purple_kathryn

it gave me something to do while waiting for the sermon to be over

BWE

Well. That means I voted wrong. I have read the entire old book but out of order. I read the gospels all at a go and got through the rest on a skip araound basis. I've read them all but some only once. Many books I've read multiple times. in the OT I like Ecclesiastes most. I also like the stories of Ruth and Jezebel and Job. As far as the gnostic gospels, Thomas is my favorite as it is the most honestly mystical/alegorical. Also his jesus says nice things. But as far as a religious text, the gitas especially the Arjuna/krsna bit in the baghavad gita seems like it has the most sensible religious kind of info in it. I prefer art.

The interesting thing for me, found in Joseph Campell's "Myths to Live By" is the drastic difference between the Mediterranean Greeks and the oriental jews: The greeks made their enemies human and thus made hector or xerxes into heroes deserving of compassion while the jews called them "other" refusing to even address the humanity on the other side and god just told the jews to kill the "other".

Soul Invictus

Which version?

Catholic? Protestant?

I've read KJV - not sure about all of it, but probably close to it.

Roland Anderson

I have read the whole New Testament and most of the Old Testament - especially Genesis and Exodus and the narrative sections of the later books. I really used to enjoy reading Proverbs - it's bite-sized and some of the proverbs are reasonably sensible. We read Jeremiah at school and I read Isaiah in order to understand the prophecies which are referred to later.

The whole thing reads like a myth, like Beowulf or a Norse saga. I like the KJV language as well. I remember having a rather curious relationship to its truth-value when younger - it was like believing it all for the moment so that I could be involved in the story - rather like I used to do with CS Lewis: taking on the morals so that I could enjoy the fiction, but discarding them when I wanted to find out about the world I was actually in. Yes, I guess it felt as if I was reading about a fantasy world. It's a world I look back on with affection, but leading your real life according to it always seemed like a very silly idea.