same God that Jesus was talking about. So these reminders about Peter's Judaism is also part of the plan to make Peter palatable to those who are fans of Paul.

Day 326 - Acts 5 Romans 8 Proverbs 27:7-9

Acts of the Apostles just feels like propaganda for the Christian church. The stories of them being thrown in jail and then escaping with an angel. The back and forth with the elders and the Sadducees, and at no point do we have anyone looking for a dead body. Given an empty tomb, one of the major things that would’ve happened, would be a search for grave robbing, of which the disciples would be the number one suspects. We get no sense of that at all. We also get no sense of having Jesus's family appearing anywhere. Like where is Mary right now? Also, it wouldn’t matter whether the cell was locked -- the people no longer in it would also be reason for them to get thrown into a more secure location.
Listening to the letters of Paul I have this very strange feeling. I hear the words, but I get no contact at all. I feel like I’m learning nothing at all from what he saying, as if he’s saying nothing at all, a string of deepities. He goes around and around and I don’t even know what his point is. It’s pretty wild.

Day 328 - Acts 7 Romans 11–12 Proverbs 27:13-14

So I started watching Richard Carrier's video about Acts as Historical Fiction and there are a number of very interesting things. He claims that Mark was written first and essentially was putting forward the idea that Christianity was not just for Jews. And this is seen with one of the themes about the least shall be most and it subverts expectations. Then Matthew comes along as a response to Mark and essentially says no no no no you have to be Jewish and he highlights all the Jewish things that Mark did not do. Then Luke comes along as a response to Mark. Carrier says that the Q document doesn’t actually exist and it’s not well supported -- that Luke is actually a response to Matthew. And in Luke’s Gospel he’s trying have the perspective that you don’t need to be Jewish to be Christian -- but really trying to make the two sides see eye to eye. And then Acts is propaganda to really try to merge those two perspectives.

Day 336 - Acts 15 1 Corinthians 11–12 Proverbs 28:10-12

Fr. Schmitz says that scripture clearly states that men and women are equal. I really don’t understand where that could possibly come from.

Day 345 - Acts 24 Galatians 1–3 Proverbs 29:12-14

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that he did not receive the gospel from any man, but only by Revelation. He then talks about his trip to Arabia right after, and he didn’t go to Jerusalem for quite a while, which is in conflict with story in Acts. It also highlights his disagreements with Peter.

Day 348 - Acts 27 Ephesians 4–6 Proverbs 29:22-24

So Fr. Schmitz comments that when you go on a trip and you get some adversity, you’ll have to question whether you should be on that trip at all. And then he contrasts that with Paul who has all sorts of problems on his trips, but says that this is God’s will, and so was able to see those hardships in a new light. This is actually a good attitude to have and I think the stoics have the same attitude, but without all of the superstition. So the point is that the Christian faith is not always problematic. It has some good things and it has some advice that does actually help you through adversity. When you feel like you’ve messed up, Christianity offers you a way to feel forgiven and move on. These are all very good things but they come at the cost of believing a whole bunch of false things. The ideal would be to somehow obtain the benefits of those things without believing false things.

Day 362 - Revelation 12–14 Hebrews 1–4 Proverbs 31:19-22

Fr. Schmitz tells the story of the miracle at Guadalupe. I doubt things happened the way he says but I’ll look into it.

Day 365 - Revelation 21–22 Hebrews 11–13 Proverbs 31:30-31

So I’m done. Fr. Schmitz actually cried when he said goodbye on the last day. I really do appreciate his earnestness and his sense of humor. And even though I don’t agree with nearly anything that he says, in terms of content, I do thank him for the amount of time and effort that he put into this and his honest communication.
So this is the second time I’ve gone through the Bible. The first time I read it using a student Bible so I could understand what was going on but I felt that I skimmed a number of things and then paused to consider some of the stories.
I like the fact that I did it once as text and once being read to me. I think both have value.
I don’t think I will ever do this again. It’s an incredible amount of time. The advantage to the podcast is that you can be doing other things at the same time so it’s a bit more efficient time-wise but either way it is a big investment in time and I just don’t find the text itself to be very efficient in terms of the lessons that it’s trying to give . And I think that means that people just don’t read it. It’s probably good to read through once, but I am not going to do this again. However, I will read passages here and there and I will keep responding to religious claims where I see them.
It is my hope that I go through my notes here and compile them together so that I have a response to doing the Bible in a Year .