Is there a right way to read the bible? David Plotz, an unobservant Jew, was thumbing through the bible (Genesis to Chronicles) during his niece's bat mitzvah and encountered the story of Dinah, a quite gruesome tale. Why didn't he know about such a morally ambiguous story from Jewish school? So he decided to read the bible and blog about it. His blog postings have now been gathered into The Good Book. Plotz admits upfront that he has no training in biblical scholarship. But that doesn't stop him from drawing lessons from what he reads. For example, Samson and Delilah means "1. Women are deceptive and heartless. 2. Men are too stupid and sex-crazed to realize this."
Naturally, conservative Jewish and Christian scholars are jumping all over Plotz. How dare he tell us what these stories mean! One needs instruction to interpret the bible.
Actually, Plotz is saying these are what the stories mean to me. And I'll add they'll mean something different to each reader. So read it. Let it speak to you. Talk to others to find out what is says to them. Study it to find out what it has said over the ages. Don't worry about being right (unless you're a preacher or scholar), because the point is to let it become personal.
As for Dinah, she was raped, married off to her rapist, widowed when her brothers go on a murderous rampage, then listens to her father rebuke them for ruining his reputation. And she says nothing. The spiritual message? I have no idea. It probably has more to do with Jewish history than with insight into God.
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