In answer to your original question:

I think it might be best to take it in small doses. It's a very large book (and really a collection of diverse books). It's taken me many years to really become familiar with it, and to appreciate it. And I've done a great deal of outside reading to supplement my understanding--histories, commentaries, etc. It is similar to what you wrote about Shakespeare--and that was a good analogy. I don't suggest that you have to become a self-taught Biblical scholar (though I don't say not to either--I've found it a rich hobby). But, as with Shakespeare, a cursory reading usually isn't as fulfilling as one that gets just a little deeper.

And one final note: The iconic idea of the Bible as a book of black-and-white answers encourages people to remain in a state of spiritual immaturity. It discourages curiosity in the terra incognita of biblical literature, handing us a Magic 8 Ball Bible to play with instead. In turning readers away from the struggle, from wrestling with the rich complexity of biblical literature and its history, in which there are no easy answers, it perpetuates an adolescent faith.

Many from both camps seem to believe that demonstrating that the Bible is full of inconsistencies and contradictions is enough to discredit any religious tradition that embraces it as Scripture. Bible debunkers and Bible defenders are kindred spirits. They agree that the Bible is on trial. They agree on the terms of the debate and what is at stake, namely its credibility as God's infallible book. The question for both sides is whether it fails to answer questions, from the most trivial to the ultimate, consistently and reliably. But you can't fail at something you're not trying to do. To ask whether the Bible fails to give consistent answers or be of one voice with itself presumes that it was built to do so. That's a false presumption, rooted in thinking of it as "the book that God wrote."

obi, by the way -- the fact that the Bible is "edited" (whatever you may mean by that), once more does not imply what you say. Even if it is by different authors, they wrote in a single rich tradition. Just as analyzing a text today can be enriched by realizing that certain themes or lines are allusions to, say, Shakespeare, so it is with different Biblical books making allusions to each other. In neither case does it matter whether it was the same human author.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A30oax7tQ4&feature=related

There's the link.

Hmmm...well, I like literarily beautiful (although really so far we're not fully past Abraham's story, which I didn't like before and don't like again, and I'm sorry, but I'm not buying Adam at 900+ and certainly not Sarah at 127 years old.

Even so, accuracy's important...

Anyone think I should try another version before I get all the way through in a few weeks and someone says "Thanks Mario, but our Bible is in another castle, er, translation?"

"obi, by the way -- the fact that the Bible is "edited" (whatever you may mean by that), once more does not imply what you say. Even if it is by different authors, they wrote in a single rich tradition."

Well, first--

WHat I mean by that...the Council of Nicea? Where they chose which books went into the canonized Bible, and which did not (like ones I've given as examples before--the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Nicodemus, The Life of Adam and Eve, The Book of Jubilees, the Gospel of Peter...all texts that were floating around with the canonized works we see in leather and gold today, but the council, for one reason or another, left them out...so, the Bible is an edited collage of 66 different books, rather than a whole-cloth endeavor...even those let in had different versions between them already at the time of canonization in 325 AD; The Life of Adam and Eve, for example, is sort of another telling of Genesis, but extended and with some differences...what was let in and what kept out was largely political within the Church and within the Roman Empire, so that's what I mean when I say it was "edited," namely...that it was edited, by those Church leaders at the Council of Nicea, and what we see today as a uniform work is really a weaving together of different works compiled under one banner--well, two banners with the OT and NT and then a larger banner with the Bible as a whole, assuming you're Christian, but you get the point.)

So I disagree that they all wrote in a single tradition--or at least, that they wrote in a linear tradition...

It might be the case they can all be called part of, to break out the literary terms, a "school of X-style verse/prose" or a few "literary moments" taken together, the same way Joyce/T.S. Eliot/Woolf/Faulkner/Hemingway/Fitzgerald/Pound all are representative of, roughly the same era and a few common literary movements from 1910-1950 or with Modernism and all that...

But if I put all their works together as the Council at Nicea did with putting together the different books of the Bible, it'd hardly be a single, united, uniform work...

And you'd have a hard time having anyone believe James Joyce's characters foreshadowed the literal coming of Woolf's, or vice versa...

The MOST you could say if I made this compilation would be that one writer influenced another's style or whatnot, and perhaps THAT'S true of the books of the Bible, as separate authors penned them, maybe one inspired another and so on...



But it can hardly be called a perfect book that's infallible when--all those contradictions aside--it's a book edited by man who chose which texts got to go in, and which were kicked out and no longer to be considered "holy books of the canon," as it were, where before they could and often were preached as such.

But, see, that's just it. Nobody should be claiming it's a perfect book. That's the problem. The Koran claims to be the word of God, straight through his mouthpiece Mohammed. The Bible never makes that claim, and nobody should be making it for the Bible.

So first of all, the Council of Nicea did not set the Biblical canon. I'm not sure where you got that idea. It is not even clear that they discussed the canon, though they may have. For a well-sourced discussion of Nicea and the canon, see

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html

Second of all, would you say that I should ignore intertextualism or literary interconnections in my copy of "The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare" because it does not include the disputed "Double Falsehood"? I mean, Theobald said it was taken from a Shakespearean manuscript. How can I trust anything in the book if they just arbitrarily decided not to include possibly valid plays?

a book review.
todays book is a rather bulky but promising first attempt by author or authors unknown.

it's called "The Bible"

It is written in a narrative rather than introspective style which may perhaps make for quicker reading, but leaves something to be desired on the level of character motivation.

It purports to be a theological and historical document and while this reviewer does not question the sincerity, he can only regret the publishers failure to include a bibliography and mark references in some systemic pattern.

But these a minor criticisms.

One cannot deny the power and sweeping range of the subject matter, one might even call it epic.

The subtle allegorical nuances, touched at times with what seems to be an almost metaphysical insight !

It will undoubtedly cause controversy in the Literary field.

But the authors while writing in a quasi - journalistic form show flourishes of stylistic daring which makes one impatient to view their later efforts.

I shall await their second book with great interest.

( from Jules Feiffer " Sick, Sick, Sick." pub 1956. USA )

I am having a bash at the "Book of Latter Day Saints", you can always get cheap religious books at church run charity shops.

This "Latter Day Saints" tale is looking like an epic tale of fantastical proportions,
I am only about a quarter the way in and there's a chappy with a steel weapon
several thousand years before the japanese even had a clue & when the "Spanish'
in Toledo were probably still chippin' stones

I would also ask that those wishing to complain about Russian writers
or European playwrights who take a pugilistic approach to entertainin' an audience,
that you should consider moderating such comments unless you have read The Koran.

I found no "philosophical or religious insights, or insights into the human condition
& purpose" that I was not aware of from proper christian reading or reading Buddhist
works.

i remain unclear as to any valid purpose for The Koran apart from it's undoubted
benefit in getting a whole bunch of chaps to wash more frequently than they otherwise might, or for use as a basis of establishing a "Patriarchial power based theocracy" by those devotees of such societies, presumably camel & goat herders and the like.

I am quite happy to indulge other persons the privelige of indulging in whatever
religious practices they choose, provided they indulge me the same freedom, and no one uses religion to promote hatred, intolerance or violence

Oh and on your other issue -- I doubt that it's going to impact anything so much that you need to worry about it for your purposes. Just, if you come in here and base an argument on some very fine reading of the text, maybe check a modern translation on that part, first.

Still, the reader in that video is terrible.

I recommend the following. Lots of options.

http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/audio/

If you are offended by my remarks about the Koran, then may I suggest you
(rather than simply react to my comments ) consider some of the stuff being put into
the public arena by others who proseletyze on behalf of Islam.

i have at least seen one practical use of observing the religious Islamic practices,
even if you don't like the way i expressed it.

If the statements of countless & sundry Imans are to be taken at face value, and they
are alleged to be experts at the Islamic caper & at interpreting the Koran it is clear
that they would not tolerate my views on religious matters and if they had the power
would subject me to harsh persecution. Their repeated statements clearly indicate a
contempt for my rights as an individual and the culture of my nation.

Major
It could be worse, they could declare war on you and your way of life, come to your country and blow the gaff to pieces ....... oops sorry, that's what the Christians are doing.

As a kid, I started with "Bible as a Comic Book". It was written and drawn by some French Christians. A great introduction to the Bible, never boring, with only the most entertaining bits. It made me the most informed kid in Sunday school.

Later, I read the Bible now and then, but only the parts that interested me for some reason. It happened quite often, actually, since I love literature and visual arts, and I was curious about their Biblical references.

I love the Biblical style. Despite the great differences among its books, there is a single style, I'd say. It's terse and to the point, but it often leaves things unsaid on purpose.

The Bible is like a big museum. You don't go there and look at every single exhibit, you don't have the time for that. You just go through the rooms and stop when you're attracted to something.

Ahh, another Bible thread. Let me weigh in: First off, the Bible is good for more than one purpose: it tells the story of the many events that led up to Jesus' birth, teaching, suffering, and death on the cross, which is further explained after the fact in the "theology" letters that Paul wrote--and that's the foundation of a relationship with the living God--the real God, the creator, not the fake gods made of stumps or lumps of metal. It also provides instruction in morality, or righteousness, and gives insight into who we are at our deepest level. Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires." http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Criteria=two-edged+sword&t=NLT

Mujus....... you are a space cadet :-)

Second, the Bible is not "edited" in the sense that Reader's Digest abridges books--except oh yeah, they abridged the Bible! And yes, a group of scholars and religious leaders met to decide which writings were inspired, but they didn't rewrite or "edit" those books.

Here's a great source for the history of the Bible:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorigin.html

Third, to reply to the original question, I have tried different approaches to reading the Bible. As I was raised in a church that emphasized the Bible stories to children, I got a lot out of paraphrased stories from the Bible and learned the basics of the history of salvation. Since that church also emphasized "Do good," in my teens, I read the Bible because I was supposed to, but I didn't get much out of it. Then after I learned that one must personally accept the gift of life that God is holding out, Jesus' death for the payment of our sins, and did so, I read the Bible because I wanted to change some of the less savory parts of my character, and find answers to some personal problems I was having that were messing up my life. I still didn't get much out of it, because I was reading older English versions that were quite difficult to absorb at a first or cursory reading, and I was trying to shoe-horn my Bible reading into a busy life and a brain that gets caught up in the flow of information and ideas of every day. Eventually I learned that 1) Reading the Bible because I ought to is not as good a motivation as reading it to know God better, and his plan for my life; 2) The Bible that is closest to the everyday language I use (The New Living Translation) is the most accessible way for me to get the big picture of a chapter or book, 3) That timing is important--starting off the day reading the Bible is the best for me because my mind is not yet caught up in the minutia of daily life AND it kind of preps me for the day, 4) There are different ways to read the Bible, for different purposes, and I came to realize that the first thing I needed to do was read it all. I followed one of the read-the-Bible-in-a-year plans available all over the Internet and in the back of some printed Bibles, one that gave me some Old Testament, some New Testament, some Psalms, and some Proverbs every day. I really got a lot out of that.

Ok, it took me two years, but I got there. :-)

Then I went several years without reading much except five psalms a day, most days. I didn't stress about missing any, but would start with whatever date it was and read every 30 psalms, like this: Today's the 20th, so I'd read Psalm 20, 50, 80, 110, and 140. If I missed a day, I figured I'd catch it the next month, or the one after that. And I prayed, asked God, to help me understand and to speak to me through my reading.

Now I'm reading a chapter a week with a men's group that has been doing so since the 1950s, I'm reading the gospels again, and I'm getting a lot out of the New Testament letters. I'm really loving it now. :-)

ROTFLMFAO copter!

Is obi-twerp, who has written NOTHING outside of school and(God help us all) this Forum, actually calling SOMEBODY ELSE'S writing tedious?

obi-goof. He, of the run on sentence and infinitely abused commas.

What a maroon. What a ta-ra-ra- boom-dee-ay.

@semck:

"So first of all, the Council of Nicea did not set the Biblical canon. I'm not sure where you got that idea. It is not even clear that they discussed the canon, though they may have. For a well-sourced discussion of Nicea and the canon, see

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html"


http://www.ntcanon.org/Bibles_of_Constantine.shtml

Constantine ordered 50 Bibles, which were made in 331/332, so the canon was being set by then, causing scholars to believe that, given the Council at Nicea's large gathering of Church leaders, that was when they at least started deciding what was canon and what was not...

Not precise by any means, but still, at some point, it DID occur where they decided what was in and what was out, and likely before Constantine's Bibles were completed (I'd cite the History Channel as well here, but I'm really not sure how great a source that is, given its predilection towards showing people drive trucks across ice or talk about UFOs or Nostradamus...granted it had actual Biblical scholars talking about it, but still, it IS the History Channel...*shrugs*)

"Second of all, would you say that I should ignore intertextualism or literary interconnections in my copy of "The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare" because it does not include the disputed "Double Falsehood"? I mean, Theobald said it was taken from a Shakespearean manuscript. How can I trust anything in the book if they just arbitrarily decided not to include possibly valid plays?"

Actually...

1. It's supposed to be ADAPTED from a Shakespeare play, the same way Shakespeare "adapted" early comedies like "The Comedy of Errors" from plays by Plautus, so...

2. IT's NOT a work of Shakespeare, and at most--if all Fletcher's claims are true--it'd be an ADAPTATION of a Shakespeare play, and thus

3. No more part of the Shakespearean Canon than the plays by Plautus Shakespeare took inspiration from; where inspiration comes/what is adapted afterwards is not canon, what IS canon is what the man actually wrote, ergo

4. The Shakespearean Canon is made up of...what the man actually wrote, the 37 plays (38 if you want to count "The Two Noble Kinsmen," as most collections now do, but as they state up front, that wasn't Shakespeare writing a solo play, he collaborated with a friend and the friend probably did more of the actual work, "The Tempest" is still considered his last real play, TTNK is him getting out of the house a bit during retirement to help out a friend...there are other plays some attribute to Shakespeare, but don't have the evidence to back their entry in yet, so the list is memorably at 37, 38 if you count TTNK, 39 if you count TTNK and "Cardenio" as a lost work, though what that was is uncertain and may have been an early draft of a play we do have now under one of the titles in the Canon, it's uncertain), 154 sonnets, and several long poems that can be attributed to William Shakespeare, generally via the First Quarto, Second Quarto, First Folio, or sometimes all three (or more) sources, as is the conflicting case with "Hamlet," where again, editors and scholars have debated for 400 years which versions are truer and which are "better." In any case

5. As such, we have easy grounds for Shakespeare Intertextualism...after all, there are simple rules--one man, if he wrote it, it's in, if he didn't write it, it's out (as with the case with "Double Falsehood," which is claimed to be an adaptation and is a century too late in any case...18th century play, so clearly not Shakespeare's, even if Fletcher was telling the truth and he was adapting it from "Cardenio," again, we don't include the plays Shakespeare adapted from Plautus in the canon, or "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" which Stoppard partially adapted from "Hamlet," JUST what Shakespeare wrote HIMSELF) and so as they're NOT arbitrarily leaving out plays,

6. You can be intertextual with Shakespeare, and even if I were to be be REALLY generous and allow the argument that some works from that era of disputed authorship belong to Shakespeare--"Arden of Favisham" and one of the Edward plays are two examples--then we'd still be able to be intertextual with the plays we have in a literary sense for the reasons given, that they're all by the same man, and thus meet that rule of Shakespearean authorship for entrance into the canon, and it's thus not a collection of various plays by various authors slapped together and called "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" but JUST the works of Shakespeare, so

8. Even if we're missing some works, literarily, it's still all Shakespeare--no Marlowe or Kyd or Dekker to be found in "The Complete Works"--so it's all the same canon and, more importantly, MEANT to be together, that is, the Henriad of plays can be said to have an intended flow and flowing themes intertextually, because the same person wrote the 4 works that comprise it, so it seems reasonable that he intended them to interplay with one another as he links them together intentionally, whereas

9. What we have with the Bible are several authors--NOT ONE--over a span of many years or decades or even centuries writing several different versions of several stories and then having ONE of the many versions of SOME of those stories placed in an order SOME of those reading the texts centuries later thought was correct in THEIR view...so it's necessarily muddled, too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, rather than just one author of 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and several long poems in an order we can roughly give to some extent thanks to the fact he actually intentionally linked some plays, referenced some plays within other plays (ie, "Julius Caesar" is referenced in "Hamlet), references events going on in the real world, thus helping with dating, and so on, so that while there's still some debate as to what the precisest order is, it's still pretty generally known what the Early, Middle, and Later plays are, what order they came in...unless you're going the "Anonymous" Oxfordian Theory route and want to argue the plays were written by someone totally different 10-15+ years earlier than all the evidence suggests, in which case...all the evidence suggests otherwise and you'll be taken about as seriously by most scholars of Shakespeare as "The da Vinci Code," as the evidence is heavily in favor of AT LEAST the dates and more than enough (especially for the time) suggests Shakespeare's authorship is perfectly valid, so AT MOST you can have a fringe theory, which is all those are and we all know how reliable fringe theories are and how respected they are, THUS

10. The Shakespearean Canon=Coherent and definitely an intended canon, The Bible=Haphazard and a Compilation of different texts that may or may not have been intended by their authors to be linked or to be linked to the texts they are linked to, and so while you can certainly say "I think Text A and Text B have some similar thematic points," regarding the Bible, you don't have the same ability to say "A and B are connected" because they may not have been INTENDED to be connected...for example, something in Exodus that appears to tie back into Genesis may well have been authored with The Life of Adam and Eve in mind instead, and in any case

11. To say "Shakespeare's canon is incomplete without 'Double Falsehood,' ergo the canon is incomplete and unworkable" invites ME to say "Well, Dante BASED 'The Inferno' off Biblical texts the same way Fletcher claims he based DF off Cardenio...and ditto Milton and "Paradise Lost" and on and on--

Derivative works =/= Original works of a canon...

And a Coherent Canon all authored by one person =/= A Collection/Compilation put together by different people over many years, decades, and centuries.

But let's also be clear and fair about something--

If we take the Bible as LITERATURE...

Being an "edited compilation" isn't a deal-breaker.

After all--how many edited compilations of short stories and poems and such are out there right now?

What's more, lots of literature before, say, the heyday of the Romantics and novel was often put together by people later...yes, even Shakespeare--

He WROTE the plays, sonnets, and poems, but the First Folio of his published work wasn't printed until 1623, whereas the man died in 1616 and there was a stigma against publishing your work in Shakespeare's day, anyway, as 1. If you were REALLY memorable and above it all, the thought was, who needs publication, the people should know my stuff anyway, and 2. If you published it could allow a rival company to put on your play and steal your cash inflow.

Hence some of the textual problems I mentioned with Shakespeare's Quartos, the Folio, his "foul papers," and so on...

But AT LEAST we can say it was all authored by the same man (with the occasions that we know Shakespeare collaborated with someone, but even then, it's Shakespeare really writing it, with mostly others helping in a collaborative fashion) and thus we can say that YES, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V ARE connected and meant to be connected textually.

With the Bible...not so much.

But again, that doesn't mean you can't see thematic similarities and say this passage here and this passage in another book of the Bible work well together...

You just can't say it was "The perfect Word of God," as, again, What Does God Need With An Editor (and several authors and variations of his stories at that.)

So even where there are quibbles in the Shakespeare Canon...

No one but a complete Bardolotry fool claims Shakespeare is and was and forever will be perfect--he's not, there are plays in there that aren't great (The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor) that we'd never see or hear again if they didn't carry the name "Shakespeare"...

Same with Homer--he wasn't perfect...
Nor was Milton, Dante, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell...

But they don't CLAIM to be.

Shakespeare and Milton actually make references in their work as to how flawed or ill-equipped their prose or poetry might be for the situation.



ONLY the Bible/Koran/Torah stands up and has its proponents largely claim "THIS IS PERFECT, THE PERFECT AND UNALTERABLE WORD OF GOD!"

And THAT just doesn't work.
At all.

@mapleleaf:

Shows all yo know--

I've written poetry and prose outside class...

That was rejected!

That's right--I was rejected by the same magazine that published T.S. Eliot's "Prufrock!"

So YEAH! I was REJECTED by them, oh yeah!

(But at least I can officially say I've tried to get published and wrote stuff outside school, and I'm still submitting elsewhere...so I can get rejected, but hey--if it's shit, I can produly say it's MY shit, that I wrote, damnit!)

XD

Alright, we're halfway through Genesis now...

And NOW I remember how enthralling it was...

Currently enjoying all the thrills of verse after verse after verse of the great dilemma of where to bury people and now a camel ride and a meal and drawing water from a well...

I really hope it picks up, or this is going to be the longest drudgery ever... :/

I don't believe you.

Post one of them.

I could use a laugh......

Sure. why not...

As a highly-regarded rejected author, I proudly present--

A Really Flawed Poem I Wrote While Pissed At Someone In Math Class!

Also entitled


To—the Actress

Your Cheshire Smile
Like a Looking-Glass, an entrance to entrance,
Turning, twisting, wrapping back upon itself in a
Spiraling ivory, ethereal staircase leading on up
To the Lighthouse,
Beaming as that bent beacon, you beckon
Teasingly atop cloudless climes and starless skies
(Or A Light in the Attic, shuttered and shadowed)
To show the way (or setting course yourself)
And in a flash! it’s vanished into the mists,
And you with it, leaving that plastic smile,
A monument of mocking brilliance,
Still outshining the natural night beside the bay
And o’er the City of Ashcans and Flashbulbs and
Cigarette Lights
That perfume in wand’ring smoke and the lazy haze
Of Streetlamps Sputtering and Muttering
Of aesthete-scented Armanis whispering
Of lenses styled to shade the bright abyss
Of marquees de Sade with your teeth telling
Of residual stains and Styrofoam cups
Of Coffee Beans and Tea Leaves and cans and cannots
Of false clarity ‘neath smeared-clear, uncertain skies,
Drowning your diamonds and songs in a sea
Modeled by mannequins posed in windows
And passersby,
Players in that prolonged masque en masse,
Binary lives screamed in quiet cacophony,
Each shout a statement made to everyone,
Heard by no one,
Each half-remembered message testament
To advice gaudy as The Bumbler’s speech—
“Brevity is the Soul of Wit,” twenty lines later—
With character limits, less “words, words, words,”
While through your filter Friends Stream through cracks in your Wall—
Who are they, and What are you, besides your Profile,
Behind that Smile?

Shitty?
Oh yeah, probably--
But at least I can say I tried with my shit...

And that at least MY poetry didn't list the entire lineage of Abraham until my ears bled (finally he's given up the ghost...)

Okay fine obi-nutter.

The Bible is now officially the SECOND greatest story ever told.

You win.

Now take your meds......