Have you read the Bible?

[Shawn]

I've read about half in a cover-to-cover sense. That includes both the King James Version and the Living Bible. It's a foundation of our culture. There's a lot of financial wisdom, like how much interest to charge "your neighbor" in business transactions. I especially like Proverbs. Lots of helpful tips.

[brewer12345]

Uh, not sure about cover to cover, although eventually I will find the time. It took pretty much an entire school year to get through the Pentateuch, since when you study the bible under the Jesuits, you STUDY. I think I read more of what St. Jerome had to say about the text than actual text itself that year. But I learned an awful lot.

[Khan]

Yes.

Read the King James version at age 16 or so. Also read complete versions of Greek and Norse mythologies.

They are the basis of much European/Western/Modern thought/philosophy and there are many nuggets of wisdom therein.

Solomon's proverbs are especially ageless.

[jambo101]

I like Revelations the best its kinda like 2000yr old Sci-Fi.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Bits and chunks - a tad in the Greek, which was enough to make one realise that translation is the very devil.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

I've read the majority of the Protestant Bible in English; I've skipped the boring parts like the geneologies. I've also read several NT books in NT Greek. I also authored my own translation of the majority of the book of Revelation. My experience was that most of the English translations (of the NT, at least) were accurate. I didn't like the paraphrase versions much, but that I think is personal preference.

2Cor521

[Fireup2020]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Want2retire You know, its as though Trek read my mind. I have been thinking of actually buying a King James version of the Bible and reading it again. I'm STILL not religious. I am a spiritual person, though, and I find the Bible to be intriguing. So much of who I am, as a person and as an American, comes from the Bible. It's intrinsic to our culture and heritage, whether we are Christians or not. I learned a lot, and really there are a lot of interesting stories in it too.

WTR, your post makes me WANT to read it "cover to cover" now! Lord only knows how much of it we studied in Catechism, but I will not pretend to admit to reading the whole book! (so my answer is "no")

[Zipper]

You've got to be kidding?

[Arc]

Yes - I forget the name - may have been called the Daily Bible or the Everyday Bible as it was set up so you would read a few scriptures of both the New and Old Testament everyday. Also recently purchased the Bible on CD since I travel a lot - can be tough to listen to in the car as the mind tends to wander.

[calmloki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecondCor521 Can you clarify what you mean by this? I've read the majority of the Protestant Bible in English; I've skipped the boring parts like the geneologies. I've also read several NT books in NT Greek. I also authored my own translation of the majority of the book of Revelation. My experience was that most of the English translations (of the NT, at least) were accurate. I didn't like the paraphrase versions much, but that I think is personal preference. 2Cor521

Hats off to your more extensive work. From long ago memory for me; "In the beginning was the word". Logos = word? reason? logic? thought? That's just one word. Whose definition of that one word do we accept? Why do we think that definition is the same as it was 2000 years ago? Are words adequate to express thought, more, presumably inspired thought? If words are a poor reflection of divine inspiration, does that inspiration improve or become worse with each suceeding translation? I applaud the difficult work of translation, but believe that each translator's era, life, leanings, and learning colors his translation and changes the feeling and sense of the translated material.

[bssc]

Yes for my Bibilical History course in college. And it was the Catholic Bible with all the extra books like Tobit, Judith and Baruch.

[hogtied]

yes, three times, KJV

[clifp]

I read the Bible pretty much cover to cover (ok I skimmed the begat stuff and few other things) after 7th grade. I stopped going going to church after reading it. 35 years latter I have to say I remember very little of it.

[Sarah in SC]

My DH just finished that AJ Jacobs book, A Year of Living Biblically, and really enjoyed it. I think the author is a writer for Esquire. Not the same as reading the bible, but thought I'd put it out there.

Nope, read pieces here and there, but never the whole enchilada.

[fisherman]

Yes. Cover to cover once. Not the best way to read it however. I prefer the study guide methods with a Bible dictionary at hand.

I have also read some of the Koran but not all.

[Orchidflower]

rustic23, yup, I am a history buff, and your course at college sounds really interesting. But I just never had a desire to read the Bible. I saw my Grandmother read the Bible every single day of her life at her mid-afternoon break, tho. Guess it is just not mah thang.

[Bigritchie]

Yes.

Some people may wonder why the family trees are in there so much, but check this out.

If you take the first 10 people in line from Adam to Noah.

HEBREW------------------------------English
Adam----------------------------------Man
Seth-----------------------------------Appointed
Enosh----------------------------------Mortal

Kenan----------------------------------Sorrow
Mahalalel-------------------------------The Blessed God
Jared-----------------------------------Shall Come down
Enoch----------------------------------Teaching
Methuselah------------------------------His death shall bring
Lamech----------------------------------The Despairing
Noah-------------------------------------Rest or/and Comfort.

So what those first 10 names say is. "Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) his death shall bring the despairing rest.

[Eyerishgold]

Nope.

If I wanted to read fiction I'd pick up a James Patterson, Tom Clancy or John Grisham novel. or

[HFWR]

Where did Adam's and Eve's daughters-in-law come from?

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eyerishgold Nope. If I wanted to read fiction I'd pick up a James Patterson, Tom Clancy or John Grisham novel. or

I found this interesting:

Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Does not appear to be any compelling contemporaneous accounts or physical evidence of his life. Physical evidence being lost/destroyed over 2000 years is not too surprising, but the apparent lack of contemporaneous accounts surprises me. I always assumed this was well documented, whether you believe the religious aspect or not.

-ERD50

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Hats off to your more extensive work. From long ago memory for me; "In the beginning was the word". Logos = word? reason? logic? thought? That's just one word. Whose definition of that one word do we accept? Why do we think that definition is the same as it was 2000 years ago? Are words adequate to express thought, more, presumably inspired thought? If words are a poor reflection of divine inspiration, does that inspiration improve or become worse with each suceeding translation? I applaud the difficult work of translation, but believe that each translator's era, life, leanings, and learning colors his translation and changes the feeling and sense of the translated material.

Thanks for clarifying. I think I understand a little better where you are coming from now. I disagree with your perspective, however.

Words gain clarity and meaning when put into a larger context. If I ask "What does the word 'set' mean?" that is a nonsensical question. I could be referring to a noun or a verb. But if I start a sentence with "Pythagoras hypothesized that a set of points...", the meaning of set in that context becomes clearer, if not perfectly clear. I would argue that the same holds true in translation work. The choice of how to translate any given word is constrained by the context of the passage, other parallel passages, the remainder of the book, the known historical time period in which the book was written, etc.

It's a bit like Sudoku -- there's a sort of iterative process where you start by figuring out what some numbers have to be, then you get into a large middle area where you might have to guess and say I think that's a "5", and if so that means that must be a "3", and at the end you can tell whether you've got a good solution because it all fits together.

Your point about how do we know what a word means is an interesting one, and honestly I don't know the answer, but I suspect it is a similar sort of triangulation as I have already mentioned, where scholars of antiquity figure out what the words mean by the way they are used in other documents. Also, in the case of Greek, we have a little bit of a head start because, as I understand it, modern Greek is similar to ancient Greek, at least in some of the vocabulary and most of the alphabet.

Just to clarify something for those who may misinterpret your comment about "succeeding translations" -- the modern translations of the Bible of which I am aware are not translated from other intermediate translations, a la the old "telephone game". The process is that thousands of existing ancient Biblical texts have been compiled, compared and contrasted. Through a fascinating and complicated process called "textual criticism" -- which I have also done a little bit of -- the original text (the "autograph") can be reconstructed with a great deal of accuracy. It is from this reconstructed original text that the modern translators translate and generate their new version.

I should also add that most modern translations of which I am aware are a team effort. Initial translations are reviewed by other members of the team, and changes are made when appropriate.

I do agree with you on one thing, though, and that is that modern translations typically have a set of prioritized goals for their translation. Often, these goals are mutually exclusive. For example, one goal might be to adhere as closely and literally as possible to the original sentence structure. Another goal might be to make the translation flow well in English. A third goal might be to attempt to amplify, in a less literal way, what the original author has expressed in the original language. I think even if you don't want to go learn ancient Greek and textual criticism and so forth, you can both get a sense of the differences between the various translations as well as a sense of the underlying original Greek text by reading different modern English translations.

2Cor521