Namaste Dragonseer,
Great question.
...I thought, "What a terrible God. No wonder God-Fearing is such a compliment." ...
Since then I use the Bible mainly to argue against Christian beliefs. I have a right to do that....
I don't think using Hebrew or Greek changes the basic black evil of the Bible.
Namaste Amerigen,
I'm saddenned that you take allegory, mythology and stories so litterally. Tis a shame kids are raised that way and turned away from an amazing life of biblical interpretation as it unfolds in their day to day life. In my view G!d didn't hasn't killed anyone. Primitive man needed someone to blame for floods, plagues and pests....seems we are still pretty primitive today does it not?
For me anytime I read of an angry or vengeful G!d I look to the story for a metaphysical interpretation in my life.
I prefer to read a bunch of translations when I want to decipher some passage with lexicons and word-studies.
NASB or KJV works for general usage though.
It wasn't written in English and so there are lots of issues as a result due to that....to be expected though.
While I agree that optimum would be to read the orginal texts in their original language there are two main issues with that. We haven't one original text. All we have is copies with many inconsitencies and differences... Second, the Koine Greek, the Coptic, the Aramaic, the Latin and the Hebrew of yesteryear would take a lifetime of study to even get close to being able to decipher the meaning of the texts we do have. They had idioms much like we do today, and the meanings of their slang and their idioms are lost, so misinterpretations of what was written are rampant.
That being said I agree with Shawn or use a similar tact. I've found two parallel bibles, one with four versions (so each page has two columns, when the book is layed open you see four columns, two on each page and you can look directly from one translation to the next comparing and contrasting all four columns) The other bible has three more versions and a commentary column...and then there is the lexicon. So between the three books I can read what each translator thought best fit their agenda for translation. And then we add the metaphysical bible dictionary....and somewhere in the process with a little contemplation, meditation and circumnambulation I find something in that passage that speaks to me for that moment in time. Look back at the same passage, two months, two years, two decades, or maybe even two days or two hours later...and my recently accumulated experiences and my changed perspective might shed new light on the very same thought.
As I see it our history is written....and it can all be found on the pages of this book. As we either have or will all wrestle with G!d, all will spend our time in the desert and the wilderness, we've both slaughtered Goliath and been slain by David, we've all extermintated the Amalekites, and went back to insure every man woman and child was dead, we all carry our cross to our own crucifiction, and we'll all rise again.
