Tom Bissell --- who is sort of a lighter, breezier version of the kind of essayist David Foster Wallace was, and who has done a lot of serious writing about and in video games, which is not my thing at all but maybe HN's --- has a sort of travel/essay book about the apostles, where he visits each of their purported burial sites and uses that as a starting point for an essay about some aspect of the region, the particular apostle, or some broader aspect of christian faith, which you might find interesting.
I do think coming into it without any particular expectations, and while watching secular videos about it, was actually helpful in being able to get something out of the text. I was raised Catholic but I guess my upbringing wasn't particularly rigorous in that way so I didn't have that many preconceived notions about what the text was "supposed to" say.