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I just started reading an English translation and I think it is quite facniating. I wanted to see how many others here have read it. Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Well thats because... you know I'm not really sure why that is. Last time I tried reading it was when I was 12 and I fell asleep in the process.
(then again I also fell asleep listening to the boring sermons from my minister) /not making fun, he was just very old and didn't make it exciting for kids/
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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I was 14 when I read it. I was the only one in my sunday school class who took my faith seriously. (and as far as I know, I was the only one who lost it.)
I'm interested in reading the Quran. I think it's important to understand our enemies(*). But I think, being in a generally christian nation, I would re-read the bible first as it has more direct impact on my life.
Pix
(*) Standard disclaimer... Not all muslims are our enemies. Just the Terrorists and their support network.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Actually from what I've read it seems like Al Quada and Osama are doing everything they can to piss off Alah (think I'm spelling it right). Every act that they claim is done in his name is like an insult to the entire Muslim people and their faith. And I have yet to find anthing that suggests that Muslim women should be restricted so much. But then again I have barely gotten through the second chapter.
And Karl, not likely the Quran is not as... easily surmised into a form of media the way Gibson did with the Passion. Still don't have much love for that movie, after all for being so realistic they forgot to add that JESUS WAS BLACK!
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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You can't single out any on thing in the Quaran to make a movie out of it. Its too complex to be done. But maybe you can find an Audio tape of the Quaran if you don't have the patience to read it.
Is that better Karl?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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1. My first post was a joke. 2. I was not confused at all about your point on the difficulty of making the Quran into a movie. 3. My first post was a joke.
quote:JESUS WAS BLACK!
Joke? I don't get it. Serious? I don't get it.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Actually, recent archaeological evidence suggests that Jesus was much more likely to have been a Prell user.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I'm a Muslim and I am ashamed to admit that I haven't read the Qur'an all the way through. I know bits of it, especially the bits that crop up in the daily prayers, but I certainly haven't read it as a whole.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: You have your sect and I'll have mine. We'll have lots and lots of sects.
You're on. I think we can both agree, though, that the people who claim he used Pert are filthy lying heretics.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Technically, If its not in the original Arabic, its not the Qur'an. I have read the english translation of some excerts.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I've read about a third of it for school, as part of our 'Texts and Traditions' cirriculum.
I'll be going back and reading more as part of my preparation and research for my thesis.
Its very interesting in terms of a) its unique perspective and b) its comparision to the popular beliefs about social Islam. I distinctly remember some of my classmates having a difficult time accepting what they were reading as it seemed so dissimilar to what teachers and the media havae told us about Islam.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Very true Jenna. When we did our reading excerpts from the Bible, I tried to raise that exact point. But as most of my classmates attended Catholic schooling all their life, the topic was too close to them to accept the possibility of contradiction.
I actually need to find some Mormon missionaries. I had Mormon friends in high school, but as their religion made our Christian friends umcomfortable, we never discussed matters of faith. The Book of Mormon has been on my list of future reads for awhile now. I'll just have to find the time.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I've read only excerpts from the Quran. As for the Bible, I'd love to say I've read the whole thing through. I participated in a "read the Bible in a year program" but I'm going to be honest - I skipped through parts of Chronicles and some of the minor prophets.
I can say I've read the entire New Testament, many times.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Advent 115: I just started reading an English translation and I think it is quite facniating. I wanted to see how many others here have read it.
Not translation. Interpretation. Muslims are 100% when they say that reading the Qur'an in anything but the original Arabic isn't actually reading the Qur'an.
I've read parts of it. I was less than impressed with the part about Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Ishmael.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Technically, If its not in the original Arabic, its not the Qur'an. I have read the english translation of some excerts.
Then again, the same is true of the Hebrew Bible.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: I'm waiting for the movie.
When I was little, DC put out a series of oversized comics. I mean, gigantic. Like 20"x15" or something. One of them was a graphic novel version of the Bible. I used to have that, but I don't any more.
Everything is easier to read in graphic novel form. I've never actually read Huck Finn. Reading in dialect annoyed me too much. When we did the book in high school, I relied on the Classics Illustrated version I'd read (and the animated movie).
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I got a free Quran in the mail a while ago, but I haven't had the time to read any of it. Can anybody point me to a list of the most important sections or some website that would help me get the most out of my limited time available for reading it?
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Technically, If its not in the original Arabic, its not the Qur'an. I have read the english translation of some excerts.
Then again, the same is true of the Hebrew Bible.
As you mentioned, Muslims are in 100% agreement that its not the Qur'an if its not in arabic. In contrast, only a tiny fraction that recognize the Bible as scripture insist that is not The Bible if it has been translated into a modern language. I think that the distinction is real and should be recognized.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Everything is easier to read in graphic novel form.
This, I think, depends on your learning style. I am completely incapable of reading anything in graphic novel form, because my brain is not visually oriented. I get halfway through, realize I am getting nothing out of it, and realize it is because I have been reading the words and not paying any attention to the pictures.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Technically, If its not in the original Arabic, its not the Qur'an. I have read the english translation of some excerts.
Then again, the same is true of the Hebrew Bible.
As you mentioned, Muslims are in 100% agreement that its not the Qur'an if its not in arabic. In contrast, only a tiny fraction that recognize the Bible as scripture insist that is not The Bible if it has been translated into a modern language. I think that the distinction is real and should be recognized.
Since I'm part of that "tiny fraction", I don't accept the distinction you're making.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Everything is easier to read in graphic novel form.
This, I think, depends on your learning style. I am completely incapable of reading anything in graphic novel form, because my brain is not visually oriented. I get halfway through, realize I am getting nothing out of it, and realize it is because I have been reading the words and not paying any attention to the pictures.
Wow. Okay, clearly I'm wrong about that.
I know I read comics differently than a lot of people, too. Once, back in Junior High, I wanted to trace a picture (I think of Supergirl). I had the exact image in my head, and I knew where to look for it. But it turned out that the image I was thinking of never existed. It was midway between two panels in a Supergirl comicbook I owned. The format flows for me so that my mind fills in the blanks between panels, and even though I could "see" what I was looking for in my mind's eye, it was just my imagination.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I've actually read The Bible (or for sL, The King James Interpretation of Many Books of So-Called Ancient Scripture Collectively Referred to by Christians as The Bible ) cover to cover a couple of times. It really drags around the middle, but the beginning and ending are pretty good. I'd love to see it made into a Peter Jackson movie. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I first read the Bible (from cover to cover) when I was around seven I think. It was heavy going in parts for a seven year old but I was fascinated. It was about seven more years before I would actually read the Qur'an all the way through I think Or maybe it was three. I've read the Qur'an all the way through a couple of times since then but the thing is, at least here in Sri Lanka, we are taught how to read in Arabic but we have no idea what we are reading Fortunately, I lived a year in Saudi Arabia and know a smattering of Arabic. But I don't believe a translation does full justice.
But then again, even if you know Arabic, would you truly comprehend what is there or would you make your own interpretation of things? Muslims today interpret certain things in the Qur'an to suit their needs or forget certain things because they are "socially" accepted (or not accepted). The problem to me is that religion, no matter which religion, is only as good as the people who practice it. And the problem is with the people ... Yes, I'll get off my soap box now Posts: 136 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Since I'm part of that "tiny fraction", I don't accept the distinction you're making.
starLisa, So you see no difference what so ever in the fact that 100% of those who recognize the Qur'an as scripture say it is only scripture if it is in Arabic and the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who recognize the Hebrew Bible as scripture see translations as scripture? And your explanation for this is that you can not see the distinction because you are part of a tiny minority. Wow!!
I've never met someone who openly admitted being so completely unable to see beyond their own narrow views.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Nope, not gonna say it. Fahim, when I was 8 and 9 I went through my "reading-every-religious-text-I-could-get-my-hands-on" phase. So about the same age. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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If you want to be that strict about the Bible, I wouldn't trust much of the Bibles that are sold around the world, especially not in the US.
The Bible we have today is NOT the Bible that was written a couple thousand years ago, and that's leaving the issues with translation out, which make the issue even more complex, and the distance even further.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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The Bible is not that old. Some of the writings might be, but not all, and it certainly wasn't compiled that long ago.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Then I suppose what really matters is what you want to believe in. First of all, parts of the Old Testement ARE that old. But really, when does it matter when it was compiled? If all the parts of the Bible were written four thousand years ago (I know, none of them were), but weren't compiled until a couple hundred years ago, then are you really not concerned what changed in those books over the last few thousand years?
Much of what is the modern Bible was assmbled more than 1,500 years ago, and some of the individual books within it go back much further than that. The problem is that PRINTED versions of the Bible don't start popping up until around the 16th century. So you have a good thousand years of hand written Bibles and also non-written stories passed down vocally. By the time the printing press came around to bring some form of standardization, you'd be hard pressed to find more than a couple Bibles in history that are exactly the same.
Copiers changed things becuase of bad memory, because of accidents or carelessness, or simply because they didn't like what the real version said. And then those versions would be further copied and so on and on it went, mutating as it was copied over a thousand years (or more, depending on which section of the Bible).
And that's just in Greek, or other languages that aren't spoken today. Don't forget also how Constantine screwed up the Bible pretty hard core by just plain inventing Latin words to matchup with Greek words that had no equivilant.
To sum up, with the possible exception of old Hebrew texts (which only applies to a few books of the Old Testement), no Bible in the world today is exactly the same as the original Bibles (thank the Romans for that), and we'll never know what is missing.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I read the Qu'ran (translation into English, of course) in high school and for no good reason other than because I was curious. I haven't read it again since, except for bits and pieces here and there. I keep meaning to...
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I've actually read The Bible (or for sL, The King James Interpretation of Many Books of So-Called Ancient Scripture Collectively Referred to by Christians as The Bible ) cover to cover a couple of times. It really drags around the middle, but the beginning and ending are pretty good. I'd love to see it made into a Peter Jackson movie.
Someone should start a casting thread.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Since I'm part of that "tiny fraction", I don't accept the distinction you're making.
starLisa, So you see no difference what so ever in the fact that 100% of those who recognize the Qur'an as scripture say it is only scripture if it is in Arabic and the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who recognize the Hebrew Bible as scripture see translations as scripture?
No. Because the overwhelming majority of those who recognize the Hebrew Bible as scripture reject the entire context of the Hebrew Bible. As such, their views don't really count.
Look, a translation of those books may very well be every bit as good as the original for Christians. Better, even. Maybe. But that doesn't concern me. Those books don't say what Christians say they do. And yes, as a member of the people from whom those books were hijacked, I'm unwilling to give any credence to what the hijackers say about our holy books.
The KJV is not a translation of the Hebrew Bible. It is an interpretation. A misinterpretation. It may be a part of the Christian Bible, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Hebrew Bible.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: And your explanation for this is that you can not see the distinction because you are part of a tiny minority. Wow!!
I didn't say that. Go back and reread what I actually did say.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I've never met someone who openly admitted being so completely unable to see beyond their own narrow views.
Not at all. I know something you don't. That doesn't make my view narrow. Merely more informed.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Shanna: A couple thousand years ago??
The Bible is not that old. Some of the writings might be, but not all, and it certainly wasn't compiled that long ago.
'Scuze? You're quite mistaken. Everything in the Hebrew Bible predates the Common Era by centuries. The latest of the books in the Hebrew Bible being Chronicles, which was finished before Alexander crossed the Macedonian borders.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The problem is that PRINTED versions of the Bible don't start popping up until around the 16th century.
The oldest known complete copy of the Hebrew Bible dates to the 10th century CE. And it was known to have been copied in its entirety from earlier copies. No one even posits that it was assembled in the 10th century.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Copiers changed things becuase of bad memory, because of accidents or carelessness, or simply because they didn't like what the real version said.
That's an interesting theory. But you're not acquainted with the rigor involved in copying biblical books among the Jews. One letter being wrong renders the entire book invalid and unusable until fixed. And since there are religious requirements regarding the use of these books, it wasn't a trivial issue.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: To sum up, with the possible exception of old Hebrew texts (which only applies to a few books of the Old Testement),
Actually, with the exception of Daniel, which is mostly written in Aramaic, and Ezra, which has a number of passages written in Aramaic, every single book of what you call the "Old Testament" is one of those "old Hebrew texts". I don't know where you got the idea otherwise. No Romans had any influence whatsoever on the content of the Hebrew Bible. They didn't even know the language; they could hardly have interfered.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The problem is that PRINTED versions of the Bible don't start popping up until around the 16th century.
The oldest known complete copy of the Hebrew Bible dates to the 10th century CE. And it was known to have been copied in its entirety from earlier copies. No one even posits that it was assembled in the 10th century.
What's your point? Or rather, how does your point fit the quotation you used?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Copiers changed things becuase of bad memory, because of accidents or carelessness, or simply because they didn't like what the real version said.
That's an interesting theory. But you're not acquainted with the rigor involved in copying biblical books among the Jews. One letter being wrong renders the entire book invalid and unusable until fixed. And since there are religious requirements regarding the use of these books, it wasn't a trivial issue.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: To sum up, with the possible exception of old Hebrew texts (which only applies to a few books of the Old Testement),
Actually, with the exception of Daniel, which is mostly written in Aramaic, and Ezra, which has a number of passages written in Aramaic, every single book of what you call the "Old Testament" is one of those "old Hebrew texts". I don't know where you got the idea otherwise. No Romans had any influence whatsoever on the content of the Hebrew Bible. They didn't even know the language; they could hardly have interfered.
The only way your first point has any merit against my argument, is if you are suggesting that only Jews have ever copied Bibles around the world. I wasn't aware of the great Jewish tradition of copying Christian Bibles, but heck, maybe they were just good at calligraphy, you'd know that better than I would. So far as the Hebrew Bible goes, I have nothing to contradict you with there, I just don't know, but the Bible, as in, the Christian Bible, to which I am mostly referring to, well, I don't see how you could make that claim.
On your second point. Oops. You're right. With the exception that I find it hard to believe that no one, even scholars of the Roman Empire knew how to speak Hebrew.
Edit to add:
What I call the "old testament" is what billions around the world call the "old testament."
Shanna -
The "Hebrew Bible" or Old Testament is the first half of the Bible. You're still at least half wrong or all wrong depending on your interpretation.
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quote:Not at all. I know something you don't. That doesn't make my view narrow. Merely more informed.
I'm still not clear what it is you know that I or the approximately 1 billion citizens of the planet who consider translations of the Hebrew Bible to be scripture do not know. Perhaps when you could be more precise about what knowledge I'm lacking.
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I think the Muslims and Jews that are adamant about maintaining the true original words of their holy texts are totally on the right track.
The Jews have been very careful about maintaining a character-by-character exact written record as far back as is possible, as have the Muslims. The fact that the vast majority of Muslims feel the original is the only true version and only a small fraction of Jews feel the same way is interesting to note.
Christians, so far as I know, have no care whatsoever about original languages, yet many will argue at the top of their voices about specific quotations justifying this or that or the other thing.
My opinion on the matter is if you're going to have faith in the text itself, you have to have the original source of the words. starLisa has very strong faith in her holy text, in its original, and I'm sure feels only distaste for those who speak of later language variations on the original as the "real thing".
However, as most of the world is not able to read Hebrew, they must rely on variations of the text in different languages if they are to have any access or understanding of the Jewish faith. The same can be said about the Quran (though there are far more speakers of Arabic than Hebrew, surely).
It's good that Advent is reading the English variation/interpretation/translation of the Quran to gain some insight into a culture that is foreign to him. It's good to read english language versions of the Hebrew Bible, as well. It gives you a greater picture on how people different from yourself think.
Of course, you can't then argue "this is what they mean!" or "this is what they believe!", since you are essentially playing a game of telephone. The best you can hope for is to ask a native speaker "Is this what this passage means? Can you help me understand?"
I would never think to read an English variant of the Hebrew Bible and tell starLisa what it says as if that were truth. But, if a passage struck me as strange or odd, I might ask her to give me the skinny on what the original says.
Now, I'm not one to take any written source as the ultimate "truth" - nor am I one to believe that any words were divinely inspired, or that anyone was divinely directed to write something down. That's what makes me somewhat areligious.
But for some nut to quote chapter and verse of the King James Bible as though it were literal, exact, direct-from-God's-mouth truth is just plain silly. That's a loooong way down the game of telephone.
That doesn't mean the KJV doesn't have meaning and wisdom, nor does it mean an english variation of the Hebrew Bible or Quran doesn't have truth or wisdom. Those are just not things one can get fanatically devout about, in my opinion, without coming off as willfully deluded.
That is not to say I don't feel people who believe in an original source as ultimate truth aren't (in some entirely different way) willfully deluded, but that's a matter of my not holding the same faith or beliefs as they do.
So, to cap a very long post, good show to Advent for opening his mind to new points of view, and to anyone who picks up a holy book (or other language variant) of a culture to broaden their horizons and maybe pick up some wisdom along the way.
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) cover to cover a couple of times. It really drags around the middle, but the beginning and ending are pretty good. I'd love to see it made into a Peter Jackson movie. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Or maybe it was three. I've read the Qur'an all the way through a couple of times since then but the thing is, at least here in Sri Lanka, we are taught how to read in Arabic but we have no idea what we are reading 
