Completely ignoring any sort of religious shitflinging, the Bible is pretty well-written.
>>8090602
Well obviously, your religion doesn't sweep through and convert the entire Roman Empire without force without it being a damn good story
>reading translations
>>8090602
Yes, not a religious man myself, but it is a great work.
>>8090602
You should look at Hegel's Early Theological Writings, his interpretation of the sacrifice of Christ is unironically one of the most beautiful messages I've seen
I will admit it's written well but I've barely understood any of it.
>>8090602
It's a pile of dogshit.
>>8090602
Check out the Book of Enoch and the Gospel of Thomas. They are two of the many books excluded from biblical canon, but are very good. Enoch's is very intriguing
I didn't think it was well-written at all.
>>8090602
A: Translation
B: Only parts of it.
C: The plot is full of holes.
Which version should I read? Never stepped foot in a church so I don't know what I'm getting myself into. Which version would be the best for literature? Would I want to read a Catholic bible or a Christian/protestant bible?
>>8090694
>should I get a Catholic Bible or a Christian Bible
top kek
New King James version
>>8090646
>The plot is full of holes.
It's not a novel you vape-breathing fedora. It's a collection of 73 books with multiple, complex and often contradictory layers of interpretation that have accreted on top of them over ~2500 years or more.
>>8090694
The most beautiful translation is King James but it also has serious problems. Still if you're really approaching it as an agnostic/atheist simply interested in it as literature/its place in the history of human thought, I'd go with King James.
If you want to avoid the fires of Hell, however, you should go with the Catholic Version of Revised Standard Edition. Or, better still, Jerome's Vulgate in the original Latin.
>>8090720
>73
66 familia
>>8090720
>transubstantiation
>>8090750
isnt in the bible at all
>>8090755
Bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Christ which we eat as a necessity of salvation is very much in the Bible, the process which is explained and then called transubstantiation.
>>8090731
>Revised Standard Edition
literally bible junior
>>8090602
God is a cunt. Go fuck yourself.
>>8090759
citation pls
>>8090694
>>8090755
John 6:56 etc:Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.
ὁ τρώγων μου τὴν σάρkα kαὶ πίνων μου τὸ αἷμα ἐν ἐμοὶ μένει kἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ.
It's really extremely explicit. The evangelist even uses a particularly physical and harsh verb, τρώγων, which means more like gnawing than merely eating, and so is accordingly translated by manducat in the vulgate. In the entire history of Greek literature, Attic and koine, pagan and Jewish, never is the verb τρώγω used metaphorically. Jesus meant that we literally eat his body. Which we true Christians do.
>>8090782
+1
Currently reading the Message bible. It's by far the most reader friendly, but in doing so the very "biblical" aspect is lost.
>>8090790
Not the same anon, but I think the primary focus should be on what Jesus meant when referring to his "body" and not whether or not the consumption, or gnawing, is literal or metaphorical because he obviously wasn't referring to his physical human flesh and blood
>>8090767
>>8090776
Paul in general?
He went heavily into the real presence.
Of course all the gospels, but it's crystal clear with him since anyone eating of it while in state of sin is condemning himself to hell.
>>8090806
He obviously was, for one does not gnaw on something incorporeal.
I'm not saying it's "rational". It emphatically is irrational and beyond human ratiocination. That's what Catholics/Orthodox mean when they talk about "mystery".
If you want a rational religion you might as well just become an agnostic Unitarian or something.
>>8090767
someone didn't handle gramma's death very well
>>8090816
Joyce beautifully puts it:
“—Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?
—I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?”
>>8090816
b-b-b-b-b--b-b-bb-b--bb-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ut everything must be explainable under this thing i like!
>>8090806
>nearly all of his followers go away because it's a hard teaching
>"dude it was like metaphorical though really"
that's not what they thought back then and he didn't say what you said to have them back.
m8
>>8090816
That's not what a mystery means at all. A mystery is rational and can be explained, only that it can never be fully understood. It is a well that keeps giving, not an impenetrable question.
>>8090817
White Trash. Kill yourself, faggot.
>fedoralords solely come into this thread to try and stir the plot
I don't give a shit about religion but m8, that is pathetic.
>>8090830
>That's not what a mystery means at all. A mystery is rational and can be explained, only that it can never be fully understood. It is a well that keeps giving, not an impenetrable question.
Literally transubstantiation
Also how is the holiday that was yesterday called in English?
>>8090731
>original Latin
>>8090839
I'm half black half asian
meme harder m8
>>8090848
It's not original, it is however sanctioned by the Council of Trent, which is infallible.
>>8090848
Jerome's Vulgate is written in Latin you idiot
>>8090816
>you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood literally, but I brought some bread and wine we can use to figuratively represent the literal concept
nah homie i don't think he was being serious about that
Especially considering he had a date with the cross and all, and crucifixion doesn't work very well on people who have been literally eaten
>>8090608
came here to enjoy this post
>>8090638
I like the dream of the rood (one of the earliest Christian poems known) and the lost gospel of Eve
But I'm strange
>>8090850
Lying on the internet sure is fun, eh.
You're still a worthless faggot.
>>8090731
If I read both King James and the Catholic RSE would I understand references from say paradise lost, Dante's inferno, Ulysses, etc? I've thought about getting the Geneva bible but I'm not too sure
>>8090926
Biblical references wouldn't be lost between translations. Even between the Message translation and AMSR you'll still pick them up because the references themselves are typically pretty broad
>>8090602
The Koinè is pure garbage.
It's like having to forcefully witness the desecration of a language.
"Kai" is used over seven thousand times in the Gospels, quite often to start setences.
Shaoul uses "sarx" to mean "mankind", literally "dead flesh".
In his epistles, the petty, sick comedian refers to Sarah's lack of fertility as "the death (necrosis) in her womb".
Reading the New Testament in Koinè is watching a slave population speak the basest possible ideas through the highest language. There is something sickening about it.
>>8090950
The sickening thing is the assumption that Paul and many other authors were uneducated slaves as this was not the case.
Kinda unrelated, but what's the best English translation of the Bible?
>>8090954
If you considered having a vague knowledge of neoplatonism and eastern cults as "education", and having the jus gentium applying to you as not being part of a slave population, then indeed, you would be right.
>>8090958
Get an Ignatius Press annotated Bible for the best experience
>>8090964
Get a load of this guy.
>>8090964
It's hardly vague and it's quite explicit and well understood, especially in Gospel of John.
Paul was also a Roman citizen so jus gentium indeed didn't apply to him.
Now of course, education could have been nonexistent and it wouldn't change the fact that the uneducated savages of ancient Judea wrote possibly the most moving and life-changing collection of books ever written, making your existence even more pathetic in comparison.
>>8090972
>the uneducated savages of ancient Judea wrote possibly the most moving and life-changing collection of books ever written, making your existence even more pathetic in comparison
>he confuses the old and the new testament
>>8090608
This.
If Christians truly loved Jesus, they'd read the NT in the original koine Greek.
>>8090602
It needed to be, it was invented by the Rothschilds to enslave civilization after all.
>>8090972
>he takes seriously Shaoul's claim that he was in the Roman army and somehow fell from his horse (?)
>he thinks this retarded, handicapped piece of hate-filled shit actually "wrote" anything worthwhile
>he thinks the Epistles aren't the lees of religious writing
>he somehow esteems a crooked man who spent his life yelling that he was baptized in death and lived in death at a bunch of people who marked miles with huge stone dicks and worshipped 'unknown gods' out of tolerance to foreign religions
you sure kek'd me there
>>8090964
being a part of second class population doesn't equal being slaves, it's very wrong to claim something like that; the slaves didn't have personal freedom while those second class people certainly had it and routinely owned slaves themselves
>>8091092
>second class population
what did he mean by this
>all the great writers are christian
>they influenced by the masterful prose of the bible
it all makes sense now
>>8090602
Its dry and clumsily written, and even John couldn't get rid of all the cultural/religious references to make the references make universal sense. Its also poorly edited. WHy the word of God omits certain books and passages, I have no idea
>>8090608
Greek is a translation itself, which is why the Christ is called Jesus and not Ioshua.
>>8090602
So much theological ink has been spilt just to try and figure out the plot holes and contradictions. Bible lore is almost as incomprehensible as a poorly written video game, and for most people its not for some psychological or spiritual purpose.
>>8090782
>KJV is not accurate than NRSV
That's not true at all. If anything, you need to swap the two. The KJV is by far the most literary version, but it's pretty lacking in terms of accuracy (in the context of more scholarly editions of course. It's no hippy-dippy MSG version.)
>>8092204
I didn't make the image... but it's about the translators' philosophy - it's saying KJV is more literal than the NRSV, not more accurate.
>>8091012
Fedorafag
the bible has excellent prose but not much else
>>8093449
>the translations of the Bible have excellent prose but not much else
ftfy
>>8090646
>C: The plot is full of holes.
just like your mom, except the plot holes are not filled
>>8093539
you are the worst tripfag, tallis, please die quickly
>and then Mary Sue performed another miracle, and if that's not enough to convince you, well you're just being contrarian aren't you
