I read it years and years ago. I was a teenage flirting with joining the cult. Recently though I’ve in one of my obsessive learning periods with the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. I’m not reading it cover and probably won’t. Revelations, for example. It shouldn’t have been included imo. It’s about hating the Romans after the destruction of the temple in 70 ce. Most of my reading and reading about the Hebrew Bible with secondary sources is focused on the Pentateuch and Isaiah. Well, I do spend time with poor old Saul that ambitious maybe sociopathic David.
There is a man on YouTube named Dan McClellan who has a doctorate in the Hebrew Bible from Oxford who is great at helping navigate it. There are other scholars if you’re interested.
I used The New Oxford Annotated Bible. It has fascinating notes and introductions to each book. It also has the Apocrypha, the books leftout. I also spend some time with the so-called Gnostic Gospels, but not much. If you don’t want the annotated you should use the latest Oxford New Revised that isn’t annotated.
This is a lot. I get carried away when I’m into something.
I acknowledge that others are religious and may have a different approach. I’m not offending anyone. I’m presenting it from my perspective. They’re free to present from theirs.
Hope this helps. I can recommend some good books to read along if you want. “God: An Anatomy” is great about the beginning of the Hebrew and early Yahweh, the desert god of the southern Levant.
Hope this helps you get started.
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