Yesterday i began reading Friedmans "Who really wrote the bible" and it is a deeply satisfying experience. I was looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the book, in particular, i am very interested in how it conflict with the typical WT explanation of how the bible came to be (which i find very confusing; i think its very hard to figure out how, exactly, the WT view the history of this periode), how usefull it has been in terms of reasoning with JWs, and experiences in general.
To kickstart, here is what the book has given me:
I have generally looked at the bible in a way i now see as quite naive, namely as a collection of more or less conflicting stories that made very little sence. I didnt really have a verbalized explanation of why it was like that beyond "the OT is silly". The WT explanations i am familiar with only add to the sillyness, mainly because they offer so straine explanations it only draw more attention to them.
If i just accept all of Friedmans explanation at face value, the bible suddenly make a lot more sence; there is a reason for why many strange things is like it was, and it tell a much larger story than a litteral christian/"atheist" reading of the stories reveal.
Rather than having a rather braindead God/Moses keep changing minds and make plainly self-contradictory or silly statements, many of the various stories now reflect very smart people who try to make sence of a changing political/religious situation, and interpret it based on past events and revelations. Its a lot more sattisfying than the brick-testemony level of reading the bible i was previously familiar with.