Reviews Literature / The Bible

Excellent review.

It's interesting to see how many Christians haven't actually read the bible.

I started it a month ago, but it's kinda an on-and-off project.

Mistake: Much of the Bible CAN be proven wrong. It's God's existence that can't be proven either way.

^Not everyone agrees with you on that first point.

I don't think anything can really be proven either way. Like I said in the review, effective arguments can be made for many interpretations of the Bible. (I'm in the "mostly true with a little exaggeration" school of thought, personally.)

The comments section is for comments on the review. Not the place for an argument about religion in general.

Exactly what the hell is the "rewarding" part that you never mentioned?

@Madrugada: Thank you. Seriously; this whole thing was getting completely out of hand.

as an agnostic, i've read about a 3rd of the bible, and i think this review is by far the most accurate - it's not easy to read, but with an open mind and critical thinking (looking past the flaws), one can glean quite a fair bit of wisdom and interesting stuff.

good review

@ginsengaddict: Thanks a lot!

@Anon 130.49: Um... no. If you care to throw out statements like that without any proof or supporting evidence, then by all means be my guest, but don't expect them to be taken very seriously. Besides, no one is trying to encourage anyone that anything in the Bible is factual, so please refrain from making irrelevant assertions.

Open-minded review

Nice review. I can't agree with you on the part about the confusing timeline, but at least the review wasn't randomly insulting or biased to either Christians or non-Christians.

Excellent review. Thanks for being respectful.

Yes, this is an excellent review. Even Hate Dumb members like me can recognize that. As someone who has read large parts of it, and is obliged to study it in school, I can say that some parts are downright silly, some parts are really bad, morally speaking, some parts are really good (Song of Songs) and the rest is meh. So: don't use it as a moral guideline, but does possess multiple parts which are really well written, so it makes a nice read for a rainy day.

As a religious person, I have to say this is a nice, fair review. Seems to me most people who mock the Bible have read about as much of it as the people they hate for following it. Not being a historian, I can't vouch for its historical accuracy (except for the whole 'seven days' bit), but once you get past the Moral Dissonance there are quite a few legitimate morals in there and reading into some of the characters can be quite fascinating.

Though I have no right to, I apologize on behalf of the loonier followers. Faith is good, letting it blind you isn't.

Apology accepted, Wackd. Regarding the morals: though there might be some good ones in there (I don't know, I haven't read the whole of it... yet), you still cannot use it as a moral guidebook, since it does not tell you what the good ones are; you are obliged to get another source as a guide.

As to the whole Moral Dissonance thing, few realize that The Bible has Moral Dissonance within it: dissonance between the Israelites and the other nations, between the Israelites and God, and also between the Old Testament (Mosaic Law) and New Testament (Jesus). I'd guess that much of the supposed Moral Dissonance comes from the Old Testament and God being lax on the Israelites when it came to popular practices of the time like polygamy and slavery*

@ desdendelle: If you are going to a Jewish school, I suppose that last bit on Jesus was irrelevant. But then again, if you are going to a Jewish school, why are you studying the whole Bible in the first place?

I'm not. Look, it's really complicated, but the gist of it is that I live in a mostly Jewish environment, but me and most of my family are Atheists / Agnostics (that's complicated, too). So: I study the Bible (ie, the Old Testament) in school, but am interested in the New one as well. Actually, I know pretty well that Moral Dissonance exists in the New testament, too, mainly the matter of the Original Sin.

^ You are badly misinterpreting my statements/intentions and taking them way out of context. I was curious as to why a Jewish person, especially a school, would read The Bible, considering, you know, they don't believe in Jesus, or that he was The Messiah. Although I suppose they could out of curiosity, and Desdendelle said he/she wasn't Jewish anyway. I was not in any way implying that atheists or people of other religions should not read The Bible. My statement to Desdendelle about Jesus being irrelevant to them was out of respect for his/her beliefs (or at least what I thought they were).

You want to say I presented myself badly, fine. But don't put words in my mouth, I hate it when people do that! I was not attaking anybody and there was no argument taking place.

So...what happened to commenting on the review, instead of religion as a whole?

Anything related to religion will inevitably end up becoming about the religion and not the thing related to it.

Ontopic: The reason the issue exists is because most (Or at least it used to be most) Christians claim the Bible is perfect/word of god/whatever, implying that they should always use the Bible as moral guidance.

I tried reading it, honestly. It's still on my bedside table, waiting to picked up again, but I just couldn't finish. I probably read it the wrong way. I got till about Leviticus until I couldn't take anymore reading about how whatshisname birthed so and so many sons and then a list of their names and ugh ... Maybe I should skip the Old Testament.

This cracked me up, bro. Instead of the usual "It's The Bible, READ IT" that's given to people, you've presented us with a pretty cool review. It's not every day you see something this win.

Hell, I might give it a try sometime.

This is a fairly decent review.

I would add a few other reasons to read it and maybe even a few scholar's words on it (from all sides.) There are references to the Bible throughout western civilization in form of literature, movies, songs, art, poems, etc.

It may even help to try to read it from many different points of view. As a collected set of legends, mythologies, oral histories, and then as an overarching narrative of mankind according to a few groups of religious sects.

Regardless of your personal feelings on the book itself, or it's fans/detractors, it did change the world as we know it, either directly or indirectly. It is the single greatest source to try and understand the motivations of many who grew up believing it to be true.

Good review.

And people need to stop mocking this book. Seriously, guys, it's annoying.

A really smart analysis of the Bible. Wish more people were as objective as you.

An excellent review that is fairly impartial about the whole thing. Excellent.

• Shrug* Whatever

To get back on the subject, I personnally believe the Bible is extremely complex to understand and interpret; we don't know which parts of it are symbolism or truth, what parts were added or modified over the course of years, and I could go on. In the end, I don't really think it matters; people believe in it or not, but I feel the real important thing about Christianity is its values of helping each others rather than what part of the Bible is true or not. Too bad so many people miss this point.

To be more precise, The Bible from a literature perspective is an anthology of books. It was through the actions of the Council of Nicaea (sp?) that it was all mashed into one book. Consider also, like the tremendous review, there are more than sixty books to the bible, and they were all not written by the same author. Back then, they were *VERY* relevant to those who read it, but since there are a massive number of authors, there is bound to be some dissonance within the overall plot.

Another thing to consider is how each successive generation of Christians have interpreted the Bible throughout the years. The Crusaders obviously interpreted the Bible differently than the Reformers, and the Eastern/Western split naturally also divided some views. We haven't even touched the Gnostic Gospels yet.

Be careful when citing or claiming that "All Christians (Blank)". Especially for those who are of faith, rather than those who are not. Understand that the term "Christian" refers to over 1 billion people on the planet, and that any one label is bound to be inaccurate on some level or another. Also attempt to glean from what perspective said label is coming from. There is a difference between what Christians believe, and what society believes that Christians believe.

Really, it's not so much a matter of Fandumb, as it is a matter of human error. Everywhere. Much like a good portion of the US media tends to be biased in some way, no review can be wholly unbiased. Fandumb is misinterpretation Upto Eleven.

^ Same thing with "All Atheists are (blank)" as this relates to an equal (if not greater) portion of people.