It's really all about how much of a snob you want to be. I remain to think that the bible is a good, although maybe a bit too simple-minded, stepping stone for LOTR. That also means you can read them in chronological order.

"certain parties--*cough, Tea Party, cough*--are radically religious"
Since when is the tea party religiously radical?

The whole point of it was to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability to Washington.

That has 0 to do with Christianity.

I am an atheist, and I fully support Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and other tea partiers.

"No. The Tea Party is about fiscal responsibility, libertarianism, small government, opposition to bailouts, etc. Practically no religious component."

Michelle Bachmann? Sarah Palin?

I can look up others, but both of them--especially Bachmann--are noted for championing their Christian Conservative views.

Maybe it's possible they're two isolated cases, but they are prominent party members and arguably two of the most famous...

"Obi....A GREAT NUMBER of people attach ZERO redeeming value to Exodus."

Who?

I'm going to assume the religious attach some value to it...

And atheists attach value to it in either arguing against religion (ie, "Exodus provides prime examples of why we find religion immoral/implausible/etc.) and then you have folks who love to use it for films and movies, either directly or as a sort of inspiration.

Tell me who this great number is, because frankly, I'm not buying it--

In much the same way that I'm willing to bet at least half here are prepared to call the Adam and Eve story crap in terms of it actually happening, I'm willing to bet those same people would readily accede to the fact that it's been incredibly influential in terms of storytelling and works of art and literature, and you NEED to know the story of Adam and Eve and have that "cultural capital" if your going to get those references that symbolism when its used in other works of art, poetry, prose, etc.

The Bible is a great example of a living book whose meaning changes over time, partly with new translations and words changing their meaning, and partly as different parts gain prominence.

Books such as Lord of the Rings are a great work out for the mind. I first had it read to me when I was about 7, I read it for the first time when I was ten, and have read it several times since. Each time my imagination painted a different picture, ever more complex images than the last. It was a damned good story, and an excellent piece of mental exercise.

Catcher in the Rye was perhaps the most useful book I've ever read. It both saved me from wasting time reading any more 'great American novels' and helped keep me warm in winter with it's excellent combustible properties.

Ah...no love for Holden, Octavious? You must be a phony!

;)

And no love for any other "great American novels?"

The Great Gatsby?
To Kill a Mockingbird?
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
The Sound and the Fury?
Of Mice and Men?
Beloved?

No great American novels work for you?

I'll still take the British Canon over the American one--I think the British tradition's far richer, whereas I'd argue the American tradition is maybe more diverse--but still...

Plainsong

To Kill a Mockingbird is ok in a "forced to read it at school so might as well make the most of it" sort of way. The trouble I have with many of them is they tend to have a big focus on issues between whites and blacks which, living in a country where there is a 2% black population, doesn't really speak to me. I can see how to an American it's a big deal and all, but to me its all very tedious.

The colloquial language is often very alien and makes reading heavy going, which doesn't help. Perhaps the biggest problem I have is that the elements that, to an American reader may well anchor the story to some well known reality, to me does the opposite. Our nations in many ways are quite similar, but, to give a few examples, American farms work very differently to British farms, and the American countryside is nothing like the British countryside. The overall effect is a book full of people you don't like doing things that don't make sense in an alien landscape. I tend to get a few chapters in before realising I just don't care.

Catch 22 I quite liked ;)

The only litt. that counts is Sci-Fi.

Octavious, I disagree with most--but not all--of your comment, "The Bible is a great example of a living book whose meaning changes over time, partly with new translations and words changing their meaning, and partly as different parts gain prominence."

Christian churches consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God in the original, and that God inspired men to write parts of it over quite a long period of time and in quite a few different places, but we don't have the very first original copies, so yes there are slight differences between our oldest surviving copies. The Dead Sea Scrolls pushed that back further into the past and closer to the originals, and guess what? The versions of Isaiah etc. in the Scrolls were identical to the later versions we already had, except for what are really very few minor differences in spelling or wording. That's remarkable for a book that is thousands of years old, don't you think, considering that even such recent books as Bradbury's The Illustrated Man has more stories in some versions than in others.

Regarding translations, yes, our modern translations are more accurate renditions of the original languages than the King James Version and other older versions because we have the benefit of a couple of hundred more years of scholarship and archaeology (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls referenced above). In other cases, English itself has changed the meaning of several words since the King James was published. For example, the word "prove" in I Thessalonians 5:21 is now translated as "test" in most modern translations, because the meaning of the English word "prove" is different now that it was 200-300 years ago. http://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Thessalonians%205:21

"I'm going to assume the religious attach some value to it..."

Yes, Obi, the "religious" attach value to exodus. And you are somehow making the assinine assumption that every human is religious and Christian? Uhhhh....NOT. And, as I have stated before, the sad majority of Chrisitans I meet haven't actually *read* the Bible....instead they sit in Sunday school and have pablum stories told to them.

It's rather hilarious that this atheist-leaning Jew on WebDip is trying to tell me what great value Exodus holds for the world.

Your a ridiculous fool sometimes, Obi.

OK...people that don't place a lot of value in Exodus other than it's value as a fairy tale they may or may not know of: Atheists, HIndus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Christians that don't read their Bible (i.e. most), Muslims...shall I go on?

So we believe that the original documents were inspired by God, and translators go back to the oldest sources, the closest to the original, when revising a translation. Then there are many options when translating from one language to another, because languages don't make much sense when translated word-for-word. Some languages don't have the words "the" or "a/an," for example, other languages don't have prepositions, some languages have verbs that specify who is speaking (Swedish has one form, English has two forms, Spanish has five forms in the present tense), some languages, including Greek, put a different ending on a person's name if the person is being addressed directly or just being talked about, and that's just scratching the surface. So no, the Bible doesn't change meaning over time, but yes, some parts become more popular than others at different times in history, and yes, there are many different translations, but they are close in meaning.

Serious students of the Bible use tools such as Hebrew- and Greek-English dictionaries (Koine Greek, the variety spoken in Jesus' day), interlinear translations that list both the Greek words and a pronunciation key between the lines of the English text (there's an example here but it doesn't have the pronunciation key: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Thessalonians%205:21&version=MOUNCE , various commentaries on the meaning of various chapters, etc.).

"And atheists attach value to it in either arguing against religion"
Now you are just getting stupid. So, to you, by your example, if I stick 100 monkeys in a room and each have them pound out a page and I bind them together and call it literature, it has value, and is therefore great literature. "Why do you say this, krellin? That seems absurd!" you say.

"Simple, my good friend Obi, because I called it literature, and I will now debate its merit with whomever I can find..."

THAT is the standard of good literature you have now defined by saying Exodus has value because the atheists think it's stupid.

So, to pivot and clarify even further I'll say this: the religious that do place value on Exodus do not place value on it as a "piece of literature", any more than they value their math book as "literature" -- it is an instructional tool. The Bible, as literature, is a rather dull, drab work. It is disconnected, often time confusing and even seemingly contradictory ( to the un-studied, the studied would say). It's prose is choppy, it's poetry is mediocre...as literature goes, please do not attempt to duplicate if you wish a career as an author.

@Mujus - I've done such studies as you suggest myself and written my own commentaries on passages in the past. The meaning of the Bible is often "hidden" because of the mis-interpretation of modern language...."hope" (as in in "I hope I win the lotto"...but have no guarantee of anything) versus "hope" (the real knowledge of my eternal life through Christ) is a classic example of how modern language completely perverts Biblical meaning.

As such, most casual readers of the Bible walk away with perhaps erroneous knolwedge at times.

So, we turn to the Biblical Scholars...who have divided themselves up in to warring factions, who all say the Bible has different meanings on the most basic of principles at times.

So...*this* is great literature?

--

"Living" book -- and then there are the modern people that say it is a living book, that grows and breathes and changes with the times...and those that insist it is set in stone. Question: If the stone is buried, and even with the not-so-original Greek an Hebrew (because the originals are lost), I think your stone is worn...so how do you discover the truth? Even now, if I say to you, "Yo nigga..." you will either be greatly offended, or view me as a close friend. By a study of modern language by available tools, most people will insist that I have insulted you, but this is simply not true. I very well *could* be your close friend...and so in the Bible, you often times have very personal writings, which are *highly* contextual, highly dependent upon understanding not just the formal definition of a Greek work, for example, but it's specific use at the time, and perhaps to really understand, you would have to know the specific personal relationship of the writer to the reader to really get at the heart of the matter. SO absolute knowledge of this book is quite doubtful.

Which is NOT to say it has no value; not to say that it has no value in knowing your God and being a better person and getting closer to your God, etc...but it's value as literature diminishes with each passing argument, because it's meaning changes with each twist of our language.

So then the question lies in this: Is God powerful enough to have written a book who's meaning was designed to change with the passing of time? Why does the book have to be concrete, when society and culture are not, and the book is designed to guide you through society and culture?

Women can't go without head coverings, right? Oh wait...that was a specific command speaking to a specific culture, right? Times have changed, that rule doesn't apply, it was talking about a certain principle, right?

So it is a living book...unless you are really disappointed with how little we oppress our women in these modern times...

<...end random babble by krellin...>

@ Mujus

Slightly confused by the prove comment. The phrase "the exception that proves the rule" remains in common use in the UK and I don't think people are confused over it containing the older version of the word prove.

Still, with regards to the Bilble as a whole I think you will agree with me that the meaning a medieval reader would get from the Bible differs wildly from the meaning a modern day reader would get. I also strongly suspect an African reader would take different meaning from an American reader. This is partly die to differing translations (I wouldn't say any of the great translations have been wrong or inaccurate. They have served their purpose as required), partly due to different stories resonating at different strengths with different people, partly due to the books that some movements have included and some have removed.

I would argue that all of this is part of, for want of a better word, the plan. The Bible speaks with a different voice to different people, but the direction of travel remians the same.

@Oct - It also speaks differently to different people because they come from a different cultural background. To a slave, the Bible would read quite differently than to a slave-master.

Talk about love to a destitute child of a single mother in the inner city, versus to the 12th child of a family living in the heart of Utah in Church of the Latter Day Saints, and I'm sure they will have a very different idea of what love is.

To futher make the point, most of the Jews "missed" Jesus as the Savior because they were looking for a warrior king that would physical decimate their enemies...so, like, most of the Jews living in Biblical times didn't even understand the scriptures...

Why are all the British on here so damned anti-American? It's so strange that the Commonwealth countries seem so filled with anti-Americanism, when those are the only countries we really haven't wronged.

"The trouble I have with many of them is they tend to have a big focus on issues between whites and blacks which, living in a country where there is a 2% black population, doesn't really speak to me."

What's the difference between this and the countless British tales about their caste, excuse me "class" system?

Pakistan slipping your mind again, Putin?

Out of interest, where's the anti-Americanism?

Pakistan? No, not at all. Where's the anti-Americanism? Where isn't it? Every third post of yours is bashing some aspect of American culture.

"What's the difference between this and the countless British tales about their caste, excuse me "class" system? "

The Prince and the Pauper would be quite difficult to pull off if it had a racial theme :p. But more seriously, the difference is huge. The majority of Brits are descended from a wide variety of backgrounds. I can point to French upperclass refugees who fled the revolution and Scottish immigrants to the slums of Liverpool as part of my makeup. Although there is a significant percentage of Americans who talk proudly of their diverse ethnic background, I don't think it's the same scale.

@ Putin

Every third post? I doubt it. But the nature of the make-up of this site means that American culture makes up a large amount of the topics discussed. Believe it or not, Putin, but I don't like all of it. I praise the stuff I do like quite often too.

Honestly, you and your blind patriotism ;)

Americans are so mongrelized they like to fetishize the fact that they're 1/8th something or other and make-believe they're 100% whatever ethnicity. At any rate if British class system has really been so fluid its a wonder why shows like Downton Abbey are so popular.

They tend to be more popular in the US. I find it rather tiresome myself. Jeeves and Wooster, by contrast, is great (and all the episodes are on youtube in full length!).

Come to think of it, most of the time I say something good about the US you slate me for it. Only the other day I was saying I quite liked watching the highlights of American football, and you talked at huge length about how crap it was :p

"But the nature of the make-up of this site means that American culture makes up a large amount of the topics discussed. "

Nothing about the nature of the site, just the nature of the people in it. The Dutchmen on here are more interested in thrashing Obama than talking about their own country. I have no idea why.

"I praise the stuff I do like quite often too."

I must have those posts on mute or something. Fair enough.

I started looking back and it seems I don't comment on America all that much one way or the other because I couldn't find much either way and got bored. Still, from this very thread, "Catch 22 I quite liked"

Why is Putin-America-Is-the-Source-Of-All-Evil the Ass Clown bitching about people being anti-American.

Shut the fuck up, Putin.