Has anyone actually read the bible in it's entirety?

**George** · 08-26-2006, 03:06 PM

I wonder how many people on earth can say they've read the entire bible (any version) cover to cover.

lpstong · 08-28-2006, 12:03 PM

No - even in my feeble attempts of trying. I would say I have read about 2/3 of it. And many parts of the bible a few times over. But never in its entirity. I should read all of it just to say that I have.

**George** · 08-28-2006, 02:36 PM

I guess the next logical question is, can one really debate theories on teh bible if one hasn't read the entire thing.

I say yes simply because each book is just that, a book in and of itself. Though some might rgue against that since different books can be found referneced in different places within the bible.

Brandon · 08-28-2006, 03:47 PM

I am acutally very close to finishing it. I try to read a chapter a day but like lpstong said, I often read the same passages over again. I think I have Jeremiah and Ezekiel to go but they are both hard for me.

Also, I certainly believe we can discuss the topic of Christianity without reading the entire Bible. I often discuss physics and I'll never know all the rules and theorems.

lpstong · 08-28-2006, 04:17 PM

Well one can debate still regardless of reading the entire Bible. For those with a scientific mind. Have you read all the books and taken all the classes. Put them to memory? I would say no. Learning is a life long process. Each book in the bible requires dedication. Not just a breeze through it to claim one has the Bible.

My question at mind at this moment is why does it bother science so much about the Bible and its history. When nothing has been really proven about the beginning of time.

Look at carbon dating and how many times science had to revamp the whole process. I think its been atleast 2 or 3 times already. And science is suppose to be factual.

How factual is the Bible. Countries fight over the land that has been dated during the times of parts of the bible. Genetics of the Jews and the scattering of them. They believe they have found a tribe in South Africa which is to be one of the tribes of Isreal. They matched the DNA of the tribe, I believe about the total of 80 to Jews who are direct descendants of one of the tribes in Isreal. They believe there is a strong connection. Science also went out to try and prove if it was possible for Moses to split the red sea. Or where is the Noah's Ark. Still science can not disprove things in the bible as much as the bible can not disprove things of science that are base upon theory.

palefrost · 08-29-2006, 10:54 AM

Yes but not from front to back. If you do that it really makes no sense at all.

The bible is collection of short stories. There are tons and tons of other religious documents about Jesus and such that were not included in the bible that you read today. Throughout history it’s been edited time and again. By the time you get to the King James Version, it’s probably gone through tons of editing already. Not by unbiased people either, but mostly by the church itself.

So here we have a church that gets paid by its followers. They're mostly the only literate people around so they can pretty much rewrite or leave out small portions of text that don't properly suit their own personal beliefs.

Translations change the meaning of things as well. Heck even changing the punctuation in each sentence can dramatically change the meaning, as we hear time and again if you ever watch televangelists do their thing. In Greece, there are many words to express the different kinds of love for example, yet translate that to English and there is only one.. Love. So instantly you lose meaning in the translations.

So, in the end what you have is a bunch of short stories which are probably translated to better suit the translator's belief of what it should say. Then these stories are edited by a bunch of other people with a vested interest in making the reader believe the stories are true whether they are or not, who get to select exactly which stories they deem to be true (and included) and those they deem not to be true (and don't add)? Plus, if you say that many of the "authors" were illiterate, which is fact, then obviously someone else wrote their passages for them.. Another translation along the way between the "author's" speech and what the writer actually wrote down.

Brandon · 08-29-2006, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Throughout history it’s been edited time and again. By the time you get to the King James Version, it’s probably gone through tons of editing already. Not by unbiased people either, but mostly by the church itself.

Sorry to disagree pale, but the Bible that we read today (NIV, ESV, or NASB) are not derived from the King James. Each of these three translations were translated from the ORIGINAL texts written in Greek and Hebrew and are dated to back to the first century. These are the first hand accounts that we are looking at and those are what was translated into English. When you realise this, you'll see the margin for error becomes much smaller.

OneofaKind · 08-29-2006, 11:59 AM

I tried reading through the Bible when I was around 10, but unsurprising I didn't get very far.

I am actually in the process of reading through the Bible at the moment - doint quite well. I'm on Isaiah at the moment and intend to finish by the end of the year.

palefrost · 08-30-2006, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandon

Sorry to disagree pale, but the Bible that we read today (NIV, ESV, or NASB) are not derived from the King James. Each of these three translations were translated from the ORIGINAL texts written in Greek and Hebrew and are dated to back to the first century. These are the first hand accounts that we are looking at and those are what was translated into English. When you realise this, you'll see the margin for error becomes much smaller.

How does three translations which as you say were originally written in Greek and Hebrew. Then were translated into English, make the margin of error much smaller? I think you should reevaluate that statement.

Brandon · 08-30-2006, 02:20 PM

Quote:

How does three translations which as you say were originally written in Greek and Hebrew. Then were translated into English, make the margin of error much smaller? I think you should reevaluate that statement.

I was responding to your thought that the Bible had been "edited time and again". The three translations that I mentioned are not retranslated versions of each other. They were each translated from the original manuscripts. The only room for error here is from the ONE translation of the original language to English. That is not very hard to do.