Welcome and Please Introduce Yourself

[John]

The church fathers are important for a few reasons: they give a good picture of daily life in ancient culture, so they have a fair amount of socio/economic value as well as historical value. They also help guide the current church in orthodoxy, by exploring the Fathers you are gaining a foundation of the first Christian theology. In my opinion, reading/writing theology without this background not only would waste time, but may make you look silly, if you’re writing like it’s all your idea and in fact Clement said it in his letter to the Romans. I’m sure there are other reasons. One last one for me off the top of my head is I like to know where I’ve come from theologically and the roots of my faith.

[Nemo]

Ryan wrote: "The first question, Is it necessary to read The Bible either partially or entirely before reading the works of the Church Fathers? "

Welcome to the group, Ryan!

I think the answers to your questions depend largely on the reasons why you read the Church Fathers.

For example, one of the main reasons I read the Fathers is because I'm interested in how people in the ancient world lived, what they believed and why. As a result, my favourite classical authors tend to be those who were prolific writers, because they provide a more complete and colourful picture of the ancient world, and of themselves. It is possible, and enjoyable, to relate to those authors as human beings, to "rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep".

To answer your first question: Is it necessary to read the Bible before reading the Church Fathers?

I would say definitely yes, if you want to understand the lives and thoughts of these Church Fathers. For starters, they are called "Church Fathers" for a reason :) -- they believe in the Bible, so it is impossible to understand them, without knowing what it is that they believe. Secondly, they quote extensively from the Bible and other classical texts in their writings. So again, you would need a working knowledge of those references to understand their writings.

Which father should i read first?

You said you've read some Tertullian and Augustine. What do you think of them?

[Nemo]

Ryan wrote: " I just want to read the works of the Church Fathers so i can understand better the beliefs of the day, Among other things. ."

Have you gained some understanding of the beliefs of Tertullian and Augustine from reading excerpts of their works?

[Nemo]

Ryan wrote: "In fact i just finished the Book of Exodus last night and either tonight or tomorrow, I'll start the Book of Leviticus..."

I've read somewhere that most people who tried to read the Bible from cover to cover cannot get past Leviticus, so they never finish it.

It's a pity really. Because, even if one thinks of the Bible as nothing more than an ancient literary text, it is still one of the Great Classics of the Western World.

[John]

If you make it past Leviticus the other OT book to watch out for are Chronicles, combined I believe they contain over 7000 names!

[Nemo]

Ryan wrote: "Well i tried with reading the Book of Leviticus, And like so many others, I couldn't finish it, However it's not because it was necessarily boring, It was because i found the rules contained therein, To be not only useless but also a bit offensive in some sections.."

If we try to learn about cultures in difference times and places from our own, it's very likely that we'll find things strange and even offensive. IF the goal is to "understand better the beliefs of the day", as you say, I think we would need to understand things in their proper context. The ancients are human beings just as we are, and they have their rationale for doing things.

[Nemo]

John Angerer wrote: "If you make it past Leviticus the other OT book to watch out for are Chronicles, combined I believe they contain over 7000 names!"

Speaking as someone who likes reading history (and historical fiction), I find the Chronicles more interesting than Leviticus, wheres the latter is perhaps more important to those who have a serious interest in religious worship and rituals.

[Clark]

I know a person who came across an incident in the Hebrew Scripture in which a person cuts his dead wife/concubine into twelve pieces and sends one piece to each tribe of Israel (as a way of calling attention to her murder or similar). This disgusted her and she said she wasn't going to read any more and she more or less dismissed the whole of Hebrew Scripture.

The deal is that ancient Hebrews would have been, I think, much more disgusted than she was. Touching the dead and touching blood rendered one ritually unclean. So this action would be repulsive to them on deep wavelengths that she's not even receiving, along with the repulsiveness of the simple actions.

Now the deal is (I think) that this event is in a multi-chapter narrative in which people are doing Very Bad Stuff and it produces Very Bad Results. But the Biblical narrative doesn't shout this out as it does in many places. The previous chapter is about a family that hires an unnamed Levite to be their priest -- and they worship idols, and he is happily their priest, worshiping idols. Then an armed band comes and steals the idols and the Levite from that family. The chapter I'm talking about is about an unnamed Levite, not necessarily the same one. In the following narrative things continue downhill, when the tribes of Israel heed the appeal of the dismemberer and attack the tribe of Benjamin and nearly wipe it out. Wiping out one of the twelve tribes would be an Extremely Bad Thing but they decide not to do it.

My point is more or less what Nemo said in https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Clark]

Ryan said, "And when it comes to The Bible just being another ancient text, Yes, That's all the Bible is, Yes it may be important to history but when you think a bit deeper about it, The book is in reality, No more important than other ancient texts from the same time period such as Xenophon's Anabasis, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War or Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars."

I don't understand what you mean "no more important than other ancient texts from the same time." Please explain a little.

[Clark]

Ryan, I just can't see that the Bible is on the same level of "importance" as the other works you mentioned, by any reasonable standard, either in the ancient world alone or in later history and in the present day. The other books were and are significant, certainly. But (for instance) the Romans didn't have to send army after army to conquer and reconquer a nation motivated by Thucydides or Plato. There aren't a couple of billion people on the planet now who read and cite Tacitus or Euclid as the Word of God. A continuing, important element in the intellectual history of the West has been about the Bible and arguing with the Bible. The research into the Biblical manuscripts is the foundation for much of historical linguistics for all languages. Archaeology inspired by the search for Bible places was a huge impetus in the 20th century and led to great progress in learning about the ancient history of all of West Asia. Translators of the Bible into other languages have often been the first people to record other languages, develop writing systems for them, and even save them from extinction.

So if I "think about it" I conclude that the Bible is orders of magnitude more important than those other works, by any general measure I can think of, whether in ancient times alone, or throughout history.

[Clark]

Having said all that, I note that in my own intellectual life I concentrated on Aristotle and Plato. :-)