I think he’s talking about apocryphal texts like the Book of Enoch (too badass to be included in most Bibles), the Books of Tobit, Judith, Baruch, etc.
Read Genesis, and then stop. The rest of it is tedious. Even Genesis is full of a bunch of begeting.
And bullhajj, he is saying that some of the books repeat point seen in other books (where ‘books’ equal ‘books of the Bible’). A lot of the jeremiads have the same basic point: you guys screwed up and now you are suffering! How many times would one need to read that?
For literary value, you probably want the King James, just because so many quotes come straight from there, if you want to know their original context. (“How the mighty have fallen”, “my cup runneth over”, “beat swords into ploughshares”, that sort of thing). On the other hand, there’s no question that it’s often inaccurate. I like Robert Alter’s translation of the first 5 books, because he was aiming for literary value, plus his notes are good. After that, it’s a bit of catch-as-catch-can.
I don’t know the New Testament very well, so I’m only going to talk about the Old below:
As far as stories go, you’d want
Genesis – creation, Adam & Eve, Noah, the patriarchs, Joseph
Exodus – The Exodus from Egypt (and the Song at the Red Sea, a great poem)
Joshua – The wall of Jericho
Judges – Samson, Gideon, Deborah & Yael
Samuel – the first kings, Saul and David, the story of David and Jonathon, Bathsheba, lots and lots of stories
Kings I – Solomon. Kings II gets very repetitive, although even there you get archetypes like Jezebel and Ahab.
Jonah – the story of the whale, of course, but also the story of the gourd tree
Maybes:
Ruth – Famous as an example of loyalty
Esther – It’s a good story in its own right, but I don’t think that later literature ever made use of it
Jeremiah – Lots of prophecy, but famous stories scattered here and there. But you’d have to dig a bit for them
Daniel – Lots of prophecy and visions, but does have the famous stories of the lion’s den, the furnace, and a couple of others.
For poetry, you want Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Job. These all contain famous poems (I suppose Job is arguable, but I’m putting it here). Famous poems are scattered elsewhere, but you’d have to dig a bit for them (Exodus has “Song at the Red Sea”, “Samuel” (I think) has David’s lamentation, “Judges” has Deborah’s Song.
For places where famous quotes come from, you probably want to add in Ecclesiastes (one of my favorites, btw) and Proverbs. Unfortunately, “Proverbs” is pretty hard to get through – but it does have things like “Spare the rod” and “a woman of valor.”
Daniel and Ezekiel have the really weird visions that people talk about. (Like the dry bones is in Ezekiel, or the hand that writes and then moves on is in Daniel).
But you definitely want to skip Leviticus, Deuteronomy, most of Numbers, Chronicles – I don’t think they’ve got literary value under just about any definition.
The other thing to do is read it over a long period of time, a book every so often – if you set to reading it like a standard book, you’ll probably come to a crashing halt. The bible isn’t meant to be read that way (there are all sorts of debates over how it should be read, but I don’t think anyone suggests that it’s meant to be read from beginning to end like a novel).
No. At the very least, it is one of the most alluded to writings in all English lit, so you might procure a better grounding for reading other lit.
It depends on what you want. Some versions are very literal, taking Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek words and translating them as directly into English as possible. Other versions will change things to reflect how the English language works in terms of idioms and figures of speech; the idea is that knowing the literal words isn’t as important to a modern reader as knowing what the language meant to the original readers. Others will take the approach of translating the meaning of the text by their theology, so that the translation starts to look like an interpretation. I don’t care for this last one myself, but whatever.
Most versions are hybrids of all of these. Zondervan has a decent illustration showing the continuum of many translations from “word for word” to “thought for thought” that might serve as a useful guide for you as you think about this.
http://www.zondervan.com/images/cms/Bibles/bible_transchrt_js.jpg
My preference is interlinears available online and the Amplified (AMP) for literal, New International Version (NIV) for balanced, and the Living Translation (Living) for interpretative. However I definitely approach the Bible more as literature to be studied, so some of the interpretative stuff (historical background, audience, language, etc) I’ve already learned before.
The problem with the KJV is that it is in an early form of modern English. If you aren’t really good with it, some of the richness of meaning might be lost because you’re busy fighting with figuring out the sentences. One good example is the word “charity” that appears in the KJV, which is not charity as we know it today but was their word for “lovingkindness”. This happens to me when reading Shakespeare, so I go watch the movie/play instead. heheh.
That said, the language of the KJV definitely has a descriptive flavor that makes the poetic parts of the Old Testament (which is most of it) pretty awesome, in my opinion.
I don’t know how comfortable you are with English, Juan, although you certainly have an excellent grasp of it when posting here. You might prefer a Spanish translation though simply because the connotations of the words might have more depth for you. Plus all the caveats I meantioned to wildpokerman above.
Here is an example of an NIV (middle of the road, from the above discussion) “study bible”, which is the term generally used for a Bible that includes notes, maps, etc. in line with the text. I don’t know how settled things are for you down there yet, but if you find a Bible you want and can’t get it due to ongoing issues, PM me.
Old Testament: God creates man. Man continually fails, no matter what the rules are. Lots of war and brutality. A few follow God anyway.
New Testament: God sends His Son to atone for our failure. Man is free to live with God forever by believing that. Lots of grace and peace. Most reject God anyway.
I’d suggest the Oxford Annotated Bible.
That is NOT Old English. It doesn’t even count as Middle English. If you want to say it’s archaic by today’s English, that’s fine. But it’s modern English with stylistic differences because of the time period.
The KJV is as good a point as any to mark the birth of modern English, along with Shakespeare. THIS is Old English:
Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile
felahror feran on Frean wære;
hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe,
swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd,
þendenwordum weold wine Scyldinga—
leof landfruma lange ahte.
My mistake. Post edited. Back flogged.
Old English sounds a lot like Slipknot.
Yeah, that’s where Slipknot was borne, I’m sure.
Hawkeye, what is that? Beowulf?
Very, very true. Reading the Bible (King James version, natch) should be literally a requirement for anybody taking an English degree at the university level. Ditto art history.
Well, the KJV is good for the literary allusions, yeah. But it’s crap as a Biblical translation.
It is, in some universities. Hell, I had to read selections from it in high school.
I have difficulty with much of the OT as I find it equally transparent and repellent, such as for ex Saul and Samuel (if Samuel really was receiving messages from God, I’ll eat my hat).
Better yet, read R. Crumb’s faithful adaptation of Genesis!
Check out Eve’s massive thighs!
Thanks.
I’d still hit it, if she weren’t my great great great great…etc. grandmother.
I was raised on a steady diet of scripture study, so I think I’ve got something of an affinity for religious texts. In addition to some King James bible, I’d recommend people read some Tao Te Ching, some Bhagavad Gita and anything else you might be curious about.