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What's the way to read it?
I don't want to go my entire life as a human being part of the western world who didn't read the fucking Bible, but I usually try learling a language before reading the works written in it. However the Bible was written in like 3 languages for different parts or something, and the oldest copy I found online (in greek) has most of the earlier Old Testament missing pages and large sections.
So should I read a translation? I found this bilingual version with greek/english which will help me learn greek (even if only koine greek I guess), but if most of the original greek is gone where does all this greek come from? Is this translated from english?
And what parts were in greek and which ones were not? Fuck, how many languages does it have? What is the very oldest versions I have to read to read the complete oldest text possible? Is that all gathered in one place somewhere in a nice copy?
This is so confusing.
I'd really rather read a bilingual version instead of a translation but I'm not sure a bilingual version with the all the oldest texts put in one is easy to find.
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New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, cover to cover. Wasn't that easy?
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>>9405882
No I spent hours looking this shit up.
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>>9405895
Mt 7:7
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>>9405870
If reading it is your goal, just find a translation that fits your needs and read that. I know that proficiency in biblical Hebrew is typically a six year effort (if studied academically), which seems foolishly ambitious at best if your goal is to just encounter it as a significant text in western culture.
Anyway, in terms of the Anglo-American literary tradition, the Authorized Version of the bible (aka King James) is of greater significance than any of the Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic texts.
My typical recommendations here, when it comes to translations are the following:
King James, for both literary/linguistic/cultural significance, and for the beauty of the language in many places. Increasingly, however, it requires something of an effort of translation to read.
New American Standard (NASB), for the most word-by-word literal translation. It's literalness in places trumps readability, and it does little to translate idiom.
Revised Standard (RSV), for the standard English bible used in the academy and in fluffy limp-wristed liberal churches in the UK and North America.
For my money, I read the KJV for the history and literary importance and beauty, and the NASB for study. Even with 2 years of Hebrew behind me and using it for my PhD work, I still wouldn't turn to the Masoretic text for anything other than specific purposes in my academic work. There is such a rich history of translation of the Bible in English, there is simply no reason for most people to both learning the original languages.
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>>9405956
What about the greek text? I can read enough to find my way around it with help of a dictionary because it's so close to most languages I know already. Also I want to become better at my greek anyways and this would be a nice way to do it. It's simply somehting I want to do.
But when I look for the oldest bible which is in greek (Códex Sinaiticus I think) there's whole chunks missing from pages. So I guess there is another text for those pages people have translated from, and those other texts are in Hebrew? And then there's a third bunch in Aramaic (which frankly I'd also like to learn eventually)?
So what parts where written in greek? Which weren't? What do I read in greek and when do I switch over to english and then back to the greek etc?
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