/lit/ - Literature

The best next to the gospels

From an existential perspective probably. But it offers little for the Christian faith, IMO. John is probably the best for that. "For God so Loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whosever shall worship him shall not perish, but have everlasting life". I'm not even a Christian, but that is a pretty profoundly meaningful line, I'll admit.

How is that though?

The gospels all had their fair share of utter garbage. Like Matthew 7:13-14, in which Jesus says everyone will go to hell.

Ecclesiastes contains non of this. In fact it has nothing bad in it.

>>4214737
That scripture is saying the way to hell is wide and open because there are many roads to destruction whereas the path to eternal life is much more narrow because the only way to it is through Jesus.

Why would Jesus go to the cross if everyone was screwed anyway? Comon man, do better.

>>4214901
consider the conditions under which those books were written. no wikipedia, no email, no word processing. scrawled on bits of goat skin using ink made of charcoal, camel spit and piss. no undo, no conventional dictionaries, and you didn't get paid to sit around writing that crap - it was done in the few moments at the end of the day when the wheat has been threshed and before your goat fat lamp ran out of goat fat. translated from one language to another under whatever bias happened to be prevalent. i am surprised ANY writing from that time survives.

>>4214737
destruction=/=hell. Or maybe it does in a sense.
The Christian conception of a specific place of eternal torment as we all tend to understand it cant be found in the Bible.

Seriously every reference to "hell" is a vague reference to discomfort/anguish or in one case in reference to a certain spot outside of Jerusalem where people were sacrificed by a particular religion. Im not sure where this specific idea of hell came from.

Ruth is shit-free too.
It's just a nice story about a nice man saving some nice women.
It doesn't mention God at all.
It isn't even connected to the rest of the Bible other than the tacked-on bit at the end. It's like someone thought "Wow this is a great story, told very well, but we can't put it in this Bible thing unless there's some connection to all the other begats. Let's tack on some begats on the end. OK, we're good to go."

>>4214971
New Kingdom Egyptian scriptures (e.g. the Book of the Dead) were very specific about a Lake of Fire and the torments it held for bad people. That's probably where it came from.

>>4214726
I like it when my religious texts shrug at me too OP. Sometimes I just want the hellfire and murdering of the childrens, in which case Ezekiel's invective is Godtier. There's a reason it was Jackson's line source instead of Revelation.

My favorite is Job.

>>4214978
Except Jackson's line is not actually anywhere in the Bible.

>>4214980
It depends on your translation and denomination. Vernacular protestants kind of fucked that argument a long time back.

>>4214981
Also the best work on Job is Joseph Caryl's 12 volume commentary, "Practical Observations on Job" (1651-1666), if anyone is interested.

>>4214990
somehow 12 volumes about the subject don't sound practical

>>4215008
Justine by Sade is much shorter and probably has the same effect.

>>4214988
No, it actually doesn't. I'm not even that guy, but everyone knows Tarantino wrote that Ezekiel line for the movie. It doesn't actually correspond to any full passage in the Bible, regardless of version or translation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_Fiction#Jules.27_Bible_passage

>>4214988
You're talking about Samuel Jackson's (Jules's) line in Pulp Fiction, right?
As far as I am aware, it does not appear in any translation of the Bible, because it's a hodgepodge of several verses from different places.
Not that there's anything wrong with that in the context of the movie.
I would be happy to be proven wrong.

>>4215008
You'd be surprised. The Puritans are a near endless goldmine of theological writing.

>>4215024
Another similar work is John Owen's commentary on Hebrews.

Job is interesting because it contains evidence that it came originally from a polytheistic, non-Jewish source. God is referred to almost exclusively in Job as "Shaddai" (translated "The Almighty") and is not referred to as "Shaddai" almost anywhere else. Also, this Shaddai character and the Satan character seem to be on good terms in Job, and Satan even asks for (and gets) Shaddai's permission to do all these terrible things to Job.

>>4215032
>putting volume 1 "to the right of" volume 2
Hurts my OCD

>>4215032
Or John Calvin's commentary on the Bible. He did not finish however as several books are missing.

>>4215019
>>4215014
Right there seems to be some misunderstanding here- I was referring only to the part that comes from Ezekiel, where "they" and "you" in the last clause are about the biggest hang up anyone could make across translations. I'm aware of the hodgepodge (both Biblical and Tarantino), but Ezekiel's still the source of the line. inb4God

>>4215036
he stuck them to the ceiling, you'll be fine

>>4214971
Actually the Bible is pretty darn specific about a place of eternal torment and punishment.


Matthew 13:50 “furnace of fire…weeping and gnashing of teeth”

Mark 9:48 “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched”

Revelation 14:10 “he will be tormented with fire and brimstone”

Revelation 20:14 “This is the second death, the lake of fire”

It's a vast lake of fire where those who died in sin are punished eternally.

>>4215044

Are you high?

Ecclesiastes is nice. I like Psalms and about half of Proverbs too though.

>>4215073
Whew. Look at all that detail. So specific.

My God, it's like I'm there, the words are so descriptive and exact.

>>4215038
I like these collections because the book bindings look nice in the bookshelf, but I can hardly ever bring myself to read them, no matter the content.

I wonder if I could just get a row of the bindings with nothing in them?

>>4215079
I dunno what more you want. Coordinates?

>>4215079
Scripture does not need to describe Hell in exhaustive detail for its existence to be perspicuous.

>>4215076
Of course, how do you discuss the Bible and Pulp Fiction together usually?

>>4215085
>>4215086
Who cares, it's all made-up, dudes.

>>4215092
This is the usual tactic of people who hold liberal theological positions.

1. Say something about how X true doctrine is not in Scripture, or how X heretical doctrine is in Scripture.

2. When confronted by facts about the matter claim that it doesn't matter what Scripture says anyway.

The little mysognist comment near the end of the Ecclesiastes made me cringe a bit, but overall i'd say it's one of the best books on the Bible

>>4215094
I never posted in this thread before >>4215092

sorry I can't feed your prejudice about what certain groups usually do in certain situations

>>4215096
That is one hell of an image.

>>4215096
Vaginas bleed longer than Jesus. Why has no one illustrated this to me before?

>>4215096
>misogyny
>bad
durrrr

>>4215103

Fantastic album too ("Affirmative appartheid"), the lyrics are hilarious.

>>4215113

I'm not getting the point you're trying to make.

>>4215096
>>4215150
What "misogynist comment" are you referring to?

>>4215156

21:007:026 - 028

on the cell, too lazy to copy

>>4215165
Ecc. 7: 26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.
27 Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account:
28 Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.

What is misogynistic about that? Women are the weaker vessel (1. Pt. 3:7).

Ecclesiastes sounds the coolest at least

>>4214726
>I say this because out of all the books in the bible, Ecclesiastes seems to have the smallest amount of shit in it.


typical jewish anti-life pessimism. There isn't much value in it, just the regular whining you would hear from an undeveloped 16yr old emo girl.

Good luck with your bible studies.

>>4215181
this is true. the emo girl is correct, but who cares, pedestrian bullshit honestly

romans and acts are superiour. not even a christfag

>>4214726
None of the books of the bible have bullshit. You are an idiot fag that takes the bible out of context.
Best book, Job and Romans. For the Christian faith. John.