Have You Ever Read the Bible?

When during the week is more preferable for an auction to end?

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JerryM

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The Bible is still the most sold book in history. That being the case I often wonder why it is so. That is triggered by the fact that very very few have read it completely through.

Most who do not believe the Bible, are basing their beliefs on hearsay and maybe some minor reading.

So I want to post this poll to find out how many here have actually read the Bible.
I am not interrested in names.

Here is what I would like to know.

Thanks, Jerry
 

Darell

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What happened to the "I've read some of it" choice? From your introduction, my guess is that the "some" answer would have been the most popular.

I'm also curious as to *which* bible you're talking aboug, and how many of the various parts. Or will any bible do?
 

BlindedByTheLite

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i voted that i've never completely read thru.. i have a Bible (old and new testaments and the Coptic) but it's mostly been used resourcefully.
 

JerryM

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Darell,
I am not sure what you are asking. I don't care which version, as long as it is not one such as the Readers Digest version which left out a lot of it if I remember correctly.

If you consider it a complete, and legitimate Bible then OK.

Jerry
 

McGizmo

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Well if I read 98% of the bible or have never seen it, my answer would be the same in your poll. Interesting. I do get your point though, I think. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I do love to read and go through a couple books a week usually but I stick to paperback fiction for the most part. I seem to learn more and get more entertainment when there is no premise of fact attached to what I'm reading. I prefer fact masquerading as fiction to the other way around. That is not a cheap shot at the bible, BTW.

Jerry M,

As I alluded to in the God-Science thread, I really do think you are a good man and I think the world would be a better place if your values and morals were to be adopted by others as well! You do what you need to do and I hope some of your seeds do grow! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 

Skyline

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I voted and chose the third choice. However, I think your poll could use improvement -- you really need at least a fourth choice: I've never read the Bible.
 

notos&w

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I too have not yet finished the whole Bible. most of it though, and im working on it every morning before work.
to briefly comment on other posts:

There is only one truth and that is the truth of the LORD Jesus Christ, three persons in one. None are righteous, no not one ... for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Nothing, no nothing, is relative and there is only one path.

I'm pretty confident JerryM was talking about the Holy Bible, both old and new testament in the most popular translations (NIV, KJ, NKJ, NES, NAS, etc.)
 

ikendu

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Read many sections in depth...never the whole thing in its entirety.

10 years+ of bible school on Sundays (before I was an adult).
3 years+ of weekly bible study group in college.
Selected reading on my own since college.

Still leaves me selecting choice #3 (never through completely).

Although, I'm not a Christian in the sense that most would understand. I attend no organized religious services. My relationship with God is entirely personal. Although I believe in the one God of which Jesus and Moses spoke, I also see his spirit manifest in all people, creatures and many spiritual beliefs.
 

JerryM

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McGizmo,
Thanks for the kind words.

My reason for asking if one has read the Bible completely is that it is a unit. The OT points to and prepares us for the New Testament.
If one does not understand the OT pretty well he gets a distorted view of God, and his progressive revelation of His plan of redemption. He cannot understand the NT without the OT.

But the NT brings in a new dispensation of grace, that can now be offered because justice has been satisfied. Although man has always been saved by grace through faith, it is clearer in the NT. In fact some have misunderstood the OT and thought that one was saved by obeying the Law.

It might have been good to consider reading by percentage, but I thought the question as to whether one had read the complete Bible was easier.

I have a good friend, in fact a wonderful friend of over 40 years, who told me that he did obey the 10 Commandments, and did love the Lord with all his heart and soul.
But he also had stated that he had never read the Bible completely through.

So I asked him the question that if he loved God so much why did he not have more interest in what God had said? That gave him pause, and he said he was going to do it. He will, but I do not know how long it will take.

If one believes that God exists, and believes that He expects certain things from His creation including man, it is a puzzle to me why one does not try to find out what He expects, and what He has said He will do. If one believes in Heaven and Hell and that one goes to one or the other based upon God's judgment then it seems that he would want to know what is the criterion.

Jerry
 

FlashGordon

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Just the sections dealing with:
Incest, rape, adultery, exhibitionism, mass execution, infantcide, patricide, slavery, genital multilation, scatalogical references, masturbation, prostitution, homosexuality, abortion, mate swapping, sodomy, bestiality -- all in a book held sacred by three of the world's major religions. All the good stuff they left out in Sunday School...
 

ikendu

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JerryM said:...it is a puzzle to me why one does not try to find out what He expects

Part of this answer goes like this... there are more ways to learn from God than reading a book written by men.

At some time, what you would be reading is what God communicated to man thousands of years ago. It is reasonable to think that almighty God can no longer communicate? Many of us go our whole lives with our ears closed to God. If man is open to listen, God will communicate in many ways.
 

Topper

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I wanted to say yes many times, however I skip over most of the begatting parts. KJV NASB NKJV CEV RSV NRSV ASB TEV REB
and the Amplified bible.
Topper /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 

Kristofg

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Newsreader: Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of Geldof. Archeologists near Mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon-dated in Bonne. If genuine, it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read, "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders.

(Quote from a british sci-fi sitcom) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

notos&w

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[ QUOTE ]
ikendu said:
Part of this answer goes like this... there are more ways to learn from God than reading a book written by men.



[/ QUOTE ]

Just so we're clear - the Bible was written by men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every word is just what God intended it to be yet we still see the personalities, culture, diction, etc. of each writer. So it's more than a book written by men in that sense. Each and every verse is complete and true - you'll never say the same about man's work.

If you want to know about God, go right to the source. HE is HIS own best witness. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." John 1:1-2.
"I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me." John 8:18
 

js

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There is much to debate and discuss here, and I do agree that the Bible is in some important sense, a whole, but I completely disagree that having read it cover to cover is anything impressive or important in and of itself. There are great Saints who never read it all. There are great sinners who read it cover to cover.

At one point in my life, I was anxiously plowing through the Bible, cover to cover--and I was at the time, an atheist. Much later on, I spent a lot of time dwelling over and meditating on small parts of the Bible: a Psalm, a parable, a saying of Jesus, an Epistle--and at the time I was a devout Catholic.

I can tell you without hesitation that I more truly absorbed the spirit and the whole of the Bible from doing the latter, than the former. It takes a LIFETIME to read the Bible! In truth, one can never say "I have read it", but only "I am reading it."

I will not vote in your poll; I respectfully totally disagree with the premises behind it. A word from Jesus may be enough. The whole Bible read cover to cover to check off a box and jump through a hoop will never be enough.

However, I DO agree with the notion that Christians need to know their Bible better, in general, and perhaps that is all you are really trying to say. But if so, the litmus test is not the quantity of the reading, but the quality.
 

Darell

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Jerry -

OK, I understand that any "complete" bible will do, even if one conflicts with another. But as to the other part of my post, Don summed it up better than I did:

[ QUOTE ]
McGizmo said:
Well if I read 98% of the bible or have never seen it, my answer would be the same in your poll. Interesting. I do get your point though, I think. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ] You have two answers for a "complete read" but only one for incomplete. Not sure I see the point. I truly have (attempted) to read about, oh, 98% of the book - yet I answer no, I haven't read it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif
 

bwaites

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Exactly as notos&w quoted above from John 8:18--

Having read the entire Bible multiple times, I find it confusing that so many who say they have read it and understand it still continue to believe in the 3 in 1 concept, when Jesus Christ himself so clearly stated that the Father had SENT him. If they were the same, how could he have been SENT as he stated, and just who was he praying to in The Garden of Gethsemane?

Secondly, "each and every verse is complete and true"? While I deeply believe that in it's original verse, as written by the inspired prophets who actually wrote them, that was the case, but at least 2000 years of transcription in the New Testaments case, and significantly more in the Old Testament leads me to believe that significant errors have accumulated in the text as it is currently. There are too many contradictions within the text as it stands for me to believe otherwise.

I have to believe that the Jehovah of the OLD Testament was the Jesus Christ of the NEW Testament, else why would he talk and quote as he did in the Temple? The significance of the Jewish Yahveh/Yahweh or "The Great I Am" would also argue that.

But to believe that the Bible as presently constituted is COMPLETELY correct and full, well that begs more than belief, it begs complete naivete. To believe that every scribe who transcribed and/or translated from the original did so while under the guidance of The Holy Spirit seems not just naive, but to me, at least, seems ludicrous.

If that was the case, why did the leaders of Christianity try to keep the written word from the people for so long?
My feeling is that they did so so that no one would question the changes/errors in translation/transcription.

Oh well, I hijacked the thread a little, (more than a little, I guess) but just wanted my 2 cents in here.

Bill
 

JerryM

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bwaites,
If we have no reliable instructions or word from God,how do you believe that man can know what God expects from him so that man knows how to be acceptable to God, and how to live a life that is pleasing to God?

Can you believe that a loving God could and would leave man here to wander and wonder?
I do not intend to argue this point, but since you do not believe the Bible is reliable, is man like an ant, and just follows his instinct? I'm just curious.

Jerry
 
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