I was into a rabbit hole questioning me about God’s existence, debating myself and looking for different opinions of different people, when, sadly, I found that the bible is copyrighted.
You can find the licenses nearly at the bottom. https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/es/Hebreos 11%3A6
It’s was sad, because it make me stop questioning me about the existence of god, everything started because I said to me “if god exists, then faith is useless, we need the inexistence of god to have faith”, but that, makes me feel less faith
Pretty sure the copyright on the KJV, which is obviously the best version, has expired by now.
Indeed – it is out of copyright. KJV is available for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10 (among other places)
I’ve read it cover-to-cover (excepting some parts like the census results in Numbers that I skimmed) despite not being a Christian. It is a rather challenging read.
I was on a quest to do this but I lost interest after reaching Jeremiah. Ecclesiastes surprised me though - that one was interesting.
Which was your favorite, if I may ask?
Same. That’s one of a few parts I’m planning to go back and re-read eventually. I don’t know if I have a favorite part, but that definitely grabbed my attention.
In general, I’d say the parts worth my time, in addition to Ecclesiastes, were the first 5 books of the Old Testament (Torah equivalent), some of the histories, and the Gospels. I didn’t really care for the seemingly endless letters of Paul et al, the Psalms, Proverbs, or the prophets generally. It’s possibly I didn’t have the right perspective/context to appreciate them. I did find the fact that there are words – like “selah” – which we don’t actually know the meaning of to be interesting though, and, of course, seeing names and the sources for references I’ve encountered in other media was also interesting. (e.g. the title “Malachi” of the last book of the Old Testament jumped out at me because of Futurama even though the book itself didn’t leave a strong impression when I read it.)
Is this a joke or are you serious? What’s “best” in a person’s view depends on their values, (like the “best” food depends on what flavours a person likes, and their nutritional needs)
What values would a person need to have to consider the KJV the best? I don’t think it’s the easiest to read, nor the easiest to understand, nor the most accurate. I don’t think it’s the oldest English translation either and it’s also biased. Is it the most poetic, maybe?
Both. I realize it’s not for everyone, but I like it the best. When I got into it, what I was looking for in a religious text was not that it be “the easiest” but I didn’t want to learn Latin or Hebrew either.