I will never forget the time Pastor Shannon Anderson of Central Lutheran Church in Seattle held up a copy of the Bible and said firmly, "This is not the Boy Scout Manual. It is not a book of answers. It is a book of questions!"

Not a collection of "Final Answers," but a book that raises topics for discussion

In "The Bible as Literature" course that I took in the English Department at the U. of Washington many years ago, it was treated as a collection of legends and folk tales, much as in the previous quarter, we had studied "Beowulf." If one wished to discuss it as a religious book, those discussions had to take place outside the class.

Don Firth