5 ms·

I’ve read the Bible and frankly I wouldn’t recommend. Putting aside that the different translations can sometimes drastically change the meaning of some stories

I’ve read the Bible and frankly I wouldn’t recommend. Putting aside that the different translations can sometimes drastically change the meaning of some stories, the English Bible as a whole is harder to grok than Shakespeare. Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. And some of the male testaments were only included hundreds of years after the death of Jesus. And then you have parts that are routinely taken out of context (because it’s such an massive and hard to read body of works) and other parts that contradict itself. Regardless of whether you believe in God or not, the Bible isn’t a particularly good book in my opinion.

aristofun 5y ago
I didn’t say it was an easy read. For good or for bad - those books require efforts. But once you dig to at least 1% of the stories and ideas - you save weeks skipping tons of shallow books out there.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- laumars 5y ago
  Reading something unenjoyable just for the sake of not having to read something else that you might enjoy doesn’t sound like a particularly compelling reason to read the first book. Besides, if all you’re trying to do is compress lessons in story writing then you’re better off skipping the Bible and picking up a collection of kids stories - particularly for ages 6 and below because those will often also follow the same lessons of morality to help children understand how to interact in a modern society and are only a few short pages long so much quicker and easier to read than the Bible :P The only reason I see to read the Bible is if you have a specific interest in the history of Christianity. Even Christians these days pick an choose which parts of the Bible to read and then distil those down into short stories and songs rather than reading the texts in full.
  - aristofun 5y ago
    I don’t enjoy a book that has nothing new to say to this world, just a waste of paper/bytes. Thanks to the bible, i can focus on and admire the rest 1% of truly worthwhile books. In other words it makes me better prepared as a reader, as I did my homework
  - TheMonarchist 5y ago
    > Even Christians these days pick an choose which parts of the Bible to read and then distil those down into short stories and songs rather than reading the texts in full. It is lamentable if true. They don't know what they miss.
benjamir 5y ago
+1 for the problem of the translations. Considering the room of interpretation it is outragous that some claim to take their (often random) translation at hand literally. Nobody should take the collected stories of a far away tribe (time and space) and take it word by word. Enjoy it as it is: a mixture of early philosophy, politics and mysticism.
orange8 5y ago
> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. Does the gender of a books author really matter?
- laumars 5y ago
  It does when those books were purposely excluded because the author was female. It also matters a lot when one of the books excluded was written by the person who was actually closest to Jesus too. Thus her accounts should surely matter at least as much as the mens (probably more so in reality). The New Testament was collated in an era when organised religion was used as a tool for man to retain control. To that end, much of content of the “modern” Bible is about man and why one should follow man because he speaks on “behalf of God”. This isn’t some new morality interpretation in the new age of political correctness either. This is an observation that’s gone back as long as I’ve been alive (40+ years) because, as I’ve said above, the testaments of those closest to Jesus were even excluded.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Everything you're saying is true but does not to attest to whether the Bible itself is a good book, judged solely as a literary work. It is possible for it to be an enjoyable and interesting read despite all of your valid complaints.
  - orange8 5y ago
    I do not think it matters whether a book is written by a man or woman, if the discussion is about worthwhile books to read. The bible is not just any other book though, and I understand why you'd have political, moral or religious ideas against anyone reading it. I do not think it was being recommended for any of those reasons though. Looked at as just a book, its very much worth reading regardless of what was edited out or translated out. The idea is to read it as a book, and not some 100% accurate 100% inclusive 100% politically correct collection of books.
    - laumars 5y ago
jll29 5y ago
I second the commenters that counter-argue that just because a book is hard, it does not make it a bad book. While it's hard to understand for the following reasons - It's not "a book" but a canon of dozens of books bound together, written by different people; - cultural distance: Middle East versus West; - temporal distance: authored approx. 2000 years ago; almost every book written afterwards refers to it explicitly or implicitly or depends on it in some way, and you will never understand the later works fully without having read some of the Bible. To read the Bible, a layperson needs guidance. Having said this parts of the New Testament are more easy to follow. For those who prefer to watch, this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058715/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058715/ (created by an atheist to better understand it all) uses the original words of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the result got praise from the Vatican, ironically.
- laumars 5y ago
  > you will never understand the later works fully without having read some of the Bible Generations of kids have grown up understanding stories just fine without having read the Bible.
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    A huge amount of language in the western world is based around biblical stories, and you need to know dozens of them to understand common idioms and metaphors. From the snake in the garden of Eden to being the David to someone's Goliath, to being a good Samaritan, to camels going through the eye of a needle (and here's dozens more https://city.org.nz/blog/eo-bible-20181101 https://city.org.nz/blog/eo-bible-20181101). Beyond that, especially in English, the King James bible's phrasing of dozens if not hundreds of biblical passages are now common turns of phrase - where not knowing their origin reveals you as a uncultured. Same as Aesop's or La Fontaine's fables, really -- you know it's fiction, you don't have to think it is a good story, you don't even have to agree with the morale -- but since everyone literate in the last two centuries is familiar with it, you will look out of place not knowing it.
    - 5y ago
refurb 5y ago
You realize it’s the books you dont agree with that are most worth reading? The capitalist should read Marx’s work. And the diehard communist should read Hayek. To filter out a work like the Bible (or Koran, etc) because it goes against the grain of your current politics is retarding your intellectual growth, not expanding it.
- laumars 5y ago
  I wasn’t saying I don’t agree with any political messaging. I was saying it’s an objectively bad book to read by modern literary standards. Even those in this thread defending the Bible has literally said it’s not something you’d read cover to cover.
  - TheMonarchist 5y ago
    I have read it cover to cover multiple times and plan to continue reading for the rest of my life.

aristofun 5y ago

I didn’t say it was an easy read. For good or for bad - those books require efforts. But once you dig to at least 1% of the stories and ideas - you save weeks skipping tons of shallow books out there.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
laumars 5y ago
Reading something unenjoyable just for the sake of not having to read something else that you might enjoy doesn’t sound like a particularly compelling reason to read the first book. Besides, if all you’re trying to do is compress lessons in story writing then you’re better off skipping the Bible and picking up a collection of kids stories - particularly for ages 6 and below because those will often also follow the same lessons of morality to help children understand how to interact in a modern society and are only a few short pages long so much quicker and easier to read than the Bible :P The only reason I see to read the Bible is if you have a specific interest in the history of Christianity. Even Christians these days pick an choose which parts of the Bible to read and then distil those down into short stories and songs rather than reading the texts in full.
- aristofun 5y ago
  I don’t enjoy a book that has nothing new to say to this world, just a waste of paper/bytes. Thanks to the bible, i can focus on and admire the rest 1% of truly worthwhile books. In other words it makes me better prepared as a reader, as I did my homework
- TheMonarchist 5y ago
  > Even Christians these days pick an choose which parts of the Bible to read and then distil those down into short stories and songs rather than reading the texts in full. It is lamentable if true. They don't know what they miss.

benjamir 5y ago

+1 for the problem of the translations. Considering the room of interpretation it is outragous that some claim to take their (often random) translation at hand literally. Nobody should take the collected stories of a far away tribe (time and space) and take it word by word. Enjoy it as it is: a mixture of early philosophy, politics and mysticism.

orange8 5y ago

> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. Does the gender of a books author really matter?

laumars 5y ago
It does when those books were purposely excluded because the author was female. It also matters a lot when one of the books excluded was written by the person who was actually closest to Jesus too. Thus her accounts should surely matter at least as much as the mens (probably more so in reality). The New Testament was collated in an era when organised religion was used as a tool for man to retain control. To that end, much of content of the “modern” Bible is about man and why one should follow man because he speaks on “behalf of God”. This isn’t some new morality interpretation in the new age of political correctness either. This is an observation that’s gone back as long as I’ve been alive (40+ years) because, as I’ve said above, the testaments of those closest to Jesus were even excluded.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Everything you're saying is true but does not to attest to whether the Bible itself is a good book, judged solely as a literary work. It is possible for it to be an enjoyable and interesting read despite all of your valid complaints.
- orange8 5y ago
  I do not think it matters whether a book is written by a man or woman, if the discussion is about worthwhile books to read. The bible is not just any other book though, and I understand why you'd have political, moral or religious ideas against anyone reading it. I do not think it was being recommended for any of those reasons though. Looked at as just a book, its very much worth reading regardless of what was edited out or translated out. The idea is to read it as a book, and not some 100% accurate 100% inclusive 100% politically correct collection of books.
  - laumars 5y ago

jll29 5y ago

I second the commenters that counter-argue that just because a book is hard, it does not make it a bad book. While it's hard to understand for the following reasons - It's not "a book" but a canon of dozens of books bound together, written by different people; - cultural distance: Middle East versus West; - temporal distance: authored approx. 2000 years ago; almost every book written afterwards refers to it explicitly or implicitly or depends on it in some way, and you will never understand the later works fully without having read some of the Bible. To read the Bible, a layperson needs guidance. Having said this parts of the New Testament are more easy to follow. For those who prefer to watch, this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058715/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058715/ (created by an atheist to better understand it all) uses the original words of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the result got praise from the Vatican, ironically.

laumars 5y ago
> you will never understand the later works fully without having read some of the Bible Generations of kids have grown up understanding stories just fine without having read the Bible.
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  A huge amount of language in the western world is based around biblical stories, and you need to know dozens of them to understand common idioms and metaphors. From the snake in the garden of Eden to being the David to someone's Goliath, to being a good Samaritan, to camels going through the eye of a needle (and here's dozens more https://city.org.nz/blog/eo-bible-20181101 https://city.org.nz/blog/eo-bible-20181101). Beyond that, especially in English, the King James bible's phrasing of dozens if not hundreds of biblical passages are now common turns of phrase - where not knowing their origin reveals you as a uncultured. Same as Aesop's or La Fontaine's fables, really -- you know it's fiction, you don't have to think it is a good story, you don't even have to agree with the morale -- but since everyone literate in the last two centuries is familiar with it, you will look out of place not knowing it.
  - 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

You realize it’s the books you dont agree with that are most worth reading? The capitalist should read Marx’s work. And the diehard communist should read Hayek. To filter out a work like the Bible (or Koran, etc) because it goes against the grain of your current politics is retarding your intellectual growth, not expanding it.

laumars 5y ago
I wasn’t saying I don’t agree with any political messaging. I was saying it’s an objectively bad book to read by modern literary standards. Even those in this thread defending the Bible has literally said it’s not something you’d read cover to cover.
- TheMonarchist 5y ago
  I have read it cover to cover multiple times and plan to continue reading for the rest of my life.