>>25375056
I agree the prose will not be surpassed for millennium to come. What are some other authors that have awesome prose other than God?

>>25375056
It's the translation that defined the English language to the same degree as Shakespeare.
Recently got a 1611 edition rather than the 1789 one.

>>25375254
>Recently got a 1611 edition rather than the 1789 one.
Good. That's the only real Bible in existence.

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>>25375056
amen

>>25375056
It’s boring. No one unironically enjoys five hundred pages of Israelite legal autism

>>25375056
Read moar.

>>25375303
Come on. the instructions for building a portable desert tabernacle in Exodus are indispensable.

>>25375303
When does the OT actually get interesting philosophically?

>>25375056
I guess this is my own reddit-atheist moment, but perhaps someone can help me with my own ignorance here.

I've had a difficult time finding the motivation to read the bible because I have this idea that each story and each parable and each book is written with the underlining message of "god exists and is great and christianity is true." And I feel like I won't like the reading experience because of it.

But maybe I'm completely wrong here. I "want" to read the Bible, but at the same time I feel put off by reading it if every second verse is reminding me how this is the true religion.

>>25375771
I'm an atheist but I enjoy the New Jerusalem Version for the literary value it possesses, and on a hermeneutic level, I think a lot of the Bible is great at storytelling, especially the New Testament, so I'd recommend trying to glean value from that as opposed to the proselytizing

>>25375771
https://circeinstitute.org/blog/blog-christopher-hitchens-was-right-about-king-james-bible/

>>25375771
Read academic biblical scholarship, it literally wasn't written with that message. It's totally untenable, hell some books aren't even monotheist.

>>25375771
Totally get what you mean. I have a hard time finding the motivation to read novels because I have this idea that each story and each parable and each book is written with the underlying message of "all these things really happened to me, the writer, and everything in this book is real."

>>25375771
If you have eyes to see and ears to hear, then you will not be able to read the bible because you will see how absolutely disgusting the minds of the authors are. It is a book of lies and pure evil that teaches hatred against all men in the name of "love." I just opened to a random page of psalms, in one verse it he prays to God to stain his garment in the blood of his enemies, in the next he praises God for his "lovingkindness." The killing and hatred doesn't bother me, but this hypocrisy on every page does. I pity the man who can read the bible without being thrown into a rage.

>>25376146
>in one verse it he prays to God to stain his garment in the blood of his enemies, in the next he praises God for his "lovingkindness."
Dude, this is just the ingroup preference of literally every warrior culture on earth. Accusing it of 'hypocrisy' because it doesn't resemble post-Christian liberal morality is insane. Seems like you have a chip on your shoulder.

>>25376156
>this is just the ingroup preference of literally every warrior culture on earth.
Yeah, that's why I hate all humans. All humans are morally despicable hypocrites. The bible is just one of the purest examples.

>>25376166
Lol okay, I thought you had a serious complaint but this is just fedora tier LARPing. You're either underage or autistic.

>>25376182
>if the constant murder, rape, torture, genocide, and war throughout history and the myths and "culture" used to justify it bother you, you must be underage or autistic
Well, it's fine with me if you don't care about those things, as long as I don't see you claiming that you love humans or whatever.

>>25376132
>all these things really happened to me, the writer, and everything in this book is real.
Yes, the bible was written with this in mind. Your analogy is incredibly weak. I get the point you're trying to make, but it doesn't even remotely land since the bible is written as the true word of God, whereas Bram Stoker's Dracula was not written with that intention.

>>25376193
Someone who 'hates all humans' can hardly claim any sort of moral superiority. And do you also hate yourself? Or do you think you're one of the few so profoundly self-aware that you never practice this hypocrisy that apparently all of humanity inherits? This obsession with hypocrisy is really the most obvious giveaway that you're not being honest, that you're motivated by a personal resentment or some psychological issue that has nothing to do with honestly evaluating human nature. To place the sin of hypocrisy up with the enormous immoralities of history is ridiculous, yet you do so without a hint of irony. Never mind how intellectually pitiful the simplicity of your worldview is, which does not even take into account the martyrdom of early Christians.

>>25376221
NTA but most mythological and religious texts were believed as literally true early in their history and that doesn't stop anyone from appreciating them as fiction. You're seriously retarded. A significant part of the pleasure gained from literature is in putting yourself into the worldview of a completely different time and place, expanding your own sensibility and experience. You don't have to believe in Christianity or Buddhism or whatever to aesthetically appreciate their cultures.

>>25376248
>do you think you're one of the few so profoundly self-aware that you never practice this hypocrisy that apparently all of humanity inherits
It really isn't a high bar to not be hated by me. All you have to do is not claim to be morally in the right in the same moment that you promote killing and ostracizing people and in the same moment that you condemn others. I never claimed I was moral. I don't believe in morality. I simply hate people who do, because they only use it to hate others. I do not really care if this is self contradictory, it's just simply a fact that I find these people disgusting, not that I am claiming they are "wrong."
>which does not even take into account the martyrdom of early Christians.
lol, lmao even.

>>25376260
>I do not really care if this is self contradictory, it's just simply a fact that I find these people disgusting, not that I am claiming they are "wrong."
Okay, that is your particular subjective orientation. But just because it is subjective does not mean it cannot be judged as inferior to superior to other orientations. The practical problem with it is that it's an extraordinarily limiting outlook. You're cutting yourself off from understanding most of history and culture because you enjoy feeling intellectually superior. It's the type of worldview you expect from a teenager with an enthusiasm for black metal, not from someone whose hobby is literature. How can you possibly appreciate the aesthetic qualities of Dante or Homer if all you're doing is relating it back to your dime store nihilism? It's just not serious. Plenty of people before you have had nihilistic or acrimonious views of the world without being simplistic and stupid.

>has the best prose in english
as an avid kjv reader, absolutely not
the style is very low, relying on too much static vocabulary and staying too true to the Hebrew and Greek syntax at times to be seriously called the greatest english prose work (Moby Dick deserves that title).
yet it is definitely classic, definitely a style worth emulating for making your writing seem refined, but your elegy is simply too bombastic to hold up to scrutiny.

>>25375254
what edition? is it a comfortable size for reading? I’d like the 1611 edition to have the longer introduction and the apocrypha. also, is it hardcover?

>>25375771
just throw your assumptions away and read it as a skeptic. it won’t do the Bible any harm.

>>25376132
you seem upset that someone is skeptical about the bible and, rather than provide a calm and rational defense, you resort to a petty and illogical denigration of fiction. do better, on behalf of all christians everywhere, I say, to present our faith to the world.

I think it's really interesting that it's supposedly a Prot Bible but it has the Catholic books in it. Kind of makes you wonder if the Stuarts were always on the Church's side deep down.

>>25376284
Melville babby filtered by the grand style which exists in alliance with the utmost simplicity, not surprised.

>>25375303
>>25375567
>>25375572
There's like maybe 50-100 pages of objectively boring stuf. If you can't enjoy Genesis you're broken