Actually, Jews HAVE interpreted their scriptures. There were at least four rewritings of the Pentateuch, and the history is fascinating. The oldest version of Genesis has no time scale for Creation, while later versions, written after the Jews were captive of the Babylonians (who created the seven day week measure of time), incorporated the seven days cycle we're all familiar with. Exodus was apparently embellished to picture the Jews as nomads, to gain support from indigenous Bedouin tribes. Religious study can be instructive, treated with scientific objectivity and respect.

To take the Bible debate route, hehe...

There is no record of the ancient Church referencing the "apocryphal" books. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Polycarp, etc... none of them in their writings ever reference those books or letters. That's why protestants don't include them, the "Church" never did until the middle of the dark ages.

I love the quote from the people who oppose this "evil" Bible elective:

"It is riddled with errors and historical innacuracies..." Apparently these people don't know their facts, because the Bible is the most accurate and attested to document in all of ancient history (and has more verifiable sources than most of modern history even).

As a matter of fact, Luke is held in the highest regard as quite possibly the most pre-eminent historically accurate author in all of ancient history.

The Bible can be taught as thought. When I discovered that it wasn't a "religious book" and that it was full of abstract thought it freed my mind to think deeply ... much like Atlas Shrugged did.

The poll could be a complete fraud but it doesn't change the fact that those 2 books have had a big impact on the lives of many people. It's wrong that so many are afraid to have them discussed in schools.

This is just wrong in so many ways.

Actually, I think you are saying that in 2014, around 2000 years after Christ walked on Earth, that we are incapable of having a proper translation of a very widely distributed text (for that time).

The truth is that we do. There are two lines of text available to bible scholars today, the Vaticanius and the textus receptious. As might be determined by their name, the Vaticanius text is the path followed by the catholic church and the textus receptious is used by everybody else including Martin Luther and the 54 men involved in the translation of the KJV. This is also why we use it.

The Vaticanious was used by almost all the translators who have developed the other versions you see on the market.

There is far more background to this than I'm going to list here, but in the true spirit of the gulch, lets follow the money for a moment. The King James Bible is not copyrighted. You can print it and copy it and pay nobody for the rights to it. It is truly in the public domain. You can make money by printing it and selling copies and you can add notes to it that may be copywritted, but not the text. Nobody "owns" the word of God.

Here's the key difference - ALL of the newer versions are copywritted and some of that fee goes back to the Catholic Church for use of it's text.

According to this report of a DHHS funded survey it's 1.6% not 5%. http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-re...

Those were certainly the laws they lived under, but with the advent of Christ the law was finished and a new age began in which the we non-jews were allowed to enter into grace through Christ, not by obeying and keeping The Law.

Look guys, I know you aren't buying anything I say about it so it really doesn't matter anyway. It's my belief and I don't demand you follow it or study it. Just respect that I have as much right to it as you do to reject it.

No. I am saying that you need to read the original texts in the original languages and then decide for yourself what God is telling you.

"Basically, people are hairless apes, bonobos or chimpanzees, guarding their borders, beating their chests, and ignoring the fact that females are impregnated by rogues."

I don't get what all this is about.

No. I am saying that you should find the actual original texts and read them in the actual original languages. Otherwise, you are taking the word of some other person for The Revealed Word of God.

You do not need religion to be angry with your neighbors. You can hate them for not denouncing the Brandens and David Kelley. Or you can hate them for denouncing the Brandens and David Kelley. Dig into the archives here and find the ARI people who come here to troll. No, sadly enough, the only way to understand it is to accept that for some people Objectivism is a religion. Now, when it comes to real science, you find that generally partisan debates do not boil over out of context... well, except for Global Warming... Basically, people are hairless apes, bonobos or chimpanzees, guarding their borders, beating their chests, and ignoring the fact that females are impregnated by rogues.

Blah... the "general public" is religious, else religion would not continue. Read _Bowling Alone_. I weep for the loss of community bowling. In years past, when our family met back home for the Holidays, we were happy to find a bowling alley open on Christmas Day. We did not go to church. We bowled. We were not alone.

It sounds like you're saying if we can't understand the full history of the translations we should just give up and not study it?

Five percent: One in twenty persons is homosexual according to the historical Kinsey Report. Homosexuality is counter-reproductive, yet it persists. Geese do it; chimps do it; even educated gimps do it. That does not include the repressed homo-erotic behavior of professional American football players in their tight uniforms slapping each other on the butt after each time the Center hikes the ball through his legs to the Quarterback. Gays in the military?? Show me a military unit without homosexuals... How about those 300 Spartans who saved Western Civilization? Their wives had to dress up like boys, lest they should scare their husbands... Hoo-rah!

Are you saying we must ignore it b/c it's too complicated?

You make me laugh, Geezer! You actually have the gall to claim ".. The Bible, be taught as it's written, without interpretation. Actually, that's exactly as our church uses the bible. What the words say is what they mean. We use the King James Bible ... " That is hilarious!! I can grant that the KJV is a nice edition, a rendering in to 17th century English that is "easy to understand" even today. King Henry II also commissioned a translation into the common English of his time, but it was not so poetic. It might have been more accurate. Who is to say? Unless you read the Bible in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, all you have is an interpretation, a guide. JEWS do not translate the Bible. They COPY it. Can you read Hebrew?

Baloney. You have no idea what "The Bible" is or what it says unless you can read Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Every translation is only an interpretation, at best a GUIDE to "the revealed Word of God." People who do not believe in God probably have a more objective view than do Protestants who removed SEVENTEEN books from the Bible. (Of course, to put them back in would make you a pederast. an idolator, and a servant of the anti-Christ.) There is no way to resolve this except to understand that people INTERPRET what they BELIEVE the Bible says and that interpretation (witches, solar system, evolution, Negroes as slaves, women as the gateway to sin, etc., etc.) serves the secular goals of the proponents.

Agreed