Quote:
Originally Posted by bomaroast
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The bible has some good stories and good life lessons, but there isn't much of God in there. It's a a collection of hymns, letters and stories written in the desert 3000-1700 years ago, and then translated a half a dozen times before it makes it to your modern, english-reading eyes. If you've ever read the subtitles in a film where you also understand the language being spoken, you will have noticed that the translation is often bizarrely wrong. That's because perfect translation is always impossible. Languages are different from one another, and different users of those languages literally think differently from one another as a result. Language shapes the mind. Now remember again, that the bible has been translated multiple times. There's just no point in wasting your time reading modern translations. Find a good bible study, that goes into the original documents and what those original words in their original language mean.
If you're going to just plow through the translated version, I'd suggest that you'd be better off reading a religious text that you more unfamiliar with, such as the Upanishads.
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The life lessons are God.
And you are correct about the translations. There are usually subtle differences, but some editions differ quite significantly in order to fit a certain doctrine. These editions are not the KJV or the Catholic NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) but more limited editions used in marginal churches. There are many of them.
Here are examples of the subtle differences between KJV and Douay-Rheims (I do not know which Douay-Rheims version):
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org...-douay_rheims/
I have heard that the original meaning of "Thou shalt not kill" is closer to "Thou shalt not murder" but the translation to "kill" doesn't convey the original meaning properly and leaves it as way too ambiguous. I mean killing an animal for food is killing, killing a plant for food is killing, killing an enemy in war is killing...