The Bible was handed down to me as a life manual, a moral handbook, and an arbiter of true science and history that would protect me from the dastardly evils of evolution and atheism. “If you got doubts,” they would say, “you ain’t reading your Bible enough.”
And when my pastors and Sunday school teachers said to look to the Bible for answers, they meant that quite literally: If the Bible said God created the Earth in six days, then that’s what it meant. If the Bible said a man survived in the belly of a big fish for three days, who was I to question it? The Bible was the “bread of life,” and if I feasted on it (and it alone), I would not be left wanting.
As a kid, I never questioned this literal approach. Raised on a healthy diet of VeggieTales, the children’s show featuring cartoon vegetables who teach Bible stories, I grew into a Sunday school honor student who figured myself a sort of youth group hero. I didn’t spend much time reading the Bible for myself (who needs to read when you can learn vicariously through Sunday school teachers and talking vegetables?), but I knew the basics: John 3:16, the Roman’s Road to Salvation, Jeremiah 29:11, and Philippians 4:13. I knew about David and Goliath. I knew about Daniel and his friends, Rack, Shack, and Benny. I knew about Abraham and Joseph and Moses and Joshua and Jesus. I knew about Peter and his water-walking, and Paul’s transformation on the road to Damascus.
