Let's Read the Bible Once

[Kaitzilla]

I just realized that I've read maybe 10% of arguably one of the most important books ever made even though it's my religion's holy book and I'm on track not to get it done by the time I'm dead.

According to the Vatican, 100,000 Christians are killed each year for their faith, and here I am slacking.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...000-christians-killed-annually-because-faith/


So! I'm making a thread to help me get it done by doing a small part each day and writing my thoughts/reactions down. You all can do so too if you want
There are 1189 short chapters in the Bible, so 5 a day should get this done within 8 months.


I've got a big red King James version, so I'll be using that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
Or maybe one of the free audio books can read it to me if Google can find a decent one. Has someone paid Morgan Freeman to read it yet?
Regular people like Martin Luther reading the Bible kicked off the entire Protestant Reformation. I just want to get it read on principal as a life goal.


**Edit**
I'll go ahead and link the daily readings so people can jump to the part they want and read the surrounding off-topic discussion with one more click in the top right.

Day 1 Genesis Chapter 1 to 5 : In the beginning...
Day 2 Genesis Chapter 6 to 10 : Looks like Noah's Ark
Day 3 Genesis Chapter 11 to 15 : Looks like tower of Babel and Abram+Lot
Day 4 Genesis Chapter 16 to 20 : Looks like The Covenant, Abram, and Lot again (Abram gets a name change! )
Day 5 Genesis Chapter 21 to 25 : Looks like Abraham and his sons Ishmael and Isaac
Day 6 Genesis Chapter 26 to 30 : Looks like Isaac and his sons Esau and Jacob

 

[bhsup]

http://www.ewordtoday.com/year/

Different ways to read it and covers various translations.

EDIT: For example, King James, beginning to end, starting tomorrow (June 1)...

http://www.ewordtoday.com/year/kjv/bjun01.htm

 

[Praise_Satan]

I've tried reading it. The creation myth was just ridiculous. The story of Noah's ark was simply stupid. Then I got to a part where it was telling about a man who lived for over 900 years. I stopped there. Poor storytelling and ridiculous stories. Bunch of rubbish that book is.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I've tried reading it. The creation myth was just ridiculous. The story of Noah's ark was simply stupid. Then I got to a part where it was telling about a man who lived for over 900 years. I stopped there. Poor storytelling and ridiculous stories. Bunch of rubbish that book is.

Moderator Action: I do not believe that this thread was started to be a critique of the value of the Bible. If you wish to participate, do so with respect and in the manner put forth in the OP. Thanks.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Day 1 - Genesis Chapter 1 to 5

In the beginning...

Spoiler :

Chapter 1 - God spent 6 days making everything. Mankind was Day 6.
Light was on Day 1, so that's a pretty straightforward way to keep track of the time by counting the evenings and sunrises.

Chapter 2 - God rested on the 7th day and made it holy. Created the Garden of Eden to the "East" and put Adam and Eve in it along with the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Weird that men actually have 1 less rib than women. Told them that eating from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will surely kill them. Didn't give a warning about touching the Tree of Life hmm.

Chapter 3 - A serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and she shared it with Adam. They both gained self-awareness/intelligence and were cast out of Eden. Adam was told to rule over Eve. The tree of life grants immortality. They already had immortality before eating the forbidden fruit obviously, and lost it before being cast out. A flaming sword was set to guard the tree so people couldn't come back and become immortal. Wasn't there a guy in Florida looking for a fountain a youth a few hundred years ago? Should have been looking for a tree ^_^

Chapter 4 - Cain and Abel were born from Adam and Eve. They brought offerings of crops and sheep as offerings to God, but God only respected the sheep. Cain killed Abel over jealousy? and was cursed to never get another crop out of the ground no matter how hard he tried? Cain wandered to another land and met his wife and had a long list of descendants.

Where did the wife come from?

Adam and Eve had a 3rd son Seth around the time of Cain's Great Great Grandchild, so they obviously lived and could have kids for much longer than people today do.

Chapter 5 - Adam lived to be 930 and Seth lived to be 912 years old. Dang! Each generation lived about 800 to 900 years. Noah was a few generations down and was 500 years old. That would be one strange society of people.

 

[Gucumatz]

Which Bible will you read? Hopefully not a Protestants one if you want the full experience

 

[Kaitzilla]

Moderator Action: I do not believe that this thread was started to be a critique of the value of the Bible. If you wish to participate, do so with respect and in the manner put forth in the OP. Thanks.

critique is ok

I'd ask the Bible not to be blasted into total smitherines though.

It really would be nice to get through the huge thing. Very archaic wording. I think they make scholar's bibles with each sentence having a PHD in theology putting an interpretation comment below it, but those aren't free.


Closing this thread is ok with me if it gets out of hand.
Religion isn't most people's thing in the 21st Century sadly.
It was front and center though for all of human history I'd remind them.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Which Bible will you read? Hopefully not a Protestants one if you want the full experience

It's a big red Bible that say King James Version on the spine and Nelson/Regency below that.

Wait, the protestants have a different bible?

The experience should be the same!

**Edit**Ugn, the audio bible is being read a bit different than the words in the book bible. Keep hearing land instead of Earth. Vault instead of Firmament.

 

[Gucumatz]

It's a big red Bible that say King James Version on the spine and Nelson/Regency below that.

Wait, the protestants have a different bible?

The experience should be the same!

**Edit**Ugn, the audio bible is being read a bit different than the words in the book bible. Keep hearing land instead of Earth. Vault instead of Firmament.

Protestants have 7 less books in the Bible than Catholics do.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I've tried reading it. The creation myth was just ridiculous. The story of Noah's ark was simply stupid. Then I got to a part where it was telling about a man who lived for over 900 years. I stopped there. Poor storytelling and ridiculous stories. Bunch of rubbish that book is.

Oh, I don't know. Some of the stories are darn near classics.

The thing that stopped me is that a lot of the words are out of date. And the reading is so dense. Things just seem to happen and you have to think about why.

Reading at random, the Book of Job was pretty intense. He got a raw deal for the most part imo.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Protestants have 7 less books in the Bible than Catholics do.

The Bible ought not to have varying amounts of books.

This is the first I've heard of it.


Guess it's a result of that whole schism with all the wars and deaths. I'll try to find which 7 books got the axe in the Protestant version.

King James was a Protestant with the Church of England right? Guess I'm reading the short version then. That would make me a bad Catholic for sure

 

[Kaitzilla]

http://www.ewordtoday.com/year/

Different ways to read it and covers various translations.

EDIT: For example, King James, beginning to end, starting tomorrow (June 1)...

http://www.ewordtoday.com/year/kjv/bjun01.htm

That's crazy! I just had this idea an hour ago and there is already a webpage devoted to it in 30 languages and tons of version.

Thanks

 

[W|M]

The Bible ought not to have varying amounts of books.

This is the first I've heard of it.


Guess it's a result of that whole schism with all the wars and deaths. I'll try to find which 7 books got the axe in the Protestant version.

King James was a Protestant with the Church of England right? Guess I'm reading the short version then. That would make me a bad Catholic for sure

Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Machabees, and parts of Esther (10:14 to 16:14) and Daniel (3:24-90; 13; 14) were the books that the Protestants removed.

 

[Gucumatz]

The Book of James (New Testament) almost got the axe too by Protestants, Martin Luther wanted it out but too many of his followers liked the Book so against Luther's wishes it survived the Schism

 

[AdamCrock]

I recommend that You skip the whole genealogy tree of Moses and friends First chapters are quite interesting but later it gets like man "x" had "y" sons and "z" grandsons. Son "y"1 had 2 sons "z"1 and "z"2 and so on and so forth etc,etc boring as ... h... heaven

Anyway I admire Your effort, who knows maybe I will be reading too ... to tell the truth I've never finished reading the whole thing myself

 

[Kaitzilla]

Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Machabees, and parts of Esther (10:14 to 16:14) and Daniel (3:24-90; 13; 14) were the books that the Protestants removed.

Those heathens! How dare they!

Thanks for the info


From some forum:

They were in the Hebrew Bible at the time of Jesus and during the era of the Book of Acts. After the fall of Jerusalem and the scattering of Jews out of the Holy Land, when Judaism was reorganized, those books were removed because they were not originally
written in Hebrew. They were originally penned in Greek. Undoubtably there is more to the story, but the key point is that religious Jews dropped them from their own "Bible" after they were being circulated within Christian churches as part of the Christian scriptures, and they got into the set of Christian scriptures because they had been in the Bible used by Jesus and the Apostles.

I'm assuming this refers to the Roman Sack of Jerusalem in 70AD where they killed maybe 1.1 million Jews for revolting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70)

So Martin Luther and the other Protestants disagreed with the Catholic Church about them being included in the Bible too? Hmm

There has to be a fuller story on this somewhere.

 

[RobAnybody]

Moderator Action: I do not believe that this thread was started to be a critique of the value of the Bible. If you wish to participate, do so with respect and in the manner put forth in the OP. Thanks.

Ok, fair enough, but there was a statistical claim made, re:

According to the Vatican, 100,000 Christians are killed each year for their faith, and here I am slacking.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...000-christians-killed-annually-because-faith/

From the link provided: "Credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are violently killed because of some relation to their faith every year," Vatican spokesman Monsieur Silvano Maria Tomassi said Tuesday in a radio address to the United Nations Human Rights Council."

I clicked on the link, & there was no actual source for this, just "an estimate" from a Vatican spokesperson. Unless this can be sourced to actual data, that seems... well... an ass-pull, no offense. All due respect, I question the validity of this. Can anyone cite an actual source for this? That seems an outrageous clam that needs outrageous evidence, not to be believed by someone just claiming it.


On Topic, though, my favorite Bible passages are:
Proverbs 31:6-7 – 6: Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish. 7: Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

 

[Lillefix]

Which Bible will you read? Hopefully not a Protestants one if you want the full experience

I'm sure there are Christians who have had even an bigger bible than the catholics. So if you want the really full experience you would have to read the Apocrypha which has at one or other point in history been a part of the bible of some Christian group.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Will the Apocrypha be covered? I'll be here for that.

Edit: ^woah, I didn't see you there, Lillefix

 

[Cheetah]

If the bible is hard to get through, you could try an illustrated version. Personally, I'm quite fond of the Brick Testament.

Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and empty with darkness covering the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

Genesis 1:7-8
And God made the vault, and separated the waters under the vault from the waters above the vault. And God called the vault 'sky'. And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Genesis 2:7
And Yahweh God formed man from the dirt of the ground.

Genesis 2:19-20
He brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called them, that was its name. But no suitable helper was found for the man.

Genesis 3:21
Yahweh God made leather garments for the man and his wife, and clothed them.

Genesis 4:5
But Yahweh did not look with favor on Cain and his offering. This was upsetting to Cain, and his face was fallen.