I'm re-reading the Bible

I don't need any Bible lessons as I know that book far better than most preachers having won numerous online or public debates on the subject. However, I will gladly go to any church that would find me a wealthy wife.

 

See what I mean? Nobody can tell you anything.

 

First of all, I do not speak for God. God speaks for Himself.

Secondly, regardless of your reasons for reading the Bible I made mere suggestion that reading a worthy translation will get you the most out of your read. Now this liberal translation you are reading, the NRSV, is a corruption, at least on the Old Testament texts. If you want to say you read the Bible then a modern translation that is accepted by Christians is the best way to go. The NKJV is a Pastor's favorite. The MEV is also a fine new translation.

Third. A few years ago I wanted to learn Islam. Not because I was interested in becoming a muslim, but because I wanted to understand Islam from the Islamic perspective. A good friend of mine, a former muslim, sent me her 9 volume Bukhari set, the 4 volume Tafsir Ibn Kathir set and some other books. I bought many translations of the Qur'an but due to the reputation of the Muhsin Khan I made that my main go to Qur'an. I ended up buying the entire Sunnah, all books of Hadith ever published into English. I have a very large library of highly authoritative Islamic books.
But this is not the first time I have studied another worldview. I have studied ancient history for many years and have a vast knowledge of Sumerian culture and attaining several Sumerian documents. I have studied the Bible the longest and, like you, am reading it through again. Each time I read it the more poof of God I find.
But back to my study of Islam. I did NOT approach my study with the idea my conclusion would be negative. I saw how my friends online would pick out certain verses in the Qur'an that they believed said the earth is flat but did not follow after their ideas until I knew what I read was true. I treated the Qur'an with respect and read with respect. I used three tafsirs and 11 other translations at my side to help me understand it. I allowed the Qur'an to interpret itself.
The result of this study astonished me! The Qur'an is the most evil and Satanic book ever written--the true Satanic Bible! Islam is a death cult and not even the earth is safe from the destruction of Islam! But I did not come to that conclusion by misinterpreting the Qur'an. Again, I read the Qur'an (the book of Allah) and the Sunnah (the books of Muhammad, Islam's prophet). So when you read the Bible let Scripture interpret itself. If you get a NKJV you eventually part with the NRSV. But I personally think you'll like the RSV or the RSV-2CE for the purpose of your own study. So all in all I recommend the RSV for you.

 

Your recommendations have been read and taken note of. Now I will politely tell you that I am on my own journey of learning and I would prefer to have no other parties telling me NOT to read what I choose to read. There are multiple Bible translations out there and if one grabs my attention after looking it up, perhaps I'll read it. Again, your recommendations are taken note of and I thank you. All I ask is not to tell me to avoid certain books. If I wanted to, I'd read Mein Kampf no matter how distasteful people think it is.

One more thing: If you read my earlier posts you will see that I said I appreciate different translations. My NIV Bible reads: wave offering. At first I really was confused. Do they really swing a slab of meat around like some kind of fan? But when I read my NRSV it said elevation offering and that made more sense. It means the offering is held up above the head.

 

Ok. I was only trying to help. I'm no stranger to the world of translations. I'm 47 now and have been very interested in translations since I was 14. I do have some knowledge on the topic so I thought I'd share that with you.

 

One person's idea of what Christianity is. There are many different persuasions.

 

The correct Christian view is the Biblical view. Christianity is not a clubhouse where the rules change to fit fad and fashion.

 

When's the last time you shaved a woman's head because she didn't cover her head in church?

 

No woman is covering her head in church. You clearly are not reading attentively or don't know how to read. I'm an Anglican and we practice old English tradition in the church. The women do not cover their head. So clearly you are not reading the Bible correctly. You see what you want to see from your dubious political lens. But nothing you say is remotely true.

 

If you've never read the Bible read the pictures =http://www.thebricktestament.com/epistles/on_women/01_1c11_04.html 13 pictures

 

What about the malcontents who deleted the Pseudepigrapha? Or didn't you know there were other books that were deleted from the Bible prior to the Apocrypha?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Testament_pseudepigrapha

Or the malcontents who suppressed the Gnostic gospels?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_library#Complete_list_of_codices_found_in_Nag_Hammadi

Or the malcontents who suppressed Arianism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy

I'm still waiting for an explanation why someone who doesn't believe any of it gets so worked up about the Apocrypha.

 

Those fairy tales were not incorporated into the Bible, which was written in the 680s-690s. The Apocrypha was an integral part of that master copy.

 

But where does the master copy end and bonus content begin? I promise you there is no unanimous agreement among believers. Just to name two examples I don't recall Roman Catholics quoting from 4 Maccabees or anyone else other than the Ethiopian Orthodox folk including Enoch into their books.

 

That's simply false, as is most of your Biblical history. The Dead Sea Scrolls document several books of the Old Testament to around Jesus' time or earlier. Copies of New Testament books date to between 100 and 300 AD. "These manuscripts are of a special class for two reasons. They are written on papyrus and date from well before the fourth century. The earliest papyrus manuscripts come very close to the time when the New Testament was written. Of course, manuscripts on papyrus were known before, but these dated from a much later period and tended to be rather fragmentary. For almost all New Testament books we now have manuscripts earlier than the fourth century."
https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/papyrus/texts/manuscripts.html
The Bible as a single book was compiled in the 4th century AD, with the Council of Nicaea throwing out some of the more questionable books in 325 AD.

 

You couldn't produce an authentic complete book of the Bible written before 690 A.D. for anything. That excludes the one pagerslike Susanna and Bel and the Dragon.

 

I scoff at your term, "authentic". As for your claim, evidence? Support? Link? In other words, where do you get your bullshit?

 

How can there be an "Authentic" version of a book that has been edited, translated, revised, transposed, manipulated and rewritten many hundreds of times by thousands of people?

 

The discussion was about the Dead Sea scrolls. I said that they are BS, forgeries written in recent times. As for the other Bible books they don't exist before the 690s when the Bible was originally written.

 

OK you lost me on that. Even I as an atheist knows better that Christianity let alone Judaism and the scriptures predates the 7th century. Even the the books with the most recent early manuscripts dates to 360 CE/AD. And If you, an anonymous person on the Internet knows something about the Dead Sea scrolls everyone else does not, why is this not all over National Geographic and the Discovery Channel?

I have my own opinions on who invented Christianity, but I'm not going to start a discussion with striking down the the most ridiculous assertions.

The BEST you could come up with where I could agree with you is that the Bible was put together as a single volume (as opposed to a collection of separate scrolls) some time in the middle ages.

 

1. Contingent being exists.
2. If contingent being exists, necessary being must exist.
3. To date, I am currently left to believe that the God of the bible uniquely fulfills the implications of a necessary being.

 

IMO you're missing the boat. All of the biblical stories are concerned with just two things = complete obediece and loyalty to the Boss regardless of the cost. If he tells you to gut and roast your son you are supposed to do it without a second thought. If he tells you not to do any work on a certain day then you don't do any work of any kind, even tying your shoe laces. The biblical God Yahweh is not needed for a moral standard because according to the fairy tale people know the difference between good and evil just like he does. So the only reason he's required is if you think he will give you eternal life and not throw your behind into the lake of fire.

 

That's kind of ignoring a lot of background context though.

I know your perspective seems reasonable, but try applying what you're saying in a lot of other situations: a parent telling their child what to do, someone in the military fighting a war taking orders, obedience following government laws.

 

You might want to read some of the biblical stories again. They are all about complete obedience and loyalty to the Boss. Name any story and I can show you the verbiage that supports that conclusion.

 

So one person here told me how the NRSV is one of the worst Bible translations to read. Now I want to explain why I chose to read the NRSV Bible. There are three reasons:

First of all it was by coincidence I obtained a copy. I wanted to read the Apocrypha and the NRSV was the first Bible I stumbled upon on Amazon that offered the Apocrypha. I want to include the Apocrypha into the whole narrative when I read the Bible.

Second is because I want a fairly accurate translation that is still readable. I don't need the most literal/accurate translation as I'm not using the Bible for preaching, study, meditating on the meaning of scriptures or feeling spiritually uplifted. As an atheist I'm only having a casual read cover to cover.

Third, the more I learned about the translation itself, the more I liked it. One reason I like it is because it's the Bible for liberal and progressive Christians. Even though I'm an atheist, I'd like to find solidarity with people I don't always agree with but will not set forth strict conditions for salvation like condemnation of homosexuality. I have no interest in knowing more about what conservative Christians believe. I'm talking about Christians like the evangelical voters of Iowa that Republican presidential hopefuls court during the Iowa caucuses.

 

You're going to read the entire Bible? Ugh, I did that once. Horrible. A form of self torture.