61–70 of 205 posts
Flipping pages in a book still has not been matched by computer text.
Pleased to see Roget's thesaurus here. It's a fantastic resource without a great digital equivalent. I've found LLMs helpful in a pinch (and it's certainly better than a standard thesaurus), but Roget's is still the book I turn to for tricky word-picking problems.
Roget's Thesaurus is part of Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22
Note that this version of Thesaurus-1911 has been supplemented with over
1,000 words not present in the original 1911 edition, but many modern words
are still missing. About 1500 verbs (out of 6500) which can be found in an
80,000-word spell-checker are absent from this work. The deficiency of nouns
is probably much worse, especially on technical topics. Of 40,000 unique
words contained in the original text, 12,000 are not recognized by a
spell-checker. Most of these are foreign words (primarily Latin), and many
are obsolete.Earlier quoted context omitted.
When is the best time of year to read it?
When you're trying to fall asleep but there is too much noise in your head, I suppose :) Actually, Redwall and other slightly-mature anthropomorphic stories are also surprisingly good for that. But if I had to pick a time of year, then I'd say winter, under the blankets or by a fire.
and the seven books I keep close: diary of a wimpy kid 1-7
> knowing full well that [Delilah] will betray [Samson] It is not clear from the text that Samson is aware of the presence of Philistines the first three times. We are told they are lying in ambush in an inner chamber. We are not told that they make themselves known, attempt to subdue Samson, or interact with him in any way. Instead, we are told that Delilah announces their imminent presence, with no follow-through.…
> A shallow reading that concludes the characters must be dumb and naive to explain the ridiculousness of the plot is rarely the most appropriate reading. That's a neat summation of Biblical hermeneutics if I've ever seen one and more generally of religious hermeneutics. What is being defended as a "close and thoughtful read" implicitly is from a more cynical view, a projection of nuance, complexity, and deep structu…
> This of course is the cornerstone of Western culture and no well-educated person can be without a knowledge of what is in [the Bible]. Knowing what's in the Bible isn't sufficient. You need to understand the full genealogy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. You need to understand Canaanite cults, the broad influence of both Zoroastrianism (via the Achaemenid Empire) and Hellenism, and how these cultures converged to…
That is quite a bold claim you make there! Since you seem to hold a strong conviction, could you please make more explicit what concretely one would not know / missinterprete regarding the Western culture, not knowing anything about those concepts you listed, but knowing the bible itself back and forth? And to what excent one would need to dive deep into those concepts? Or in other words: What fundamental concepts in…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always look it up in the original Hebrew if I really want to understand, and the difference is sometimes really HUGE (or simply wrong in modern translations). It's also worth noting that some books of the Hebrew Bible are poetry (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs), which doesn't show at all after translation. Hebrew poetry is unique! As they say, reading the Bible in translation is like "kissing your spouse thro…
> I always look it up in the original Hebrew if I really want to understand Why do you assume a entire team of biblical scholars, working for years to translate the Old Testement for the NIV didn't know what they were doing? But you do?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When is the best time of year to read it?
When you're trying to fall asleep but there is too much noise in your head, I suppose :) Actually, Redwall and other slightly-mature anthropomorphic stories are also surprisingly good for that. But if I had to pick a time of year, then I'd say winter, under the blankets or by a fire.
Brian Jacques' other series Castaways of the Flying Dutchman is also very good.
The NIV has so many inexcusable translations that reinforce a theological worldview that matched the conversation on atonement and justification that was happening in the 90s and 2000s. There's a great catalog out there of the most egregious translations in the NIV [1]. One such example:
> Romans 7:18 — The NIV here translates σάρξ (sarx) as “sinful nature” even though this implies later Augustinian doctrine on original sin that is not intended by the original writer. In contrast, the NRSV correctly chooses to translate this tricky Pauline term more literally as “flesh”.
Are you interested in a readable Bible that flows well to modern English ears? The New Living Translation (NLT) is fantastic and very underrated. I recommend reading the Psalms in the NLT since much of the language of the Psalms being in a higher register in the NIV and other translations doesn't land as well, but reading the Psalms in NLT makes it much more relatable and human. I find the way it reads refreshing, and it's based on more modern scholarship.
Are you interested in latest scholarly understanding of the Bible? The NRSV is the consensus version (as much as there could be one).
Are you interested in understanding the Bible as American Evangelical Christians read it today? That's currently the English Standard Version (ESV), which many churches have switched to as the NIV has lost favor in Reformed circles.
[1]: https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/articles-and-resource...
I’ve been told the Legacy Standard Bible is one where the translators tried to not use the same English word when the original Greek or Hebrew words are different. FYI: https://m.youtube.com/c/legacystandardbible
Here's a brief comparison (Titus 1)
LSB: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus%201&versi...
NLT: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=titus%201&versi...