What is your favourite book of the Bible?

Ruth

I and II Samuel

Genesis, Job, and John are the best philosophically. Both Kings are the best for history.

>philosophically
>Genesis
lol

The book of Mormon

The bible doesn't say that though.

Gospel of John and Hebrews for the New Testament.

it talks about the creation of the universe ex nihlio by one God, in a time when people thought some bird deity pooped everything out pretty advanced stuff for the time

the psalms are beautiful and useful for every occasion

>it talks about the creation of the universe ex nihlio
Incorrect. God organizes the universe from primordial chaos, as in other ANE creation myths.

>1:2 This verse is parenthetical, describing in three phases the pre-creation state symbolized by the chaos out of which God brings order: “earth,” hidden beneath the encompassing cosmic waters, could not be seen, and thus had no “form”; there was only darkness; turbulent wind swept over the waters. Commencing with the last-named elements (darkness and water), vv. 3–10 describe the rearrangement of this chaos: light is made (first day) and the water is divided into water above and water below the earth so that the earth appears and is no longer “without outline.” The abyss: the primordial ocean according to the ancient Semitic cosmogony. After God’s creative activity, part of this vast body forms the salt-water seas (vv. 9–10); part of it is the fresh water under the earth (Ps 33:7; Ez 31:4), which wells forth on the earth as springs and fountains (Gn 7:11; 8:2; Prv 3:20). Part of it, “the upper water” (Ps 148:4; Dn 3:60), is held up by the dome of the sky (vv. 6–7), from which rain descends on the earth (Gn 7:11; 2 Kgs 7:2, 19; Ps 104:13).

Numbers

Patrician choice

>God organizes the universe from primordial chaos, as in other ANE creation myths.

that is simply incorrect.. read the first line of the bible
>In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth

Revelations
how the fuck is anything else even interesting

many of the histories are interesting, if your into that kind of thing

Tobit, it is ridiculously incestous

I also like gospel of Judas
and letter of Judas (yes in greek it is judas), book before revelation

Mark is best gospel.
No Christmas faggotry.

The original Hebrew is grammatically clear that the first clause is referring to subsequent passages which take place during God's creation of heaven and Earth, it is not a stand-alone clause referring to creation ex nihilo. This fits in with other semitic mythology of the time. "In the beginning God created" is a slight mistranslation from the KJV, which several translations keep due to it being recognisable, despite being wrong.

Several modern versions translate it more correctly:

NRSV
>In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth

NABRE
>In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth

NJPS
>When God began to create heaven and earth

YLT
>In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth

Why do Protestants believe that revelation is closed since it's not stated anywhere in the Bible? As far as I know it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that the canon is closed and no more books can be added. It seems odd that they would preach Sola Scriptura while holding non biblical Traditions.

>The original Hebrew is grammatically clear that the first clause is referring to subsequent passages which take place during God's creation of heaven and Earth, it is not a stand-alone clause referring to creation ex nihilo. This fits in with other semitic mythology of the time. "In the beginning God created" is a slight mistranslation from the KJV, which several translations keep due to it being recognisable, despite being wrong.
oh nice to know that you read hebrew more fluently than any of the translators. even in your examples the word creation is used, not organization, i understand you read this in some book you quoted in your original post, but i think its a bit of a leap

>i understand you read this in some book you quoted
"Some book" is one of my bibles which includes notes from respected Christian scholars.

>even in your examples the word creation is used, not organization
Correct, God creates the world from the primordial realm, not ex nihilo.

>but i think its a bit of a leap
Based on a 400 year old translation?

The bible doesn't say that at all. The part you're referring to states that women who are raped in the city but do not call out for help are just as guilty, as she quite clearly accepted it and who knows if she consented before she was found out. But if a woman is raped outside of the city she is seen as a victim and given the benefit of doubt, because who knows if she did cry out or not. It logically makes sense for the time period.

Since you seen to know a bit about translations, what do you think of the NRSV (the first you quoted there)? I've done quite a bit of research and from both what I've found and have seen here on Veeky Forums it seems to be the best one generally.

kjv is the best from a literary standpoint

That's not a standpoint I care about as much as accuracy.

It's a good thing my KJV edition has footnotes that point out translation inaccuracies. I get the most sublime prose and accuracy.

>primordial realm
oh i mustve missed that line in ur translations u posted

It's really not very inaccurate. You have to sacrifice a little literalness when you're trying to translate a great work of literature.

I don't mean accurate as in literal, I mean in sense. And if that isn't accurate, what would be an accurate one then (in the meaning of the text, not word-for-word)?

>Since you seen to know a bit about translations
>kjv is the best from a literary standpoint

I laughed out loud

Name ten places where the KJV spoils the sense of a passage.

I don't think those are the same person. I think which user said "knows about translations" is the same as .

If you tried to render the Greek "accurately", as in keeping all of the tense and voice distinctions, it would be virtually unreadable.

I wouldn't know I haven't read it that is why I'm asking what is the most accurate translation beforehand.
Now name me one place where I stated KJV spoils the meaning of a passage.

Yeah I know. I laughed because somebody who was seen as knowing a lot about translations recommended the KJV, and in the process demonstrating that he doesn't know anything.

Not if you translated from Greek into Portuguese it wouldn't.

most people would agree KJV is the most literary English version of the bible... shakespeare could have helped write it

Define literary

He clearly doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about. He means he likes the KJV because it reads "pretty".

lit·er·ar·y
ˈlidəˌrerē/
adjective
1.
concerning the writing, study, or content of literature, especially of the kind valued for quality of form.
"the great literary works of the nineteenth century"

2.
(of language) associated with literary works or other formal writing; having a marked style intended to create a particular emotional effect.

I'm not asking for the dictionary definition you dolt, I'm asking what separates the KJV from any other translation to make it "literary."

well, dumb fuck, it is valued for its quality of form and has a marked style intended to create a particularly emotional effect

Be more specific. The style of early modern English is not unique to the KJV. We see the same style in the Douey-Reims and the Coverdale Bible or any other early English translation. What is unique about the KJV?

what's unique about shakespeare? there were many other playwrights in the late 1400s

So your point is the KJV reads like Shakespeare?
What a dumb argument for the validity of a Bible translation.

I'm not the one claiming Shakespeare was great so I don't need to provide a reason to believe he is. Don't change the subject.

Psalms

no. my point is that it's hard to demonstrate aesthetic or humanistic value to somebody who might be autistic and is failing to grasp how one thing can be better than another even though it essentially says the same thing.

an argument for the validity of kjv is that it is probably what your favorite author read and is referencing to in his works, and the countless biblical references and sayings in modern lexicon come from KJV

It says anyone who changes it will go to hell iirc

That is not a good argument for the validity of KJV. That is like saying, for instance, that the Solti recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen is the best recording of the Ring because due to its technical achievements it is the one most popularly known and distributed musical recordings of all time and the one with the Ride of the Valkyries everyone's heard and that is most popularly used in commercials etc. while it is also popularly known that many other recordings of the opera have far superior interpretations that stay more true to Wagner's original musical intentions.

The KJV is to the Bible like the Solti recording is to the Ring, I get it now.

Or maybe you could just tell us what this unique quality that the KJV has which elevates it above other translations. This shouldn't be a hard question if the KJV is indeed better than other translations.

I think you're protestant who just hasn't thought a whole lot about this. You've been told all your life that the KJV is the best and you've blindly accepted it.

Isaiah

>666 trips
Those who hate the KJV are Satan, of course!

I don't know anything about opera, but i think you are making a false equivalency comparing sound quality of a recording to the KJV.

it's less modernized and watered down. it's poetic and beautifully written. you can disagree with me on this bc it's an opinion. i could tell you war and peace is a great novel and you could say it isnt, and neither of us is more correct than the other. I've only read KJV and NIV, so obviously i haven't compared every available translation

If it's just your opinion then why just say that the you like the KJV the best instead of calling it the best? I have read these translations and there is no significant difference between the KJV and the Douey-Reims or Coverdale Bible. Neither of them are "modernized" and they feature the same style of English. I wouldn't call any of them "poetic" because I don't conflate Early Modern English with poetry like many people seemingly do. A book doesn't become poetic by adding some thee's and thou's. It becomes archaic.

job

what a dumbass

>an argument for the validity of kjv is that it is probably what your favorite author read and is referencing to in his works, and the countless biblical references and sayings in modern lexicon come from KJV
fair enough.. the point above still stands though as a reason to read it

What sort of phrases are you talking about and how do you know they didn't come from the Douey-Reims, Coverdale, or other similar translation?

Revelations, but I also haven't read it in years

Is Luther in hell since he took books out of the OT and attempted to take books out of the NT?

What says that? Can you give me a specific verse?

be fruitful and multiply
Born again
sheep to the slaughter

there are tons. i obviously can't think of them all now. but what makes you think that douey-reims or coverdale didnt use the KJV themselves?

You answered the first half of the question, that's great. Now finish it. How do you know they were inspired by the KJV and not another translation? I'm not the one making a knowledge claim here so you can't turn around and ask me the same question. I freely admit that I don't know which is why I don't claim either or. I'm asking you to provide a reason to believe what you claimed, which is that these references and saying entered the modern English lexicon because of the KJV as opposed to the other English translations of the time.

>douey-reims or coverdale didnt use the KJV themselves

The Coverdale came before the KJV by the way. I have reason to believe that the translators of the KJV actually copied parts of the Coverdale. I'm referring to the mythical cockatrice which first appeared in a 1382 translation and was later used in the 1535 Coverdale, which is widely believed to be the source of the KJV's use of the word.

bc it's historical fact that KJV was the most circulated and read, i think it still is, which is why i would think that it inspired the english language so much

youre the one claiming to be a biblical expert, i admittedly have only read two versions. if the bibles you are talking about have those same phrases then i guess you are right..

and it's not that it's archaic, it's that english was less bastardized than it is today

I'm not a biblical expert and I never claimed to be. I simply require reasons to believe the things that I believe. The assumption here is that because something is popular, this is reason enough to believe that it changed the language and culture as opposed to other similar something. If we were to assume that the Thong Song was the most popular song of 1999, that by virtue of this popularity alone we can assume it changed the culture and music as we know it? How could we know that the Thong Song had the biggest impact and not other similar songs?

It's one thing to say, prove the KJV was the direct influence, but it's another to say, "prove these others weren't."
He told you that those phrases come from the KJV and that it was the most widely circulated translation. That's good evidence. Now the burden is on you to prove that the other translations are more likely to be the source.

If you're going to elevate the KJV above every other English translation in terms of cultural impact and influence then asking how you came to that conclusion or why you believe that is a fair question. How exactly do you measure the influence a book has on the English lexicon so it can be compared to other books? We would have to know how to do that before we could begin to rank books or translations. This is not my burden because I'm not the one ranking the translations in terms of cultural impact.

Like I said, evidence was presented as to why the KJV should be considered the most influential. We know that those phrases are present in it, and we know that it's the most widely circulated translation, historically. If you can't engage with that directly, then there's no reason for us to stop believing the KJV to be most important, from a literary perspective.

Judges and Samuel were my favorite books. Judges probably takes the cake, though, for being an oddly gritty, almost action-packed book in an otherwise religious tome. Still, I have to respect Samuel for having the dynamic between Saul, David, and God, which I found to be very interesting from a literary perspective.

Yes I agree, popularity was put forth as a way to rank one above the other. But as I pointed out, it's not enough. Otherwise the Thong Song is the greatest song of the 90's and had the most impact. I'm not willing to accept that as true. Something is missing from the equation.

We're not arguing that it's important because it's popular, we're arguing it's important because its prevalence makes it the source of a wide variety of English idioms and turns of phrase. The English-speaking artists who were using the Bible as their source of inspiration, were more likely to use the KJV than any other because it was so ubiquitous. Please stop being obtuse.

You're not arguing that it's the most important because it's the most popular, you're arguing that's it's the most important because it's the most prevalent or was the most prevalent among the population. Can you explain the difference between popular and prevalent to me? Is it not the case that something is popular because it's the most prevalent among the population?

Nah, I'm done.

Well that's a shame because it sounded like you were saying you weren't doing something that you actually were.

So today we have established the KJV's only validity is due to its historical importance and prevalence during the time period and if you want an accurate adaptation of the original manuscripts for the modern age you should read something else.
Now establish what that something else is so I can buy it.

Genesis

John

Honorary mentions:
Samuel 2
Judges
James
Obadiah
Job

In Luke 10:38-42 why didn't Jesus bring down the almighty wrath of Jesus on that lazy bitch who was skipping out on her work? It seems like ole Martha had a point.