Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on August 11, 2010 at 4:48am

I'm currently on Genesis 22. I just started today and I'll probably read a little bit each night. Its gonna take a while lol.

Permalink Reply by Vernard Mercader on October 9, 2010 at 2:25am

When I was a Christian I have a bible Mentor who's name is "Eli". He's known in my country as a "walking Bible". Pick a word, like "Lion", and he'll tell you the exact Book, Chapter, and verse where you'll find the instance of that word.

Of course, him being our mentor (and he only had two students, me and my late love-of-my-life), we're described as apprentice walking bibles.

We were just "Christians". After splitting away from Catholicism, I didn't belong to any other christian sect (protestantism) that are known around (Baptist, Methodist, Born-Again, Church of Christ)... our little group, where only known as "Followers of the old path", a group practicing on what a real christian should be.

Though my atheism (which I am now) was brought by my mentor's own words: to use my reason and not my blind belief. He told me to question anybody whoever they may be. It was pretty ironic.

So anyway, it's a good thing that you are reading it. To quote Dave Silverman, the President of American Atheists, "I gave my daughter a bible. That's how you make an Atheist".

...And good choice of Bible, the King James version was our official one back in the old days.

Permalink Reply by Ava Wilson on October 9, 2010 at 1:44pm

I read the Bible when I was a Christian myself. I can't remember exact verses that way, I don't have the memory for it. I've never been the type to be able to memorize books. But when I read it again, I used a plain language version available online by a Christian group that sort of removes redundancies and 'thees' and 'thous' to clear up the language. It still stays adult-like, but has a modern ease to read it by, and I will probably end up giving it to my daughter, reading pages out of it, because reading it is what made me an Atheist as well.

Permalink Reply by Malcolm on October 9, 2010 at 8:21am

If you really want to understand what your Bible is saying, I would not recommend reading the KJV. Not only is it difficult to understand the archaic language, but it is based on poor translations and late manuscripts. While I am not aware of any commonly used translation that is both faithful to the original Greek (of the NT) and readily comprehensible, I would suggest the NIV. BibleGateway.com let's you choose from among more than a dozen versions in English along; sometimes it is helpful to toggle among several versions, especially Young's Literal Translation that they include, to get a better sense of the meaning of a difficult verse.

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on October 9, 2010 at 2:09pm

"Love to discuss as you read through (didn't you have a group for this?!?)"

well, thats kind of what THIS group is for. I just made a discussion for this very reason.

Permalink Reply by Kenneth Montville D.D. on January 10, 2011 at 11:59pm

Aramaic? Very few books were written in Aramaic. Only Ezra and Tobit come to mind off the top of my head but the whole of the canonical NT was written in Koine Greek. Being written in Aramaic was pretty much a deal breaker when it came down to Canonization. Hence, Ezra got in because it was written in both Hebrew and Aramaic but Tobit was left as a deuterocanon because it was entirely Aramaic.

 

Also, while I like the KJV for it's rawesome references to dragons and unicorns, it is pretty far from a good translation. I would rank the English Standard Version over the KJV in terms of translation and I'm not really fond of the ESV at all because of its purposeful mistranslations (written as a response to the RSV but made to pass the Isaiah 7:14 test). But then again, these books were never meant to be translated into a language as unwieldy as English.

Permalink Reply by Ava Wilson on October 9, 2010 at 1:46pm

http://www.godstruthtous.com/tablecot.htm For what I've read of it, this one is pretty faithful to the texts and easy to read. New Testament section is at the bottom.

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on October 9, 2010 at 1:52pm

I personally would rather not read the new international version. It seems very dumbed down to me and it looks like it could easily fall victim to inaccuracies...or at least misinterpretation due to the fact that it's been simplified.

Permalink Reply by Michael Sizer-Watt on October 9, 2010 at 10:38pm

This is by far the best translation IMO.

http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_1

I will be referring to the Catholic Bible in later stages of my research for the documentary I'm working on. I'll be able to contribute then. I grew up in a catholic family (church every week, catholic school) but have never actually read the bible front to back. I don't care to either frankly.

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on October 9, 2010 at 11:34pm

Catholic Bible? I know they have their own beliefs but I didn't know anyone actually published a bible about them.

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on October 9, 2010 at 7:11pm

Sometimes I sort of like the way things are phrased in the King James version. Yes, it is sometimes hard to understand but It kind of has a poetic flow to it.

Congress allows schools to use the bible as an example of literature. Since that is the case, I really can see how it can be viewed as good literature.

...but that's all.

Permalink Reply by Vernard Mercader on October 10, 2010 at 1:16pm

I find the Iliad a good literature, too. S'all good.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page