Who here really knows the bible?

[Mercury]

I see a user on here called BibleGuy and that name is reminding me of something I've been meaning to do: read the goddamn bible! But it's soooo long and the pages are sooo thin. Not to mention it's complicated, antiquated language. I may go my whole life without reading the bible. What does that say about me?

I know bits and pieces, naturally. Mostly from satire on TV. But I don't know the congruent story, at all. I don't even know enough to have a decent conversation on the bible, lol. It's pretty serious. Yet I vehemently oppose most of what it stands for. Am I a hopless human being because of that?

No! Because after all, who really does know the bible? Let alone read the fucking thing!


*insert colin powell*

[JcP]

I began a "bible reading" process last year and got through about 1/2 of the old testament before throwing in the towel.

The minister at a UU church told me, "the bible is not meant to be read, it's meant to be heard." and that made me feel a bit better

it's a huuuuge part of allegory and symbolism used in film/t.v/literature, so the knowledge of the stories adds another layer (to things as random as Harry Potter, Heroes, or Star Wars), but honestly, a "summary" version of the bible would get you that info too. Every time I see a character named Esther, my ears perk up

[Grieves]

the ignorance is astounding...

[Mercury]

whose igorance, mine or jcp's?

[BibleGuy]

Hi Mercury,

Jesus said "the kingdom of God is within you". If you're not too sure about the book (Bible) perhaps that's understandable. If you like, forget all the crap you've heard and go within. You already know how.

And Isaac entreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. (Genesis 25:21)

The Hebrew word for "entreated" is 'athar and it means to burn incense in worship. "Incense" is what you smoke.

The book is a representation, but the source is within you.

In any case... peace.

[SageTree]

Intersting question. I don't feel you are hopeless based on not reading something. Recognizing that you don't know squat about something and being opposed to something and the unfair problem it presents you and others, is very mature.

First let me say the last church I went to was a Unitarian Universalist Church and consider myself a practicing buddhist...don't know if they makes me one, that is why I'm practicing

I grew up pretty strictly learning the Bible young and teaching lessons by the time I was around 13 or so. I wouldn't say I was ever a fire and brime stoner...stoner hehe....but rather feel like I could help people find some meaning from the words allagorically or help broaden some more literal things in it.

I have read most something out of it's books, and have read the whole New Testement, thanks to a pocket sized Gideons version I carried with me while living in Vancouver, for the bus.

Knowing some basic history or when and where really helps open up alot of its meaning for me, and also decern the parts I feel were written more for that time.

People have always saught answers to where we came from, where we around going and how we will survive.

To me these are answers writen and based on what people knew. Divinely inspired...I could write long lines about the subjective meaning of divine.

What do you want to know? It's might not be THE answer, but like with meditation, if you enter with intention you have an easier time recognizing things.

The Gospel of John would be my favourite gospel, as it deals mainly with the love aspects and less about history....it has more teachings. Luke was a doctor and his approach is more acedemic, while Matthew was just a tax collector and scribe. And Mark was a devout follower. So they will all read differently. Luke also wrote acts. Take all these authorships with a historical grain of salt.

Alot of Paul Epistles, or letters are to adress particular concerns of new christians around the sea.

In the old testement, that is harder, mostly that is alot of allagorical history. Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and some of the prophets are good ones.

My #2 suggestion. Think of a question or intent, like I mentioned. Don't be literal, when reading it. Go to the library and find a 'Life Application' Bible there are alot of historical and theological foot notes and there is also alot of bios and highlights. This way you can see if you relate to some aspects of the characters and will also get a glimpse of how the theologians who made this version are thinking and what they are pulling out of it for Christians, as they see them.

I don't think Christian should be such a finite term, so read openly and think allgories.

Exodus...we are all on a journey blindly inspired at times...things like that.

I feel I can relate to many text of many religions and there are always things that make me scratch my head although I can converse freely about themes.

Also there are 'Teach yourself' series which I find alot more touching on religon than the Dummies book and some thing that might be tons more rewarding for understanding Christianity, and then reading the Bible might make more sense when and if you do.

The Gideons hand out free ones and you can get them at local used stores as well, so you can have one with out $$$ for more encompassing referance.

#1 advice Teach Yourself Christianity, This is how I intend to Save your Life meaning you'll learn something have a grasp of your original question and won't feel entirely indoctrinated, since these are more open to larger ideas of what Being a christian is. You'll see how it came to be and the liberal to orthodox sides of the faith.

These are the two ways I perceive tackling the question/concern.

Good luck and ask if any of that seemed confusing.

I don't ever want to sound pushy about the Bible. But I am an evangelical concerning my spreading of love and wanting people to feel they have answers to their questions, whatever for the answers come from, as long as they are informed one.

Metta
SageTree

[Makros_01]

nice insight into yourself there sage.. cool how long did it take for you to read it on the bus??

I can put my hand up to saying ive read the whole bible, and over the years have come to glean new meanings as i age.
my favourite book is the book of romans.
i believe it is highly pertinent to todays troubles.
as for reading it word for word. or the 'story' . think of it more as a book of the brothers grimm. stories to help you understand a moral that is more complicated than the simplicity of the tale itself.

hope that helped

[Kompressor]

The Brick Testament

[SageTree]

nice insight into yourself there sage.. cool how long did it take for you to read it on the bus??

Well I read a chapter on the way to work and one on the way home. It took me a few months, but it's hard to say since I really didn't keep track.

I usually pick a text to read from for a while as part of my daily sitting. And how long and how much time I have varies. Sometimes its better to sit only than try to read as well.

NT is relatively short from book to book. So I was getting in at least 3 chapters a day, plus any further reading I did for leisure in the evening.

I didn't however try tackling Revelations, but did a study of it numerous and continuing times through out my early and later life while still in the Sunday schools and at camp. That is one that would be good to go back and look at.

There were many apocalyptic books that didn't get included and were popular based on the number of them they found in the Essenes libraries, buried in Nag Hammadhi.

I think it would be easy to read without much study the Gospels in a couple weeks. I thought Acts read better than ANY book. And the Epistles of Paul are quick although, it helps to understand the concerns he was addressing, otherwise he just sounds like a prick at times. He's not my favourite, and largely responsible, imo, for fodder for the dogmatism that spread during the instating of Christianity by Constantine.

The Gospel of Thomas, while not included, reads like the Proverbs of Jesus or the Dhammapada, which are the saying of Buddha. It's not hard to find online or in the library. Logical stuff. The Gnostics knew what's up. Phillip is another cool one. More wordy,and it's about the union of male and female, universally speaking yin and yang. John is my favourite in the Canonized Gospels.

[verklingen]

the gospel of thomas (a gnostic gospel, non-canon) got me re-interested in the bible. i read through the beginning chapters of the new testament several times but always stopped after acts.

i feel like jesus was alluding to the next (or really, continued) evolution of humanity. he shared with us a vision of a new paradigm through which all peoples could live in peace and abundance: societies driven by cooperation internally and externally. society, namely humans working with other humans to achieve things a single human cannot, is what gave us the ultimate evolutionary edge. jesus preached the perfection of that evolution to end all our self-inflicted woe. whether he was sent by god or even existed at all is immaterial and the message -- which was disseminated in various forms throughout the world -- is profound: create a new world built for a new humanity, before this one is suffocated by its own devices. that's how i read it, anyway

[flappy]

To him that has, it shall be given.
To he that hath not, it shall be taken away.

[verklingen]

"even that which he seemeth to have"

i really like those sorts of quotes, they're like a mental playground. i always tied my conception of it together with the parable of the new and old wineskins from mark chapter 2:

22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."

i think of the "new wine" as the precepts of jesus' teaching, and the new wineskins as those who are ready to receive it. i feel like the new wine is coming. it's being poured all around us, waiting for a receptacle which can contain and preserve it. the turmoil we see in our world is the old wineskins rupturing, but the new wine is as abundant as our hope for a new day and a new world. i don't like using the word hope though, because it's already here. . . waiting to be realized.

so for those that have it and can receive it, only more awaits them. but those without, who have willfully refused. . . their denial will strip even the semblance of worthiness, that which they seemeth to have

[BibleGuy]

SageTree: "It's might not be THE answer, but like with meditation, if you enter with intention you have an easier time recognizing things."

I agree. I suspect that intention most often makes the difference between "Recreation" and a "Spiritual experience" with regard to Spiritual Smoke. My first experience was highly "spiritual", but my reason for trying it was spiritual as well.

I don't think Christian should be such a finite term, so read openly and think allgories.

Right on SageTree. The language of Spirit is symbol and metaphor which takes a bit of chewing on sometimes. Joseph interpreting Pharoah's dream, for example. The Wedding at Cana is an allegory. I have not read Exploring Shamanism: Using Ancient Rites to Discover the Unlimited Healing, but I like the description in the first two paragraphs (read online) under "Metaphor and Symbol: The Language of Spirit" - I have read the same from other sources and experienced some myself.

Mercury, you might be wondering why in the world I've just referred to shamanism when this discussion is about the Bible. My reason relates to Spiritual Smoke. When we meditate in it, this is a shamanic approach to God.

[Terry]

The New Testament is really the only part of the bible I can read through without getting discouraged by the fact people actually believe this.

Although Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are among my favorite books, everything else is just so antiquated and has nothing to do with modern life so it's just an exercise in futility really.

Even after the Gospels the New Testament takes a nosedive in quality, the letters of Paul are mysoginistic homophobic and generally as boring as one can make personal correspondence, and don't get me started on the bullshit that is Revelations.

If you insist on plodding through some Bronze Age morality, get the NIV to keep yourself from dying of boredom

[Terry]

Hmm, perhaps I should stop posting here, I feel like a real asshole talking about my lack of faith and spirituality and general cynical attitude towards both in a place called Spiritual Smoke : /

[BibleGuy]

Verklingen: New wine and wineskins.

"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." -- Jesus (Luke 18:17)

"a little child: is paidion in Greek, meaning a childling (of either sex), that is, (properly) an infant.

An infant knows nothing yet. It is a brand new, unadulterated, "wineskin" ready for the "new wine".

Remember the Jedi's "padawan" learner (from paidion) in Star Wars? And how Master Yoda told Luke "You must unlearn what you have learned"? He was telling him to purge the "old wine" and become a new wineskin, an infant, believing that anything is possible.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." -- Shunryu Suzuki

[SageTree]

Hmm, perhaps I should stop posting here, I feel like a real asshole talking about my lack of faith and spirituality and general cynical attitude towards both in a place called Spiritual Smoke : /

There is nothing wrong with how you define your existential idea brother.

Singing and hearing the choir all the time gets boring. Thanks for adding a new set of notes. I think most of us are existential jazz players anyway. Playing it by ear and making it intentional, not really knowing exactly where or when the tune stops, but we are enjoying the parts we've figured out how to blend with others.

Blow that sax mang!

[SageTree]

what came of this question Merc?