I'm reading the bible!

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sonofghandi
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06 Jan 2015, 3:05 pm

Skibz888 wrote:

I never had any problem reading the Bible straight through, but then again I can read James Joyce like a breeze, so I doubt I'm within anything except the minority.

You and me both, brother.

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Basso53
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06 Jan 2015, 4:39 pm

einsteinmyhero wrote:

reasons
1: academic study
2: to be the atheist who knows more about the bible than many Christians.

So far,god seems like the villain of this good,but VERY sexual, fairy tale. I'm just on exodus.

Wait until you get to the Song of Solomon. You ain't seen sexual yet.

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Protogenoi
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06 Jan 2015, 4:43 pm

Basso53 wrote:

einsteinmyhero wrote:

reasons
1: academic study
2: to be the atheist who knows more about the bible than many Christians.

So far,god seems like the villain of this good,but VERY sexual, fairy tale. I'm just on exodus.

Wait until you get to the Song of Solomon. You ain't seen sexual yet.

Solomon is the troll of the Bible... both of the most controversial books are his. haha

Yeah, Song of Solomon is basically erotic poetry

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06 Jan 2015, 6:12 pm

Protogenoi wrote:

kraftiekortie wrote:

.....

The New International Version, however, is written in modern English. It is easier to understand.

....

Ew... no. The NIV is a poor translation. It does very poorly in following the style of the original text. If your going to go with a modern translation there are better tran

While I agree, and personally prefer the original Jerusalem Bible for that reason, reading the Bible straight through for the first time could be done with almost any "readable" version. It's not like you're going to pick up the nuances with a straight quick read.

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06 Jan 2015, 6:23 pm

Skibz888 wrote:

Narrator wrote:

Skibz888 wrote:

It's not about which one is "real". In my hippie-dippie mind, all religions are more or less rivers leading to the same great ocean...you just have to find the boat which inherently fits you the best in order to row (man, I'm full of cheesy analogies tonight). It's really not all that different from finding a philosophy or political ideology.

For a short while I was attracted to that idea, though not convinced even for a second. The thing about that is, you either have to take one religion as a whole or not at all. When you start meddling with it, it becomes far more contradictory than it already is. You can't cherry-pick the bits you like without the religion itself losing integrity and crumbling. And almost all religions and most sects are in competition, regardless of what it says on the package.

I'm inclined to agree with this to some extent. The more I've studied religion the more I've sort of drifted away from denominational doctrine and closer to basic deism. Maybe my beliefs are starting to become more New Agey, but that's a whole other spectrum which I haven't found the time to research into yet.

That's where I got to a while back... the idea of a deity, but undescribed by religion. It occurred to me that if a deity (or even plural) exists, religion's attempts to offer a picture of this deity would be like an ant trying to explain the sun. Such a being would be a) totally beyond our comprehension, and b) as far removed from concern about us as we are from being concerned about individual quarks.

I was content to maintain this view for a while. But in the end, I realized that it gives me no more to work with than atheism. It made me understand that for all intents and purposes, I am functionally atheist. And this from a person who spent several decades believing in a personal God.

kraftiekortie
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06 Jan 2015, 6:31 pm

Any version which would be understandable for the first-time reader would be good for the OP, who is about 13 years old.

Janissy
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06 Jan 2015, 6:42 pm

A long time ago in college I studied Koine Greek for two years. For the first semester we just studied grammar and alphabet- basic literacy. The professor announced that in the second semester we would read the New Testament. I was terrified. I thought it would be so incredibly difficult and way over my head given only one semester's study of this dead language.

Weirdly (to me) it was an easy read. It seemed easier to understand (other than being in a foreign language) than the King James I was already familiar with. The sentence structures were simple and the vocabulary was limited enough that it didn't go past my little Greek/English dictionary. The professor explained that he always started students on the New Testament because it was deliberately written at a very accessible level. Going straight from Koine Greek to Modern English (as opposed to King James English) removed all the layer of obfuscation that came from trying to pretend that King James-era English was the same as today's English. It was such an easy read that it was downright refreshing.

Tragically, I wouldn't be able to pick to pick up an untranslated New Testament today and read it. That was >25 years ago and I haven't used the language since. :oops:

[The next year the professor had us read Homer and that was a struggle. I longed for the comparatively easy language of the New Testament even though The Odyssey was a pretty compelling action adventure story.]

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06 Jan 2015, 6:48 pm

You must pick up languages easily, Janissy!

You would have made an excellent Renaissance scholar. You would have probably been a great translator of Latin texts.

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06 Jan 2015, 6:53 pm

That's way cool, Janissy!!
Reminds me a little of my theology studies of the Pentateuch, except I didn't get to learn the language. :/

mr_bigmouth_502
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06 Jan 2015, 8:17 pm

I tried reading part of the "Skeptics Annotated Bible", and it simply made my head spin. Is there a version that's been translated into "modern" English, like a Cliff's Notes version? I remember using a Cliff's Notes version of Shakespeare's "Othello" in high school a few years ago, as there was simply no way I would have been able to understand the untranslated text.

kraftiekortie
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06 Jan 2015, 8:34 pm

For somebody who's a literature buff, the King James Bible contains much sublime stuff.

But its content is reflective of how language could change in 400 years. Imagine somebody from Shakespeare's time walking into a pub and listening to the conversation? He would be totally befuddled. Just like people with no experience with Shakespearean language would be befuddled by the King James Bible. It doesn't decrease the merit of the King James--not one bit.

But, in being introduced to the Bible, one should read one rendered in the 20th-21st century--preferably, of course, one which is well-translated from the original languages of the Bible.

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06 Jan 2015, 9:02 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

But, in being introduced to the Bible, one should read one rendered in the 20th-21st century--preferably, of course, one which is well-translated from the original languages of the Bible.

That's basically what I'm looking for. Are there any particular editions anyone recommends?

kraftiekortie
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06 Jan 2015, 9:03 pm

I'm not an expert on this.

But somebody recommended the "Jerusalem Bible."

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06 Jan 2015, 9:13 pm

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

kraftiekortie wrote:

But, in being introduced to the Bible, one should read one rendered in the 20th-21st century--preferably, of course, one which is well-translated from the original languages of the Bible.

That's basically what I'm looking for. Are there any particular editions anyone recommends?

For proper theology, my fav is the original Jerusalem Bible, which is now hard to get and is not available in an online version due to copyright restrictions. It uses the correct words rather than the generic or simplified words. For example, when an original author uses the word Elohim, most translations just use God. The Jerusalem Bible doesn't. It uses Elohim, Yahweh or whatever the original authors used.

But beware! The Jerusalem Bible also contains the Apocrypha... the books that many believe should not be included in the Bible. (Hence the term apocryphal.) But in the non western Christian world, there are several Bibles containing different books, including the Apocrypha and others.

kraftiekortie
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06 Jan 2015, 9:44 pm

Don't you agree that there's nothing wrong with including the Apocrypha together with any Bible--as long as it's represented as such?

Protogenoi
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06 Jan 2015, 10:14 pm

Janissy wrote:

[The next year the professor had us read Homer and that was a struggle. I longed for the comparatively easy language of the New Testament even though The Odyssey was a pretty compelling action adventure story.]

I studied Ancient Greek, which is an older variant of Greek than Koine... Koine is a heavily simplified version of Greek that became the basis for the large Greek empire, kind of the version of Greek people learned as a second language under Greek reign. It's diluted and extremely elegant. The New Testament is a good read in Greek. Now the Illiad or the Odyssey... that isn't so easy.

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