None. In my earlier days I read the Bible.
First of all, I'm not talking about a few Muslims or Baha'is here & there in a given country, but rather an established community of followers. Hmmm.....well, I dunno, the Bahais quote it all the time with great pride, but I can't find any statistics right now to back it up. I may be wrong on this, but I think I may have been shown something similar in a Christian Science Moniter article before. Anyway, maybe it's merely their claim.
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Here's some data on world religions. I'm sure there are varying statistics out there:
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This list appeared in The Christian Science Monitor as the "Top 10 Organized Religions in the World" (August 4, 1998)
Code:Religion Members
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Christianity 1.9 billion
Islam 1.1 billion
Hinduism 781 million
Buddhism 324 million
Sikhism 19 million
Judaism 14 million
Baha'ism 6.1 million
Confucianism 5.3 million
Jainism 4.9 million
Shintoism 2.8 million
The 1998 Yearbook of the Encyclopedia Britannica estimates 7,666,000 Baha'is in the world. The figure was 6.4 million in the 1997 Yearbook.
Monger: nice list - thanks.
How come A2Kism or good old Abuzzism didn't make the list? :wink:
I'm amazed at how civil this discussion is. If the question had been posed on Abuzz, a nuclear war would've broken out by now. But I digress...
Have read most of the Old Testatment early in life, and a lot of the New in college. Great stuff in both, especially for someone like me, who was a lit major and still read a lot. "There were giants in the earth in those days..." No one writes like that anymore!
D'art, Seems to me you've been missing other fiction writers since the bible was put together. I'm not ready to concede that theologians are "giants" when it comes to composing a good phrase or two in the world of literature. c.i
the poetry of Robert Frost
cicerone, I didn't mean to say that no one writes as well anymore, just that no one writes in the same way...
Thy words dost seem true, and thou shalt be forgiven for thy sins - of omission. c.i.
The Holy Bible, of course. Talmud is not a holy book of Jews, by the way. The Old Testament of the Bible is, Talmud is a collection of commentaries to it. But I recognize as Holy Scriptures both Old and New Testaments, despite of being an Israeli.
By the way, why the Koran appearing in the beginning of the discussion is in German? I know, there are several million Turks in Germany, but majority of citizens of the country are either Roman Catholics or Lutherans.
The Tanakh, is it called (the "Jewish" old testament)?
Tanakh is the Hebrew name of the Old Testament. It is an acronym meaning Torah (Pentateuch), Nevi'im (Books of Prophets) and Ketuvim (Scriptures).
By the way, there is no "Jewish" Old Testament. The same text is recognized as a Holy Scripture by both Jews and Christians. The only difference is that Christians recognize the New Testament as well, and the religious Jews do not.
'T'swhy it was in quotes. It is bound in a different order than the O.T. in the King James Bible, though, isn't it?
Only the titles differ. Christian names of the chapters are not literally translated from the Hebrew source. For example, Judaists call Genesis "Beresheet" that means "In The Beginning"; but the text of the chapter is the same. Exodus is called in Hebrew "Shemot" -- "Names", Leviticus -- "Vaikra" (I am not so good in the Biblical Hebrew, so I do not know the translation), Numbers is "Bamidbar" -- "In The Desert", and Deuteronomy is called "Dvarim" -- "The Things". The same refers to the other parts of the Bible; for example, Ecclesiastes is called Kohelet in Hebrew, and Jews believe that this was a nickname of king Solomon (HaMelech Shlomo in Hebrew).
Huh. Thanks. (Your biblical hebrew is much better than mine, at any rate...)
You are welcome. But Hebrew of the Bible strongly differs from the version of the language that is talked in modern Israel. Even the books and newspapers appear in the modern version of the language. Hebrew is not my mother tongue, and I managed to learn only the modern version after having immigrated from the USSR to Israel in 1990.
Steiss:
Your comments are much appreciated. Thanks for your insights. :wink:
stissd, Deuteronomy is called Dvarim - "The Things?" Do you have some explanation there? I've read some book written about old, beyond ancient times where there were "The Things."
As Craven, much of my childhood was spent memorizing whole chapters of the bible KJV, for punishment, or just brain exercise I guess. Much later I finally sat down and read the whole thing front to back. What it does, the reading, is raise questions. Many questions. Else, it does seem like so much drivel, but I was not happy thinking that.
So, I read MAN/WOMAN, all the different ways of thinking since the beginning of time. People who write of their own experiences in their own time, what they think and how they know it. Now, that, my friends, is how we learn. Not from someone telling us what and how we should think.
I am not about to read anymore "bibles" thank you, but I still read people who spent their entire life in religious/spiritual research and study.
