/lit/ - Literature

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

11 There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

Ecclesiastes, very nice

not the PROPER bible though ;)

38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Song of songs is, as far as I concern, the only book that's actually beautiful and satisfying.

1 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil; thy hair is as a flock of goats, that trail down from mount Gilead.

2 Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes all shaped alike, which are come up from the washing; whereof all are paired, and none faileth among them.

3 Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy mouth is comely; thy temples are like a pomegranate split open behind thy veil.

4 Thy neck is like the tower of David builded with turrets, whereon there hang a thousand shields, all the armour of the mighty men.

5 Thy two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a gazelle, which feed among the lilies.

6 Until the day breathe, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

7 Thou art all fair, my love; and there is no spot in thee.

and on the first day, bob realized that god didn't exist

>>654472

Who's talking about God?

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Day 1 - God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night."

Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth and to govern and separate the day and the night.

I'm only on the first page and there's already a damned plot hole.

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

Proverbs 26:11 (King James translation)

>>654480

That's not a plot hole.

First he invented light. For the sake of illustration, say you invent leather.

Then he made the sun. For the sake of illustration, say you invent the leather wallet.

These aren't redundant, just one comes from the other. It's like inventing fire and then the lighter.

It's complete nonsense from today's perspective, but it made sense back then.

>>654480
Try not to think so literally. These people had no idea how the cosmos worked, and so they guessed.

Also, later christian scholars interpret this to be describing the creation of the angels.

>>654536
But this is the inerrant, inspired Word of the Lord?
And I hate that angels thing. Where else in the Bible does it describe angels as anything but angels?

"and then i woke up" - jesus, 1983

>>654547
Somewhere near there in Genesis, it says a bunch of angels came down and fucked humans and that's where all the great men and women were conceived. I dunno, I hate this shit. The Silmarillion is much more satisfying.

Lamentations 5

1 Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us;
look, and see our disgrace.

2 Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens,
our homes to foreigners.

3 We have become orphans and fatherless,
our mothers like widows.

4 We must buy the water we drink;
our wood can be had only at a price.

5 Those who pursue us are at our heels;
we are weary and find no rest.

6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
to get enough bread.

7 Our fathers sinned and are no more,
and we bear their punishment.

8 Slaves rule over us,
and there is none to free us from their hands.

9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives
because of the sword in the desert.

10 Our skin is hot as an oven,
feverish from hunger.

11 Women have been ravished in Zion,
and virgins in the towns of Judah.

12 Princes have been hung up by their hands;
elders are shown no respect.

13 Young men toil at the millstones;
boys stagger under loads of wood.

14 The elders are gone from the city gate;
the young men have stopped their music.

15 Joy is gone from our hearts;
our dancing has turned to mourning.

16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!

17 Because of this our hearts are faint,
because of these things our eyes grow dim

18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
with jackals prowling over it.

19 You, O LORD, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.

20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?

21 Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may return;
renew our days as of old

22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Isaiah 1:18
I believe that is where The Scarlet Letter got the idea for the scarlet letter.

"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool."

>>654547

>But this is the inerrant, inspired Word of the Lord?

No. This is an ancient text written thousands of years ago. Nothing more.

You militant atheists have an annoying habit of missing the point.

You need to realize that the Bible is an imperfect work, written by several authors spaced apart by hundreds of years, and that's perfectly okay. Examine it as literature, not as a religious text you're trying desperately to rebel against.

>>654593

>This is an ancient text written thousands of years ago.

God damnit, I'm so frustrated I'm writing redundant sentences.

>>654593
lol militant atheists
My only real problem with the Bible as a work of literature is how dry it's become over the past 1900 years. I tried reading it once but it was so dull I couldn't get pas the second chapter of Genesis. I tried Exodus and it was the same. I kept going and going like this till finally I realized it was all incredibly dry. Since then, my favorite Bible joke is "It's a bit drier than you'd expect..."

As religious text it's okay as long as it's not taken literally. Of course, I mean "okay" as religious texts go.

Deuteronomy 10:16 "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart"

>>654601

Yeah, the Bible mostly has 'good parts', but they're spaced pretty far apart.

Exodus and Genesis bored me too, but I kind of enjoyed Matthew.

>>654609
I liked parts of Revelation because it was just like HOLY FUCK THIS IS CRAZY SHIT and all but the rest was just...meh.