I have read the Bible many times, many years ago. This year I read the Quran for the first time (a translation, of course). I think there is value in reading those texts. There are parts of the Bible that are very poetic. I didn't find the Quran poetic, though.

Like others have mentioned, there is also much value in reading other philosophers. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, John Locke, Hume, Kant, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, and many others. And, those are just some of the Western Philosophers. I have found that some of the major differences in philosophical ideas started with the differences between the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Rafael's painting, "The School of Athens" , with Plato pointing his hand upward towards the heavens, and Aristotle with his hand towards the earth, depicts the differences of their philosophies.

Why in the world would you consider the largely self contradictory bible and alternative fact book of Mormon as a reference for morality?

For example: (Judges 11:29-40 NLT) Why would reading about how a follower of god killing his daughter so he can burn her flesh so his god can enjoy the smell of her burning flesh give you better understanding? Rather then try to keep track of all the errors and self contradictions in the bible, you really should use [skepticsannotatedbible.com] I know some who have purchased the book and highly recommend the read.

To understand the mindset you probably need a tutor or to take a Theology degree. The whole corpus is so vast and self-referencing it would be fruitless to try to engage meaningfully without a guide. It is a study in itself which has been undertaken for hundreds of years. For the most part it must be taken as allegory but you need to know the cultural questions that were being answered and the historical context in which they were placed. Just reading won’t help, understanding is what is required.

Reading the Bible will help you understand relatively regressive / primitive notions of morality and good conduct, as historically perceived by an elite priestly class whose main motivation was the management of the "sheeple".

One of the main category errors the Bible and derivative works like Book of Mormon commit is to physically locate sin in the temporal world generally and in the human body specifically. As such, sin is not a fundamentally solvable problem in this life, as we cannot live apart from the corruption of the flesh. It is only an imperfectly containable problem that can only be totally solved in the afterlife.

In my evangelical upbringing we sometimes referred to this as "positional truth" ... we have a promissory note to eventually be perfected and sinless in heaven, and we strive to prefigure that in our earthly existence. All in all, it's not a very impressive value proposition in the here and now, it is just a "trust me" promise from our heavenly godfather that he'll fix this Later.

Inevitably this all gets tangled up with a lot of self-loathing. If we are fundamentally sinful and even when we join the redeemed, must struggle with a disgusting, vile "sin nature", then it can not be otherwise.

It seems far more practical to see ourselves as a package of needs / wants / drives that are primal and unavoidable and therefore don't need to be judged. They simply have to be evaluated for whether they serve our rational self-interest (including that of the larger society we want to live within) under current circumstances. For example, natural selection fitted us with what we now call "confirmation bias", "agency inference", and a strong bias towards scanning the environment for potential threats while ignoring non-threats. Those three characteristics alone explain a great deal of the human condition.

Why do they exist? Because in the environment in which we evolved, it was a survival advantage to run from anything remotely resembling a predator, and ask questions later. That explains confirmation bias (the rustling bush is probably a threat) and agency inference (in fact it's probably a saber-toothed tiger rather than a wood thrush or a momentary breeze). It explains hyper-vigilance for possible threats and indifference to non-threats. But in the modern, technological, urban environment, these things usually ill serve us.

If you understand why you tend to think and "reason" as you do, and how you ought to think and reason, then you can work towards better thought-habits that will tend to produce, not mere survival, but enjoyment and fulfillment and purpose and meaning. Then, you have sensible reasons for learning skills such as delaying gratification and considering non-intuitive possibilities and being less tribal and so forth. And instead of working against self loathing, you are working with a real-world understanding of who and what you are and who and what you want to be.

At least, that's the way I try to approach it, that has produced far better results for me.

Don't regard holy books as wisdom literature except in a very limited and provisional sense.

Welcome to Agnostic!

Sorry to say this but you are wasting your time. Reading the bible won't help you understand the "general human experience". There are as many interpretations of the bible as there are believers. All you get is some good moral guidance and a lot of bad moral guidance. Telling the bad from the good, sin from just behavior is exactly the problem you seek to solve so after reading the bible you are back where you started. Which parts of the bible should you follow and which ignore? Should you wear mixed fabrics? How many years can you keep a Hebrew slave? You see the dilemma? Try finding other sources for morality. There are plenty of philosophical authors you could seek out, modern and older ones. There are also plenty of moral lessons you can find in literature, art, movies ect. Just keep your eyes open, try to emphasize with other people and avoid harming them. Study psychology, sociology and other relevant sciences. It will benefit you more than any religious text ever could.