An Ongoing Epiphany

I am going to change how I read the Bible. I was trained from a small child to read and consider it God's perfect, infallible, literal word to humankind. For the past few years I have not known what to think, except that it was mostly written and compiled by males for males, who deliberately excluded women in many ways. But this morning I realized I could read it for what it is: certain writers' understanding of the divine, a record of certain people's experiences, and one which was interpreted from the original languages by people (usually male) far removed from the cultures and times in which the original writers lived. I would read any other collection of religious or philosophical writing that way (Upanishads, Koran, Lotus Sutra, etc.). Why not the Bible? Only because of indoctrination, that's why.

I am not a Christian because of the Bible....