Comments | scribb1e: Once more, with footnotes

scribb1e

Once more, with footnotes

Jan 19, 2009 23:58

Just in case anyone would actually like to read my Old Testament summary so far without paging back through all the previous posts, here it is, in the right order.

( The Old Testament (in less than 2000 words) )

bible

Comments 5

simont January 20 2009, 09:14:28 UTC

It occurs to me that if and when you do the NT in this format, the first four 50-word summaries are going to look rather strange sat right next to each other. Perhaps you'd do better to allow yourself a 100-word summary for some sort of general on-average story of the gospels, and then 25 words per gospel to describe how each one diverges from that baseline?

cartesiandaemon January 20 2009, 11:05:45 UTC

Or indeed a compromise would be a 50-word summary for one (say, Mark), and 50 words for the others adding things that only happen there.

scribb1e January 20 2009, 14:09:30 UTC

Yes, that had occurred to me. I'm not sure what I'll do. Have already had a slightly similar problem in the repeated history in the OT (Samuel and Kings repeated in Chronicles), but four repeated might be a bit much...

Is it convincing? anonymous August 16 2009, 08:36:24 UTC

The question is - are you convinced? So many have said to the effect that if we read the bible we would accept it as true. I know this is only the old testament, but does reading it change anything in any way?

(FWIW - I read bits once, a long time ago. I even had a "Childrens' Illustrated Bible" as a child and liked the stories, but I remain unconvinced).

Re: Is it convincing? scribb1e August 16 2009, 14:57:05 UTC

Hi Anonymous :-)

Am I convinced the Bible is true? No. I can't really see how anyone could read it and see it as true. ('True' doesn't even apply to some bits. How can the Song of Solomon be true or false?) It's a collection of history, myth, poetry, opinion, politics and propaganda. There are lots of contrasting opinions on things.

On the other hand, I think it's both important and interesting. Reading it does bring you closer to how (some) people lived and thought a long time ago. And its influence runs through Western history and literature. Having read the OT helps me understand that better.

I also didn't really know what was in it before I read it. All the jolly moral stories I remembered from school were concentrated in small parts of it. School unaccountably missed out all the massacres, ranting, king lists and temple building plans.

So it was an eye-opener just to find out what was really there :-)