27 replies to this topic

[Alex]

I want to read one as close as possible to the original, if that even makes sense. I've never really read it. I'm not religious at all, but I figure it's a good book to have read.

[Cyo]

I want to read one as close as possible to the original, if that even makes sense. I've never really read it. I'm not religious at all, but I figure it's a good book to have read.

you can read hebrew?

[Jewbert]

Seems like that would be a very very hard thing to find. Not to mention the language part.

I think the closest I've read is King James version. It's a little weird to read, though. I'm sure there's something closer
to what you want somewhere....

Oh yeah. Funny thing about the Bible that you may already know. It's mistranslated in many areas. One instance is the part where it says God "is a jealous god." That's actually supposed to be "zealous" god. One of my friends said that even a small
little speck of fly shit can change a word completely. O.O Who would have thought!
((I brought up with whole deal with God being "jealous"and he told me this.))

[Waser Lave]

The short answer is that there's no such thing.

[Tetiel]

It depends on what you mean by uncensored and unedited. There have been several books not put into the bible primarily because they were not deemed to be legit. The book of Thomas is a great example. It's meant to go along with the four gospels and be St. Thomas I believe, but it has severe errors which prove it to be fake. The best example I can remember off the top of my head is the parable of the shepard and the lost sheep. Jesus told a parable of a man who was tending 100 sheep. One got lost so he went and tried to save the one sheep and the moral of the story is that God is not willing to let one of his children to get lost and would rather leave the safe ones than to leave an unsafe one to danger. Another book also says that God is more pleased with one person who sins repenting than 99 people who do not sin as it is a harder battle won. Instead, the "gospel" of Thomas states at the end of the story that God loves the one who repents more than the others which is absolutely untrue based on other teachings. It is repeated over and over that we are all equal and loved in God's eyes.

The Gnostics are infamous for adopting several different religions and making it their own. Fad religions if you will. They make stuff up and make it their own. The Gospel of Thomas is one of those examples. The controversy over the gospel of Judas a couple years back is of the same situation. I suppose what I'm saying is that there is no original bible unless you learn to read greek and hebrew. :\ As mentioned before there are translation errors among other things depending on the version.

Another great argument on why I believe you shouldn't take the bible literally, but instead actually read it for the message

[Waser Lave]

Don't tell him lies Of course there is. We have over 25,000 different copies of the New Testament in it's original Greek form dating back to when they were wrote.

I meant one which he could actually understand. There's no such thing as an uncensored, unedited Bible (in English).

If I were being pedantic I would go so far as to say that even those original Greek ones are edited in some form or other.

[Melchoire]

Read up on Constantine and Christianity and you will find your answer.

[Waser Lave]

Well unless someone edited all 25,000 of them it's quite unlikely Actually the ratio of similarity of most English translations to the original Greek and Hebrew translations is about 98.4%. Most inaccuracies occur where there's no `good` transition between the Greek/Hebrew and English word/phrase.

I was referring to the original texts which those 25,000 copies were created from. It would be a bit silly to claim that somebody sat around editing 25,000 books now wouldn't it?

[Melchoire]

Why bother reading it at all, it's hard to understand(that might not be the case for you) and there's a ton of contradiction. Read something worth while =P

[Waser Lave]

Why bother reading it at all, it's hard to understand(that might not be the case for you) and there's a ton of contradiction. Read something worth while =P

It's worth reading even if you don't believe in God imo. The stories are quite entertaining and can be used as moral stories for children, very much like Aesop's Fables.

[Tetiel]

Why bother reading it at all, it's hard to understand(that might not be the case for you) and there's a ton of contradiction. Read something worth while =P

Why bother reading the Qu'ran at all? It's hard to understand (that might not be the case for you) and there's a ton of contradiction. Read something worth while =P

You are Muslim, right? So the Qu'ran is worthwhile for you to read. I am Christian and the Qu'ran is worthwhile for me to read because I can understand what you believe and there can be more understanding between our two religions.

[Hlaw]

go check out the gospels that the Church didnt want to put into the bible. i think those are interesting

[Cyo]

if you want to read some fiction then go read fight club or something like that.

[Frizzle]

You are Muslim, right? So the Qu'ran is worthwhile for you to read. I am Christian and the Qu'ran is worthwhile for me to read because I can understand what you believe and there can be more understanding between our two religions.

I am lower class. I know my place.

[Waser Lave]

I am lower class. I know my place.

Wonderful stuff.

[Alex]

if you want to read some fiction then go read fight club or something like that.

I have, did not like the book. Most recent book I finished was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, depressing piece of shite to be honest. 300 pages of sadness.

[Melchoire]

Why bother reading the Qu'ran at all? It's hard to understand (that might not be the case for you) and there's a ton of contradiction. Read something worth while =P

You are Muslim, right? So the Qu'ran is worthwhile for you to read. I am Christian and the Qu'ran is worthwhile for me to read because I can understand what you believe and there can be more understanding between our two religions.

Fair enough. But I'm not really as pious as most muslims. I mean I only read the Q'uran when I'm comparing different things in Abrahamic religions. I started questioning some things in Q'uran so ya...

I have, did not like the book. Most recent book I finished was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, depressing piece of shite to be honest. 300 pages of sadness.

The post-apocalyptic genre is overdone.

[hab]

Ebay ?

[Hydrogen]

How can you edit and change what you once considered the word of God and then still consider it the word of God after it has been censored and edited?

[Melchoire]

How can you edit and change what you once considered the word of God and then still consider it the word of God after it has been censored and edited?

Depends on what you mean by word of god.

[Hydrogen]

Depends on what you mean by word of god.

I mean that literally as I consider my religious text the actual words of God unchanged and fully preserved. I also believe that the Bible has bits and pieces of the word of God and that it was once a pure book but through the changes of man kind we've lost the initial text. But that's just me . Perhaps I'll explain it fully at another date for any of those that don't already know.

[Melchoire]

I mean that literally as I consider my religious text the actual words of God unchanged and fully preserved. I also believe that the Bible has bits and pieces of the word of God and that it was once a pure book but through the changes of man kind we've lost the initial text. But that's just me . Perhaps I'll explain it fully at another date for any of those that don't already know.

Not nessecarily, I think the Quran is considered to be the words of Muhammed as he heard it from the archangel Gabriel. And the Bible was written by people as they recounted it, even then there are different versions of the same story.

[Amagius]

I mean that literally as I consider my religious text the actual words of God unchanged and fully preserved. I also believe that the Bible has bits and pieces of the word of God and that it was once a pure book but through the changes of man kind we've lost the initial text. But that's just me . Perhaps I'll explain it fully at another date for any of those that don't already know.

I'm not here to argue the validity of the belief system, but were there not many different documents of the Quran, transcibed from oral tradition for at least a generation or two, before an Islamic prince destroyed all but one? I apologize if I've been misinformed, but it seems that this would mean that the Quran is the meaning of what Gabriel told Muhammad about Allah, rather than what Gabriel actually told Muhammad.

In Judaism and Christianity, the Old Testament can be verified through the Dead Sea Scrolls. If one compared the scrolls found and the Hebrew scripts of the Tanakh, they would be identical. As for the New Testament, certain portions of sermons from the first century were found that related much of the New Testament, so I would doubt it to be changed, and if it was, only to degree that the Quran may have been changed.

On the other hand, the Old and New Testament may have been originally written as falsehoods, but that's shaky territory. There isn't a secret document in a vault that would be able to prove that.

[Hydrogen]

I'm not here to argue the validity of the belief system, but were there not many different documents of the Quran, transcibed from oral tradition for at least a generation or two, before an Islamic prince destroyed all but one? I apologize if I've been misinformed, but it seems that this would mean that the Quran is the meaning of what Gabriel told Muhammad about Allah, rather than what Gabriel actually told Muhammad.

In Judaism and Christianity, the Old Testament can be verified through the Dead Sea Scrolls. If one compared the scrolls found and the Hebrew scripts of the Tanakh, they would be identical. As for the New Testament, certain portions of sermons from the first century were found that related much of the New Testament, so I would doubt it to be changed, and if it was, only to degree that the Quran may have been changed.

On the other hand, the Old and New Testament may have been originally written as falsehoods, but that's shaky territory. There isn't a secret document in a vault that would be able to prove that.

Nah I'm not here to argue either as I tend to avoid controversy . Sorry if I came across that way... But to answer the issue you brought up, just so we're on the same page here, I think the person you are talking about is Othman, the third caliph after the passing of Prophet Muhammad, who is credited for the compilation of the Qur'an. While the Qur'an started to be written down and compiled during Prophet Muhammad's life onto parchment, and other mediums, I believe you are right that the actual book form came around during the time of Othman. Prior to this, the Qur'an was simply preserved through the many, many who had memorized the entirety of its texts. The Qur'an was compiled in this time by having at least 3 different memorizers of the Qur'an testify that they knew that a certain verse was actually a part of the Qur'an and no overwhelming majority claiming that it wasn't. This was to prevent against people with malicious intent from having verses placed in the Qur'an erroneously. The process was more rigorous than I am mentioning here as before this, a person had to prove that he had indeed memorized the Qur'an by reciting it in its entirety to two or three companions of the Prophet among other things, but this is going beyond the scope of this post .

Anyway, where you say the others were destroyed, I believe this references the ones which had verses deemed to be not actually part of the Qur'an from the results of that rigorous process above were removed.

While non-Muslims obviously hold different views on the Qur'an, part of a Muslim's belief and part of the articles of faith for the Islamic religion is that the Qur'an is the inerrant, uncontaminated and direct word of God. This is what Islam teaches, among other things .

Hope that clarifies things a little. Please forgive me if I've said anything wrong or if I've offended.

[mikymik38]

I was told to try the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance.