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I don't usually link to other blogs, but this is good, and may be important to some readers of this:
http://moosenorseman.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/why-i-dont-read-the-bible/
The person whom I have met that seemed to know the Bible most deeply, told me he had done the same - listed to audio recordings several times.
So (unless you can afford to pay an actual living person to do it) this may be about the best and most Christian way to make use of the internet - Listen to Scripture!
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Note: If I am listening for understanding (rather than for beauty) my favourite reader is Max McLean - who is dramatic, engaged, and gets the meaning across very well:
http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/audio/
McLean has read several versions including the King James/ Authorized Version - which I use because I believe it to be divinely inspired; the NIV which is easiest to understand and popular among Evangelicals (paraphrased verse by verse); and the ESV which is considered by some modern Protestant scholars of the 'Inerrant' tradition to be the most accurate translation by scholarly criteria, word for word.
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I dislike listening to recorded books -- can't force myself to do it for more than a few minutes. However, all through my childhood and teenage years we had daily "family scripture study," where we would read to each other aloud from the Bible and the Mormon scriptures, so I was exposed to spoken scripture in that way. I would say that, yes, hearing scripture spoken (and speaking it oneself) fixes it more firmly in the memory than does reading alone.
ReplyDeleteI might also mention that my familiarity with Tolkien's works comes almost entirely from listening to my father read them aloud. I don't think I've ever actually read The Lord of the Rings myself from cover to cover. Nevertheless, I remember it in much greater detail than many books which I have read. Listening is, I suppose, much more natural than reading, and our brains receive it better.
(Still, though, I find it intolerable unless an actual flesh-and-blood person is involved. I can't even listen to non-musical radio programs, online TED talks, etc.)