This is a proud American tradition, both bookburning and the burning of heretical bibles. Sounds like a good time! But where are the Catholic bibles? No New Jerusalem, no Challoner Douay-Rheims?
I wonder how all these whackjobs decided that the KJV was the "legitimate" bible, anyway? It's still a translation, right? And pretty much all modern scholarship agrees that it's not even a very accurate one. Fucking weird.
I hate the idea of burning books but if they have to burn them, I'm glad it's bibles. Couldn't happen to a nicer piece of deeply unpleasant, muddled, overrated bronze-age propaganda.
Lord knows the King James Version was beyond influence.
I'd actually would'a thought Bible freaks would be more into the NASB than anything, but I guess a quest for accuracy—or curiosity in general—isn't exactly the hallmark of someone that'd attend a book burning.
@7 and @10 - Good News is a modern English version with dubious scholarship and translation work. Catholics in the U.S. use the New American Bible, in Canada they use the NRSV or the RSV, and in Europe they mostly use the Jerusalem.
Traditionalist Catholics (the ones who thing the Mass should only be in Latin) tend to use the Douay-Rheims, but anyone with any education at all would tell you that the translation and scholarship in that version are even worse than the KJV.
@8 We're talking about people who don't understand that the OT was written in Hebrew and Aramaic here, that the NT was written in Greek and that Jesus was a Jew.
The more subtle among them may grasp that the KJV is a translation; they tend to assert that it was divinely inspired.
@11 Naturally this means we must burn the whole Internet!
Bet they wish they could find a couple of witches to throw on top of that pyre for good measure. Otherwise, it would be sort of a waste of good ignition material.
@6 - Indeed, they should also burn the Wycliffite bible, which the King James is based on. For the record, the Wycliffite bible was considered heresy at the time it was produced (no vernacular bibles! they are the tool of the devil!) -- some of the early owners of English bibles were burned at the stake, because the Church insisted that Latin was the only language which could adequately communicate the word of God.
As I was saying to Jesus last week "If you can't say it in Aramaic, at least say it in Hebrew with feeling, but avoid saying it in Greek or you'll attract people who hate women."
It's indicative of the sort of echo chamber these people have set up for themselves that at this point they're burning EACH OTHER'S books for being the work of the devil.To be fair, I also think Tim LaHaye's Left Behind books are evil, although I sincerely doubt for the same reasons.
Those religious fanatics are always burning books and recordings. I remember when they burned Elvis Presleys records because he swung his hips in a lacivious way. Then they burned Beatles records because John said they were more popular than Jesus. Fucking nutjobs!
@7, 10 and 12: My RC catechism classes in the mid-70s (when I was about 10) used the Good News version. Though long an atheist, I'll never forget its line drawings (recently memorialized at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magaz… )
I was a witness to a book*/music burning at a Christian music festival a couple decades ago. I'm still scrubbing myself with brillo pads trying to remove that mark from my personal history.
(Well, by books, I mean copies of Hit Parader. You might think that would lessen the shame... but not by as much as you'd think.)
The Mars Hill Crew needs to rumble up on these fools.
This country needs a good Holy Civil War. A "Let God Sort 'Em Out" kinda thang, seen?
I hate the idea of burning books but if they have to burn them, I'm glad it's bibles. Couldn't happen to a nicer piece of deeply unpleasant, muddled, overrated bronze-age propaganda.
I'd actually would'a thought Bible freaks would be more into the NASB than anything, but I guess a quest for accuracy—or curiosity in general—isn't exactly the hallmark of someone that'd attend a book burning.
Traditionalist Catholics (the ones who thing the Mass should only be in Latin) tend to use the Douay-Rheims, but anyone with any education at all would tell you that the translation and scholarship in that version are even worse than the KJV.
The more subtle among them may grasp that the KJV is a translation; they tend to assert that it was divinely inspired.
@11 Naturally this means we must burn the whole Internet!
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/books/…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magaz… )
(Well, by books, I mean copies of Hit Parader. You might think that would lessen the shame... but not by as much as you'd think.)
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009…