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So I'm finally getting around to reading the Holy Bible and I'm a little intimidated. Is it okay to read it cover to cover? Should I read it at a normal pace or take it slow to analyze it? I'm not reading it for religious purposes.

>>469 >Is it okay to read it cover to cover? Yes. Encouraged, in fact. There are also methods that follow both the Old and New Testament concurrently, but really I think you're better off reading straight through. The way it builds up is very fascinating. >normal pace or take it slow to analyze it Depending on what translation you're using, you may want to read it like poetry, mouthing the words and enjoying the rhythm/euphony of the text. If you can read it out loud, that's even better. However, if you're reading the NIV or something then it might not be too interesting poetically. In that case I'd still encourage you to take it a bit slower and absorb the symbolism/imagery. There's quite a lot to analyze in the text. Of course, if you're not finding much worth analyzing at a given point, feel free to skim through. Deuteronomy is a bit of a slog—I wouldn't blame you for skimming those bits. Happy reading!

Many, myself included, would say the Bible is more than mere literature, but the inspired word of God. As such, I believe it's best to say a quick prayer, whichever way you think you know how, perhaps asking God to reveal something new about Him to you. Anyway, you could read it cover to cover if you like. Generally, the old testament contains the mythos of creation, the Israelites in Egypt, Israel as a nation (with judges, Kings, and prophets), psalms and proverbs, whereas the new testament contains the teachings of Jesus (first four books Matthew, Mark, Like, and John) followed by early church history (Acts), then the letters written by Paul, John, Peter, and James (which deal with different church teachings). Last is Revelation (end times prophecy) which I always found an interesting read though very cryptic. Personally, I would start with the book of John to get an idea of who Jesus was and the case for his divinity. After that I would move on to either Proverbs (also known as the book of wisdom) which has sayings more than anything, or Genesis , since I always liked the creation story .

>>471 Meant to say Luke, not Like lol

>>469 You can read it cover to cover if you like. No need to be intimidated, despite any religious significance it is still a book and books are intended to be read and not feared . You can read it at a normal pace or take it slow to analyze it, though which you do depends on how much time you want to spend reading it versus how much time you want to spend studying it , reading any religious text is not the same as studying said religious text. Some people decide to read the entire scripture in a fixed time period, some people read a verse a day, others a chapter and others a story. Regarding analyzing the text, exactly how much analysis and interpretation you do depends on the historical and cultural awareness you place into interpreting the information in context, as well as identifying any translation or transcription issues in the version you are reading. In terms of order, which order you read it in depends on what you are trying to get out of it from an information / religious perspective, e.g. a large number of religious Christians encourage reading the new testament first, normally the gospels, then the letters, before reading the old testament. Personally, I enjoyed the following versions of the text, http://www.bricktestament.com/home.html (illustrated using Lego), http://www.wordforwordbiblecomic.com/ (graphic novel / comic version with no omitted source text) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_Bible (whi ch was probably the comic version I read as a child, before reading KJV, CEV and NIV as a young adult) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Bible_(series) / http://www.bible.or.jp/e/manga.html . The Hawaiin Pidgin version of the Bible http://www.pidginbible.org/ , the lolcat bible http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page . http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Bible/BibleType.htm has a nice summary of some of the different bible types. (see attached pdf) but Wikipedia goes into more detail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_Bible_translations , as does http://www.derose.net/steve/Bible/EnglishBibleTranslations.html .

>>474 Personally I'd suggest American standard version or NWT over KJV. In my opinion the language is easier to understand.

I'd say you may want to skip through Numbers and Kings your first time through. They have a lot of the lists of names of who begat whom, with no explanation of anything any of those people did. >>474 The KJV has a lot of issues. The language is archaic, and some of the translations are flat wrong (King James was kind of strapped for Hebrew speakers).

>>531 I'm fine with the prose being archaic, but if it causes significant inaccuracy then I'll switch to the NIV.

Reading the gospels in order sounds a bit tedious. It's like Jesus: The Theatrical Cut, Directors Cut and Final Cut all in a row and then the fourth one is different from the others. Luke and John are probably good enough for a new student.

>>532 Literally if you're not reading it for religious purposes the King James one is the objectively best written. Basically every single biblical allusion in the English language is directly from it, meaning reading it will maximize your benefit gained. Admittedly, if you're not able to understand Shakespeare, you're both a fuarrking pleb and also probably not gonna have any better luck with it.

>>539 >Basically every single biblical allusion in the English language is directly from it, meaning reading it will maximize your benefit gained. Which is untrue if you can't understand any of it. >Admittedly, if you're not able to understand Shakespeare, you're both a fuarrking pleb and also probably not gonna have any better luck with it. Your comment is unnecessary

I'd start with Genesis, the story of creation, then read any of the first four books of the New Testament, then go back and read the rest in order. Something to keep in mind about the Old Testament: the Jews are God's chosen people. Why them? Well, you ever hear the saying, "some people exist only as a warning to others"? That fits the Jews perfectly. Practically every other chapter of the Old Testament has the Jews going out of their way to piss God off (they're incredibly ungrateful; hell, look at what they do in Exodus: God literally frees them from slavery by inflicting divine plagues on Egypt, parts the sea for them, drowns the pursuing army, gives them a pillar of fire to follow by night and a pillar of smoke to follow by day, feeds them with literal manna from heaven, and their attitude is "yeah, but what have you done for us lately?" God has done all that for them, but all it takes is for Moses to be gone for a couple of days for them to forge a golden idol of a cow (Moloch/Baal) and start worshiping it instead.), God punishes them for being selfish little soykafs, the Jews cry about how horrible it is that they're being justly punished, God feels sorry for them and relents, and almost immediately the Jews go back to doing whatever pissed God off in the first place. Another thing to bear in mind is that many of the rules the Jews follow (no blended cloth, no pork, etc.) don't apply to non-Jews or are rescinded later in the Bible once they no longer serve a purpose. God deliberately inflicts super-strict rules on the Jews that they have to follow, specifically to make a point about how people can't live up to God's standards of perfection. It's supposed to teach a lesson, which flew over the heads of the Jews and even most Christians don't get. Also note that many of the rules that come with the death penalty were, at most, enforced once to make an example and then God was lenient afterward, since He'd made His point the first time. Jesus, for example, preaches leniency for those who made an honest mistake or are genuinely remorseful for what they had done. If you're likely to learn from it and you're truly sorry for doing it, God tends to let you off with a slap on the wrist; if you're not remorseful or a harsher penalty is necessary to teach you a lesson, well... you get what's coming to you. Jesus also preaches that the rules don't always need to be strictly enforced; for example, in the Old Testament, it says to remember the sabbath and keep it holy. Jesus later explains that the sabbath was created for men, men weren't created for the sabbath, so you don't have to be a nazi about following the rules. He also got really pissed with the Pharisees (who wrote the Babylonian Talmud) and their rules lawyering, coming up with all sorts of insane interpretations of Biblical rules (having a nail sticking out of your shoe technically counts as work because the nail digging into the dirt as you walk is 'plowing', and work is forbidden on the sabbath) and then inventing loopholes for the rules. Jesus specifically calls them out on the hand-washing rule, saying that the rule exists for a reason (sanitation) and shouldn't be adhered despite all common sense (if you read the Talmud, this exact rule comes up and the Jews are characteristically retarded/insane about how they apply it.). The book of Revelations is deliberately cryptic. The author was in a Roman prison and wanted to get his book/letter out without it being confiscated as potentially dangerous, and thus made it obscure and used a LOT of symbolism that made sense to Jews and early Christians, but not to Romans. The meaning to some of the symbolism has been lost today, and others are difficult because of the English translation and its inadequacies; for example, God's throne is green... a dark green representing life. The horse Death rides on is pale green, which represents death. Frogs are used to represent evil. Most of what's in Revelations is not meant to be interpreted literally, it's symbolic. I recommend starting with an NIV translation, especially an annotated or study version with notes in the margin explaining where the translation is like kicking dead whales down the beach (for example, Jesus asks if Peter loves him, repeatedly, and gets mad when Peter keeps saying yes, he loves him. In the original Greek, Jesus is asking if Peter loves him unconditionally, whereas Peter is responding that he loves him like a brother. The English language only has one word for love, and so loses the nuance. Comparing to the oldest known extant versions of each book of the Bible, most modern translations are 96% identical, with the 4% difference almost entirely due to Greek/Latin/Hebrew/Aramaic words or phrases not translating well into English.), historical background, cultural interpretations, etc. I myself prefer a Revised King James Edition, because the language is far more poetic and lends a beauty to reading the Bible. Original King James versions have a number of transcription errors due to poor translations or scribes screwing up; I prefer a version that keeps the original language intact, but corrects the transcription errors. There are other versions of the King James Bible, mostly dumbing down the language to make it more accessible to a modern reader, but I dislike those as they weaken the poetry and dilute some of the meaning. Reading the King James Bible isn't as difficult as reading Shakespeare, believe me. Then, if you're really up for it, you can try tackling the Latin Vulgate Bible. Great for practicing your Latin, which not only teaches you a classical language, but also gives you a solid basis for studying Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, basically any Romance language. English derives 60% of its vocabulary from Latin (or, more specifically, French), but is itself a Germanic language, so it doesn't really help you acquire any of the Romance languages despite the heavy corruption the Normans inflicted on it. In any case, don't be intimidated by the Bible. Compared to a typical novel, it isn't much longer, the language and context aren't that difficult to understand, and it's meant for anyone and everyone to read. Read it at your own pace, and enjoy.

>>600 >Jesus also preaches that the rules don't always need to be strictly enforced; Just a note on that, Jesus' response to, "Which of the ten commandments is the most important," was basically, "Loving your neighbor and loving god are the point of all of them."

>>600 Wow, thanks for all the advice man Are you on the IRC? I definitely want to talk to you sometime.

Do keep in mind that there are diverse schools of thought on pretty much every part of the bible, adding a commentaries to you reading will most likely help if you decide to do a second pass. I frankly wonder if I can squeeze some autistic screeching from here if I shove some Reformation all up in here, no one seems to like ol' John's hard determinism.

>>602 That's not at all what he said and that's not what the commandments amount to if you re-read them either. He was instead offering two supreme commandments.

>>613 >offering two supreme commandments. Which were: 1. Loving your neighbor and 2. Loving god. >That's not at all what he said What he said was in Greek and my keyboard doesn't have letters for it. I translated.

>>622 I think you missed my point. He wasn't summarizing the 10, he was suggesting something better and shorter.

>>600 Just a minor point, hence the sage. Technically those people were not Jewish, but were Israelites.

>>607 I'm not, but then I just discovered this place yesterday. I'll get on tomorrow evening, say, 9pm CST, if you want to talk. >>611 Calvinism pretty much rules out the possibility of free will, which is a BIG part of the Bible and basically the reason the world is so fuarrrked up. We keep choosing to do the wrong thing. >>624 >Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! John 11:36 >And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. John 11:19 >His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? John 11:8 >And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; 1 Corinthians 9:20 Now, whether or not you want to argue that modern Jews are the same people as Biblical Jews (they're not, nor is modern Judaism the same as Biblical Judaism) is another story.

As someone who has read it completely 6 times and is working on the 7th right now a few tips: 1. Get a really good translation. Not King-James please. KJ was mildly outdated, language-wise when it came out 500 years ago and today is very very hard to understand. That is not to deny the great work this translation did to spread the word of God among the general population of course. Some translations will put more focus on pleasantness of reading, others on accuracy to the original text, still others try to strike a balance between both. Depending on if you want to read the Bible as a good book of literature or as the inspired word of God you might want to chose different translations. Personally I really like the revised edition of the New-World Translation (2013). Some claim that it has been mistranslated or has a bias of some sorts although after reading all the footnotes in it as well as the appendices and references I have found none. New Geneva and American Standard are supposedly also quite nice. 2. Speed: It is possible to read the whole Bible comfortable within one year. My Bible has around 1600 pages so that is 5 pages a day. Took me between 20-40 minutes depending on mood, motivation and text to read (action packed Judges: Yay, Detailed lists of names and duties in Deuteronomy: non so yay) 3. Where to start: I started with Genesis but I heard of many that started with The Gospels and read until Revelation then started with Genesis. Others focus on the Poetry parts first (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Lamentations). 4. Depth of study: As a religious person myself I try to read it as slow as necessary to not miss any details but I would not stop and try to analyse every single letter and inter punctuation, this tends to lead to some crazy warped ideas about what the test means when overanalyzing every single word. Instead if your chosen version has internal references, that is "links" to other parts of the bible, follow these up. They can be the same situation described by another author (Kings vs. Chronicle or the 4 Gospels) prophecy and their accomplishment (Isaiahs prophecy about Babylons destruction vs, Daniel recount of the fall of Babylon) or verses that can serve as explanation for the current one.

>>654 Sorry, I meant in your third paragraph, when they'd left Egypt.

I would suggest reading The Bible Designed To Be Read As Living Literature. Easier to start out with in my opinion. Think you can download it at the following link: https://archive.org/details/bibledesignedtob012390mbp Sorry if someone has already suggested it. I only skimmed the thread.

I have no explicit recommendations that haven't already been mentioned, but make sure you acquire a Bible that includes the deuterocanon. If it doesn't have the DT, it's an incomplete Bible. I also heartily recommend going through Ecclesiastes, as it's by far my favorite OT book.

It's okay, OP. If you want understand better you need read more than one time. I'm reading in second time in my life and still don't understand somethings.

>>955 seconding this. Ecclesiastes and Proverbs are my favorite books.

>>622 It was in Aramaic, the Greeks translated it

>>1084 Thirding for ecclesiates. It's good.

I would suggest getting one of these ~ the hefty weight as I carry it along the street leaves me in a state of tranquility...

>>469 Are you reading out of a genuine interest in religion? As in, do you want to convert or start going to church and 110% try to be a Christian? If so I'd strongly recommend reading the Catholic Church's Catechism. Everything is explained very clearly there in nicely written English. It's a great primer on how to think like a Christian and understand basic theology.

>>473 >how_to_read_your_bible_infographic.png >2. Listen for (((echoes))) This ^ Pay special attention to which factions may have been involved in a particular translation. Your best bet is probably to read the Latin Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims (a faithful, if plain translation of the latin) side by side. This largely avoids importing political squabbles into the translation, resulting in a more understandable text.

>>1203 also important: keep in mind that this was all assembled centuries after the events described happened. The original manuscripts for most of this stuff are lost, and the bible has changed significantly over time.

Not OP, but I have also been planning to read the bible. I'm planning to read it in Arabic, though, since it's my mother language and I am assuming that it would be much closer to Aramaic and Hebrew, since Arabic was influenced greatly by Aramaic. My parents are both Syriac Orthodox, so the bible we have at home is the orthodox version. Not sure if it differs from any of the other denominations' versions, but I really hope it doesn't; I would like to read an unbiased version of the bible; not one that has been tainted by what my parents' denomination believes.

>>1205 I don't think so Anon, most Bibles differ in translation only. Catholics add in some books between the old and new testament but that's about as different as most translations are (aside from the obvious, how the text was translated).

>>1206 Oh, that's good to know! :) I am glad that the Arabic version is very easy to understand, regardless of which translation you use, since Arabic hasn't changed over the past few centuries as much as English has changed. I am thinking about reading it in German, though; I am learning German and I think reading the bible in German could really improve my language skills. Has anyone here read it in German? And if so, what's the easiest translation to read? I just finished German level A2, so I am still considered a beginner or an intermediate; that's why it would be a good idea to find an easy-to-understand translation.

>>1202 I'm resding out of literary interest

As a small fact, the books of the Bible are not in chronological order. For example, the book of Revelation was not the last written book. Reading the Bible at a pace around 20 to 30 minutes a day should let you finish the entire book in a year. Enjoy your Bible reading OP!

Something worthy of note is that which books were selected to be included in the "official" Bible is largely an arbitrary product of history. The Apocrypha are those biblical books which have not been deemed "canonical" by certain religious authorities or others. If you want to gain a full understanding of the historical Bible, the Apocrypha are a must-read. https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_395.cfm

>>1205 I am the person who posted this post. I wanted to update that I've started reading the bible a few days ago. I decided to start with the new testament and then move on to the old testament. I finished reading Matthew 10 this morning, and I am really enjoying it. I am currently an agnostic deist, but I think that the more I read the bible, the more I become enchanted with Jesus's personality; I think his personality and actions are amazing and quite ahead of their time, especially when you compare his ideals to the toxic society that he was in. If I continue to enjoy and admire Jesus' personality this much, I may end up a (agnostic) Christian when I finish reading the bible. I think his amazing personality and ideals that are so ahead of their time could be a sign of his divinity; however, I will maintain my agnosticism because there is no way at this time to know for certain whether or not there is a god, and if there was a god, there is also no way to know for certain whether or not that god is Jesus (there are a lot of other things that we cannot know for certain at this moment in time, but I won't go too off-topic here.) I am interpreting the bible on my own rather than relying on the Church's interpretation. I have found that I disagree with some of the things that we were taught in school (I attended a private Orthodox Christian school in Jordan). >>1222 I am planning on read the Apocrypha when I finish reading the new and old testament. I may also look into Gnostic Christianity because that interests me a lot.

>>1207 I have a theory that the more people who can speak a language, the faster it changes. The reason being that there are more ears to mishear things.

>>955 Seconding the deuterocanon. Try to get one which has all the deuterocanon too, rather than just the catholic stuff.

>>1330 Yes, I agree; but you should also remember that Arabic's development was halted because the Ottoman empire invaded and ruled over most Arabic speaking countries for several centuries, and ignorance spread throughout the countries they ruled over. :( It was only recently that Arab countries were freed from the horrible Ottoman empire's rule (early 20th century).

>>1204 The Bible has not, in fact, "changed significantly over time". Comparisons to the oldest texts we have show that the modern Bible is roughly 95% identical, with the 5% difference being due to limitations of translation; ie, Greek has different words for love (eros for romantic love, agape for brotherly love, etc.), whereas English simply has the one word: love. Beyond that, the only significant differences are in translation. One older version of the King James Bible has several transcription errors, which were fixed in the Revised edition and have nothing to do with the translation or simply being different. There are also the apocryphal books, which Catholics added in their own section; even most Catholics regard them as not really being part of the Bible, and nobody outside of them even includes them. In fact, I'm sure a lot of Christians don't even realize they exist at all. Beyond that, there's no real "different versions" of the Bible, and not much has changed. You do occasionally get an individual verse added or removed from a book of the Bible, but that again is more due to translation (the translator couldn't think of how to say something in the other language, so he added an extra sentence to clarify or expand on it so the audience would understand the intended meaning), and these books otherwise line up more or less exactly with the modern Bible.

>>1288 Speaking of the "toxic society" Jesus lived in and spoke out against, if you're curious what it looks like... read the Talmud. It's basically all the rules and loopholes to said rules that the Pharisees imposed, written down. When Jesus called out the Pharisees on their hand washing nonsense? That's in the Talmud. The Talmud is quite literally insane. You'll have a rule, such as "no working on the sabbath" in the middle of the page. The entire rest of the page, including the margins, is a bunch of different rabbis over the centuries voicing their opinion on said rules and how strict they are (having a loose nail in your shoe will drag in the dirt, which counts as plowing, which counts as work, which is forbidden on the sabbath), then there's a bunch of loopholes to those rules (if you stretch a wire around an entire neighborhood, up at the top of a telephone pole, that somehow counts as a wall, which means the entire neighborhood is now an extension of your home, and as long as you're in your home certain rules don't apply to you, so now you can break the rules because you hung a wire around the neighborhood). There's also some incredible examples of hubris, such as a story where a rabbi gets in an argument with God and God concedes the debate thanks to some serious rules-lawyering by the rabbi. Most English versions of the Talmud are MASSIVELY redacted; Jews are really cagey about letting non-Jews read the real, uncensored Talmud because it doesn't have anything nice to say about them. Things such as goyim (a term for gentiles, non-Jews, which roughly translates to calling them cattle) being fit only to serve as slaves for Jews, Jews being allowed to commit crimes if their victims are non-Jews, etc. There's also a LOT of anti-Christian stuff; some of it gets included in English translations, but always with the excuse of "oh, that name applies to a specific group of people, not to you" or "idolators doesn't mean you", when, in fact, the people being talked about are Christians. The part where Christians in general and Jesus in particular are being boiled in semen and feces in Hell is nearly always left out of English translations. They also leave out a lot of things such as the verses justifying pedophilia, racism, and crimes against non-Jews. If you want to really read the Talmud and get an understanding of the mindset of many modern Jews, you're going to need to study up on your Yiddish and especially Hebrew. If you do make the effort, you'll understand exactly what the Pharisees were doing that started the conflict between them and Jesus, and why that led to 2,000 years of friction between Jews and Christians ever since. Just be forewarned, if you do go looking for that sort of information, you're going to run into a LOT of neo-nazi websites. Most of the verses they post as examples of Jewish supremacism/racism are genuine, but be aware that they're not the most unbiased source of information.

>>1367 >You'll have a rule, such as "no working on the sabbath" in the middle of the page. The entire rest of the page, including the margins, is a bunch of different rabbis over the centuries voicing their opinion on said rules and how strict they are (having a loose nail in your shoe will drag in the dirt, which counts as plowing, which counts as work, which is forbidden on the sabbath), then there's a bunch of loopholes to those rules (if you stretch a wire around an entire neighborhood, up at the top of a telephone pole, that somehow counts as a wall, which means the entire neighborhood is now an extension of your home, and as long as you're in your home certain rules don't apply to you, so now you can break the rules because you hung a wire around the neighborhood). I use to suffer from very severe religious OCD, and this kinda brings back memories of my OCD. I was a Christian back then, though. I was able to fight the OCD and it's almost non-existent now. (I'm currently an agnostic deist, btw).

>>1367 Very interesting. I don't know if I will read the Talmud; I am more interested in the new testament, but I may give a try after I finish both the old and new testaments. I'm learning German at the moment, and Yiddish is not too different in terms of vocabulary but the grammar seems a bit different (I could be mistaken, though; I haven't heard a lot of Yiddish). I have decided to learn Syriac (my ancestors' language) because I don't want the language to die; after the wars in Syria and Iraq (where most Assyrian and Syriac people lived), the Syriac people's number has been reduced a lot because most of them have unfortunately been murdered. I've heard from a few Hebrew speaking friends that Syriac is a bit similar to Hebrew, so maybe I will give Hebrew a try after I learn Syriac. This is a lot of work just to read a huge oldbook, though. :P Also, most of my Jewish friends haven't read the Talmud, so even though it does contain a lot of awful stuff, I am sure most of them aren't even aware of it, like most Christians are not aware of what's in the OT and most Muslims aren't aware of what's in the Qur'an (I am not Muslim myself, but since I live in the middle-east, I have a lot of Muslim friends, and most of them haven't even read the Qur'an).

>>654 Calvinism doesn't rule out free will at all, the Christian worldview necessitates a belief in free will. The confusion arises in that Calvinists (and Lutherans too) say that our will is so perverted from the fall that we will never choose God over sin without his assistance.

>>1385 Yiddish is basically the German equivalent of ebonics. It's a bastardized language full of baby-talk that basically exists solely so Jews could snub the Germans and set themselves apart from them. Similar to how most Jewish surnames sound German to foreigners, but anyone familiar with German names and language can spot a Jewish name immediately. Many Jewish surnames are examples of wish fulfillment; Goldberg, for instance, literally translates to 'mountain of gold'. Look at how many Ashkenazi surnames have gold, silver, etc. in them or otherwise translate to a desire for wealth/power. To a foreigner, names like Goldenbaum or Rothstein may not stand out, but to a German it's as obvious as Powerman or BiggusDickus would be to an English speaker, ie, not a real name and just something they wish they had. That said, Yiddish has given English a lot of loan words, mainly thanks to Jews in New York and Hollywood. Bupkis, schmuck, chutzpah, glitch, klutz, etc. Even the racial slur, kike, comes from Yiddish; Jews have a serious hatred for Christianity. When European immigrants arrived in New York in the 1800's, if they were illiterate, they simply 'made their mark' by signing paperwork with an X. To Jews, this was too similar to the cross (seriously, they don't even use the plus sign, +, in math, they have their own symbol so they don't inadvertently draw a cross), so they drew a circle instead. The Yiddish word for circle is kikel. Wealthy New York Jews looked down on the illiterate or semi-literate Jewish immigrants coming from Eastern Europe and started calling them kikels, which was eventually shortened to Germans, and then everyone started called them that. It's sort of the opposite of how Americans (primarily northerners) adopted the name yankees for themselves, which started as a British slur for the American colonists and was adopted by the Americans to thumb their nose at them. Also, while most Muslims haven't read the Koran (being as the majority are only semi-literate, living in extremely rural areas), the whole 'most Christians haven't read the Old Testament' thing is a myth. Christians focus on the NT, but they most definitely read the OT. In fact, I'd say most Christians are more familiar with the important figures of the OT (Moses, David, Daniel, Solomon, Joshua, Samuel, etc.) than they are with any NT material that doesn't revolve around Jesus. As for most of your Jewish friends claiming they haven't read the Talmud... if they attended a Jewish school, which most Jews do (just as most Catholics attend Catholic schools), they most certainly have. They just will profess ignorance, because of all the negative stuff in the Talmud regarding non-Jews in general and Christians in particular; hell, there's even a specific commandment in the Talmud not to reveal its contents to non-Jews, as doing so would be equivalent to killing Jews as it would enrage the goyim once they knew what was in it. >>1384 You have no idea. Jews aren't even allowed to tear toilet paper off the roll on the sabbath or during holidays, as that counts as 'work'. Flipping a light switch is verboten too. They have special Jewish light switches with special mechanisms that- just, yeah, it's insane. Google it. You don't know OCD until you've got a pack of lawyers arguing over whether or not flying over a cemetery in an airliner counts as passing through a graveyard and makes you unclean, and whether or not sealing yourself in a plastic bag (while inside a pressurized cabin, mind you) magically protects you from that. Jewish rules-lawyering is literally insane.

>>1492 > In fact, I'd say most Christians are more familiar with the important figures of the OT (Moses, David, Daniel, Solomon, Joshua, Samuel, etc.) than they are with any NT material that doesn't revolve around Jesus This is certainly true but it does not negate the fact that many, many Christians have never read the OT. We were given children's storybook versions of it when we were little or watched TV bible dramas and that's how we know those stories. I tried reading the whole thing when I was 10 or so but it was certainly not something required of me and I was definitely in a minority. I didn't finish it either. Go back a generation or two and that wasn't the case. People my grandparents' age probably did read the whole thing.

>>1492 Very interesting read, especially as an atheist. I will have to look more into this theory of Jesus being portrayed as too nice, it works well in a historic context. >>1367 The places I've looked in so far all call these verses justifying pedophilia etc. as being made up or translations used out of context. Any comments on that?

>>1497 Just look it them up and read them in context. And honestly, just how much context do you need for "it's ok to fuarrrk a 3 year old girl" or "if you feel like committing a crime, go where the goyim don't know you and commit it there"? Hell, if your book includes a warning telling readers to lie about its contents if the goyim ask about it, and say that exposing its contents to outsiders is effectively signing a death warrant because of how people will react once they know what you think about them, then maybe your book is full of some shady soykaf. Saying it's "out of context" is effectively saying "I can't get away with lying and saying it doesn't say that, but I don't want to admit to anything either". If you have the exact same reputation for unsavory behavior in every country you've lived in, spread across multiple continents, in hundreds of different cultures, over a period of 2,000 years, and literally every single culture you interact with has identical complaints about the way you behave, that's generally an indication that you're doing something to piss people off. That something is the behavior taught in the Talmud. It's the basis for modern Jewish culture and the only Jewish populations who haven't had conflict with their non-Jewish neighbors are the ones who don't use the Talmud as the basis for everything they do.

>>1492 Jesus Christ. Criminal. Rightly Judged.

>>1510 I can't read Hebrew, so I can't read them in context or verify that these quotes even exist. It also seems impossible to find unbiased sources on this. But yeah, the Talmud seems like a outdated piece of work, like most religious texts /fedora

>>1510 >the only Jewish populations who haven't had conflict with their non-Jewish neighbors are the ones who don't use the Talmud as the basis for everything they do. i.e.; most modern Jews. How many Jews do you know actually follow these teachings? I don't know any; most of the ones I know are very secular. >>1493 I went to an Orthodox Christian school in Jordan because my family are Orthodox. We very rarely read from the OT; we did learn about the prophets and other stories from the OT, but mostly from coloring books and story books made for children. The only instances I remember where we read from the OT were reciting psalms. We read from the NT very often, though; we focused mostly on the gospels, but we also took the other books, especially St Paul's epistles (oh, how I hated most of them).

>>1515 look for technical translations by non religious individuals, I have read several texts that were translated, and in the foot notes it was specified that the context was vague and based on context clues there were several explanations because of the time frame that the text was written in and the language barrier created by the various translations. it was approached in a completely objective way, not one tainted by a religious desire to make things sound nice. >>1510 >if your book includes a warning telling readers to lie about its contents religion has been a life and dath struggle for many generations. the ultraliberal views of Jesus were seen by the roman authorities to violate the hierarchical order of the state. Jesus said to be kind and basically become a commie and accept others with love, and the Romans objected to his teachings in that it made people think that they were more than subjects of their lord and state

>>1367 >If you want to really read the Talmud and get an understanding of the mindset of many modern Jews, The Talmud has nothing to do with "the mindset of many modern Jews," unless you consider Orthodox Jews "modern Jews," which is an odd way to think of them. Only Orthodox Jews take the Talmud seriously. Most Reform Jews do not consider the Talmud authoritative and many have never read it. Orthodox Jews are not a majority of the Jewish population in either the US or Israel, btw. >you're going to need to study up on your Yiddish and especially Hebrew. Less than half of the Talmud is in Hebrew, and none of it is in Yiddish. The Talmud is written in various dialects of Hebrew and Aramaic. >>1492 >the whole 'most Christians haven't read the Old Testament' thing is a myth. Christians focus on the NT, but they most definitely read the OT. Most people who consider themselves Christian don't read the Bible at all. Every Easter and Christmas Eve, churches swell with people who believe in God and identify as Christians, and who might even pray, but who only attend church twice a year. Most of them don't read the Bible, and might not even own one. There are plenty of Christians who've never read any of the Bible except what they were called upon to read in Sunday School or follow along with in the pews as an adult. There are certainly Christians who read the Bible regularly, often in the context of Sunday services and weekly Bible studies, and I suppose you might say that that's what you were referring to as Christians. You know, *real* Christians. If that's the case, though, then you might need to modify some of your theories about Jews. Because plenty of Jews are not Orthodox Jews, and many people of Jewish ethnicity or ancestry aren't religious at all. >As for most of your Jewish friends claiming they haven't read the Talmud... They probably haven't, unless they're Orthodox. >if they attended a Jewish school, which most Jews do (just as most Catholics attend Catholic schools), In the United States, most Jews and Catholics attend public schools. >there's even a specific commandment in the Talmud not to reveal its contents to non-Jews, Let's have a citation on that, please. The popular citation for that quote is a Talmudic tractate called "Libbre David" or "Libbre Dovid." This "book" of the Talmud doesn't exist, though. It's made up.

>>2570 >, and many people of Jewish ethnicity or ancestry aren't religious at all. Does not exist. Jews as a race were wiped out in the 1st and 2nd century by the romans for being huge SOBs repeatedly and despite being asked nicely to tone it down. Look at most jews today: They are just Germans with a weird religion, nothing more.

Depends what you want to know from it. For many, Luke then Acts is a good combo. You learn a lot about the early church and it's a very history-based account of Christ. Mark is an easier read. Matthew not so much. John, an outstanding book. Layer upon layer of meaning. Good to read in combination with Exodus due to the parallels between Christ and Moses.

>>2577 >what are sephardic jews

>>2577 wow, how is it possible to know this little about the world

>>2582 It's what happens when you grow up in the American education system and discover p/o/l at age 13.

>>2582 >>2583 no u! Everyone thinks jews are a race, this includes jews (duh) and Nazis. It is wrong however. Of course THAT requires some knowledge and interest in history something most americans like YOU lack.

First off the Bible is not a book, but rather a collection of books and letters compiled by a counsel. As such, there are different ways to approach it, cover to cover being completely acceptable. As for pace for reading, again there are of course a lot of ways to approach it, what I am striving for right now is to just pick it up and read a chapter a day, starting at the start of the gospel of Mathew. In terms of how intimidating it is, there are other books you can pick up along side it to help bring some more knowledge and clarity to your reading. I was just gifted a copy of "You Can Understand the Bible" by Peter Kreeft. I'm just starting in reading it alongside the bible, but as an example of what I have gotten out of it with what little time I have spent using it, I just read the first chapter of Mathew, then read the beginning of the chapter on Mathew in Kreeft's book. Mathew starts out with the non-biological lineage of Jesus through Joseph. Kreeft explains that Mathew does this because the Jews trace Royalty through the father, not the mother. Along with that he explains that Mathew cites the old testament a lot more than the other gospels because his intent is to show the Jewish people that Christ is in fact _The Christ_. Again, I'm only just getting started with this companion book, but already it has demonstrated a great value, so if you are feeling intimidated, such a companion book may be a wise investment.

>>1206 >Catholics add in some books between the old and new testament Those books were taken out by the reformers in the 1500's. Not the other way around.

>>2709 While you are at it you can also pick up "what does the bible really teach" which is like a summary of the bible. Every single statement and claim about it is based on many citation from the Bible which are either given in full or at least printed as "Book Chapter:Verse" notation so you can look them up. >>2710 >>2709 No the council (I asume you mean the council from Nicea lead by the heathen emperor of Rome at that time and attended by less than half the Bishops at that time) had no influence on the biblical canon which was already fixed for centuries at that time (keep in mind this was around the 5th century after Christ). In fact many doctrines that were "agreed" upon during that council explicitly contradict the bible. Examples include: Hellfire, Immortal soul as intelligent part of Humans, Purgatory, Trinity, Maria-worship... Thos contradictions were also one of the reasons why people were officially derezzed from reading the Bible by the church until well into the 20th century: They did not want people to find out the truth. For the same reasons the Apocrypha are not included in the canon: They contradict the rest of the Bible. Also some are incoherent. One OT-book has its writer talk to King Salomon in one chapter and to King Nebuchanezzar in another chapter, despite both persons living around 500 years apart. Others are interesting froma historical point of view (like the Maccabean books) but they have no evidence of being inspired by holy spirit like the rest of the canon.

>>2716 Lots of memes to crack down in this post - I am sure you know much more than the Church Fathers at Nicea, who were actually there, and 1700 years closer than the events that took place in the Bible. Thank goodness we have you to straighten things out for us. The 1st Council of Nicea took place in 325, Christianity had only been legalized 12 years ago, and with the Marcionite gnostics running around with mutilated scripture (and the Arians following them shortly after the council), an official selection of scripture was needed. This is where we get the Bible. All these beliefs that you say 'contradict' the Bible were already established by that time. >those contradictions were one of the reasons why people were officially derezzed from reading the Bible by the church until well into the 20th century: they didn't want people to find out the truth. Do you really think it just sat around for 1500 years until someone said 'hey, this purgatory thing isn't real!'? Maybe it's expected for people on a cyberpunk imageboard to have problems with authority, but this is delusional. >the Apocrypha... contradict the rest of the Bible... its writer talks to Solomon in one chapter and to Nebuchadnezzar in another chapter. When you're reading the Bible, keep in mind it was not always written in a literally historic way. Solomon is often used to reference a wise authority figure, for example. >Others are interesting... but they have no evidence of being inspired by holy spirit like the rest of the canon According to whom? You, an imageboard poster? Your pastor? >>469 You can read it for free online, I'd suggest the Douay-Rhimes or NSRV translations. There are all sorts of free commentaries/homilies on these things if you want a bit of context. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2401.htm is good.

>>2764 to be fair, a religion is not its scripture. One could interpret the actual events around Jesus Christ totally differently from, say Paul or any other writers at the time.

>>2765 >one could interpret the actual events around Jesus Christ totally differently from, say Paul or any other writers at the time What you call 'interpretations' are just lies told for a variety of reasons, made up to make Christianity more satisfying or less difficult for one wanted to follow Christ but was held back by something, or scam artists, and so on. There is no surviving, serious anti-Pauline Christianity out there.

>>2767 ah yes, and now we get insistence on religious truth. This is why theology is so fuarrrked up, you can't question any of the canon even though there's literally no reason to assume the disciples got it right.

>>2764 >Do you really think it just sat around for 1500 years until someone said 'hey, this purgatory thing isn't real!'? And trying to pull and "appeal to authority/seniority" on a cyberpunk board is not? Check out Newton, just one of the many, many people who had long recognized for example that there was no trinity in the bible. But even a famous man as he had to keep that secret for fear of being outcast or even killed. Now keep in mind that this was long after the reformation and the church was even less tolerant of perceived heretics in the past. Why do you think the clergy went apesoykaf whenever anyone tried to translate the bible into the common tongue: They knew damn well that then all those lies they had spun might be exposed. >When you're reading the Bible, keep in mind it was not always written in a literally historic way. Solomon is often used to reference a wise authority figure, for example. Yes and sometimes it is. The context is key. That book has its MC walk from Jerusalem to Babylon. No indication of anything figuratively. Or take the evangelium of Thomas (or was it Judas) where it claims that Jesus wanted Judas to betray him. Of course this stands in crass contrast to the rest of the bible where Judas is the only person to be confirmed as having commited "a sin against the holy spirit" and to not receive a ressurection because of that. >According to whom? You, an imageboard poster? Your pastor? According to the pillow-talk I made with your mum fgt! There are several criteria as to how one can recognize an inspired book from one that is not (look them up yourself, Im not your butler) and the Maccabeans for example to not fit. The whole canon vs. non canon is not even that hard to understand. To use an illustration: All Star-Wars Novels (EU) are canon (suppose). All Novels that claim to be about Star-Wars but feature Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Ships called Firefly, Transformers, the God Emperor of Mankind, Daleks or your mum are not. Makes sense, no? So if we can reason about the canonicity of completely fictional books, we certainly can do the same about the word of God.

Ok, OP, assuming you read The Bible, now it's time to understand how it's written. https://www.scribd.com/document/336909376/Franz-V-Greifenhagen-Egypt-on-the-Pentateuchs-Ideological-Map-Constructing-Biblical-Israels-Identity-JSOT-Supplement-2003-pdf

>>2774 "look up this incredibly subjective and niche subject yourself" is code for "I don't really know what I'm talking about"

>>2777 https://www.google.com/search?q=determining+canonicity+of+bible+books here you go, cock-jockey! Alternatively: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=determining+canonicity+of+bible+books&t=lm&ia=web knob-goblin!

>>2768 >not believing in any kind of subjective truth enjoy endless confusion I guess

>>2774 You have to trust in Sacred Tradition, anon, its the only way Christianity makes sense

>>2780 this is exactly what Jesus warned against "putting men's word above God's Word". If men/tradition says A but God says B then it must always be B that is accepted by his true followers. This madness was already going on 2000 years ago with e.g. the Sadduceans saying that ressurection did not exist, Phariseans making up tons of hard to follow nonsense-additions to the mosaic law and people generally ignoring God for their own ideas.

>>2779 it's not so bad. Get to experience things like a child more often

>>2783 Mind you, that does NOT mean dressing in a diaper and bonnet and handing out pamphlets on street corners.

>>2782 Yeah, but there is no way to verify that B is indeed God's word and not just another man's (your) idea. That's the whole problem, and there is no solution to it as God has apparently refrained from placing an official newsboard in the sky so far (that everyone can read). Anyone who claims anything is a human speaking words, and there is no newsboard to verify either. As a Christian you are free to believe absolutely fuarrrk all you want, because everyone else is probably wrong in everything they say. What's even worse is that some people think that some arbitrary lucky turn of events or visual hallucinations are proof of something. If you ask me, I wouldn't trust the word of God's hobo son either, that is, assuming that men claiming he existed are right. This epistemological weakness is what makes tradition popular, as it creates a sense of stability and belonging way better. People who find the weakness (that you can believe anything and convince nobody of anything) and aren't fond of the truth mafia and their godfather pope usually just leave.

>>473 Im trying to source the Word for Word bible comic digital version, and will share it here. Any help from others is welcome. (so far I far I only found 1 part on soulseek, but im in the que)

>>2786 No. The confusion may exist for relatively minor issues (King of the north and south in Daniel, what people in antiquity were a foreshadowing of things to come later and which were not etc.) however the basics are clearly and easy to discern. Meditation (not the ohhhm-kind but deep thought), prayer and a sincere desire to do God's will will help with the rest. The issues with the apocrypha is that they do not disagree on some minor detail but in such a way that renders the rest of the bible moot. Take the pagan teaching of Hellfire and trinity as example. Throughout the Bible Jehova emphasises time and time again that he is "one God". Now suddenly he is supposed to be 3 Gods in one? Also "no one can see God and live" yet people saw Jesus and lived, so why trinity? Furthermore "The sources of life are with God" so if God/Jesus died for our sins, how come we are still alive? Or did he not really die but pretend to, or have someone else die in his place (as the muslims believe)? Then how does it work with "God cannot lie?" And why would Jesus emphasise that "The father is greater than me" and "the son cannot do a single thing out of himself but only does what he sees the father doing". In an attempt to be more welcoming to pagans the church at that time created endless confusion and completely deviated from the clear and logical true faith in that aspect. Hellfire is even worse: God sentenced Israel to Exile because (among others) they burned their children in Fire as sacrifice to pagan Gods. So why would God all of a sudden torture people eternally in fire? Also "the wage that sin pays is death", so why are those in hell being paid their wages "twice". And how would that be coherent with the idea that "there is no thinking or acting or reasoning in death,"? If clearly those being tortured are conscious. Finally "God is love" (a revolutionary concept at that time), how can a loving God torture people eternally?

Hello, I'm considering reading the Tanakh, is the JPS transation (1917) the best free available?

>>2790 s/free/freely