littlek wrote:Thomas wrote:I'm a masochist. I debate Bible-thumpers because I want to suffer.
Once I went shopping in my hometown. I was young and a little hot-headed. A bible-thumper was outside the grocery store spewing anti-gay rhetoric. He quoted the bible to try to support his amoral point of view. I am still pissed off today. My brother is gay. He's also depressive. I got a little momma tiger on that 'preacher' ass. My brother dragged me away and we got the big guns - a lesbian friend of his raised catholic. She spent a little while refuting this ass point by point.
Damn, I wish I could have seen that.
Ros, it made me want to study the bible. I didn't read it, but I'd never been so interested and never have been since.
littlek wrote:Ros, it made me want to study the bible. I didn't read it, but I'd never been so interested and never have been since.
Please do! It's a fascinating book and a real eye-opener, just not in the way Christians would like it to be. Whenever your current job craziness subsides, you have time, and you feel your Dostoyevski novels just aren't long enough for you anymore, the Bible is definitely the book to read.
PS: I recommend the King James version for the beauty of its language. Newer versions are somewhat more optimized for accuracy of translation. But since you'll be reading it as fiction anyway, you may as well go with the translation that sounds the best.
I agree completely with Thomas, Lil Kay (except that i see no reason to claim that modern translations are any more accurate). My grandmother had one of those family bibles which would have been prohibitively expensive if it had been sold by the pound. It was huge, and had a pressed leather cover with gold leaf inlay. It was, apparently, purchased for my great-grandmother on the occasion of her birth (1850), because that event was the first entry in the book (old bibles often came with blank pages devoted to such a purpose). It was the King James version. King James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnly, became King James I of England upon the death of the first Elizabeth (her aunt Margaret Tudor was the great-grandmother of King James).
He commissioned a new translation of the bible shortly after he took the throne in 1603. At the time that Henry VIII had split from the Catholic Church, he had had issued an "authorized" version of the bible, but it was based on the Catholic translations. James had come from Scotland, where the Scots Kirk was pre-eminent, and they were the origin of the English Puritans, and eventually of the Presbyterians. Many revisions of the bible had been done by Protestants, often with what have been alleged to be biased translations of certain passages for polemical purposes. James was a very religious man, and wanted to provide the people of Scotland and England a new translation, which he hoped would be free from error and bias. (James was undoubtedly a homosexual, but in those days, in the case of the nobility and especially in the case of kings, society was more tolerant; modern Protestants, especially fundamentalists, deny this, for what ought to be obvious reasons. There is little doubt, however, on this point among careful scholars of his life. That he was homosexual, and religiously devout, and did his duty to the nation by producing a male heir, was not to his mind anything other than fitting.)
The translation took a little more than seven years, and was accomplished by almost 50 scholars. In those days, men with university educations, no matter what course they pursued later in life, were educated to be members of the clergy, so James' "dream team" were men already familiar with Hebrew and Koine Greek (the Greek from which modern Greek derives, and the Greek used by the early church scholars) as well as the church Latin in which the Latin Vulgate version of the bible used by Catholics had been written.
The result was a document which was written in what was then clear and simple English, while sacrificing nothing of the elegance and poetry of the language. This is what is known in England as the Authorized Version (although technically never actually "authorized" by Parliament, the "Bishop's Bible" which had previously been used went out of print, and so this version came to be the authorized version if for no other reason, simply be default), and what is known in the United States as the King James Version. I strongly suggest that if you read it, you read the King James Version, if for no other reason, because it qualifies as great literature in the English language.
My great-grandmother's bible was the King James Version. When i was 12, i read it from cover to cover, and a short time later, turned around and read it from cover to cover again. So much of it has stayed with me that i have little trouble playing the quoting scripture game of which the bible thumpers are so fond. I learned many things which opened my adolescent eyes, such as the murderous dicta which Jehovah gave to his "chosen people," the many contradictions, and nasty little surprises such as that dogs will not be allowed into heaven--a serious drawback to my mind.
Once again, read it, and if you can, read the King James Version.
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Revelations, Chapter 22, verse 15, in describing the Heavenly City, writes:
For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Not a pleasant thought. The New International Version retails the same dismal thought, but not nearly so well, literarily speaking:
Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
Uh. Without the translation I had no idea what the first quote said.....
littlek wrote:Uh. Without the translation I had no idea what the first quote said.....
It's like reading Shakespeare, at first it's hard to understand, but the more you read the more natural it becomes.
Unfortunately, after reading the bible (or Shakespeare) for even a short while, I find myself actually starting to think in the same language form, which can be quite annoying when it starts to spill out in conversation.
I can see both happening - it getting easier and it spilling out.
it all just means you're going to hell is all.
Good. The company there is much more interesting anyway.
I also suspect that there'll be more of us, so the hours will be shorter . . .
Setanta wrote: . . . nasty little surprises such as that dogs will not be allowed into heaven--a serious drawback to my mind . . .
Apparently you missed the part where "the meek shall inherit the earth", presumably to enjoy their doggies indefinitely.
BFD, Neo . . . ask yourself if i were likely to be included among the meek heritors . . .
Your bark is worse than your bite, I'll aver.
WOOF!
What does bark have to do with this? I'm a dog, not a tree . . .
Your snarl is worse than your snap?
I actually do place myself above god. Just above me is Unicorns.
Arella Mae - Where do unicorns fall in your order? I assume below god, but higher or lower than humans?
T
K
O
Good to see there's finally some sort of an attempt by atheists at unity.
After telling his followers to turn the other cheek, we later learn that at least one or more disciples carried swords. What was that all about?
