The Bible is boring and insipid

[웃 910]

The Bible is boring and insipid

Yes, I have moved beyond Sophisticated Theology™ to the horses's mouth: the King James Bible (and believe me, it's embarrassing to sit on a plane and be observed reading the thing). I've read sections of it over the years, but am now required (by myself) to start at the beginning and plow right through. I wonder how many visitors here have actually readthe damn thing. And although I dislike it, I feel that in some way I'll benefit from it, for I'll get to see how contrived, how man-made, and how truly stifling the book is to the human spirit. And I hope I'll better understand the delusions that afflict my countrymen.

The book is not pleasant—at least 150 pages in. And when I think that I have 950 pages to go, my heart sinks to my metatarsals.

I know that Richard Dawkins and others tout the Bible's beautiful poetry, and indeed, there is some, but I wonder how much of that poetry was in the original, and how much was value added by King James's group of translators. Now I've read only 150 pages (to Numbers 23) but there is precious little poetry in there. In fact, almost none. If you regard the Bible as a book of fiction, one to be treasured for its beauty, you'd put it down before you ever got through Genesis. No, if one must read the Bible, read it not for the beauty of its prose but as a work of fiction that has deeply influenced our culture: as a way of understanding our enemies. If someone found this book in a used bookstore and it hadn't become the basis of a religion, they would not prize it as a wonderful story. I'd love to see it reviewed purely as a work of fiction, without any religious connotations.

Here is my take so far:

• The early part of the Bible is unbearably tedious. Besides the long lists of genealogies, heads of clans, and so forth, there are excruciatingly painful descriptions of how God wants the ark of the tabernacle to be built. Stuff like this, for example (from Exodus 26):

¹

Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle

with

ten curtains

of

fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet:

with

cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.

²

The length of one curtain

shall be

eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and every one of the curtains shall have one measure.

³

The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and

other

five curtains

shall be

coupled one to another.

⁴

And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of

another

curtain, in the coupling of the second.

⁵

Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that

is

in the coupling of the second; that the loops may take hold one of another.

⁶

And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, and couple the curtains together with the taches: and it shall be one tabernacle.

⁷

And thou shalt make curtains

of

goats'

hair

to be a covering upon the tabernacle: eleven curtains shalt thou make.

⁸

The length of one curtain

shall be

thirty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and the eleven curtains

shall be all

of one measure.

⁹

And thou shalt couple five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves, and shalt double the sixth curtain in the forefront of the tabernacle.

¹⁰

And thou shalt make fifty loops on the edge of the one curtain

that is

outmost in the coupling, and fifty loops in the edge of the curtain which coupleth the second.

¹¹

And thou shalt make fifty taches of brass, and put the taches into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one.

¹²

And the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remaineth, shall hang over the backside of the tabernacle.

¹³

And a cubit on the one side, and a cubit on the other side of that which remaineth in the length of the curtains of the tent, it shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on this side and on that side, to cover it.

¹⁴

And thou shalt make a covering for the tent

of

rams' skins dyed red, and a covering above

of

badgers' skins.

¹⁵

And thou shalt make boards for the tabernacle

of

shittim wood standing up.

¹⁶

Ten cubits

shall be

the length of a board, and a cubit and a half

shall be

the breadth of one board.

¹⁷

Two tenons

shall there be

in one board, set in order one against another: thus shalt thou make for all the boards of the tabernacle.

¹⁸

And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards on the south side southward.

And that's just a sample. This ####### description of how God wants his words encased goes on for pages! Equally tedious are the many parts where God orders sacrifices to himself, and gives minute instructions about how the various parts of an ox should be disposed of: the head, the fat, the dung, and so on. It's not good literature—not at all.

Plus there's stuff like this (from Numbers, Chapter 13)

¹

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

²

Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them.

³

And Moses by the commandment of the LORD sent them from the wilderness of Paran: all those men

were

heads of the children of Israel.

⁴

And these

were

their names: of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur.

⁵

Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori.

⁶

Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.

⁷

Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph.

⁸

Of the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea the son of Nun.

⁹

Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu.

¹⁰

Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi.

¹¹

Of the tribe of Joseph,

namely

, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi.

¹²

Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.

¹³

Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael.

¹⁴

Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi.

¹⁵

Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.

¹⁶

These

are

the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.

Yawn.

• God is a horrible megalomaniac. I don't get this at all. He's GOD, for crying out loud: omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good. Why the hell does he need people to praise him all the time, and why does he kill those who fail to do so? If he's perfect, he wouldn't need that kind of constant reinforcement. For example, some of the Israelis, wandering in the desert, are getting sick of eating manna all the time, and kvetch about not having meat. So what does God do? He makes it rain quails—thousands of luscious birds falling from the sky. And then, when the people bite into those toothsome birds, God smites them with the plague for their lust, killing many of them. What? They deserve to die because they want some real food? (Numbers 11:31-33).

As well all know, God is a horrible taskmaster, and mandates death for anyone who works on the Sabbath. This is what happens to some poorschlemiel who wanted wood on Saturday (Numbers, Chapter 15):

³²

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.

³³

And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.

³⁴

And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.

³⁵

And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

³⁶

And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.

What kind of God is that? How can anyone derive morality from such a thing?

The most incongruous passage is this (Numbers 14:18):

The LORD

is

longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing

the guilty

, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth

generation

.

Yeah, really great mercy. . .

• A lot of it makes no sense. I was amused at Moses's repeated attempts to get Pharaoh to let the Jews leave Egypt. He repeatedly asks for the exit visa, Pharaoh repeatedly refuses, and so God sends frogs, or boils, or locusts, to afflict the Egyptians. Each time Pharaoh says, "Okay, I give in—you can leave." But then God hardens Pharaoh's heart and makes him renege on his promise. The plagues go on, a new and horrible one each time, and each time Pharaoh reneges on his pledge because God has "hardened his heart". Eventually, after all the Egyptian firstborn are killed in The Great Passover, he gives in for good, but tons of damage has already been done to the Egyptian people and their land. My question is this: why didn't God soften Pharaoh's heart so that he'd let the Jews leave? That would have avoided a lot of trouble. This is not a believable plot.

• It's plainly man-made. For one to take the words literally is unbelievably moronic. Besides the numerous miracles, the story of Noah's Ark, which makes no sense, there's the fact that people live to really old ages then. Moses made it to 120, Noah lived to the ripe old age of 950. Do Christians really buy that? Remember that the average life span at the time was certainly less than 40 years.

I know I'm in for some punishment (perhaps by readers as well!), but I'm determined to finish. Perhaps things will get better at Psalms and Proverbs. I've already read the four Gospels, so I know what's to come there (spoiler: Jesus dies), but I'm told that Revelation is insane.

No, you shouldn't read the Bible because of its poetry. The good bits, I predict, will be far outweighed by the stupid and boring bits. If you want pure good, read Dubliners or Crime and Punishment. You should read the Bible just so you can wonder what all the fuss was about.

Those of you who have read this tome: weigh in with the parts you like or dislike, or your experiences in reading it.

Edited June 24, 2012 by ☠

[james&olya 1,121]

I have read it. Some parts really are good but the part you are in now has as its principal value waking the reader up to how insane some of this religion thing can be!

[TiklingGuy 211]

Why do you care? Its all fiction right. Or are you just a secret pissed off believer? Sounds to me that you are a believer in God. You will be walking beside him in the kingdom of heaven! See you at church on sunday!

Edited June 24, 2012 by Paramedic(918)

[one...two...tree 2,762]

• It's plainly man-made. For one to take the words literally is unbelievably moronic. Besides the numerous miracles, the story of Noah's Ark, which makes no sense, there's the fact that people live to really old ages then. Moses made it to 120, Noah lived to the ripe old age of 950. Do Christians really buy that? Remember that the average life span at the time was certainly less than 40 years.

I know I'm in for some punishment (perhaps by readers as well!), but I'm determined to finish. Perhaps things will get better at Psalms and Proverbs. I've already read the four Gospels, so I know what's to come there (spoiler: Jesus dies), but I'm told that Revelation is insane.

No, you shouldn't read the Bible because of its poetry. The good bits, I predict, will be far outweighed by the stupid and boring bits. If you want pure good, read Dubliners or Crime and Punishment. You should read the Bible just so you can wonder what all the fuss was about.

Those of you who have read this tome: weigh in with the parts you like or dislike, or your experiences in reading it.

I went to a parochial school (Catholic) my freshman and sophomore years in high school, and beyond the passages spoken during Mass, I hadn't read the Bible. In fact, most Catholics do not read the Bible because the Church has a different approach to their religion, which is NOT based solely on scripture. So when I had my first religious studies class and we began to read the Book of Genesis, my teacher, Mr. Ribiki (who was from Detroit) told us students that there was no actual Adam and Eve, and that the Story of Creation is just that, a story. Catholics look at the Bible as clearly man-made, but inspired by God. While there are historical facts interwoven with storytelling, for the most part, Catholics do NOT regard each passage as the actually word of God. And even for most Protestants outside the U.S., they do not think it's literally the word of God. It's only the fundamentalists here in the states who started to think that anyone could pick up the Bible, read it, and know exactly what God was saying, no matter how bizarre, convoluted, or contradictory it was. The great irony in that is that these types of Christians who believe the Bible is literally the word of God and requires no careful study, understanding or discernment, habitually will have their preachers tell them what God is trying to say because apparently not everyone was given the gift of understanding what He wants everyone to understand.

But beyond that, the King James version is really not a good one to read from because the translation is not very contemporary compared to say, the American Bible. It is definitely not something that is easy to read and while there are some real pieces of good literature in it, some of it is just incomprehensible, like John's Book of Revelation.

While some Christians make the claim that their religion is based on the Bible, Christianity is really is built upon a concept or belief, which doesn't require the Bible or any other object to validate it. All it needs is faith.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Mister Fancypants

[B_J 2,752]

Two things: When someone new to Christianity asks for my advice about reading the Bible 1) I never recommend the King James version and 2) I never recommend they start at the beginning.

Depending on the person, I would recommend reading from the New International Version or The Message. I also recommend reading the New Testament first; start with Mark then James, then read the rest of the New Testament as you choose.

But that's just me.

[BishopM 114]

I went to a parochial school (Catholic) my freshman and sophomore years in high school, and beyond the passages spoken during Mass, I hadn't read the Bible. In fact, most Catholics do not read the Bible because the Church has a different approach to their religion, which is NOT based solely on scripture. So when I had my first religious studies class and we began to read the Book of Genesis, my teacher, Mr. Ribiki (who was from Detroit) told us students that there was no actual Adam and Eve, and that the Story of Creation is just that, a story. Catholics look at the Bible as clearly man-made, but inspired by God. While there are historical facts interwoven with storytelling, for the most part, Catholics do NOT regard each passage as the actually word of God. And even for most Protestants outside the U.S., they do not think it's literally the word of God. It's only the fundamentalists here in the states who started to think that anyone could pick up the Bible, read it, and know exactly what God was saying, no matter how bizarre, convoluted, or contradictory it was. The great irony in that is that these types of Christians who believe the Bible is literally the word of God and requires no careful study, understanding or discernment, habitually will have their preachers tell them what God is trying to say because apparently not everyone was given the gift of understanding what He wants everyone to understand.

But beyond that, the King James version is really not a good one to read from because the translation is not very contemporary compared to say, the American Bible. It is definitely not something that is easy to read and while there are some real pieces of good literature in it, some of it is just incomprehensible, like John's Book of Revelation.

While some Christians make the claim that their religion is based on the Bible, Christianity is really is built upon a concept or belief, which doesn't require the Bible or any other object to validate it. All it needs is faith.

Hey Steve,

Long time no VJ...good to see you're still around +1

Regarding your post...I would have written the exact same reply. You're exactly right in what you've said. I love your bolded part above best If I had never read the Bible, I would still believe in God because...well...I have my reasons

Once I was reading an interpretation of the Bhadgavad Gita by Mahatma Ghandi. In the first few paragraphs, prior to his interpretation of the first verse he made a very interesting comment (at least it was interesting to me!). He said, and I paraphrase, "I quickly deducted that God uses real life situations to extol heavenly ideas." In other words, the purpose of the Bhadgavad Gita is not to memorize, literally, each and every of the 700 verses, but rather grasp the Spirit of the verse. I've always read the Christian Bible in the same manner, never once taking it as a literal/history book.

I also don't like the KJV. I don't know why people stick with that version because its very difficult to read. The first time I really read the Bible is was the KJV and I was totally baffled and, like Brother LI states, fed up. Shortly after that, I switched to the NIV and then the Bible made MUCH more sense...simple because it was in a language I could understand! Now my preferred version is the Saint Joseph's NASB...awesome read, with cool notes

Blessings!

MK

[BishopM 114]

Two things: When someone new to Christianity asks for my advice about reading the Bible 1) I never recommend the King James version and 2) I never recommend they start at the beginning.

Excellent suggestions! I would agree and and one more:

NEVER start by reading the Last Book, which is the Book of Revelations! That Book is just too..well...'out there'...but a lot of Evangelical/Fundamentalists seem to only care about this bizarre chapter (perhaps because it creates fear )! I rarely, if ever, read the Book of Revelations...I just don't/can't get it ...but, hey - thats just me

+1

Edited June 24, 2012 by BishopM

[BishopM 114]

Brother LI,

I also agree that the Book of Numbers is incredibly boring......but, you didn't hear that from me!

[Karee 4,191]

Hey Steve,

Long time no VJ...good to see you're still around +1

Regarding your post...I would have written the exact same reply. You're exactly right in what you've said. I love your bolded part above best If I had never read the Bible, I would still believe in God because...well...I have my reasons

Once I was reading an interpretation of the Bhadgavad Gita by Mahatma Ghandi. In the first few paragraphs, prior to his interpretation of the first verse he made a very interesting comment (at least it was interesting to me!). He said, and I paraphrase, "I quickly deducted that God uses real life situations to extol heavenly ideas." In other words, the purpose of the Bhadgavad Gita is not to memorize, literally, each and every of the 700 verses, but rather grasp the Spirit of the verse. I've always read the Christian Bible in the same manner, never once taking it as a literal/history book.

I also don't like the KJV. I don't know why people stick with that version because its very difficult to read. The first time I really read the Bible is was the KJV and I was totally baffled and, like Brother LI states, fed up. Shortly after that, I switched to the NIV and then the Bible made MUCH more sense...simple because it was in a language I could understand! Now my preferred version is the Saint Joseph's NASB...awesome read, with cool notes

Blessings!

MK

I take KJV = King James Bible. What is NIV? Just curious.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Still trying to convince yourself, eh Lord Infamous? Just think about that skewer going up your ### and coming out your mouth while you turn slowly over the hot fire. You're scared. The hole is getting deeper.

Edited June 25, 2012 by spookyturtle

[spookyturtle 9,466]

And this is what LI will be singing as he's roasting:

[웃 910]

I take KJV = King James Bible. What is NIV? Just curious.

KJV = King James Version

NIV = New International Version

If you go to the link at the end and hit the drop down arrow you can see all the different versions...

2 Samuel 8:1-2

New International Version (NIV)

David's Victories

8 In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg Ammah from the control of the Philistines.

² David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute.

http://www.biblegate...%20&version=NIV

Edited June 25, 2012 by ☠

[spookyturtle 9,466]

For an atheist you sure do have a bit of Bible knowledge. Or maybe you're not that kind of an atheist.

[웃 910]

For an atheist you sure do have a bit of Bible knowledge. Or maybe you're not that kind of an atheist.

Here is one for you:

1 Samuel 15:3

King James Version (KJV)

³ Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and as$.

http://www.biblegate...5:3&version=KJV

Edited June 25, 2012 by ☠

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Here's one for you. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to post on VJ and remove all doubt.