How many people have read the bible?

[black bart]

As well as losing a toenail during a mixed hockey match I once hurt a toe quite badly during a dream! I was having a vivid dream in which I was fighting for my life against some nasty villains, when my gun jammed I kicked out a la Jean Claud Van Damme and I really did kick out making rather firm contact with the wall!!!! Please don't go reading anything significant into guns jamming and stuff like that!

[black bart]

Clement Freud?

[Qwertyuiopasd]

(or Qwerty - isn't he studying psych now?)

Rofl, oh how we project. I'm just in an intro Psych class, passing through, filling a requirement. The thing I'll really be studying is Philosophy and Religion.

But yes, I'm aware of what he said those dreams mean. But I only ever had them between like, 3rd and 6th grade. I think I really was just worried about not brushing often enough.

[black bart]

I took me a while to find the dream explanation for 'Teeth Falling out' which you and Roy are referring to. First I got lots of adverts for dentistry and cures for hair loss and eventually I found that in a dream The teeth falling out and extraction of them are symbols of castration as a punishment for masturbating (castration's complex).


But looking on the bright side I should have a lovely thick head of hair by this time next year.

[Arkaeon]

Yah, I read the whole New International Version cover to cover, most of the King James (4) but not in order (had to skip around among some of the more boring and incoherent bits of that version), most of the Greek Interlinear New Testament, a lot of the hippy-like "The Way" version and the more pedestrian American Revised Standard version. I also read huge amounts if not most of the "Interpreters Commentary on the Bible."

I also read one of the older versions of the Book of Mormon (while it still had magic orbs, official polygamy, and stuff like that in it), and most of the Jehovah's Witness version of the New Testament (a hilariously bad translation created just to obscure some of their theological and social assertions that flatly contradict the actual New Testament).

The Interpreters Commentary was noteworthy, in that it is intended for priests, pastors, and professors, not really for laymen or students, so it includes explanations about how much of the Bible was pieced together from literary fragments, hero-stories, and wisdom literature of former and foreign cultures. Once you've read what the theologians, church historians, and theological archaeologists have to say about the various books while discussing it amongst themselves, you either go completely mad or forever abandon the idea of the Bible being intended as a literal interpretation.

This was when I first learned about "psuedoepigraphy," the once-honorable tradition of writing books in the name of a former philosopher or leader as a sort of homage, thus analyzing current problems or issues from a revered/ancient point of view. It was a valued literary style in those days, sort of taking the author's own ego out of the equation, and also good for hiding the real author's identity from the authorities. These days we call it parable, allegory, or forgery, depending on the intent.

[peacefulsongs]

I have read through the Bible twice. The first time it took me 9 months. The second time I did it in a little over 3 months. It's an enormous book with lots of funny stuff in it that you would never learn in Sunday School. The story of Abimelech, the story of the rape of Dinah, the story of Jesus killing a fig tree, the story of Satan offering Jesus power over the whole world, the story of David chopping off 200 weiners just to impress King Saul, the whole relation with David and King Saul is rather hillarious. I'll definetly be reading it again. It's a very powerful book. They took the best works of philosophy, history, literature over the course of thousands of years. It's not a magically coincidence that we are still reading it in 2013.

juicegiver

[peacefulsongs]

Does it say anything about Nef Yoos in the Bible?

No but I could be wrong. I have read the Bible twice and supposedly I missed a cool story about Elijah being fed by ravens. My kids learned it in their Sunday School class. I don't think Nef Yoos is in the Bible but it's a huge book. I could have missed it.

juicegiver

[pieces o'nine]

It lost a lot of luster for me when I found the story of the golden mice and the golden emmerods.

[peacefulsongs]

It lost a lot of luster for me when I found the story of the golden mice and the golden emmerods.

This is frustrating. I don't recall the golden mice or the golden emmerods. Like the not so famous gospel song, "I guess I'll read it again and let it bless my soul."

juicegiver

[pieces o'nine]

It's all in there -- happy hunting.

[peacefulsongs]

I'll be reading it again in a year or two. I'll find it then. I'm not going to scramble for it now. That's too much work.

juicegiver

[ToddSparks]

I last read it "seriously" in my mid 20's, along with about a dozen various books by bible scholars with varying backgrounds and from more or less conflicting/different denominations in an attempt to make some sort of sense out of it. I do not know what I was thinking at the time intentionally picking stuff by authors from different denominations, I think I was approaching it as some sort of puzzle.

As Arkaeon has noted, reading the side narratives and arguments and opinions - it did not help AT ALL, and in an attempt to continue (I've had this horrible personal rule since childhood to ALWAYS finish reading what I started, no matter how much I regret it) I started also reading all the science fiction I could get my hands on, the bulk of which was the early original "pulp" science fiction. Oddly enough, it helped me get through it without completely losing my mind ! When I'd get really agitated I'd just read some old 40's pulp science fiction ! To this day I am convinced that it's the ONLY way to read the bible.

I ended up giving away all the bible scholar books to religious neighbors (always the men of their families ! ) who, much to my surprise, often asked me what my opinions were about this or that particular part in the Bible... Those were strange North Carolina trailer park days, back in the mid 80's. Need I say more ?

The mice and hemorrhoid thing in Samuel, that's all kind of God's sick joke in a way.

See, everybody was acting like The Ark was some sort of good luck charm. Which is basically idolatry. This wasn't a big deal at first, because God is pretty patient. But that patience got pushed WAAAAAY past his breaking point when Eli's son's, Hophni and Phinehas, apparently let the idolatry run unchecked for their entire lives, so God arranged for them to both be killed at the same time in a particular battle.

Meanwhile, back at the nasty, dirty uncircumcised Philistines' cities, they were also passing the recently captured ark around - also like a totem. This I think pissed God off even more, or maybe he just at that point stopped being furious and started getting sick and twisted, it's open for interpretation...

So God's little joke was to give them hemorrhoids. Everybody.

But that wasn't *funny* enough. He decided to also give them *mice*.

Lots of cute, little fuzzy, squeaky, hungry, *horny* viril, mice - that rapidly reproduced and ate *everything*.

And God did laugh and laugh.

But even this was not hilarious enough for God, who is infinite in in all things, including his sense of humor.

SOOOOO he finally told the chosen that if they wanted to get on his good side to make a nice, pretty idol for him - out of gold - which looked like their hemorrhoids and like mice...

When I was studying all this back in the mid 80's, I thought it was *incredibly* *hilarious* and *twisted* at the time.

Now that I'm older and actually "know" (in the biblical sense of the word) what hemorrhoids are.... Mmmm, not SO much...

[peacefulsongs]

effective August 31, 2013 at 1:00am Eastern Standard time I will stop logging on to this forum from work.

I want to read this stuff at my house.

juicegiver

[black bart]

My granny gave me a bible for xmas.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Is it a nice one? What variety is it? Does it have accent marks on the names of people and places like my nice but crumbling pocket KJV Bible? What about editorial notes and musings?

I might take it off your hands, if you really don't want it...

(I have four or five Bibles at this point, but each one, except for the cheapo one I've been reading, has been nice to look at, if nothing else, and I wouldn't mind aquiring more.)