The Bible

but anyway, back to the point: the bible is useful if you're interested in the origins of many literary works and THAT IS ALL.

The gospels don't ring true for me anymore (I once believed) and Paul's torturous attempts to pull it all-together into some theological structure contains much to much cant and obscuration. James's disdain for power, wealth and privelege appeals to the socialist in me though:

'Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you' James 5:1

Revelation's madness and hallucinatory visions still intrigue:

"The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss." Revelations ch 9 v 1-2.

All-in-all a literary Classic. And if the Elizabethan english of the King James is off-putting get a modern translation.

genesis 1:2 is my favorite thing in the universe

the image of nothingness suddenly manifest as an infinite still pool of black water, now rippling gently as the spirit of god skims over the top

like

shit

that verse has always seemed strange to me in the best kind of way.

hard verse to beat though the end of the book of Jonah is maybe YHWH at His most merciful yet harsh, God as roshi -- love so much: "should I not pity also Nineveh, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

at a completely secular (and awesome) summer-camp i used to attend (bohemian dysody etc) the dude who ran it sat us all down and proceeded, after a brief character introduction, to read us, unedited, the tale of Absolom from the KJV

...it was an absolutely astonishing experience. way classic.

Growing up secular in the Bible Belt I've had a life-long hatred towards Christian dogma and its huge influence on politics. Around 5 years ago I started reading more religious writing and books by Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, etc., then books on esoteric spiritualities, gnosticism, etc. I decided to give the Bible another chance and sat down to actually read The Old Testament.

The Old Testament had all the spiritual substance of a soap opera. No underlying philosophy was there, no meanings behind the famous myths, no intellectual substance whatsoever. It was a cut and dry explanation of a cult deity with a complete lack of ability to manage his whiny back-stabbing followers. Epic stories that in other traditions would be gloriously illustrated page after page are stated matter-of-factly in a few lines like a newspaper. There's nothing spiritual or literary to be gained unless you are already an evangelical.

If Christians would base their belief on something that actually explores mankind's relationship with God, that I could appreciate. As it is The Old Testament is about as deep as you'd think if you've ever tried having a philosophical discussion with a born-again Christian.

Still haven't read the New Testament.

Adam I say this with the greatest respect but a little exasperation: you are profoundly predictable. If you really think Ezekial or Isaiah or the Song of Solomon or the drama of Kings or the pathos of the Psalms are as "cut and dry as a newspaper" I'd really like to know what kind of newspaper you're reading.

the weekly reader

I apologize for the too-personal opening shot there, man. I am snippy today. xp

pretty dope paper imo, cuts it down to the point for adhd kidz like moi

some people just ain't cut out for HARDMAN status

I'd sure love to read an english version of the original texts - as they were writ back at the time. I assume such a thing doesn't exist.

the OT totally explores mankind's relationship with god, like in the greatest possible depth

i feel guilty i never read the bible

i have a bible but i never read it either

I mean dude

The Old Testament had all the spiritual substance of a soap opera. No underlying philosophy was there, no meanings behind the famous myths, no intellectual substance whatsoever.

It sounds to me like you're trying to approach the Bible as literature but expecting it to also do the work of literary criticism for you. That's not how it works.

ilx is the only scripture you need

also why on eartn are you talking about christians in relation to the OT, for the first thing, and for the second why are you blaming the OT for (your) retrospective ideas of religion, instead of appreciating whatever happens to be good in it, and understanding those things within their actual cultural context

The Book of Job, oddly enough, does not include a supplementary commentary on the meaning of the Book of Job.

i had thought for a while it was about an actual job

The Old Testament had all the spiritual substance of a soap opera. No underlying philosophy was there, no meanings behind the famous myths, no intellectual substance whatsoever.

for me these are all positives.

http://www.impactpublications.com/productimages4/5328.gif

i had thought for a while it was about an actual job

lol me 2. kind of like how the kama sutra teaches you how to be a courtesan, i thought that the boj teaches you how to do entry-level biblical jobs, shoveling donkey shit or something.

i mean, compare it with the upanishads. some powerful poetry, but inscrutably esoteric philosophy, and little involving narrative

and the lord said thou shalt be paid minimum wage

reading the bible is one of the top things on my list of things I know I should do but can never summon the willpower to do

while I have the ears of some bible people, should I go for the KJV or stick to whatever translation my oxford annotated one has

i feel the same about watching my dvd set of the Wire :-/

urh, x-post

Mr. Jaq, though at one time a pentacostal evangelical, had really never read much of the Bible. He's working through the OT now and has reached my favorite part in Kings, where the rude teenagers are taunting the prophet (Go up, you bald head! etc). And God sends 2 she-bears to tear, rend, and eat 42 of them.

KJV has the best language, dyao, seriously beautiful.

reading the kjv is a good idea for these reasons
- if you like english lit
- helps understanding of english and american culture/history
- good turn of phrase

a bad idea if
- you want to read the original translated as closely as poss
- you want to understand judean culture- you dont like carrying a second modern translation around to make clear the garbled parts of the kjv

uh that last sentence should be on another line

mine is the new oxford annotated bible. it has maps! and thumb indexing!

• ; )

favorite part in Kings, where the rude teenagers are taunting the prophet (Go up, you bald head! etc). And God sends 2 she-bears to tear, rend, and eat 42 of them.

yesssssssssssssssss

my friends and i used to sit in the back row and giggle at bizarre verses we found during boring parts of the sermon and that one almost got us sent out of the sanctuary

I think the coolest party trick is to be able to quote verbatim parts of the bible. but I would rather devote the brainspace to memorizing biggie lyrics instead.

Another section, maybe toward the end of Deuteronomy? - where the slacker sons of the head priest haul the Ark of the Covenant into battle against the Philistines, because they think it will help them win. It doesn't, the Philistines make off with it as war booty and God is pissed. He zots the slacker sons and afflicts the Philistines with emerods (hemorroids) and a plague of mice. To get square, the Philistines have to return the Ark and make a sacrifice of 5 golden hemorroids and 5 golden mice.

Oops, nope, that's in 1 Samuel.

Haha Hoos! - that's the sort of behavior that got me put on the Bible Bowl team :)

To get square, the Philistines have to return the Ark and make a sacrifice of 5 golden hemorroids

!?!?

Always surprised by how ignorant students are about Biblical stories -- is it because schools remain uneasy about teaching it as a work of mythology as rich as the Greek, Roman, or Egyptian kinds? As a kid one of the greatest gifts I ever got from my grandparents was a HUGE illustrated coffee table kids Bible through which I learned about the patriarchs, judges, Rebecca, Samuel, David and Solomon, Elijah, Nebuchadnezzar, et al. Huge swaths of Western literature remain incomprehensible without knowing them -- and they're fun! Jehovah is a petulant, jealous, nasty god who can be outsmarted.

would love to read a giant illustrated kids Bible book tbh.

KJV is the standard for recognizing all the biblical references in later literature, 90% of the OT of which is William Tyndale's (who was strangled to death for his efforts). New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is the closest to a literal translation and is generally approved by liberal theologians. New International Version is the evangelical translation, Jerusalem Bible the Catholic translation.

My favorite for readability is the New English Bible of 1971, slightly revised as the Revised English Bible of 1989. It dispenses with the cadences of KJV-derived translations for more of a modern verse style, but is highly regarded, particularly for public readings.

For sheer evangelical-style comprehensibility without any of the poetry The Message is a thing. Not that I recommend it.

btw guys Bible Gateway is a godsend (so to speak) for comparing translations

por ejemplo

http://www.biblestudytools.com/parallel-bible/passage.aspx?q=psalm+21&t=niv&t2=msg

if u dont read it in the original hebrew/greek u might as well just make a graven image frankly

I'm a sodomite, so I either should have burned with my home city or turned into a salt lick by now.

7 For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved .

vs

7 Is it any wonder the king loves God? that he's sticking with the Best?

or

12 Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

vs.

12 You sent them packing; they couldn't face you.

Dud & irrelevant imo, according to the bible shrimp is an abomination, that's how i know it's a dud. My father can read Hebrew and is a former pastor and and uses this to impress folk at dinner parties. That is the extent of my bible knowledge.
IA with the soap opera comment.

Ezekiel 23:20 is the acid test:

The King James Version (Authorized)

For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

The New Revised Standard Version

and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.

The Message

That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers - stallions obsessive in their lust.

New English Bible

She was infatuated with their male prostitutes,
whose members were like those of donkeys
and the seed of which was to flow like that of horses.

etc etc.

nicely done

am going to sneak 'issue' into more of my conversations

lol the bible is seriously smutty and violent. If what was some kind of straight up sexploitation book, I might like it more.

It sounds to me like you're trying to approach the Bible as literature but expecting it to also do the work of literary criticism for you. That's not how it works.

I was trying to approach it for spiritual/philosophical insight, and failing that, some poetic or literary merit. What I read had none of the above. At the moment I'm reading "Behold the Spirit" by Alan Watts and I'm getting far more out of that than I could have ever imagined from all the Christian texts I've read.

also why on eartn are you talking about christians in relation to the OT

Because in reading it I came across so many stories that are used every day by Christians to support their beliefs. I haven't gotten to how Jesus treats the OT; am I wrong? Does he say all that stuff is bunk?

I should have made it clear that the OT I read was just The Pentateuch. I haven't read Kings or anything past that yet. Granted it was a really well done version, with additional recent translations and alternate passages and the history behind the texts. Which was more interesting than the texts themselves.

Is JHVH/Al-Shadday the Pillar Of Cloud the same omniomniomni God that is later given life through Jesus Christ?

Crap I guess I need to go read the rest of it!

also why on eartn are you talking about christians in relation to the OT

Heh, yeah I wonder if Frogman realizes that Christians read the entire Bible,not just the NT.

you're kidding me

anyway, in case you're not clear, this is the post i was referring to

If Christians would base their belief on something that actually explores mankind's relationship with God, that I could appreciate. As it is The Old Testament is about as deep as you'd think if you've ever tried having a philosophical discussion with a born-again Christian

adam's opinion on the OT as text, ie shallow, is perfectly fine. But i take issue with approaching the OT as a way of justifiying his feelings about the religion of christianity. that's irrelevant to the writings as writings.
it was not written by christians and irrespective of the way that various protestant denominations have focused on it for several hundred years it differs vastly in intent, conception, ideology and purpose from anything 'christian'.

i mean one can detect all the similarities one wants, but its tantamount to claiming plato was a christian or buddha was a marxist.

Because in reading it I came across so many stories that are used every day by Christians to support their beliefs. I haven't gotten to how Jesus treats the OT; am I wrong? Does he say all that stuff is bunk?

no to your last q, but that is typological controversy and all theological nonsense to put it bluntly; the point, of course, is that it doesnt matter what much later generations claim about stuff written by others centuries before in a completely different ideological context. its interesting for other reasons, course, and if you want to construct a critique/polemic against christianity then its worthwhile finding out these differences so you can point them out.

I should have made it clear that the OT I read was just The Pentateuch.

lol well then

adam the pentateuch has as much boringness as good bits. for reading it could be edited down to like, two books. there was a mix-up at the printers and someone inserted this DIY manual in the middle of it, which unfortunately goes on for about 30 pages. judges, samuel and kings are total block/bonkbusters, though i dont know about 'spiritual insight'. for that there's ecclesiastes, psalms, job, jeremiah. really the OT is the saga of a people and their attempts to come to tems with nationhood, exile and being alone in the world with no god. the OT is a pretty good athiest's manual!

oh and alan watts sux

As a kid one of the greatest gifts I ever got from my grandparents was a HUGE illustrated coffee table kids Bible through which I learned about the patriarchs, judges, Rebecca, Samuel, David and Solomon, Elijah, Nebuchadnezzar, et al. Huge swaths of Western literature remain incomprehensible without knowing them

Fully agreed. I had actually had two of these and read through a third as well, all of which helped in just grounding the whole arc of the 'story' (or stories) in my head. I also have to credit the Good News Bible, which I kept finding in various hotel rooms during our frequent moves (military families being prone to that) -- the illustrations by Annie Vallotton, since they covered the whole book, helped even more in further bringing the whole thing to life.

'the bible suxx' is the worst kind of challops

how about 'the bible maxx'

The Old Testament had all the spiritual substance of a soap opera. No underlying philosophy was there, no meanings behind the famous myths, no intellectual substance whatsoever. It was a cut and dry explanation of a cult deity with a complete lack of ability to manage his whiny back-stabbing followers. Epic stories that in other traditions would be gloriously illustrated page after page are stated matter-of-factly in a few lines like a newspaper.

i mean if you really believe this to be true and arent just trying to justify yr own long-held anti-religious beliefs--how do you account for the fact that this document has sustained a 3,000+-year-old religious tradition? are jews (and christians) all idiots or what?

tbf "this idea has survived for 3000 years!" is not really a very good argument

weirdly enough bible is not one idea long

yeah but longevity is not really a guarantor of anything except that it's been able to last a long time

sure. but... why? i mean if the bible is 'actually' a paper-thin set of meaningless, intellectually vacuous myths about a cult deity, why has it nourished and sustained millions of people across the globe over thousands of years? are they just being fooled where adam bruneau has actually seen the light?

old ideas carry more weight? particularly when enforced/indoctrined from a young age over centuries when critical thinking wasn't exactly a religious forte?

the same way culture is passed down?

I mean I'm not saying the bible is what adam bruneau says it is, but I don't see how bringing its longevity into the argument does anything more than say "this document has survived for a long time in human history"

maybe I would be more interested in thinking more about /why/ it has done so

i'm not arguing against the bible as a p. great read, btw, just pointing out that it's very possible for a worthless set of ideas to last & propogate. look at zonal marking, f'instance.

I mean I'm not saying the bible is what adam bruneau says it is, but I don't see how bringing its longevity into the argument does anything more than say "this document has survived for a long time in human history"

― noted schloar (dyao), Monday, March 1, 2010 8:40 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno im not sure that--taking into acct the history of judaism say--its unfair to think that the longevity of the bible has as much to do w/ its own qualities as it does w/ general cultural inertia

It's not merely that "this document has survived for a long time in human history" but that it has been "sustaining", as max put it, across a variety of quite different cultures over that time. North Africans in the 3rd century, inhabitants of Ireland in the 5th century, Russians in the 9th century, Italians in the 14th century, and yes, American Evangelicals in the 20th century, all found the same document, and beliefs therein, important and sustaining. That's pretty remarkable, given how different those cultures are in almost every other way.

& in any event i think that the point i was trying to make had more to do w/ "sustained" than with "3000 years"--i mean is everyone who has read and studied and loved the bible dumber than adam bruneau?

xxp!

pretty sure american evangelicals are there or thereabouts where we were in 500AD tbh

i mean on the one side i have thousands of western cultures most important thinkers and on the other side i have adam bruneau and richard dawkins

yeah but just cause a smart person studies/likes/believes in something doesn't prove that the thing itself possesses those qualities - the person may be studying it for spiritual or cultural reasons, for example. the argument as it exists still doesn't say a whole lot about the bible itself.

adam bruneau said he couldnt find any spirituality in the bible!

I mean how do you explain the fact that a whole lot of smart people on this board love mulholland drive and inland empire ha ha ha ZING

yeah but just cause a smart person studies/likes/believes in something doesn't prove that the thing itself possesses those qualities

i dont know what other measure of this is there, frankly. i mean how do i judge if a book has merit except through the discourse that surrounds it?

I mean I disagree with adam bruneau's assertions too but I think using the fact that a lot of smart people are into it is not the most efficient wedge into the argument

you read it and judge for yourself! xp

haha but

i mean lets get real--there is no 'proof' that the bible contains any qualities one way or another

interesting

everything is relative, maaaynnneeee

and anyway i wasnt really trying to lay the foundation for an argument i was just trying to tease out what adam bruneaus alternate history of the bible is where everyone got hoodwinked into enjoying it

The more distance I get from my old-testament-rich childhood, the more I realize how cruel and fucked up and meaningless some parts of it seem (the OT, not my childhood, ha).

I mean God rejects Cain's offering because... he's a farmer or what? Even as a kid this bothered me, having been raised in that everyone-gets-praise-for-trying kind of world.

And cheating your brother out of his birthright is a noble thing to do... why?

back in the day, bloodthirsty competition was an allowable necessity?

http://wallscometumblingdown.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/gordon-gekko.jpg

According to the text, after God had killed Onan's older brother Er, Judah asked Onan to have sexual intercourse with Tamar and impregnate her, the widow of Er, so that the child or children could be declared to be Er's heir(s). Onan had sex with Tamar, but performed coitus interruptus each time, spilling his "seed" (semen) on the ground, so that there would not be any offspring which he could not claim as his own. The passage states that this displeased God, who killed Onan as his punishment.

The Jewish attorney Alan Dershowitz has suggested that Onan and Tamar engaged in frottage (non-penetrative sex) or in anal sex.

er indoors

kinda bugs me when people claim some sort of specific 'insight' into biblical tales like that. dude just pulled out of his brother's widow before shooting, what's not to get?

His dick.

she got that, AFAICT, just not for the full duration.

dershowitz would never pull out

in fairness, if god was an actual being and he was instructing me directly about shit, i wouldn't be puling that penny-ante kind of con. dude, that's god he's like season 2-5 grissom when it comes to seed-on-the-ground detection.

god is responsible for 3000 years of men feeling guilty over pulling out ::::(

in ireland he's been responsible for worrying about whether pulling out even fuckin worked until 1970

jsut checked, and that should be 1979

pulling out works fyi god is trickin u 8=====D~~~~~~

rhythym method FTW, although i'm not quite sure what that even is tbh

I have recommended before, but The Good Book by David Plotz makes for an entertaining take on bible tales. Old testament only, wrath fans.

read and enjoyed joe heller's book from david's POV, but it was years ago.

Q: I mean God rejects Cain's offering because... he's a farmer or what?

A: Jehovah is a petulant, jealous, nasty god who can be outsmarted.

Finis.

'smart people liked it' only really works with specifics imo. & literary qualities of the bible are helped by particular filters/feedback systems - eg if you engage with Milton or Blake (just to pick the obvious English radicals), then its like the Bible becomes electrified as part of their imaginative circuit (and you get into awes hall-of-mirrors where 4k-yr-old Jewish poetry/history is picked up 300 yrs ago & you're looking at both of them at once now).

^^^^

sorry, i really didnt mean to turn this into an argument abt the bibles longevity or whether or not smart people liked it! i was interested in adam bruneaus take on the reasons for those things tho! i take back what i said before!!!

Q: I mean God rejects Cain's offering because... he's a farmer or what?

A: Jehovah is a petulant, jealous, nasty god who can be outsmarted.

Finis.

― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Monday, 1 March 2010 14:53 (20 minutes ago)

Exactly. There are so many points where he shows up like "Hey wait a minute, who broke this?" - how did people determine that this God was omniscient?

omniscient, absent minded, kooky, big on virgins. is god woody allen?

When the KJV was first printed, it was a tool of literacy in homes and amongst classes of people who had not been allowed to learn to read before - women, for example -this is one of the reasons why Biblical narratives are reprised so much in the Western canon.

i mean on the one side i have thousands of western cultures most important thinkers and on the other side i have adam bruneau and richard dawkins

― max, Monday, March 1, 2010 8:54 AM

thousands vs. 2

Jehovah is a petulant, jealous, nasty god who can be outsmarted.

I think where that descrip goes off the rails a little bit is that, God is so simply powerful that it doesn't really matter whether he's jealous or unreasonable. IF you keep your promises to him, you will benefit -- and you'd better really mean it. If you don't, you will pay, depending on God's mood and/or the verbal skills of your current intercessor (Moses, mostly).

It's not fair, but then God never promised to be.

at what stage would dawkins not have been a complete social outcast/sat on a sharpened stake for working within an intellectual framework that didn't revolve around the teachings of catholic orthodoxy though? it's far too simplified to just include all prominent thinkers from a time when it was much more important/ingrained to be theistic.

'smart people liked it' only really works with specifics imo. & literary qualities of the bible are helped by particular filters/feedback systems - eg if you engage with Milton or Blake (just to pick the obvious English radicals), then its like the Bible becomes electrified as part of their imaginative circuit (and you get into awes hall-of-mirrors where 4k-yr-old Jewish poetry/history is picked up 300 yrs ago & you're looking at both of them at once now).

nicely articulated

OK I could be wrong here since it's been about eight years since I studied religion in any depth but I feel like the difference between the god and religion of the Old Testament and the god and religion of the New Testament is not being stressed enough in this conversation. I mean yeah the OT is part of Christianity for sure but the NT makes a lot of it moot and I think if you want to consider the character and attitudes of the Christian god you really have to focus on the NT. Right?

i think we've all been focusing on OT YHWH tbh n/a, he's a much better character in a literary sense

The problem with that is that as an epic history, the NT is totally dull.

xp hah

ok ok ok i rushed into this thread without thinking and made some dumb arguments

im trying to think what i wish i had said and i think it is this: its not really that controversial to call the bible the most important book in western culture, such as it is, and one of the most important books in the history of the world. old testament, new testament, whatever. for better or for worse this is a book that has been read, loved, studied, analyzed, translated, etc. by millions of people; it has affected the course of human events, blah blah, more than nearly any other text; its presence can be felt across the history of western literature. i mean we can all agree on this right?

now what i did that was dumb was i pretended that this is an either/or thing--that either the bible has reached that status because of qualities inherent in it: i.e., it is a beautifully-written book with a deep philosophical spirituality. OR, the bible has reached such a status due to the inertia of culture, false consciousness, the fact that is was for a while the "only" book (this is not true but whatever). but the truth is obviously its both--a book doesnt get this important without having some level of literary/spiritual/philosophical merit; but nor does it get so important off the back of those things alone.

what pisses me off about adam bruneaus comment is the kind of unbelievable arrogance it takes to spend a week reading half of what weve all agreed is a text of huge importance not just to history but to millions of people around the world and just dismiss it, to pretend that the book has reached such a level thanks to... i dont know. luck? the kind of arrogance that allows one to say "i have seen what maimonides, st thomas aquinas, kierkegaard, catherine of siena, meister eckhardt, william of occam, dryden, pascal, mlk, etc. did not." it puts a bad taste in my mouth.

but hey i am a secular bro who grew up in a secular community. we all fight our own culture wars.

OK whatevs it's just my biggest problem with AB's original post was more thinking of the pentetauch as somehow representative of Christian beliefs than his other b.s. arguments.

max otm

agree with that max xxp

im trying to think what i wish i had said

new board description!

but i don't think you said anything all that out of sync, to be fair. nobody's been flat out disagreeing with anybody since adam weighed in, just riffing off each other?

I still think, FWIW, that your second proposition is more of a factor that the bible's merits in and of itself, but given the influence that it undoubtedly has exerted over all of western culture (and esp language/themes?) it's impossible at this stage to call them anything like seperate causes.

I know, right? I self-identify as an atheist but having given it some thought, it's important not to shit on non-violent religious people with knee-jerk rhetoric - most of what is in the Bible and other books like it has value in art and history, even if for me these values are literary and not literal.

nobody's been flat out disagreeing with anybody since adam weighed in, just riffing off each other?

i had been disagreeing w/ myself i think

what pisses me off about adam bruneaus comment is the kind of unbelievable arrogance it takes to spend a week reading half of what weve all agreed is a text of huge importance not just to history but to millions of people around the world and just dismiss it, to pretend that the book has reached such a level thanks to... i dont know. luck?

I dunno, the problem w/ this is that writing the counterfactual history of western culture is basically impossible...how do we isolate any one factor? I mean luck IS one of them. all the christians and jews in the world could have been wiped out in various periods of human history. I mean there isn't much in human history that can't be boiled down to 'luck' on some level or another.

but let's say both the OT and the NT were written by slightly worse writers - everything else remains equal, but the texts are a little less elegant and there's a bit more clunky philosophy . would the bible still have basically its same place in western culture that it does today? I'd argue yes - there are so many historical, economic, political etc. reasons for the bible's place in western culture, and due to those reasons above all, for a majority of people in western history, the bible's been basically the monopoly provider of religion (for reasons independent of its beauty of language and thought etc.)

in western history

rather, in a specific period of western history

another aspect is that the bible's ubiquity has been influential in defining just what we consider to be beautiful and correct in terms of language, so we're judging those aspects through a self-fulfilling filter.

not really on topic - but this is sort of a weirdly timed revival.
was recently reading Ecclesiastes. i went to a Catholic skool, and while we studied the bible - i don't ever remember going over this book. which is a shame - i'm quite enjoying it. very beautiful stuff imho.

xpost!

I think the only reason the OT has been so important historically is because of the NT? Judaism has never been a particularly powerful or important religion in the grand scheme of things...

dude, we basically invented monotheism

sorta important

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/wp-images/BenHur.jpg

^ was on tcm last nite

another aspect is that the bible's ubiquity has been influential in defining just what we consider to be beautiful and correct in terms of language, so we're judging those aspects through a self-fulfilling filter.

― quiz show flat-track bully (darraghmac), Monday, March 1, 2010 10:17 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

But various translations were made using the language that was considered "beautiful and correct" at the time based on that culture's perceptions so ultimately it becomes a circular discussion.

Exactly. The King James version had an incalculable effect on English prose for centuries.

but let's say both the OT and the NT were written by slightly worse writers - everything else remains equal, but the texts are a little less elegant and there's a bit more clunky philosophy . would the bible still have basically its same place in western culture that it does today? I'd argue yes - there are so many historical, economic, political etc. reasons for the bible's place in western culture, and due to those reasons above all, for a majority of people in western history, the bible's been basically the monopoly provider of religion (for reasons independent of its beauty of language and thought etc.)

well right--i mean this is why i said:

but the truth is obviously its both--a book doesnt get this important without having some level of literary/spiritual/philosophical merit; but nor does it get so important off the back of those things alone.

its not easy to tease out one factor! but i also think we may be overrating its literary importance & the quality of its writing. its a very beautifully written book to the best of my understanding (not that i read greek or hebrew)--but in english at least you have to give at least as much credit to tyndal as you do to the book itself. and as darragh says its a self-fulfilling thing to a certain extent. i am more frustrated with charges that the bible is devoid of philosophical or spiritual merit.

well then specifically the KJV on literature since, more accurately.

Hey guys I can sing a song of all the books of the old-test-a-ment in one breath, tho by the time I get to Habakkuk I'm almost dying.

well then specifically the KJV on literature since, more accurately.

― quiz show flat-track bully (darraghmac), Monday, March 1, 2010 10:25 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha you can't do that though! You can't say "if we don't look at the impact of how we assessed literature on the KJV, then you can see that the KJV has influenced how we assess literature." You're making your argument by trying to eliminate the context.

Zoroastrians invented the difference between good and evil.

thread was cooler when it was sleepy eyed dudes like me and hoos posting dope bible verses imo

Oh hell yes I found an MP3 of the song. In seminary we'd try & cram in max # of syllables into "Numbers."

You're making your argument by trying to eliminate the context.

yeah, well, wanna make sumtin of it pal?

like

And I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the look of glowing brass, out of the midst of the fire.

Also out of the midst thereof, the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man.

And every one had four faces, and every one of them had four wings.

And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled as the look of burnished brass.

And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings:

their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

And the likeness of their faces was the face of a man; and they four had the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four had also the face of an eagle.

And their faces and their wings were parted above; two [wings] of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.

And they went every one straight forward: whither the Spirit was to go, they went; they turned not when they went.

And as for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, as the appearance of torches: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright; and out of the fire went forth lightning.

And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

And I looked at the living creatures, and behold, one wheel upon the earth beside the living creatures, toward their four faces.

The appearance of the wheels and their work was as the look of a chrysolite; and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not when they went.

As for their rims, they were high and dreadful; and they four had their rims full of eyes round about.

And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went, thither would [their] spirit go; and the wheels were lifted up along with them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

When those went, they went; and when those stood, they stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up along with them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

And there was the likeness of an expanse over the heads of the living creature, as the look of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.

And under the expanse were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two which covered on this side, and every one had two which covered on that side their bodies.

And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, a tumultuous noise, as the noise of a host: when they stood, they let down their wings;

and there was a voice from above the expanse that was over their heads. When they stood, they let down their wings.

And above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.

And I saw as the look of glowing brass, as the appearance of fire, within it round about; from the appearance of his loins and upward, and from the appearance of his loins and downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah. And when I saw, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.

anybody who tries to go "that spiritual tradition is bankrupt but this other one is gr8" is straight-up posing imo

i am more frustrated with charges that the bible is devoid of philosophical or spiritual merit.

the type of person who would say this would also say that basically any religious text was devoid of philosophical or spiritual merit. the bible gets special attention from anti-religious types cause of its microsoft-esque near-monopoly on religion in the west, not because it's better/worse than anything else.

lol yes, wld love to see a thread on the Urantia Book blowing up so big & fast.

anybody who tries to go "that spiritual tradition is bankrupt but this other one is gr8" is straight-up posing imo

yeah but how many *non-religious* people make this argument?

see upthread - pretty sure Mr. Bruneau reads Watts et al out of interest rather than devout Buddhism (since a Watts-ian view would pretty much preclude describing other religions' scriptures in disparaging terms afaik)

juss sayin "that spiritual tradition is bankrupt but this other one is gr8" is a statement that could apply to a pretty high % of religious people...and doesn't really apply to the dawkins/hitchens types.

Hey guys I can sing a song of all the books of the old-test-a-ment in one breath, tho by the time I get to Habakkuk I'm almost dying.

We should swap!! I can only sing the NT and I always forget where "Joshua, Judges, Ruth" goes in the OT -- for some reason I memorized it in chunks but I get them out of order.

FYI I totally loved the How To books and got off track with the poetry all the times I tried to read the Bible. SoS completely lost on me. I was/am kind of a disgusting savage/Philistine.

thread is now about walk-on characters from the Bible that I want to know more about:

Benaiah

King James Bible
And he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man: and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and slew him with his own spear.

King James Bible
And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lionlike men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow:

I mean do you know the high priest of the Israelites had to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple with a STRING TIED TO HIS FOOT in case God struck him down for hubris or something (pretty much anything!) else while he was in there? So that the sub-priests could drag him out without themselves going into the sacred space and being also smitten by God.

Otherwise you'd have a whole pile-up of priestly bodies rotting next to the Ark of the Covenant as each one tried to save the other(s).

That is some wack shit.

thread is now about walk-on characters from the Bible that I want to know more about

I was always a big fan of Rahab, she's totally out of character for women in the Bible and yet she finds such favor with God that she's one of Jesus' ancestors (line of descent through Boaz).

How about the bride and groom who had Jesus at their wedding? Or the master of ceremonies of the wedding, who says:

When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. 10 “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!”

The mc seems a bit drunk there, and his words are forever in the Bible. Wonder if the marriage worked out, or if the bride and groom bragged about Jesus being there for a long time after, or whatever.

One of the neater things about the NT is how it's a collection of aphorisms and quickly-summarized experiences with Jesus. It's almost like there should be another big book on Jesus they were all working on together, or individually, and these were just the footnotes, but as it worked out what appears to be the notes for something larger ended up being all there was.

undeniably classic. but holy shit @ the dud it's exaltation has wrought.

Adam Bruneau wrote:
haven't gotten to how Jesus treats the OT

The statements of the 1st century BCE Pharisee Hillel were paraphrased and reattributed to Yeshua the Nazarene (indeed nearly all of the good moral sentiments of the NT are rephrasings of Hillel's Pharisaic school - hence the deep emnity towards them in the parallel gospels). A heathen promised to convert to Judaism if Hillel could recite the Torah standing on one foot, and Hillel replied, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."

There's a half-dozen Hillelian statements like that which were imported into the gospels.

darraghmac wrote:
pretty sure american evangelicals are there or thereabouts where we were in 500AD

Not at all. Karin Armstrong argues that while there were some literalists seeking textural clarity in the West, the more mystic
Cappadocian Fathers of the Eastern church were creating the doctrines of the Trinity and Homoousis specifically because they were obfuscatory and enhanced the mystery of the religious experience.

That millions have subsequently died fighting over the poorly supported dogmatic minutiae is a pity, but political power has always found convenient means of diverting organized religion to its own ends, outside of Christianity as well.

a pity?

Karen Armstrong is seriously deluded in her apparent belief that most people throughout history have not been committed to the straightforwardly non-mystical idea of God as a Big Dude In The Sky.

OT definitely a treasure trove of excellent stories, and KJV has always been my favorite (one of my treasured books is my Grandfather's small copy of the KJV...it even smells like the Bible!)

I do enjoy the NT, and there was always something about Simon Peter I really loved: like at the feet washing, when he refuses at first and Jesus tells him basically if you refuse this, then you refuse me...and he's all 'Wash my head! My hands! Everything!'. I always liked that.

When Jesus says he's 'going away', at the last supper, was it Simon Peter who says, "I'm coming with you!"...one of the disciples had a really childlike reaction, they didn't initially understand what 'going away' meant. I liked that too.

But OT...the story of Abraham KILLS me. Song of Solomon was a fun discovery as a teenager! and I'll rep for all the classic Bible stories.

Cunga wrote
thread is now about walk-on characters from the Bible that I want to know more about

I wish Hilkiah wrote more about himself. He's the High Priest under King Josiah (649–609 BCE) who just happened to find the bulk of the book of Deuteronomy while dusting the Holy of Holies (2 Kings 22:8). The guy was probably more responsible for the formation of the Pentateuch than any named scribe, and only the post-exilic Ezra in Richard Elliot Friedman's reconstruction of authorship is more responsible for the Old Testament's canon.

BTW, the Deuteronomic History that shows signs of single authorship includes the bulk of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. Hilkiah was prolific.

iatee, thanks for offering something other than "LOL AB is dumb". Lot of good points. The "spiritually bankrupt" comment I made is simply: I have read books on/texts of Buddhism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. and all seem to at least partly deal with the unseen infinite reality (God), a contemplation of our existence in relation to that reality. Yet when I read the Five Books of Moses from The Old Testament I do not see these. For me, metaphysical discussion is crucial for any work to be of spiritual value. Not that material world can't be there as well -- as it certainly must -- but all material things end and if that is all a tradition has to offer then it cannot possibly be talking about infinity/God/Allah/Vishnu.

If there are such passages in the Five Books Of Moses please point them out and you can call me wrong for the rest of time.

J0hn D, I see you posted Ezekiel (?) that one is pretty rad, I've seen part of it before. An example of some great reading I have ahead of me.

I admitted that I read only the first Five Books of Moses, that only should mean when I put it down I'm not talking about books I haven't read, I'm not talking about the New Testament. I'm not criticizing those because I have not read them. Which is something I pointed out. If I have offended someone by generalizing Christians then I am sorry. Generalizing a number of traditions is never a good idea and that was unwise. I think the religion taught by Jesus Christ (and yes I believe in him) has a great deal to offer, even to non-believers, and I look forward to discovering more of that in the future.

I took a look at Psalms last night based on your recommendations and yes I think my opinion will be totally different when I finish it.

what pisses me off about adam bruneaus comment is the kind of unbelievable arrogance it takes to spend a week reading half of what weve all agreed is a text of huge importance not just to history but to millions of people around the world and just dismiss it, to pretend that the book has reached such a level thanks to... i dont know. luck?

You call it luck I'll call it power. Political power, military force, etc. I mean millions of people can't be wrong? Gimme a break.

One of my scholarly online acquaintances is putting together a fairly humorous (to the skeptic, at any rate) pop-cultural exegesis of the Book of Genesis:

YHWHY: An Anti-Theist's Commentary on Genesis

I'm used to priests emphasizing in sermons that the Bible is not a history book, but then nearly every Catholic service I've attended for almost 20 years was either an 'unrecognized' gay congregation or a parish in Chelsea (not too diff).

As a Christian kid Jehovah's preference for Jacob the trickster – he tricked his father into giving him Esau's blessing! – confused me; it was the first clue that this God guy played some dirty pool.

I wish Hilkiah wrote more about himself. He's the High Priest under King Josiah (649–609 BCE) who just happened to find the bulk of the book of Deuteronomy while dusting the Holy of Holies (2 Kings 22:8). The guy was probably more responsible for the formation of the Pentateuch than any named scribe, and only the post-exilic Ezra in Richard Elliot Friedman's reconstruction of authorship is more responsible for the Old Testament's canon.

people who are interested in this kinda talk should watch this:

http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebrew-bible

though the history of the Jewish people would've been boring had God made Esau the archetype

xpost

I think you could even say that Esau being big, hairy, good at hunting, possibly not too bright and Jacob ending up in the bloodline of the tribes of Israel has kind of set the template for Jews vs Anyone throughout their history. If the story of the birthright wasn't so demonstrably old, I'd almost suspect it of being made up to fit.

has anybody else ever noticed that the tetragrammaton is a great punchline to a joke about a giant battery

good week @ the dispensary eh hoos

when the high priest went into the holy of holies to stand in front of the ark, that big gold plated thing full of magic goodies from the exodus, he might have pronounced the tetragrammaton as YOOHOOVAHHEH or YEEHEEVEEHEE or what have you. i am amused to imagine that when he put his hands on the big battery, diverting the electric current of the flaming presence of god into his body, the mysterious tetragrammaton was pronounced something like YAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAVEHAAAAAAH

+ lol

has anybody else ever noticed that the tetragrammaton is a great punchline to a joke about a giant battery

Borges should have started a story like this.

I mean do you know the high priest of the Israelites had to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple with a STRING TIED TO HIS FOOT in case God struck him down for hubris or something (pretty much anything!) else while he was in there? So that the sub-priests could drag him out without themselves going into the sacred space and being also smitten by God.

Otherwise you'd have a whole pile-up of priestly bodies rotting next to the Ark of the Covenant as each one tried to save the other(s).

This is like the "death pile phase: of an ant colony! My mind is blown.

For me, metaphysical discussion is crucial for any work to be of spiritual value.

I think that if this is your lens for evaluating a spiritual text then the OT will probably seem a bit thin. It's my impression that Judaism and the religions that came out of it (Christianity and Islam) are not big on metaphysics. The mystery of God is not meant for us to penetrate by way of human understanding - rather God should be worshipped and obeyed. In contrast, the religions that originated in India - ie., Hinduism and Buddhism - tend to proceed from metaphysical reasoning rather than from divine revelation. The Indian-based religions are more empirical/rational in their approach, and this is more how they are laid out in their foundational texts.

The Indian-based religions are more empirical/rational in their approach

Baghavad-Gita is a bunch of epic mythic storytelling nonsense and like zero metaphysics, iirc

you wanna get into the metaphysics of the old testament, read the Talmud

The Bhagavad-Gita has got metaphysics in it, e.g. chapters like these:

Krishna describes nature (prakrti), the enjoyer (purusha) and consciousness.

Krishna explains the three modes (gunas) of material nature.

Krishna describes a symbolic tree (representing material existence), its roots in the heavens and its foliage on earth. Krishna explains that this tree should be felled with the "axe of detachment", after which one can go beyond to his supreme abode.

tl dr

This is not to say that there is not metaphysics implied by the Bible, but it's seldom if at all discussed directly. I haven't read the Talmud, but it does seem like it would make sense for that kind of metaphysical reasoning to be part of the commentary rather than the revelation itself in the Hebrew tradition.

its my understanding that the various Jewish commentaries/addenda to the Pentateuch touch on metaphysics in different ways and to varying degrees, but I think yr point about the differences in origins (ie revelation vs. metaphysical reasoning) is totally a fair one. Judaism was/is about binding the community together - sure there's revelations and mysticism but it is largely unconcerned with discussing how a lone individual can penetrate the nature of reality (in OT terms the Jewish response would probably be "pray a lot and maybe if yr lucky God will send you a vision of a chariot"). As such the OT, the Talmud, etc are about THE LAW and SURVIVAL, its more of a "How To Get Ahead in This Crazy World" user's manual.

Right, exactly. I don't think ethics is in any way less relevant to religion or spirituality than metaphysics.

plz move thread to The Church

I had no idea that board existed. Thanks, I'll check it out.

Shakey- I think your point about "binding the community together" is especially key here. Because if your religious principles derive from metaphysical reasoning, then it's easy to see how someone could come along and do the reasoning a little differently and end up with a slightly different view. Because of the way the Indian faiths were laid out, they are more open to this, and in fact we see in India a history of diversity of religous views and gods (Gods?), perhaps at the expense of social cohesion at times. However, India could do that and survive since it's a vast country. For a small tribe struggling to survive in the Middle East, having one agreed revealed text at the center and one divine being at the top made more sense.

you wanna get into the metaphysics of the old testament, read the Talmud

― mark roflr (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, March 1, 2010 9:35 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

you really wanna have some fun check out the hilarious syncretic nonsense soup that is hermetic qabalah

can i also clarify that being hilarious syncretic nonsense soup totally doesn't invalidate it

god i guess the dispensary WAS good this week

nah I love that stuff (actually been re-reading some Gershom Scholem recently, coincidentally)

its like ayo the form of the good is actually just a sensation the elohim have while they're fucking and then the archangels are like yo have yall ever thought about actual goodness and then the regular angels are like "damn what is actual goodness let's make a schematic" and then plato has a eureka moment and is like "this is basically how i break good down to an extent"

"from the perspective of God the material world is just a seriously degenerated version of his own thoughts and sensations, but from our perspective the material world is seen to be a collection of the very emanations of God"

where el = prefix for deity and eloh = "goddess" and him = "gods" elohim--the thingy whose spirit floats over the waters in genesis 1:2--technically scans as "gods/goddesses"

i fucking love that

Hoos, next time I am in your neighborhood, we will kick it w/some source texts

Yod Heh Vau Heh is the fourfold creative process. It is the formula by which the pure consciousness of the Deity (Yod) descends into matter (Heh final). From our point of view down here in the realm of Assiah, we see the wonder of creation. You might suspect that from God's point of view this very wondrous process of creation appears as a depressing degeneration of energy and power, but I don't think that is the case. The material world is still a manifestation of God, it just happens to be the slowest, heaviest, and grossest aspects of the Divine Light

this guy

i'm just sayin if u wanna get mystical aint nobody get mystical like the pentatauch

you just gotta do some math

There's all sorts of esoteric weirdness going on at the fringes of the monotheist tradition. Both the 1st century BCE Essenes at Qumran and Jude (of the eponymous canonical epistle) were stans for the Book of Enoch. The first part, The Book of the Watchers, elaborate on the odd passage Genesis 6:1-4 about 200 angels who were intended solely to watch earthly affairs choosing instead to knock up human women and creating a race of giants. So the original sin isn't knowledge of good and evil or Miltonian pride, but angelic zoophilia.

This is also the plot of Wings of Desire, but I don't recall any Nephilim roaming about in Faraway, So Close!.

uh hello madeline lengle

we will kick it w/some source texts

^^^ this is one of those phrases like "hey bro i got some acid" that is like, YES, i am going to have the best weekend

uh hello madeline lengle

A hahaha haha. I love her so much and I love that you just referenced Many Waters even ironically.

there is nothing ironic about my reference to many waters laurel

<3 <3 <3

House Like A Lotus, Arm of the Starfish, and the one with the dolphins and Adam and Rodney -- these are my favorites ever.

Oh, A Ring of Endless Light. I can't think of the Tallis Canon without Canon Tallis.

god i need to re-read all of these

my relationship to the bible:

interesting in an illustrated version whilst at (presbyterian [maybe methodist once]) SUMMER BIBLE CAMP as a kid. who was the dude who bought it by hitting a tree branch on horseback? dumbass

revelations (nsv) was solid if unreasonable during boring sermons

got way more out of narnia/l'engle forrealz. but i like cats

took a milton course in college that was awesome and v. briefly made me understand why you would write your shit in verse rather than prose or lo-fi boombox-recorded songs. then i lost that insight :(

am better at crosswords than my wife because of "esau" and shit

totally respect stuff like the kjv and linus van pelt's sayings and certain ilxors' albums for literary beauty but don't really get into the mystic iirc

when the hell is the sequel coming, longest followup ever

re: l'engle i will push to name any potential daughter of mine polyhymnia (greeks get second credit)

polly jean for short

HOOS where are you getting that? That shit is nice! Is it the Zohar? Is the Tree Of Life in the OT? The Burning Bush? The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

India could do that and survive since it's a vast country

But it hasn't been technically a country until very recently, and prior to that a number of very different traditions regionally co-existed. It's a shame that gnosticism and other early Christianities were killed off for political reasons. The Biblical canon would certainly be richer.

Genesis owns 99% of the OT IMO. And it reads like the Hindu one almost word-for-word. The dark waters, the primordial sound, The Word, Om.

HOOS where are you getting that? That shit is nice! Is it the Zohar? Is the Tree Of Life in the OT?

its from a commentary on the setzer yetzirah, a mystical text i might actually describe as "dry as a newspaper." and no, the tree of life is not in the ot, it was created as a schematic to understand the process of creation using the hebrew alphabet as a kind of code key.

haha i'm sorry SEFER yetzirah. the stray cat strut has no truck here.

so I couldn't find a cool illustrated kids version at the library but I did find one illustrated by BARRY MOSER

Genesis owns 99% of the OT IMO. And it reads like the Hindu one almost word-for-word. The dark waters, the primordial sound, The Word, Om.

― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 05:41

Genesis owns 99% of the OT IMO. And it reads like the Hindu one almost word-for-word. The dark waters, the primordial sound, The Word, Om.

― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 05:41

Agree about Genesis being the best book, but for the Abe-Jacob-Jospeh shenanigans saga, not for the creation/ads and eve guff.

cmon Ecclesiastes ppl, I know it's worn out to stan for it, but it's practically Beckett innit?

Agree about Genesis being the best book, but for the Abe-Jacob-Jospeh shenanigans saga, not for the creation/ads and eve guff.

...

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

^^^

saying that's anything less than spectacular & breathtaking = posing imo

Why are the accounts of creation called J and P?

setzer yetzirah

lolling my ass off here

does nobody else wanna back up my stanning for the tale of absolom

faulkner does iirc

frienda mine says faulkner is some kinda brilliant writer who speaks of men wandering the earth, observing life and slowly dying - kinda like an ambient remix of large bits of the bible maybe?

Why are the accounts of creation called J and P?

P = the "priestly" tradition IIRC; "J" = a posited "original" source put together in the 80s/90s by scholars. there are at least 3 sources for Genesis that make up the book we presently have; we don't have the originals, but can tell what they were (by their language, by which manuscripts they do or don't appear in, etc). Also on the IIRC/I could be totally wrong front, I seem to remember Harold Bloom arguing for the author of J being a woman

Why are the accounts of creation called J and P?

J is also called the Yahwist (something about J = Y in german translation of hebrew?), P = Priestly, E = Elohist

xpost

yeah its widely agreed that the Genesis creation story is a composite of at least three previously extant traditions, and is an attempt to reconcile them all under one umbrella. never heard the female author hypothesis, seems like that would be kinda far-fetched to determine gender at this late date... R. Crumb raises some interesting points about matriarchal traditions being evident in the Old Testament in a supressed/redacted/altered form though (cf all those stories about the patriarchs pimping out their wives to local potentates for no apparent reason)

Aw thx John, P v. J showed up in a Paradise Lost footnote & it was one of those footnotes that could have used its own footnote.

frienda mine says faulkner is some kinda brilliant writer who speaks of men wandering the earth, observing life and slowly dying - kinda like an ambient remix of large bits of the bible maybe?

― louis do not fuck achewood (acoleuthic), Friday, March 12, 2010 11:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

oh god you are dj spooky and i claim my 5 dollars plz stop

lol i rashly pressed submit post

put together in the 80s/90s by scholars

"J" was not discovered by Harold Bloom.

The Documentary hypothesis is much older than that, with elements extending back to Jean Astruc in 1753 and Hobbes and Hebrew scholarship before that, though it was published in pretty much the current form by Julius Wellhausen in 1876. Most mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy have been exposed to it as the "orthodox" interpretation of the literary creation of the Pentateuch for the past half-century.

The best layman's guide to the Documentary hypothesis remains Richard Elliot Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? (1986) and his color coded translation The Bible with Sources Revealed (2003).

i have resolved to finally sit down and read this, its pretty good so far

don't let anyone spoil the ending for you

SPOILER ALERT..

....

.....

........

God wins.

FYI, God - he dies. Grusomely. But it's OK, he comes back for God: The Sequel 3 days later.

SORRY - SPOILERS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

guys that's not cool guy's prob never even seen the movie

i think its pretty lol that god was perving on adam and eve until the serpent tipped them off

also the first thing adam does? blame the wife. (reminds me of my dad)

I haven't actually read it since high school. (Religious school, we had to learn all the JEDP stuff.) But it's one of those books you just REALLY don't want to get caught out reading on the tube, you know?

xp

not exactly an uncommon literary device.

must read it again, properly

Luckily you never have to travel with it since it's available in every hotel room. I stole one of my copies.

yeah but don't they WANT you to take it with you?

where did cains wife come from?!?!

Luckily Adam and Eve had an extra sister they could all shag.

oh dear you're going to struggle with it if you don't accept the boundaries imposed on the reader right from the off.

man the curse of ham is pretty severe imo

“Hello, I'm a hardcore Evolution believer. I'm always telling my friends who are religious, that perhaps the Bible is just another story like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table… Even though I make some good points, in my opinion, against creationism, they still do not agree with me. That's OK, but there is always one question that always seems to stump them… ‘If Adam and Eve were the first people on this planet, then how did the population become what it is without incest? Doesn't the Bible state that incest is bad…?’” Sincerely, Yoendry.

Do literal Bible believers who think evolution is a lie also think human lived to be hundreds of years old? Cos it's there in the Bible...

^^ above bit of ventriloquism courtesy of www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c004.html

Adam, it's something about the further away we get from Adam/Eve, the less able people are able to live for centuries -- basically an analogue to the decaying civilization argument.

xp Of course they do. It's because the world was cleaner and humans were closer to the time of Creation so their genes were freer than ours of defects and tendencies to disease.

that was before all of the genetic defects started to accumulate as a result of the incest, you see. gah xposts.

so, people who know stuff, this new translation of the new testament: http://www.amazon.com/Restored-New-Testament-Translation-Commentary/dp/039306493X seems kinda interesting, but I can't tell what exactly he's doing that really necessitates it being a new translation rather than making the points through his own book. Anyone got any thoughts?

I believe that In the beginning, earth rotated around the sun (er, or should say, the sun rotated around the earth…) much faster than it currently does, so that years passed every 40 days. Therefore, some people lived several hundred "years". Amen.

XP Merdeyeux:
I had the Restored New Testament for a while, before gifting it to my stepmother, who has spent a few years in Episcopal (mainstream Protestant) Bible study. A few good things about it:

1) It includes 4 of the Gnostic gospels, hence saving the trouble of also getting a copy of the Nag Hammadi codices and the gospel of Judas.
2) William Barnstone has been a translator of classical Greek poetry for 50 years, so there is an aesthetic flow and personality to each of the original authors that isn't common in translations by committee.
3) Aramaic (and Hellenic/Roman, where appropriate) names are used throughout, so its Yeshua bin Yosef hanging there on the crucifix. This is also done in the Hebrew names versions of other translations, but I think it helps as a constant reminder of the context: these are texts written by colonized dark-skinned commoners, and not by blond-haired blue-eyed Northern Europeans of a scholastic bent.
4) The introductory notes are excellent, and there are about 120 pages of them (not including a few pages prefacing each chapter).

For my purposes, I found I didn't really need yet another copy of the texts for reference (I'm not a believer), and that my Oxford Study Bible with the Revised English Translation was really the best all-around (literary merit and accuracy) translation. I've got a KJV on the Kindle for when I want to throw down old skool.

Do literal Bible believers who think evolution is a lie also think human lived to be hundreds of years old? Cos it's there in the Bible...

prepare to smack own head

MORE EVIDENCE FOR MY EARTH/SUN USED TO REVOLVE MORE QUICKLY AROUND THE SUN/EARTH THEORY/LAW:

The Earth used to revolve around the Sun more quickly - UNTIL the day the earth stood still in Joshua. After that day, the speed of the revolution was messed up for good. FACT

However, vegetarian diets never allowed people to live to such ages as 900 years even today

EVEN TODAY, IN UR FACES VEGGIES

My life isn't over, I will prove the veggie theory correct yet!

yoof proof cooking, you love it

"Interesting" publication which may be obtained via that "prepare to smack own head" link above. Good grief...

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/37-6444-ImageEnlarge.jpg

wait is obama for or against?

guilty dumb pleasure: at sites like that, I like to enter terms like "people who can't tell their asses from their elbows" into the site's search engine, just on the off-chance that they'll review their search terms at some point

The Earth used to revolve around the Sun more quickly - UNTIL the day the earth stood still in Joshua. After that day, the speed of the revolution was messed up for good. FACT

My mother has an old, yellowed newspaper clipping somewhere from a religious journal in the '70s, where they reported that scientists calculated (somehow?) how many times the earth had gone around the sun etc etc from geological or astronomical evidence (somehow!) and found it to be, like, 1.5 days short of expected time. Bible scholars were positively smug in reminding them that God held the Sun still in two places in the OT. Scientific proof of miracles, hurrah!

how many times the earth had gone around the sun etc etc from geological or astronomical evidence (somehow!)

counting tanlines, obv

esau is kind of a chump! I wish I had gone to school with him, I would have traded my celery sticks for his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Esau would have been the dude in 6th grade who already had a goatee

That site is pretty amazing. There's actually alot of discussion on some of those pages, most of it batshit insane, but some of it quite entertaining. However in this rebuttal of the Big Bang:

This story of origins is entirely fiction. But sadly, many people claim to believe the big bang model. It is particularly distressing that many professing Christians have been taken in by the big bang, perhaps without realizing its atheistic underpinnings. They have chosen to reinterpret the plain teachings of Scripture in an attempt to make it mesh with secular beliefs about origins.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/does-the-big-bang-fit

They forgot to include that this 'atheistic' origin story was originally proposed by a Roman Catholic Priest.

They forgot to include that this 'atheistic' origin story was originally proposed by a Roman Catholic Priest.

Many fundamentalists don't think of them as real Christians, though.

Yeah growing up as a Catholic in the south I was reminded of that many times

growing up catholic elsewhere, we insisted that a distinction was made.

It really hurts my head how people can talk about "defective genes that were passed to their sons" and yet declare evolution a terrible and unthinkable heresy

but not as much as the Conservapedia section on "baramins" hurts my head

It really hurts my head how people can talk about "defective genes that were passed to their sons" and yet declare evolution a terrible and unthinkable heresy

Some people believe that God created human beings as they are now, but everything else evolved naturally. In short, it's the evolving of humans from higher primates that offends them.

God created humans as they are now, sort of, except they picked up some genetic defects which shortened their lifespan by 500 years and God kinda shrugged and said, "well, sucks to be you, you've pissed me off too much already with your homosexuality and mixed-fibre shirts and believing in fossils and shit"

Starting tomorrow -- for two days only -- the full Common English Bible and Common English Bible with Apocrypha will be available for free on your Kindle and Nook. Here: http://www.commonenglishbible.com

Mordy, you'll like this

Ten year-old Islamic student of mine just now: "God in the Old Testament is like a strict teacher, God in the New Testament is like a cover teacher who comes in and says 'ok, I don't know what's going on,let's watch a movie'"

The Commandments according to Jesus (Matthew 19):

You shall not murder,
You shall not commit adultery,
You shall not steal,
You shall not bear false witness,
Honor your father and mother, and,
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.

Omitted OT Commandments (Exodus 20):

You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.

The OT God appears to have a frail ego.

makes sense considering man was made in his image and that is one of our fundamental qualities

i was such an idiot in this thread. since then i've read been reading illuminating commentary (partic. "Everyman's Talmud") and yes there is nuance and beauty and a rich history of debate to all this stuff.

Hebrew as a language is really fascinating and complex. from what i have read (and correct me if I'm wrong here or this is just a thing esoterics use) is it true each letter of a word can itself stand for another word, or sometimes multiple varying word structures, creating multiple alternate sentences possible within words? this seems like a holographic cryptology, which is a fascinating way to describe an infinite thing.

each letter has a number attached, and the numbers provide a context for the sentence, each sentence producing a fractal of scalable concepts.

yes however a lot of that stuff is parlor tricks. when it's good tho it can be sublime. i think the technical term you're looking for here is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/museum-of-the-bible-dead-sea-scrolls-forgeries/

"The new findings don’t cast doubt on the 100,000 real Dead Sea Scroll fragments, most of which lie in the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. However, the report’s findings raise grave questions about the “post-2002” Dead Sea Scroll fragments, a group of some 70 snippets of biblical text that entered the antiquities market in the 2000s."

Last week, I was bemused by Thomas Römer's The Invention of God, where he concludes the most likely historical pronunciation of the tetragrammaton יהוה was "Yahô", more or less "Ya-hoe". A later prohibition on the name's enunciation ensured the 2nd Commandment couldn't be violated in practice. Following Pascal, perhaps for the best to stick with "Yahweh".

https://i.imgur.com/5F8YQSt.png

Of 16900 objects in the hobby lobby connection, all but 26 from before 500 AD were looted or were otherwise lacking in provenance documentation.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/10/museum-of-the-bible-looted-art-track-record.html
you might need to open this in a private window.

And the other 26? Just completely made up by some guys

love to tax deduct my stolen and fake artifacts

these same folks will try to convince you that Jesus was in fact a Christian

I love the Bible and songs alluding to it.

If we could drive simple-minded biblical literalism into complete and utter extinction it would be much easier to embrace it as having a measure of value added for humanity.