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Last summer, Slate deputy editor David Plotz, a Harvard-educated Reform Jew, found himself bored out of his mind at a cousin's bat mitzvah. Rather than feigning interest, he reached into the back of a pew and started to read an English translation of the Torah.

He opened to the soap opera-like saga of Jacob's sons seeking to avenge the rape of their sister Dinah—and found himself utterly engrossed. The experience became his impetus behind a Slate series called "Blogging the Bible." Started in September 2006, the blog records Plotz's progress and comments as he reads through the entire Old Testament, a couple of chapters at a time. The subtitle of the series: "What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book?"

Plotz is not a Christian—and he has taken heat for his occasionally irreverent tone—but he allows readers to see the Bible anew through the eyes of someone who set out to read it merely because it's so compelling. Plotz talked to Christianity Today in late January about his journey through Scripture.

You started "Blogging the Bible" in part because you realized you didn't know the Bible very well. Do you feel like you have a better handle on it now?

I'm still only half way through—just starting Ezekiel—but I feel like I have a sense of the whole story now: the basic start and finish of God's covenant, the Exodus and how that all goes south for Israel, and also the nature of God's laws—why they matter.

Increasingly, I sense why particular portions of the Bible have gotten picked out and why other stories that are just as compelling and lovely seem to get missed. I also have a sense of the rhythm of the book—how to read it, as it were. One reason that people don't read the Bible is its very unfamiliar language. It jumps around a lot. The prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, can be especially tough.

So we hang on to stories that are the easiest to retell?

I think so. With certain stories, the message or the moral lesson is very clear. It's sort of a straight-arrow shot. In other stories, it's not at all clear. There's one story that I find absolutely compelling, for example.

I had always heard about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were full of iniquity and crime and homosexuality. God punishes them for that. But what I had never heard was in chapter 18, where God stops by Abraham's tent—sort of just to say "Hi"—and Abraham gets into an argument with God. We have Abraham pleading for God to spare people's lives. He seems to represent the side of morality, and God seems rather cavalier. Yet it's this beautiful, beautiful encounter.

What is your religious background?

Both my parents were Jewish, so I grew up in a highly reformed Jewish family. We're full-on bacon-eating, cheeseburger-eating, lobster-eating Jews. My parents are steeped in Jewish cultural tradition and they strongly identify themselves as Jews, but they are not practicing Jews. My mother is the most well-read person that I know, but she has never read the Bible.

I stopped a lot of Jewish observances after my bar mitzvah. My wife is Israeli and strongly identifies herself as a Jew, but she isn't really observant either. We have little kids, though, and they go to a nursery in a synagogue, so we've been reevaluating things.

Your wife, Hanna Rosin, is a highly regarded religion reporter. Has this experience given you a greater appreciation for her work?

I think the opposite might actually be true. She has managed to cover religion for a long time without a lot of knowledge of Scripture. So it has been inspiring for her to see what I'm doing.

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February (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51