There are no books as enthralling as the Bible

>The Bible is enthralling

Seriously? I guess I just don't get ancient literature.

How did you not find it interesting?
Exodus was badass.
There were wars, angels, demons, and heroes all over the place

I know, right? I hope he's kidding.

>Job
Fuck, that story fucks me up more each time I read it.
One of the better short stories in the western canon for sure.

>And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city.
>And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took it, and hasted and set the city on fire.
>And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.
>And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.
>And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.
>And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.
>And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.
>And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.
>For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
>Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord which he commanded Joshua.
>And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.
>And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise theron a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day.

It also helps to read it in the original language(s). Hebrew and Greek both lend their respective texts a certain charm and gnomic quality that comes off as merely archaic in essentially every translation in English, in my opinion.

Begat begat begat begat
Flat, interchangeable characters I didn't care about
God being a dick for no reason

It's been a while since I read the old testament, but I remember it being a slog. I can't really relate to ancient culture, I guess.

...

this must be bait

>God being a dick
muh subjective moral judgement that would be totally different 10 years ago or if I were raised elsewhere

>Ph.D. in literature
>hasn't read the Bible

You made this up. I refuse to believe this is real.

I'm an atheist but I love some of the books from the Bible, though there is a lot of boring af shit as well (a long ass tedious description about a fucking temple comes to mind). Job, and especially Ecclesiastes, are my two favorites.

its an instruction manual for when israel btfos the dome of the rock and builds temple #3

Reading the Bible is for fucking dead white dudes

For real though, for some reason most women today study post-colonial literature, queer/women's literature, or traditional non-European/Near East literature.

>implying christians actually read the bible

good one

Can a samefag samefag harder?

>I didn't like it so no one did!
Egocentricism is a sign of autism

A lot of the storytelling in the early books is very dry. I know a lot of the stories in the Bible were passed down orally for a long time before they were written down. Would the oral tellings have been more colorful? Did they just decide to write down the bare bones?

>mfw I start tearing up while reading ancient words imbued with power

Well frogposter, you have to remember that the biblical authors did not see them as mere "stories" but as a historical record of events that actually occurred. It is the same reason history books are drier than fiction.

Yes the early books do contain figurative language but the orthodox belief has always been that they record actual events.

Wow, thanks fellow christfag. I have truly seen the light and will now read my bibel every night so Mary doesn't cry.

>My girlfriend is getting her PhD in literature and has never cracked the Bible open.

THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF EDUCATION

>God being a dick for no reason
Examples would include...

The book of Judges is legit one of the most violent things I've ever read. A guy getting a tent peg stuck through his head, a fat guy gets stabbed so hard the swords' handle get engulfed by his fat and the shit spews out of his intestines, that concubine who gets gang raped to death, 42,000 guys being killed for pronouncing a word wrong. Plus there's all the seediness, women getting kidnapped for sex so some dudes can have children, and Samson visiting prostitutes.

It's awesome. Wonder why they don't teach that in Sunday school.

>kill your son for me
>lol jk
literally the basis of the whole religion

>"David make a census of the people"
>David makes a census of the people
>"Why did you make a census of the people!? Now you get pestilence"

The versions of stories that have come down to us were intended as the 'official' versions, so they don't have the improvisatory quality of much oral storytelling, even though they were intended to be read aloud.

den wen jews say to god "kill ur son for me"
dey no say "jk"
;_;

its pottery

>or traditional non-European/Near East literature
e.g. the Bible?

>Satan: Job only likes you because you blessed him, LMAO
>God: LOL, I may be all-knowing and benevolent, but I'll kill his entire family to win a dick-measuring contest with the lord of fucking evil. Don't worry, after I kill all his children I'll be sure to give him some new ones if he keeps faith in me, so no harm done, children are completely replaceable and interchangeable, LMAO

god btfo?

>fitting an omnipotent being into your sense of morality
wew wew wew

Almost everything from Joshua to Chronicles is pretty intense. Even one of the most famous stories, David vs Goliath, is pretty brutal if you think about it.

Actually the idea of the devil didn't exist yet when Job was written, satan was just an accusing angel, more of a prosecutor than anything else. Jews still view satan in this way today, they don't believe in the devil.

Will YHWH ever recover?

Jews aren't christians

What are smoking? Bible is atrociously written.

>and then whogives beegot whocares, and he beget whatshername and her begoot fucksake who begit ad nauseum

This if you're reading the KJ version.
Old english has to be the worst language ever made right next to french.

It's early modern English actually

Now go pisseth against the wall

It still sounds like a someone is trying to talk with a cock in his mouth

I dunno. I tend to find those things to be less interesting the older I get. It's the equivalent of capeshit in literature.

God is a contrarian asshole a lot of the time because the twelve tribes of Israel used to worship different deities. At some point their dominant deity became YHWH and all the other gods in the Bible has been retconned into YHWH because of their covenant with him. So the Old Testament starts making more sense if you realise that God was originally a pantheon.

Couldn't sleep, so for some reason I decided to read the book of revelation in the middle of the night for the first time in my life.

What the hell.

The King James version was deliberately written to sound archaic at the time, to lend it a sense of authority. It wasn't written to be enjoyable.

Biblical literalism is a modern invention.

>Christians
>reading the Bible
you must be joking user

Capeshit is the apocryphal gospels where kid Jesus kills people and tames dragons.

The fuck you on about? The majority of the Bible is retarded gibberish. I did like the tales and personal stories though.

It's amazing isn't it. Read Daniel 7-12 for some more crazy shit.

>he is a thrall to a book
well spooked my possession

Yeah, Satan was basically just God's quality assurance guy that didn't know when to stop.

>Begat begat begat begat
Understandable. I personally find them interesting but I am a very boring person.
>Flat, interchangeable characters
WRONG. They just have the sparsest characterisation possible. Hemingway is a fucking hack compared to the Bible or anyone else. Reread the Abraham-sacrificing-Isaac debacle, bearing in mind the above, and tell me it doesn't have an unbearable pathos.
>God being a dick for no reason
Never for no reason. God is a madman. Do not read the Bible as if you were a Christian unless you are doing religious study. Do not expect God to be a nice butterfly. Read Him on His own merits, which are the best merits (seriously He's my favourite character of all time).

>Do not read the Bible as if you were a Christian
Best advice for Bible reading, Christians somehow manage to make it boring when it's actually fucking awesome.

Vulgar literalism, yes. But the Bible was considered literally true for a long time, even in Christianity. They just applied a metric fuck-tonne of other interpretations to it.

This is really common. Tons of lit people either didn't grow up religious, or have rejected it because they had a bad taste as a kid. In my grad department, there's I think one person that identifies as a Christian. The rest either rejected it (like me) because their families went to really weird intense churches or they never really felt very religious.

I get that it's cool to lump anyone who doesn't believe in God with le Reddit atheists, but lots of people just have ambivalent relationships with God and the source material, especially in academia. It's a sore spot of literature for a lot of people that is important to read, but many are reluctant to do so.

>mom starts learning ancient Hebrew so she can better understand the Bible
>asks me for a Hebrew copy of the new testament
>explain to her that it was written in Aramaic and Greek
>oh user, I'm pretty sure they'll discover the Hebrew originals one day.

But even if those hypothetical originals existed, they wouldn't be the same as the existing translations. Aaaaagh. I know I bought her the Tanach in Hebrew, but I can't remember if I found a Hebrew translation of the New Testament. Unsurprisingly, there isn't a ton of demand.

>Unsurprisingly, there isn't a ton of demand.
Christ, that'd be some Borges-tier shit.

This man has not read the Bible.
An evil or flawed God is the only God you can believe in without some serious cognitive dissonance.

Capeshit derives its storytelling format and tropes from Greek Myth. The Bible is the archetype of minimalist and realist fiction. Read Eric Auerbach's "Odysseus' Scar." It's the first chapter of his book "Mimesis." Pretty good read.

I think my mom assumed the current translation would be identical to the supposed Ur New Testament in Hebrew.

I know my mom loves getting closer to the "original intended meaning" of the Bible, so I recommended she read an essay that Agamben wrote about the letters of Paul, and how the fact that he primarily spoke Greek shaped his understanding pretty heavily of the Old Testament. She just got really upset at the suggestion that Paul spoke anything but Hebrew. It was really awkward considering that Jesus probably just spoke Aramaic and I guess, whatever language God speaks. God's language isn't canonically identical to Hebrew, correct? From the criticism that I have read, even if Hebrew is seen as a privileged and sacred language, it emerges after the Tower of Babel and is distinct from God's own tongue, correct?

Anyway that was the day I learned I couldn't talk about the Bible, even if I was enthusiastic about it with my mom, because she has her own head-canon that doesn't correlate to any scholarly or even denominational doctrine.

I really didn't find the Bible too compelling, especially in the Old Testament. It had some great stories and narratives in it, like with David, but there's so much schwarbage to wade through to get to those kinds of things. The New Testament was a lot more enjoyable and read like a typical story, though. Also, I only read the KJV for the Old Testament, but I didn't care for the language because it felt so terse, like Hemingway's prose. Turned me off from it a lot.

Is KJV the best version of the Bible? If not, what should I read?

KJV:
>And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear.

ESV:
>And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed.

Wh-where do I buy a bible?

Various groups will give you them for free if you ask

> My girlfriend is getting her PhD in literature and has never cracked the Bible open

lmao

Ah yes the fabled woman

this....

>let me judge a God, that is perfect and its the absolute intelligence that governs the world, the same way I judge Johnny, my sister's drunk boyfriend

...

*that TELLS you it is perfect and its the absolute intelligence that governs the world

Lol this. WTF is wrong with people.

I bet she thinks she's open minded too lmao. I got a "friend" like this trying to get her masters and just talking Christianity with her it's clear she's never delved any deeper into the Bible than some non denominational Bible study in 3rd grade.

That chart is fucked. Kjv is known for being inaccurate but a very aesthetic translation while the modern NASB, NABRE, and OSB are actually translated from original Aramaic and Greek instead of just from a Latin hand me down like KJ.

accept salvation brethren
only a person in love with this earth and how the people are in it would reject God
only a fool would be like that

>PhD in literature
>Never read the Bible
Disgusting, you should just break up with her.

kjv is only inaccurate if you're a catholic satanist
alexandrian texts exist only to mislead and damn lost souls

Non-Christians don't have an incentive to perform the necessary mental gymnastics to make the Biblical God seem like anything other than a powerful idiot.

When I say Near East, I include the Middle East.
muh feelies!

MUH FEELIES

Sounds like your mother might have a case of the autism.

Sounds like a typical backwards christnut. They're pretty common in the west

I intend to learn attic for the pertaining greeks. If i wanted to read the bible, should i learn koiné before or after?

Before or after attic, damnit

That's what happens when asperger/autism and religion meets.

Ezekiel 31

Considering you're trying to understand someone's interdimensional journey via ancient text its pretty incredible that its intelligible and even more incredible that it has been preserved for so long.

>inb4 da bible gawt translated a buncha so its not accurate you dummy

If I write someone a letter and it gets painstakingly translated into hundreds of different languages there are more opportunities to cross-reference and have people call out fakes and errors just like you trying to 1-step logic the Bible's legitimacy by parroting that one atheist youtube video you watched after binge-reading wikipedia articles.

I came to the exact opposite conclusion: I read the Bible and found it ludicrous that anyone would become a Christian after reading it.

I'm unaware of how Christianity works, but if being a Christian implies that you have to take everything written in the Bible as the truth, then it's amazing that there are unironic Christians on this board. It's filled with miracles and supernatural happenings which even a 5th grader would call bullshit on.

>an indoctrinated child incapable of independent thought would disagree
>so, there is no God, also I have no GF and my dog died when I was a lad, so there obviously is no God! face le absurd!

Given our ability to judge derives from God Himself, ESPECIALLY with regards to morals, yeah, you can.

>he says, typing and probably talking like he's got a cheeseburger stuck in his throat and his dick stuck in a Coke bottle

>>an indoctrinated child incapable of independent thought would disagree
Funny, I literally thought you were referring to people raised in Christianity who only don't find it ridiculous because they were indoctrinated into it before they were capable of independent thought.