/lit/ - Literature

Read some katechisms

>>18484814
What I have (anons will disagree of course):
For the aesthetics: KJV
For study: Oxford annotated NRSV
For just getting it out of the way: Eugene Peterson's "The Message" translation

Don't let yourself get intimidated; not every page is jam-packed with wisdom. The most important thing for a first-time reader is steady daily reading so you don't get in a rut. After you're done, maybe find a theology book or two to round yourself out. Don't sweat it, just start

The really important books that should command most of your attention: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, 1 and 2 Kings and/or 1 and 2 Chronicles, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Daniel, the Gospels (the 4 are very similar accounts), the Pauline epistles, and Revelation.

>>18484814
Just remember that the god of the old testament is the demiurge and is evil and that Jesus came to us to tell us the truth and help us achieve gnosis but the church, the pawns of the demiurge that they are, have been trying to suppress this information for centuries. Once you've finished with the bible you should read the gospel of Judas and Mary for more context.

Oxford annotated if you're irrelegious/mainline protestant
ESV study bible for evangelical theology
Jerusalem Bible if Catholic

>>18484814
Use audiobooks when you can, when you're on your horse or farming. You don't have to read it chronologically, I'll read some NT, then some OT, then some NT, then some OT, then some OT and then some NT. etc

>>18485207
>>18485292
The Oxford Annotated sounds awesome but will I lose anything by not reading KJV?

>>18485348
Not really, KJV is mostly known as the one with some of the most striking and quotable language and "flow." It has the odd mistranslation but that usually doesn't concern the average /lit/izen
I don't think you can go wrong with any version mentioned in this thread

>>18485348
You will lose more by reading it since it's an archaic translation and doesn't have the benefits of modern textual criticism. It has historical value and the language is beautiful at times, but I wouldn't read it for accuracy.

>>18484814
I read it cover to cover over about 10 months, mine was an annotated study Bible. I've got a KJV as well for re-reading bits. I don't have any advice, the only way to do it is to do it — it wasn't that hard.

>>18485450
moses is so smug lol.

tip no.1
It's a spook

>>18484814
It's truly not hard to read as long as you have some basic background knowledge in Christianity and biblical language.

>>18484814
first couple books are easy
new testament is easy

>>18485480
>right and wrong are spooks
>it's wrong to be spooked

Heres my advice, but I will say that I believe in inerrancy/inspiration, so it's more than a mere historical, literary exercise for me. However, I have read it cover to cover ~10 times with countless references to it, reading of smaller passages that I don't keep track of.

First - ignore all chapter and verse insertions. In fact, ignore the labels of Old and New Testament. Those are all merely tools of reference put into the Bible after the fact, and I've found that they can be extremely distracting.

Second - assume, even if you're not a Christian/etc, assume it's all true for purposes of the metanarrative. And you MUST understand the whole book as a single, linear story with conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. I can't stress this enough, DON'T READ EACH BOOK AS STAND ALONE, they're part of a greater story and were written for a particular purpose relative to the greater story of redemption as a whole.

3 - literally just skip or gloss over the huge number sections and the law-heavy sections. Don't feel bad about this. Those sections have purpose and are useful for stuff, but unless you're researching genealogy or trying to understand the symbolic meaning of why one shouldn't mix fibers or tie tassels on the end of a robe, just gloss over it. This kind of applies to the poetry sections as well.

Fourth - read the section as the type of literature it is. If it's written as if it's historical narrative, read it like it is. If it's prophecy, then read it with a little more generosity and margin for error since prophecy/symbolism has a very specific purpose in scripture. If it's poetry/wisdom, you don't read it like a narrative and you don't chug through a hundred chapters. You need to let it marinate so you can meditate on what it's saying.

Fifth - don't get hung up on translations. I prefer ESV/NASB for concise, modern versions, but KJV is a good translation with that majestic flow. See attached. Also, see if you can get s copy without the chapter/verse references if you can like I said before.

>>18484814
Read Odysseus' Scar (dw it's only 30 pages or so) if you want to enter into the Old Testament with a sense of how it differs from other ancient literature.

Bible study groups are not all Stepford cultists. I was in one at uni and they really helped me understand the subject.

>>18485559
This, especially points 2 and 3.

You have to read the book with the mindset that God is always in the right.

You should also skim the law sections. They can be interesting, but also incredibly boring. You’re not hurting the narrative by skimming.

Finally, get the Bible app on your phone. It’s free and has every translation. That when when you are reading whatever version you go with and you come across an interesting verse, you can immediately pull up dozens of different translations

>>18485348
I'm just going to recommend the Norton Critical Edition if you want the best of both, KJV translation with critical commentary and you get shit like excerpts from the Baal Epic and the laws of Hammurabi in the appendix. Two volumes, big floppy paperbacks.

>>18484814
Just to remind, don't fall for what the anon number 18485263 (I'm not give him you's) is saying. God ever was, Is and will ever be the same and this is not a contradiction.

>>18485292
>Jerusalem Bible if Catholic
Tell more, my friend

>>18489437
He's wrong. Douay-Rheims is *the* Catholic Bible.

>>18489437
>>18489466
So should I check both?

>>18489470
Avoid Jerusalem. It is a translation from a French version of the Bible done in 1956. Protestants and liberal "Catholics" read it (Catholics cannot be liberal). The Douay-Rheims is translated from Saint Jerome's Latin Vulgate dating from the 4th century. The KJV is based on it.

>>18489504
I see, I will check out the Douay-Rheims version

>>18484814
Hit it cold turkey, don't ask any questions about things you read in it until you've reached the end

Do a 1-year reading plan. It's about 20 min/day. There's even Bibles made specifically with reading plans, or just read along with a podcast, like this one by Fr. Mike Schmitz.
https://bibleinayear.fireside.fm/

>>18485450
Imagine the type of person who sees their helpless, vulnerable young son and thinks "I need a sharp stone to slice off the tip of his penis!". Religion takes morally normal and decent people and makes them do wicked, pointless, and harmful acts. The mental gymnastics necessary to even attempt to rehabilitate this passage would be astonishing to watch.

>>18489504
based

You will become an atheist somewhere in the middle of Deuteronomy.
If you can make it to Kings or Chronicles, you are actually an ubermensch.

Start at the Old Testament, don't flip between the two Testaments and don't start at the New Testament
Make up your own mind about what the text is saying
Also the NRSV with the oxford annotations is very readable, I like the edition a lot

>>18490740
Yeah, it becomes extremely obvious that it's all just been made up by a bunch of bronze age sheep hoarders.

>>18484814
https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145
https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152
There you go
In before muh wommens, muh juice, muh anglos schizo spamfest

>>18484814
By Jove, don't read it if you have any fucking brains

>>18490875
Yeah I can recommend this, I've watched like 80% of her lectures and they're great

>>18484814
Read it with commentary.

>>18485207
>>18485292
Decided to order the Oxford Annotated study bible. It sounds right up my alley. It seems almost similar to those Landmark editions of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon

>>18489504
>>18489511
>>18489470
There's nothing liberal about it and only the notes are directly translated from French.