I want to start reading my bible more, but I'm not sure what book I should start reading. I know that its a really bad idea to start in Genesis because of the ____ begat _____ over and over. So what do you think would be a good book to start with?
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I want to start reading my bible more, but I'm not sure what book I should start reading. I know that its a really bad idea to start in Genesis because of the ____ begat _____ over and over. So what do you think would be a good book to start with?
The book of Job
Why don't you start t the beginning with Genesis?
I'll have to agree with Virgil. Genesis is the creation stories, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, Methuselah, the Covenant with Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot, Jacob, and Joseph. These are some of the central stories of the Bible and some of the central stories of Western culture... and the foundation of the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Later books such as numbers can became tedious in documenting the heredity of who begat whom... but Genesis is one of the strongest books of the Bible. That said... Job is perhaps the single greatest book of the Bible... it deals with a central issue of the existence of God and evil... and I would not challenge the idea that it is a good place to start.
Just skip the stupid names. There's no point in reading that crap.
Juniper this is a serious discussion, so moderate your tone or you could end up like Jocky, unwanted and banned. :) The Book Of Mormon.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
:blush: Hey dude, my tone was SUPPOSED to be jovial and light-hearted, thank-you-very-much.Quote:
Originally Posted by jocky
No problem, everyone on Lit Net is aware that ' crap ' is a jovial and light hearted term, apart from the three thousand moderators. You are in danger of not going to heaven, even worse you could be barred from the forum. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
I've tried to read some of Genesis , But I can't really get that far into it. My brother suggested to start reading Mark, But I think I will try out Job. I've been in Romans a little bit and I fairly enjoyed it, But I got out of the habit of reading it. I used to really be into books about six years ago, and as soon as I hit high school, I just suddenly stopped reading almost altogether. I think not being in the habit of reading is what has hindered me from reading my bible.
Job, psalms, and proverbs are my personal favorites. psalms is super long thou. I also like jermaiha
I loved proverbs when I did a study on it a few summers back. I haven't really read any of Jeremiah or Psalms.Quote:
Originally Posted by stephofthenight
I believe you have uncovered the underlying problem here. It would seem that you first need to first rediscover your passion for reading, then perhaps start with something not quite so daunting as say; Genisis. I agree that Job is a must, but you might begin with a theme. Consider the Christmas season we are entering and read the prophecies of Isaiah and then to the infancy narrative in the Gospel of Luke.Quote:
Originally Posted by G4C Chiodos
Regardless, you must start reading which begins with turning off this confounded computer!
Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Haha. Thanks for the inspiration. I have a project to do so it won't be off anytime soon. But thanks for the help. Thanks everyone!Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
When we really have a passion to read the Bible through from cover to cover it becomes child's play and it is over far to soon. Then we go back and pick out eras, people and places that stick in our minds. As we remember some of the events, the places and people our mind will run it through like a video.
Be aware that all the translations I know of have doctrinal biases inserted by the theologians that produced them. Once you are familiar with the existing text then do your home work and go backwards in time and weed out the translation manipulations, the additions, the deletions that the organized churches have wrought upon the sacred text. You will be surprised and maybe even shocked, but you will then know the truth.
I would start with the book of John...
Are there seperate sales of each book... I mean can one get the book of John as a seperate book?
Well, I've read the first four.
Genesis and Exodus are the books that I know best, so they were the most rewarding to me.
I personally think Numbers mostly just outlines rules, good if that's what you are interested in.
It makes more sense to read in order, I think. Particularily because it is hard to understand when you have no ideea who the people they are talking about actually are and how history has created them.
That is just what I think though.
I suggest starting from the beginning, it made sense to me like that.
I think Psalms and Revelations, Songs of Solomon, are pretty good to start with. They don't always have anything to do with any particular story in detail and can quite often just be offering praise, I think.
Maybe I should just quit while I'm here, whenever I talk about topics as religion, politics, economics, I always end up in an arguement.
You can buy the books separately but with so many inexpensive Bibles why would you?
Bibles are not all the same, the first thing to do is decide from which base text you would like to read, Alexandrian, Syriac or Byzantine. My preference is the Alexandrian Text because it is the oldest and most reliable. With all the hubbub about the different texts the Alexandrian OT matches the NT very well (They were both Greek Texts) One reason the organized church does not like the Alexandrian texts is because they contain the Intertestamental books the church has banned and it can be found and read minus the translation manipulations of later theologians.
However each to his own.
Threads on this and similar topics have proliferated recently. I wonder why?
I agree with Gilliatt Gurgle that a passion for reading is fundamental.Quote:
Originally Posted by G4C Chiodos
Some books of the Bible are more enjoyable to me than others. I noticed that many respondents in this thread identified Psalms and Proverbs as favorites; for various reasons, I have a hard time reading those two.
Ecclesiastes, by contrast, hooked me immediately, and perhaps I've continued to enjoy it so much because I identify with it. Song of Songs is another that I've liked from the start. There are so many different ways to approach that book, and so much to extrapolate from it, from both literary and theological perspectives.
I agree that a timely Christmas reading might be in order. My interest in the Christian religion began when I read the 4 Gospels during a Christmas week.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maryd.
You can get each book of the Bible separately. The reason to do so, I think, would be the space available for textual notes and commentary. I've got a 300 page book on the Gospel of Luke that I hope to read someday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rozzy
Hi Rozzy. Do you know whether modern editions/translations of the Bible include the most historically viable material from all available texts? I know well that each translation contains bias, but I'm curious as to how they are derived from the earliest copies. I get the impression, from reading skeptics and believers alike, that there is something of a consensus regarding the earliest, most viable Biblical material.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rozzy
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
Sounds like a great idea. However I don't own a bible at home... Except the children's one, that they had to purchase for school. May have to consider getting one. :nod:
I think it will be a great addition to your life. :) If read and contemplated at all (even from a skeptical point of view), I think think the Bible contributes greatly to a liberal education generally, and an understanding of the world at large.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maryd.
I have a couple dozen Bibles, and these translations seem to always be hanging around:
ESV
KJV
NLT
NAB
NASB
RSV
HCSB
NKJV
Let me know if you ever want help picking a translation. :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
Shoutgrace
I can see what you mean by the convenience of using individual books with lots of room for notes.
Bible versions and the texts they are based on is always a controversial subject because of intense indoctrination to a particular view or set of doctrines. My personal conclusions are drawn on a very long time of research and discovery.
I do not know of one modern Bible version, edition or publication that is true to the text it is drawn on. Even on the Bibles I do use I am also aware of the translation manipulations in them and recognize them as I read them. Although I can teach out of any version there is, there is a lot I do not like about a lot of them. Key and main doctrines of the christian church have steadily morphed since the late 1800's through to now. There are key points in history in which major change has taken place, controversial at the time but soon forgotten by the next generation, much of which is hidden and even denied today even though there are many smoking guns from the past showing up all over.
A good example of what I mean concerning Bible translations, the new publication of scriptures called "The NETS Bible" claims to be a fresh and timely translation of the Septuagint. You would expect this Bible to then be faithful to the original Greek MS and in a more modern English, right?
What the NETS Bible actually is is an attempt to bring the ancient Greek text closer to the Masoretic text there by artificially harmonizing scripture from two completely different sources.
The following is a public comment I made on the comment part of a sales page for NETS.
Though the NETS Bible calls itself a new translation of the Septuagint it is really a publication designed to draw the Septuagint closer to the Hebrew text. The NETS translators consider the Septuagint subservient to the Hebrew (Masoretic Text) while not taking into consideration that the Septuagint and Masoretic texts are from two separate and distinct sets of MSS. The idea that the Septuagint is an inferior text has always plagued translators when in fact this is not the case. The publication of the DSS proved the existance of two separate and distinct MSS of the Hebrew scriptures though the proof was withheld until 1991 when outside pressure forced their release. All this monkey business in churchdom..............
Typically you can get the New Testament by itself, but it usually isn't broken down any more than that. Some of the books are really books at all. Philemon is only a page long...a partial page at that. It was a letter written by Paul to Philemon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maryd.
Check out...
www.biblegateway.com
I use the NKJ, but the ESV is another accurate modern day translation. There is a difference between translations (word for word translations), and those that are merely version (some are paraphrases).
I think the major contemporary editions are all quite good. From what I've read (upfront, I'm no biblical scholar) they tend to reach a consensus position on the meaning from various sources of "original" texts. I put original in quotations because there are no original texts. For instance when it comes to the New Testament we certainly don't have the ortiginal texts, we don't have copies of the original texts, we don't have copies of the copies of the original texts. What we have is probably at least four copies removed. At best we have fragments of a page from the Gospel of John from the middle of the 2nd century, and that wasn't an original either. I don't think we have a full text of a single book or epistle prior to the third century. That's three hundred years from when the events were reported to have happened. And just think of all the errors that handscribing accumulates, from one to the other to the other. Things are inserted in some that are not in others; things are left out in some and not in others. What scholars do is compare the early surviving texts and come to some assumption as to what the original was like, based on a comparison of the surviving texts. It's not different at all from what scholars do with ancient classical texts. Same issues there too. If you look across the good translations, they seem to agree for the most part. You can find all the translations on the internet (just google or yahoo it) and have side by side comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
Since I'm Catholic I usually go to the NAB, but I do like the NIV also. For me, I go by the sound of the English rather than accuracy, simply because I have no idea which is most accurate. If accuracy is important to me for any particular verse I'm looking up, I will compare across the various translations. I prefer the modern language translations, because I'm usually more interested in clarity.
For the more frugal amongst you, you can always track down a Gideon and get a free Bible! I have like 5 Gideon New Testament Bibles hanging around my house, and I'm an atheist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I shop for mine in hotel rooms, I even scored a book of Mormon once.
Virgil
Most people think the translators have played it straight with them, to bad they have not.
Simple and easy to spot, where your bible says "end of the world" the real text says end of the age, that is no little difference. Where your bible says "eternal punishment" the real text says age of correction or you can even go age of punishment if you like but no where does the real text say eternal punishment for any one. If you think I am off my rocker all you have to do is check it out. That is only a sample but it gives you an idea what they have done.
The entire OT has been switched from the original text, sounds preposterous doesn't it? Well all you have to do is go into the NT in about any English translation you like and then find verses that are quoting OT verses, comments by the Disciples or even Christ Himself. Then match them to the appropriate scriptures in the OT of the very Bible you got them out of, they do not match. Then take the very same quotes and match them to a Septuagint OT and they match perfectly.
Odd how theologians denigrate the Septuagint and called it inferior when all the time knowing full well it is the Bible of the Apostles and Christ Himself.
Feel free to test the text against what I have posted and see if it is right. Do not be to surprised at what you will find when you do because there is a whole lot more.
If, as believers believe, it's a story, I'd suggest starting at the beginning.
Failing that, do it by your preferred genre.
Biography - Luke or Matthew
Sword and Sorcery - Revelations
Sex - Song of Solomon
Travelogue - Paul's letters
Talking animals and Fantasy - Genesis
War and tribal myth - Exodus
Heroic adventure - Samuel, and the middle books of the Old Testament
Growing a new business - Acts of the Apostles
So many people are telling me to try different books, and I still don't know which one to start with. I think I'll either try to start from Genesis or Randomly place my finger on the list of all of the books. But thanks for all of the help and advice on the translations.
Start with Daniel, kewl stories, prophecy and there is some short books in the Apocrypha of the KJV, Brentons and others that are a real kewl read to go along with it.
Thanks Shoutgrace, will do... (Have to go out and buy one first :thumbs_up)Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
I read a lot, but every time I start to read the Bible, I stop. All those begats are too much of a pain however much you read! Try reading Dickens or Tolstoy, they should get you reading. Then try Shakespeare.Quote:
Originally Posted by G4C Chiodos
Woohoo Shakespeare!!Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
I suppose there are a few different types of bibles.
The one I got for school made it all sound light and fluffy, and a lot shorter than it could be.
I agree, and vote for the Gospel of John. Job, Ecclesiates, the Psalms, and all the rest are great, but as a Christian I look to the New Testament for inspiration, and the Gospel of John affects me the most. I think that his portrayal of he Life of Christ is the most compelling.Quote:
Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC
Add me to those that think the Gospel of John is the most compelling. But let's put in a good word for Luke for this time of year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli
My favourite Evangelist. Or maybe I shouldn't pick favourites. There is more, I think, to say about women and children. I like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Most people think the translators have played it straight with them, to bad they have not.
Simple and easy to spot, where your bible says "end of the world" the real text says end of the age, that is no little difference. Where your bible says "eternal punishment" the real text says age of correction or you can even go age of punishment...
The entire OT has been switched from the original text, sounds preposterous doesn't it?
Odd how theologians denigrate the Septuagint and called it inferior when all the time knowing full well it is the Bible of the Apostles and Christ Himself.
I think that most educated readers who approach the Bible as a work of literature (whether they believe it to be something more or not) realize that translation always entails a certain degree of loss... especially when dealing with a work that is thousands of years old and has no single undisputed "original" text. You speak of the "original" text? What is the original text. With the exception of the fragments discovered recently (ie. the "Dead Sea Scrolls") there is no extant Hebrew Bible in existence which can be dated to anything earlier than the 9th or 10 century AD. The Septuagint may indeed be the closest we get as it provided a Greek translation for the Greek-speaking Jewish communities... and "Old Testament" portions of the Septuagint may date from the 3rd c. BC.
The Masoretic Text is the oldest known Hebrew version of the Hebrew Bible dating to the Rabbinical council dating around 100 AD in which the Septuagint was set aside and the "official" Hebrew text was established... almost certainly through a great deal of translation back into Hebrew from the Greek of the Setuagint and other sources. The Masoretic Text had the advantage over most of the Christian translations of maintaining a strict consistency over the centuries.
And then there is the "Vulgate"... or skipping over the tainted translations in Old Latin... there is Jerome's Bible which employed sources that may predate... or have greater claim to being the "original" text than does the Septuagint. Jerome documents having employed originally a range of Greek translations. Later he speaks of employing a manuscript known as the Hexapla which was prepared by the Greek theologian, Origen (c. 185-254). This was a six-columned text including the "original" Hebrew, the same Hebrew transliterated into the Greek alphabet, and four different Greek translations. This book, unfortunately, is lost to us. Still... considering Jerome's scrupulous editorial nature it is quite likely that the Hebrew texts he employed were quite sound.
It would seem that all three of these elder translations may lay similar claim to the title of the "original text"... at least prior to the discovery of the "dead Sea Scrolls". The Dead Sea scrolls consist of about 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Qumran Wadi on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts include some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 BCE. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and are most commonly identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic Text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.
The Authorized King James Version of the Bible was translated employing a variety of sources. The Old Testament was largely translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek Septuagint, except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate. At the same time, instructions were given to avoid the Puritan or Protestant elements... retaining terms such as "the church" rather than the Protestant "congregation". The text of the Bishops' Bible would serve as the primary guide for the translators. The translators were permitted to consult other translations from a pre-approved list: the Tyndale Bible (from which such a large portion of the KJV comes that some have credited him along with Shakespeare as the inventors of the Modern English language), the Coverdale Bible, Matthew's Bible, the Great Bible, and the Geneva Bible. In addition, later scholars have detected an influence on the Authorized Version from the translations of Taverner's Bible and the New Testament of the Douai-Rheims Bible.
Personally, of any complete Bible translation in English. I prefer the King James Version. There may be more recent translations that lay greater claim to literal clarity... but I don't see literal clarity as a key element of the Bible. It is quite often a poetic text laden with symbols and metaphors. There may be more recent translations that draw more clearly upon a single "original text"... yet the question still remains as to which "original text" is the most valid. And certainly there are translations of individual books that I find are of equal or greater merit to the same within the KJV. I quite admire Chana and Ariel Bloch's translations of the Song of Songs, Stephen Mitchell's thought-provoking translation of Job, Robert Alter's Five Books of Moses and Book of Psalms (to say nothing of the endless magnificent translations of various Psalms by British poets ranging from Milton to Sidney to Smart to Coleridge.)
Aha. Yer... Now that's what I meant... I think.
I'd get one of those ultra-short childrens editions if you only want something brief to start off with.
Then maybe I'd move onto some other religions, I'm interested in all of that stuff.
As long as you take it all with a grain of salt, probably that is where I think Revelations can be a bit interesting.
Well maybe you should start with some of the smaller readings first. Keeping you "captivated" seems to be a little bit of an issue.:) I don't reccomend reading most of the new testament. (Except John and Revelation) It's good to dabble, if you will, in the old testament to see what God's personality is like. Anyhow, I mean books like Jonah, Ruth, Nahum, Obadiah and so forth. Small readings with much wisdom and information. Once you read these testimonies and relate them to each other it's quite fascinating. Just a suggestion. Always favourites of mine were Psalms and Proverbs and I think this falls true with most individuals because they are "easy" to read books. Take care!!Quote:
Originally Posted by G4C Chiodos