Thursday, July 8, 2010

First post!

Believe it or not, dear readers, I haven't read the Bible a single time since my fall from grace! In fact, I've never read the whole thing, though in my younger days I read more than most. I've been meaning to read it, and am genuinely interested in what I will find. Though it is the most influential book in Western civilization, few people are intimately familiar with the whole thing. I suspect there are literally dozens of ignored gems. For example, I hear at some point a she-bear eats forty children. Fantastic!

At any rate, I think a blog will be a good way to make sure I actually DO read the whole thing, and will be a tidy way of keeping track of all of my thoughts and reactions. Plus, there is a minuscule-but-existent chance that it will make me famous! If it is super successful, I may follow it up with An Infidel Reads the Qur'an, or A Preclear Reads Dianetics.

Stay tuned for Genesis, coming up next!

5 comments:

  1. I think this is an awesome idea for a blog. I have the Bible app (and the Koran app) because of a vague plan to do some similar reading, but I never got around to doing it. Perhaps the fatal flaw in that plan was the idea that I would eventually read it in bits and pieces on a tiny screen, instead of reading a proper book version.

    I have read the entire Children's Illustrated Bible, which is easier to get through but leaves out all the begetting and probably a large chunk of the violence. I actually really enjoyed reading it as a kid, at the same as when I loved reading greek myths (also rewritten to some extent for kids). I am interested to see how the grown up version compares to my memories of the illustrated version, and I love the irreverent take on it.

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  2. What version are you reading?

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  3. There are so many atheists who think they're so clever because they've found things to sneer at like, as you say, "a she-bear eats forty children. Fantastic!"

    I'll start out by saying "Can't you read?" It was three she-bears, and they didn't eat them, they mauled them, and there were 42. You're wasting our time.

    Going on from there, "children" is an incorrect translation. (I'm a full-time Bible translation consultant.) Joseph was described as a "child" when he was 28 years old and in Potiphar's prison. These 42 were juveniles or young men. And here's where it gets interesting.

    Elisha was going up to the city and they said "Go up, thou bald head!" How did they know he was bald? He was bald in BACK! (So saith the original language, which has entirely separate words for front and back baldness.) It's because these 42 juveniles were surrounding him. And their saying "Go up!"--as happened to Elijah--meant "Go to heaven!" In other words, a euphemism for "Go to hell!" Now, if YOU were surrounded by 42 juvenile delinquents who wanted you to die, you'd hit 911 on your cell, wouldn't you. But putting a cell phone and rapid response team into the Bible would truly tax our skepticism, so the Lord arranged for a few mama grizzlies to teach these punks some manners. (It does not say they killed them, either--just mauled them.

    I look forward to discussing the serious objections you might make to Scripture--but do all your readers a favor and invest a little research time first.

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  4. I'm surprised you're criticizing this post; the author clearly states at the beginning that she hasn't even read the Bible yet and that she merely HEARD that a she-bear eats forty children, which I think you'll admit would be an awesome fact if it were true. There is simply nothing to disagree with here (unless you think she's lying about what she happened to hear); the whole point of this blog is that the author is going to actually read the Bible and sort out what's actually in it, which she's stating her intention to do with this post.

    Also, I'm sure your not implying this, but do you think that nothing can be gleamed by simply reading the Bible closely and discussing what you've read, without consulting volumes of secondary sources to interpret what you're actually reading? If a document can't be read on its own with out considerable reference to secondary works then it seems to me that it loses a lot of relevance and accessibility to most readers, even quite intelligent ones.

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  5. First let me say that i don't believe in that story of Elijah taking up into heaven because the heavenly bodies are not the same as earthly bodies so the story is makeup
    1 Corinthians:15
    [40] There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.
    In other for him to be taken into heaven then he must first transcend his nature which he did not do, and to do that is for him to drop the earthly perishable body and take up the form of energy or light.
    Second reason why i say the story is false is that Jesus said in
    John 3:13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven the Son of Man.
    Finally Jesus pointed out that heaven is not in a geographical location which clearly states that not even Jesus ascended in body into the sky and into heaven as we where told in the bible. This contradictions are the work of the church and man in the scriptures which is suppose to be the words of God.
    Luke 17:21 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
    Now my conclusions on the bears is that Elijah ascending is false so also the story of the bears n 42 children are equally false.

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