I was raised Catholic in a very conservative family. However the church of my childhood discouraged and even forbid the reading of the Bible. As a young adult I purchased a Bible and started reading it at random. Once I happened to come across the story of Onan and that was the starting point of my skepticism because it was super clear that Onan did not practise onanism as I was told hundreds of times by my teachers and by the priests. I started reading the Bible critically and that was the source of my agnosticism.

I like. "Once upon a time, there was nothing... which exploded." Thanks, Terry Pratchett! (Man I miss that brilliant author)

When doing historical research I use the New Jerusalem bible. When doing research for atheist issues I use the Skeptics Annotated Bible and the Cure for Fundamentalism. The cure is not a bible but goes through most of the problems within the bible with much greater detail.

The Skeptics Annotated Bible only had I believe one publishing and is very rare. It usually sells for about 300$ now if I remember correctly. If you watch Amazon and eBay it can be picked up for about 50.

They are both extremely valuable resources for one whom wishes to understand how flawed the bible actually is.

Well, the book is written by a lot of different people and different times. And a lot of it is letters telling other people that they are doing it wrong. I was writing the Blasphemers Revision Of The Bible back in 2000....when I had windows millenium edition....and my hard drive crashed when I was well over half way through....lost everything...never did get back to it...