Has anybody here ever actually read The Bible?

[Anonymous No.5668801]

I've been thinking lately that maybe I should give an attempt to read the Bible from strictly a moral perspective, leaving out any theological interpretations. Though raised a Christian I have been, for the better part of my life, a strong Agnostic (which I believe to be epistemically the most correct, but ffs please don't let this thread devolve into debate on epistemology), but at this difficult point in my life that I face I simply feel Godless, lost.
Still, being impartial to the text should not be too much a problem.

In the throes of hardship I very naturally experience self-pity, but often a thought arises--"Am I really the center of all experience?"

Is this what Jesus was about? Is the Bible just some tome of parables riddled with ontological questions? If I were to read it simply as if it were fiction, could I better understand human nature, could I better understand what it means to be charismatic?

If anyone has ever read the Old Testament or at least a good bit of it, please tell me whether it was done with/without an exegesis and how difficult it was. I'm just trying to get a feel for how to about reading such a large text.

Inb4 OP reads the Bible and becomes a redevout Christian

[Anonymous No.5668837]

>>5668801
I'd say its impossible to read the bible impartially, not because of your christian upbringing but because it permeates "western" culture.
In any case the translation I hold dearest is the Jerusalem bible but that's up to personal choice

[Anonymous No.5669001]

>>5668837
Would you recommend an abridged version?

Like as weird as this sounds, how accessible is the Bible, really?

[Anonymous No.5669018]

>>5669001
>Would you recommend an abridged version?
not really
>Like as weird as this sounds, how accessible is the Bible, really?
Very, I mean you could always get an annotated version and it will explain cultural/historical and theological things.

[Anonymous No.5669020]

>>5669018
Thanks for the help anon

[Anonymous No.5669023]

Of course ive read the bible. Lmao. listen. If you havent read the bible, you've fundamentally misunderstood everything you've ever read, assuming you read good lit.

[Anonymous No.5669027]

If you consider yourself well read or aspire to be well read, and havent read the bible, drop everything and get going before you misread even more shit.

[Anonymous No.5669063]

>>5669023
>>5669027
is this a start with the greeks troll or is this positively true?

[Anonymous No.5669065]

>>5669063
how could it be true? read those post again and decide for yourself. better yet ask him to explain his reasoning.

[Anonymous No.5669068]

>>5669023
>>5669027
PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR REASONING >>5669065
better?

[Anonymous No.5669075]

Before you start reading, you should know that it's probably a good idea to read up on some interpretations and context whenever you get to something you don't understand, and even a few checks with sources now and then just because.

One of the most easy-to-appreciate things in the story of the Bible, even if you're reading it from a purely secular viewpoint, is just how much Jesus spat in the face of Israeli customs of the Old Testament. If you actually look at Jesus with context, he was far from the tradition-centric goody two shoes that religious conservatives of today like to portray him as.

[Anonymous No.5669084]

>>5669001
It is honestly not very accessible. I had long ago planned to read it straight through, but found this impossible, and rather skipped around, reading different books of it, passages and sometimes entire books referred to in literature, etc… In this way, I've read the Lamentation of Jeremiah, of Isaiah, the Book of Jonah, the Book of Job, the Pentateuch except skimming over the huge dumps of old laws and instructions on building the Tabernacle, the Book of Matthew, the Song of Songs, some of the Proverbs and Psalms, Ecclesiastes, part of Daniel, and part of Revelation.

You can certainly get a lot out of it, even as an atheist or agnostic. In fact, Ecclesiastes is so shockingly agnostic and nihilistic at times I can't believe it was accepted into the Biblical canon. To put it far less eloquently than it actually is, the King talks about the meaninglessness and vanity of life, how death is equivalent to darkness, how it is simply best to accept simple pleasures and not try to make promises to god (of extreme asceticism, charity, saintliness, etc…) that you know you'll break. Other stuff like the Proverbs and Psalms and the Book of Matthew and the Pentateuch, it's extremely clear that it came from a time and place of extreme suffering and cruelty. Atheists today, mostly, make a point of resenting the extreme cruelty of God, OT and (not as much) NT, but they very rarely criticize the cruelty of people themselves during Biblical times. The idea that your unfatiguably happy, cruel, gluttonous, sadistic masters and enemies would be given their deserts in an afterlife just as the poor, suffering, and innocent given a reward is hard to understand unless you understand the extreme potential for cruelty of human beings during not only Biblical times but during every age. Moreover, besides a simple dualistic afterlife (punishment/reward in the afterlife), the Bible has a lot of wisdom based on real life. Good advice on not being jealous or overly spiteful of evil people, since God Himself won't destroy them, they'll destroy themselves. How to be free of hatred. How to live in the Kingdom of God here on Earth. William Blake argued that Jesus Christ was in fact a liberate who broke rules for the hell of it, forgave all sins, and encouraged others to do the same. Milton had an admiration for Satan. Even Nietzsche admired Jesus. There's a huge amount of things you can get from the Bible.

Finally, parts like the Pentateuch, Jonah, and the Song of Songs are great for their poetry and/or epic scope.

[Anonymous No.5669095]

>>5669084
>a liberate who broke rules for the hell of it, forgave all sins, and encouraged others to do the same
By this I mean that, he forgave sins indiscriminately, even (especially) of people who didn't believe in him or blasphemed against him.

[Anonymous No.5669100]

>>5669068
my reasoning: the bible is the most important book of all time. it is foundational to western culture and therefore western cultural products are an extension of it, knowingly or not, implicitly or explicitly.

There's pre-bible shit worth reading, but just reading the damn bible if you want to understand anything. You cant even understand children's books if you havent read the bible, if those children's books were written in a western country. im 100% serious.

[Anonymous No.5669113]

you don't even need to read the hobbit to understand the lord of the rings. give me a break

[Anonymous No.5669136]

To really understand the Bible, (I've read it in its entirety, along with quite a bit of supporting material) requires a lot of contextual work that most people don't do. The New Testament in particular requires a lot of brushing up on the various trends and changes in ancient Judaism following the Babylonian exile. I would suggest reading a comprehensive history of Judea and Palestine first, and doing some brushing up on Judaism at the time to lay the groundwork. Also, keep in mind that many books that had immense influence on Christianity, (Apocalypse of Peter, etc.) are not included in the Bible for a variety of reasons. You should probably reading regardless of your feelings about theology, as a lot of philosophers of all stripes use it for all sorts of purposes. I should probably warn you though, if the purpose is to reinforce your trust in Christianity, reading the actual text of the Bible in it's proper context may not yield the desired results.

[Anonymous No.5669139]

>>5669084
>>5669095
>and rather skipped around, reading different books of it, passages and sometimes entire books referred to in literature, etc…
Was any of this interpretive literature or just literature with themes whose morals derive from the Bible?
> I've read the Lamentation of Jeremiah, of Isaiah, the Book of Jonah, the Book of Job, the Pentateuch except skimming over the huge dumps of old laws and instructions on building the Tabernacle, the Book of Matthew, the Song of Songs, some of the Proverbs and Psalms, Ecclesiastes, part of Daniel, and part of Revelation.
>Other stuff like the Proverbs and Psalms and the Book of Matthew and the Pentateuch, it's extremely clear that it came from a time and place of extreme suffering and cruelty

I would have expected nothing less from the Bible. Believe me, I know what I'm getting into.

>>5669100
it is foundational to western culture and therefore western cultural products are an extension of it, knowingly or not, implicitly or explicitly.

ah, but by referring to western culture you are now implying that all western literature derives from a semitic religion, which it does not. Forget not that Europe was Pagan for an extensive amount of time.

[Anonymous No.5669145]

>>5669139
yeah i know europe was pagan for a long time, but the bible ended that shit and post-bible lit is better than pre-bible anyway.

[Anonymous No.5669160]

>>5669136
So ok, a comprehensive knowledge on the Bible begins witha historical knowledge of Judea and Palestine, leading into the Babylonian exile. I'm not familiar with the latter term, could you summarise?

What would I read next, the OT?

>>5669145
so you just admited that western literature is not solely based on semitic religion.

[Anonymous No.5669169]

>>5669139
>Was any of this interpretive literature or just literature with themes whose morals derive from the Bible?
The latter. The story of Absalom, of King Ahab, of Jonah, and a few others I can't recall… I all read to enhance my comprehension of the allusions to them.

[Anonymous No.5669187]

>>5669169
*former, I meant. Misread interpretive literature.

[Anonymous No.5669197]

>>5669160
Yes, reading the OT then the NT would be ideal. For the Babylonian exile, here is a brief summary: Israel spent much of its history as a regional superpower, but were eventually conquered by the Babylonians. Following this, the Judeans refused to pay tribute to the Babylonians, and the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem and laid waste to it, and destroyed the main temple. Many Jews were forced to leave their homeland and serve in Babylon in captivity (incidentally, this series of events is why Babylon is so vilified in the Bible). This series of occurrences affected Judaic religion, as the once regional power was repeatedly conquered by other empires. Judaism always took an exceptionalist view due to its long status as the premier regional power, but as more powerful cultures began to dominate them, the religion started to change. Eventually, it took on a form of a waiting for a deliverer type, in order to give the people hope they would eventually leave subjugation (this is where the idea of a messiah starts to make its way in).

[Anonymous No.5669241]

>>5669197
Ok.
So the significance of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem is this:
Judeans are conquered, forced to serve Babylon in captivity. This lowers the morale of Judeans, and in turn gives birth to the celebrated heretic we know as Jesus?

[Anonymous No.5669261]

>>5669169
It sounds like reading the Bible is a largely digressive task.

[Anonymous No.5669336]

>>5668801
>Has anybody here ever actually read The Bible?
Yes, the synoptic Gospels were probably the most tragic thing I've read. I've read straight through the Old and New Testaments.

>And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

>strictly a moral perspective, leaving out any theological interpretations.
You really can't read any moral meaning or perspective of the Bible without acknowledging or considering a theological interpretation. They're almost completely bound and intertwined and inseparable. The Apostle Paul even points this out himself in the Bible.

>If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
>"but if their hope in him was only in this life, or whilst this life lasts; if they had not hope in death, that they should live again, and after death for the resurrection of their bodies; or if they hoped in Christ only for the things of this life, or as the Arabic version renders it, "if we from Christ, and by him, expect happiness in this world only""
>"we are of all men the most miserable"

>riddled with ontological questions?
The ontological aspects of the Bible are difficult to ignore, but it's also more than that, yes.

>could I better understand human nature
It's hard not to empathize with Christ, who weeps in fear the night before he knows will be crucified, or feel his sadness that his closest friends cannot even spend his last night alive awake with him, neither is it hard to empathize with Peter who cries after denying Christ three times and feel his regret. There are some parts that are deeply alienating though. When Christ, the living God and Logos made flesh, stoops to wash the feet of his apostles, or breaks the bread and say "This is my body." we feel the same sense of shock, and almost revulsion, that the apostles feel. So, yes, you could better understand human nature, but this is almost inseparable from the theological aspects.

It's one of the best books I've ever read though, if not the best. You won't regret reading it.

[Anonymous No.5669362]

>>5669336
thanks for the response, anon

despite whether you are a theist or not, did you feel like it gave you a sense of guidance? did you feel more at home with this absurd world? like the anon who earlier in this thread mentioned the schocking nihilism of Ecclesiastes, did you find the Bible exposed the world for all its discomfort while proposing a moral solution?

[Anonymous No.5669445]

>>5669362
>did you find the Bible exposed the world for all its discomfort
Yes. It's only after I started reading the Bible that I realized the intense alienation of people and the uniqueness of "human nature" or the human condition.

>while proposing a moral solution?
Yes.

>did you feel like it gave you a sense of guidance?
It provides "a" sense of guidance, but it's not a pleasant or easy one to accept.

>did you feel more at home with this absurd world?
No. It was easier to go on existing and living my life without having to deal with the intellectual struggle of determining whether or not God exists. After you consider the situation long enough, you realize you can't go back to just ignoring it. It's a question, which once presented and fully realized, must be answered one way or another. It's very upsetting.

The Bible is a profoundly human book, I can see why it's only ever called "The Book", because it seems to encapsulate the human condition better than any other book. Intuitively, it's easy to want to believe it tells the truth about the existence of God, because everything it derives from this truth seems almost impossibly true (it gets worse if you read Aquinas or other theological writers and realize there are very strong logical arguments for his existence, but that's not the topic of this thread). Who else tells us that we are made in the image of a Creator, and in doing so reveals why we're driven by the act of creation itself? What other religion posits that it would take the sacrifice of God himself to save Man? Which religion reveals that not only COULD Man kill God, but that if he got the chance he would leave him dying, tortured to death, in the middle of the desert and mock him as he did so? But more importantly, and less cynically, what else reveals to us that even after all this, Man can still be forgiven?

[Anonymous No.5669465]

I'm currently reading through the Bible in an attempt similar to yours, I imagine.

Right now I'm at Proverbs, but I'm taking a break from the canon to read the Book of Enoch, which I'd highly recommend you do too. It has some of the best Biblical mythology going on in it.

I had a strong interest in reading the Gnostic Gospels, but I felt it would be better to actually read the canonical Bible first, since, even though I'd read parts as a child, I didn't feel like I did the actual work in understanding it for myself.

At this point, I don't really take any of the writings as historical, more mythological, but from my perspective, this has a more profound impact on me than it would if these characters actually existed.

I use the Oxford Annotated Bible. That way if I have further questions about a certain passage, I have some immediate information at the bottom of the page. I kind of wish I had a different translation, but this does the job pretty well, I think.

To answer your main question, yes, reading the Bible has been worth it, at least for me, even though some books are a little trying--like the constant census taking in Numbers, or the sacrificial rituals in Leviticus, or the trite worshiping of some of the Psalms.

[Anonymous No.5669623]

>>5669605
Awesome, added to the wishlist. Thanks

[Anonymous No.5669627]

>>5669579
Augustine's commentaries on the Bible are good, especially the Psalms.

>"How good is the God of Israel!" But to whom? "To men right in heart" Psalm 72:1. To men perverse what? Perverse He seems. So also in another Psalm He says: "With a holy man holy You shall be, and with the innocent man innocent You shall be, and with the perverse man perverse You shall be." What is, perverse You shall be with the perverse man? Perverse the perverse man shall think You. Not that by any means God is made perverse. Far be it: what He is, He is. But in like manner as the sun appears mild to one having clear, sound, healthy, strong eyes, but against weak eyes does dart hard spears, so to say; the former looking at it it does invigorate, the latter it does torture, though not being itself changed, but the man being changed: so when you shall have begun to be perverse, and to you God shall seem to be perverse, you are changed, not He. That therefore to you will be punishment which to good men is joy. He calling to mind this thing, says, "How good is the God of Israel to men right in heart!"

Clement of Alexandria's Trilogy, especially Protrepticus, written to convince ancient Greeks to convert from paganism to Christianity by a guy who was an expert on ancient Greek mythology and discussed religion as an anthropological phenomenon .

There's also Cyril of Alexandria, who in "Quod Unus Sit Christus" explains one of the most difficult questions in Christianity, namely "How is Christ both man and God/Logos?"

If you're interested in a more contemporary commentary on the entire bible, there's the New Jerome Biblical Commentary that was published in 1990.

The older works listed are all available online if you google the name and author.

[Anonymous No.5669490]

>>5669465
So you've read the entire Pentatauch?

How much Judean history did you know prior to delving into this sort of thing, like the anon recommended above? Do you find that you can still intepret allusions and contextual passages with an annotated version?

[Anonymous No.5669636]

>>5669623

Check out my thread here you've inspired. Also others please post if you have reading lists in your inboxes. This stuff is gold for self learners.

http://boards.4chan.org/lit/thread/5669622/okay-so-my-idea-here-is-this-post-reading-lists#bottom

[Anonymous No.5669524]

>>5669490
I didn't know too much about Judean History before reading.

Right after I finished the Pentateuch I tried reading a little bit of the Zohar, and that was really interesting, but I didn't have the attention to devote myself to it fully, which I think it requires. So I'll save it for a little further down the line.

And yeah, I mostly interpret everything by myself. I started off reading all the annotations, but after the first few books, I only read the annotations if I felt like I wanted more clarification/background. Like in the book of Job, it says God talks to "Satan," but the annotations make you aware that the actual word used means 'adversary' or 'accuser, which was a character in the divine council that acted as an independent prosecutor. So, I mean, it helps in demolishing some of the generally accepted notions of Satan as an opposition to God (at least in this case). Here, he's just an entity asking provocative questions.

[Anonymous No.5669654]

>>5669627
Nice

[Anonymous No.5669548]

>>5669241

Yes. But the Jews didn't celebrate Jesus. They hoped for a political Savior, one who would save them from political powers, not one who would save them from some spiritual thing.

If you plow through Isaiah, you can read both prophesies - some that support the idea that there would be a political leader and savior, and some that outline a sacrifice, or a spiritual savior.

[Anonymous No.5669565]

Just gonna jump in here and say you should really be reading biblical scholarship (secular and or religious) while you read the Bible or you're going to be

(1) annoyed, confused, dumbfounded
(2) making things up

There are single passages in the Bible that have been torn apart ad nauseum by scholarship, and sometimes there's quite a bit going on you couldn't possibly be picking up on without it.

There are people who spend their entire lives studying the Bible, and they've left us a lot of their thinking and writing. You'd be an idiot not to use it.

[Anonymous No.5669579]

>>5669565
How about pointing us to some of the better scholars, instead of just vaguely saying, go over to this vast expanse of information

[Anonymous No.5669691]

>>5669139
>>Forget not that Europe was Pagan for an extensive amount of time.

>le tips le fedora

[Anonymous No.5669605]

>>5669579

I know fuck all about the Bible except for the historical books (Books of Samuel/Kings, bit of Judges/Joshua) and some of the Torah.

Anything by Mark Smith ("The Memoirs of God" is perfectly accessible to a lay audience without babying) is going to be an excellent read, and his bibliographies will be fantastic as well.

You can get the little oxford book ("A Very Short Introduction") on Biblical Archaeology.

William Dever's "Did God have a Wife?" is good scholarship, don't let the title fool you.

These are some of the books I was assigned for a class on religion in pre-Babylonian Conquest Israel.

[Anonymous No.5669606]

Screencapped this before

[Anonymous No.5669738]

>>5669445
>Which religion reveals that not only COULD Man kill God, but that if he got the chance he would leave him dying, tortured to death, in the middle of the desert and mock him as he did so? But more importantly, and less cynically, what else reveals to us that even after all this, Man can still be forgiven?
Damn. I'm Jewish, but I've always been curious about the New Testament. You've convinced me, anon

>inb4 I become more Christian than OP does

[Anonymous No.5669752]

>>5669627
>perverse
>perverse
>perverse
Damn, was Augustine the first Zizek?

[Anonymous No.5669756]

>>5668801
just read it
i dunno i did
it took a while
kjv, sometimes i would look things up on the internet if it didn't make sense
i don't really know what you want to know. you wrote a lot
i didn't even read the bible from a moral perspective
i just read it like it was a work of art which the kjv was i guess

[Anonymous No.5669767]

>>5668801
God, damn it. There are too many versions of the Bible. Would I be good if I got the Oxford World Classics KJV with Apocrypha and the New Oxford Annotated Version with Apocrypha?

[Anonymous No.5669826]

>>5669767
you want the kjv
as an english-speaking person, the reason to read the bible is to know what all the references in every other work you will ever read are, so if you read another version they may fly over your head due to different wording
also it's pretty. maybe not as accurate, but if you're not reading it for religious reasons and/or want to know exactly what desert people thought, who cares

[Anonymous No.5669836]

I don't really want to make a new thread, so I think I'll just post my question here.

For the people knowledgeable about the subjects of God and Religion, what would make the best argument against the existence of God?

[Anonymous No.5669848]

>>5669836
if god is omniscient, he knows the acts of the future

if the acts of the future are known, there is no freedom for people to act otherwise

if people cannot act of their own free will, they cannot be held accountable for their moral actions

modern conceptions of god tend to require an element of moral responsibility in humans

[Anonymous No.5669858]

>>5669836
>>5669848
although this
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/
is as far as I know the most common (and most commonly defended against) argument

[Anonymous No.5669862]

>>5669848
You can unroll that argument backwards, and prove the existence of God instead.

>modern conceptions of society and law require an element of moral responsibility in humans

>if people are to be held accountable for their moral actions, they must necessarily act of their own free will

>thus the acts of the future are unknown, in order for there to be a freedom for people to act otherwise (the universe is not deterministic)

>if the universe is not deterministic, then there must be a 'God', something distinct from a pantheistic law of nature

[Anonymous No.5669884]

>>5669862
i fail to see how this one works, at least the first line

>modern conceptions of society and law require an element of moral responsibility in humans
Yes, but modern conceptions of society and law are somewhat arbitrary, and only require for people to (key word) believe in moral responsibility whether or not it exists (imagine a universe scale dystopian fiction)


although i suppose the real difference is in the a priori(?) assumption that an omniscient god and free will cannot be compatible, otherwise we are just shouting past one another

[Anonymous No.5669912]

>>5669826
Well I want the KJV for its apparently God(heh)-tier prose, but I'm also interested in the NOAV for the footnotes or whatever. Especially since it includes Catholic- and Orthodox-only books. I guess I'll get both. Probably gonna cop a NJPS Tanakh as well.

[Anonymous No.5669933]

>>5668801
>Inb4 OP reads the Bible and becomes a redevout Christian
Often it goes the other way around: a Christian finally reads the Bible and decides to become an atheist

[Anonymous No.5671027]

>>5668801
OP here.

Was feeling impatient so I searched the house and I found the New American Bible published by the Catholic Bible Association of America.

I wanted to pick up the KJV and the Oxford Annotated, but I don't have time right now.

Has anyone ever used the New American Bible? is it annotated?

[Anonymous No.5671097]

>staring with the bible

>not starting with the greeks

also it really is not neccesary to read the bible to understand the western cannon, not even renaisance literature was that overtly religious in following the Bible as a literary guide.

I would contend that you can read Paradise Lost and still enjoy it without having read a single word from the bible.

[Anonymous No.5671108]

>>5671097
Greeks were pagan; a non-semitic religion. You aren't going to need to read Plato to understand the Pentateuch.

I think having an understanding of both is fundamental in reading literature.

[Anonymous No.5671109]

>>5668837
I love the Jerusalem bible, also one of my favourite translations. I really enjoy reading Yahweh instead of LORD all throughout the OT.

[Anonymous No.5671120]

>>5669063
I've read the entire Bible, many things in literature will go over your head (references to the Bible, even subtle). But the large majority doesn't require any Bible reading.

[Anonymous No.5671131]

>>5669145
you have pleb taste if you haven't read works of literature containing allusions to Greek mythology

[Anonymous No.5671141]

>>5671120
Anyways, if you want to read the Bible and just the essentials so you understand basically all references, read these books:

Genesis - 2 Kings, Matthew, John, Acts.

I'd also recommend Job and Ecclesiastes. If you want to read about Jonah and Daniel, which are good stories and are referenced a lot, do so.

[Anonymous No.5671152]

>>5671141
Oh and I forgot Revelation, you need to read that one.

[Anonymous No.5672173]

>>5671097
>not even renaisance literature was that overtly religious in following the Bible as a literary guide
Are you retarded?