The Bible as literature

[Anonymous No.21037441]

What version of the Bible do I buy if I want to read it as literature?
Any specific publishers for a nice edition?

[Anonymous No.21037456]

>>21037441
R. Crumb

[Anonymous No.21037472]

>>21037441
King James Bible. It's kind of a mess and deliberately uses launguage that was archaic even back when it was penned but imo is a more interesting read than the more serious accurate transliterations. Try that and new American standard Bible you might like the latter better anyways.

[Anonymous No.21037504]

>>21037441
whatever you do, don't get a Chr*stian version.
Sefaria has a selection of trusted Jewish translations and gives you easy access to commentary from the Jewish sages:
https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis

[Anonymous No.21037510]

>>21037472
>>21037441
following up from this, is there any version of the KJV with footnotes to go along with it, to explain some of the meaning behind the text?

[Anonymous No.21037535]

>>21037441
KJV is the one historically/culturally relevant, if you see any quotes from the Bible in older books it will be KJV, but you might want to have also some modern annotated version (no idea which one to recommend here because I have one in my native language, I got the KJV only because of its importance for anglo literature) to compare and see potential inaccuracies in translation

[Anonymous No.21037547]

>>21037510
I'm sure you can but for KJV as a literary experience, stopping to read footnotes and having Jesus's words highlighted in red is gonna feel like a clumsily worded textbook imo.

[Anonymous No.21037552]

>>21037510
>>21037441

just searched some more and found that the Norton Critical Edition is what we seem to be looking for OP

[Anonymous No.21037668]

The New King James version is okay.
The language of the KJV is clarified well enough without too much of the subversive pozzing of other Scofield derivatives.

[Anonymous No.21037681]

>>21037441
kjv is canonical everything else is a commentary on it. so if youre a secularist definitely kjv. if youre a Christian also kjv because it was written by a committee of top scholars given a mandate by a king who was afraid of armed papist and puritan revolutionaries who needed people to know the truth of Gods word whereas modern versions are written to push this or that heresy

[Anonymous No.21037699]

If you want a smooth reading but still literary translation, then try Robert Alter's Hebrew Bible, for The Old Testament. It's also a really well formatted ebook if you're reading on a kindle or whatever.
The NT is a bit harder, there's Lattimore's version but he made his translation purely as a writer and not as a Bible scholar, I don't know if that bothers you. There's also a version of the NT by David Bentley Hart but I've heard some say that it's a bit crap.

The Norton Annotated KJV is also a great pick for a full package.

[Anonymous No.21037880]

the original

[Anonymous No.21038044]

>>21037441
>>21037510
>>21037552
>>21037699
Right answers here - KJV is the definitive English language Bible in an artistic sense, and the Norton Critical is the definitive non-Christian Study annotated Bible.

[Anonymous No.21038134]

>>21037504
yea especially regarding the old testament i think its worthwhile to have a more modern scholarly non-christian translation that actually properly takes the original hebrew into account, especially considering the subtlety of language in Job for instance.

[Anonymous No.21038159]

>>21037441
R. Crumb

[Anonymous No.21038178]

Is there a non-literary reason for which I should read the bible?

[Anonymous No.21038196]

>>21037699
>There's also a version of the NT by David Bentley Hart but I've heard some say that it's a bit crap.
It’s a lot crap. /lit/ used to meme it hard, but it’s truly awful.
Basically it differs from every translation before it, and the writer expects us to believe everyone is stupid except him, as opposed to him just mistranslating.
There is some cool stuff on the surface, like he translates kosmon as “the cosmos” instead of “world,” but for the most part it’s unreadable rubbish

[Anonymous No.21038628]

>>21037880
Which original?
Hebrew, Greek, or Latin?

I recommend picrel.
There's a free PDF of it on archive.org .

[Anonymous No.21038736]

>>21037441
reading it as literature, KJV definitely. pic related is a guide made by some orthodox christian guys from the website the symbolic world, maybe it can be useful to you