I'm almost 53 and have ignored his word long enough.
I started in Genesis and just turned to Ezra this morning.
I've learned a lot already.
For those who have read through the bible, what did you do when you finished? Start over??
My plan is to read through and start over at the beginning and STAY in the word. That is where I feel safe.
I've learned a lot about the faith I already had!
I have read only parts of both Chronicles, both Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but other than those, I have read the rest of God's Word at least once, most books in the NT many more times than once and that was how I became born-again---reading my Bible, book by book in context, at my kitchen table.
So, you read it book by book, but not Chronicles, Kings, Jeremiah or Ezekiel? I guess 62 out of 66 ain't bad.
i wish i could say that [i've read the whole thing], the heart is willing....
Hey, I'm an atheist, and I read all the begats- more than once! Yeesh.
I'm ashamed to say I've never read the Bible all the way through. Parts of it, yes. But not the whole thing. I start with the intention of doing so, and then I always get distracted and fail.
I've read some of it. It's totally the most important thing in my life, though. I live every moment by what it says . . . in the limited portions I have read.
Statistically most people who set ouyt to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation get bogged down early on in the OT. If you attempt this some of the books and chapters are kind of redundant and you wind up asking yourself, "Didn't I just read this yestersay?"
Yestersay aside, the Bible, the literal word of god, is a bit redundant.
I have read probably all of the new testament... and parts of the old.
Probably all? Parts? It's only, you know, central to your faith.
You know what bothers me the most about this? It makes "the Bible is the literal word of God- and that's why I'm trying to install a theocracy and why I hate gays" so disingenuous. Think about this for a second. If I thought any book was the direct word of an omnipotent, omniscient being who had the ability and apparent desire to torture me for all eternity, I would do nothing but read the Bible. I might not even bother with working and doing dishes and mopping floors. Even if I did do those things, I certainly wouldn't waste any time watching tv or reading other books or playing video games or chatting online.
These people can't get through the New Testament (the superrelevant part for Christians), let alone the Old Testament, yet they still claim to believe the book is the literal word of such a god? Stop lying to me.
Yeah I have read it several times. For the words of an omnipotent, omniscient being it sure is dull. The Silmarillion was more exciting and it was a Yawnfest. In fact I don't think I have ever read a more boring book. The authors of the Bible even managed to make genocidal wars humdrum.
ReplyDeleteIt really was the second or third time through the OT that I even realized they were describing genocide, it was so boring.
ReplyDeleteIt probably doesn't help that most versions out there are KJV. The modern translations are a bit more able to hold the attention span of your average literate human, though not by much. But the KJV is all but impossible to read.
ReplyDeleteThe whole "numbering your verses" thing doesn't help, either. You're writing a narrative, not a goddamn poem!
For the record: I don't use bookmarks, and I can't remember page numbers. I find my place by flipping through the narrative and finding the events (or, non-fiction, the subject) I was reading about before I put the book down. If I can't remember what I was reading about before I left it, that's an indicator of how badly written it is. The bible is the absolute worst for this. There is no real narrative to speak of, the characters personalities are all interchangably awful (when they even have them), and I know how all of the halfway decent stories end through cultural osmosis.
i've read it 3 times - well, i only read the "begats" once, after that i skimmed them.
ReplyDeletei've also read the Quo'ran and the Book of Mormon - i've been trying to get ahold of a complete version of the Hindu HolyBook [name escaping me - just woke up from a nightmare, not all the way awake]
hence my common [outraged] scream of "DON'T THEY READ THEIR OWN HOLY BOOK?!" everyone time some moron makes some pronouncment about what Christians "should" do that is completely and totally anti-Biblical.
even when i SHOW THEM where something that they want to do is against the Bible, they pay no attention - but i fucking swear, the next person to tell me "Even Satan can quote scripture" is going to HURT as i beat them to death with my fucking wheelchair!