Anniversary!

Michael Reads the Bible is two years old today. "I'm guessing it will take more than a year, all told," I said, and it turns out I was right.

The project has turned out a lot different than I thought it would be. I'm working at a much finer level of detail than I expected, and perhaps not coincidentally getting a lot more out of the process than I expected. Too, I've been surprised by how quiet things have been. When I started the project, I imagined that there would be LOTS of Bible-reading blogs around, and that mine would attract a loud cluster of mostly very negative commenters and detractors. Instead, we've long since settled into an extremely modest and steady nine or ten readers a day, and the few comments have on the whole been very peaceful and respectful.

If a little lonely, though, the process has been continually rewarding. The Bible is, as I say almost every week, full of surprises, and its a rare session when I find in it what I expect. There's a lot of strange logic and a very alien cultural perspective on the world, and yet human behavior is very recognizably on parade, often at its sordid worst. Reading the Bible is like travelling to a faraway country where they think differently, act differently, and have created a different way of living in the world, and yet you recognize your shared humanity through and through.

Current expected completion date: Fall, 2012.