understanding the Holy Bible

[taters09]

Has anyone ever thought that to correctly undrstand the Holy Bible in it's entire fourm, that the key to doing this is too place God first in every aspect of the Holy Bible as you read it, just as it is said you need to do too be a good christain you must place God first in eveything in your life, for example the ten commandments, as in thou shalt not steal from God. All throughout the holy bible it states that everything belongs To God, or how about thou shalt not Kill God, and you all laugh but is not jesus God, and was he not Killed as being God? Not very Funny now? Any way Just food for thought thank youi.

[ageofknowledge]

I usually just read through systematic theology volumes like Norman Geisler's 4 volume set to be honest.

[Ngakunui]

Personally, I think the Bible(if being read by an English speaker at least) is best read without footnotes/theology books/and so on- although concordance(book giving the original meaning for translated words) can always help, due to mistranslations(The Bible does not translate quite as well as you may believe, though decently enough for the most part), and often poor choice of words by the translators, and of course, a lot of translations follow suit of some terms used in the King James, simply because they can be viewed as supporting traditional English speaking Christian doctrines. Nonetheless, I do not see the common Bible as either wholly complete (there are a few books that used to be in it that were decanonized by the Church of England and don't find their way into common Protestant Christian translations), nor what is usually printed to be inherently flawed due to the lack of a few other books.

If you want my opinion, the best way to understand the Bible is to not put one single thing at the base of it, and actually read it without some preacher's opinion being at the back of your mind telling you something is wrong despite the Bible saying otherwise. And if you do have any problems understanding if a word really does mean something, it's best to look it up in a (hopefully decent and exhaustive) concordance, or something very neutral- and Wikipedia does not classify as neutral. In other words,the Bible is meant to be a record and testimony of many things which are relevant to God, largely of the accounts of the people people of God, as well as God himself, and various historical accounts which are good for learning from.

The best way from what I can grasp to understand the Bible is to better remember the contexts and correct parallels of the overall book. Some things can be understood as mistranslations due to their irrelevancy. Examples: a word meaning something like "consumption(as in consuming to destroy)" is translated as division(which is almost the opposite) a few times, a word translated "mind" (as in the "one mind and one accord" verse), is really another word meaning accord, and so forth. There are a lot of universalist people, occult members, leaders of odd denominations(which are almost always mainstream), and people who seem to not know what they're thinking who will just about always use these poor choices of words to "support" their otherwise unsupported doctrines.

So if you hear or read something that seems odd, or simply have the compulsion to look its meaning up, by all means do so. You have no idea how many things you will learn if you do your best to read and understand the bible. Honestly, I used to be rather... dull before I began reading it in the fullest detail I could. Like I'd only listen to TV preachers, and constantly ponder old sayings, none of which I do anymore.

It's good that' you're trying to learn the Bible and about it. In my experience, it would be best to do the best you can to follow the original writings.

[jlay]

You bring up some good points.

Take the word "love" for example. This alone shows the weakness of the english language and the limititations of many translations. We know there are three different Greek words in the NT that are translated to the english, "love." Yet all three have very different meanings. And for the ignorant young student of the bible, this leaves a huge void in being able to read the bible for all it is worth.

Same with the english word "know". Three different Words are used in the Greek, (actually a 4th in 1 John 5:13) yet they are always translated "know" without any elaboration to reflect the depth of the original language.

oida, gnostos, ginosko.

When Paul writes about "knowing" the Lord, he uses the word ginosko. This is the same word used to describe deep intimacy, even as intimate as sexual relations. The same word that is translated, "Joseph had not yet KNOWN Mary."
Yet the reader in english receives no guidance to discern ginosko from gnostos in the basic text. Intimate knowledge vs. news.


if anyone has any insights on the word translated Know in 1 John 5:13, I'd love to hear them. I have had a hard time even finding a concordance that notes this word, and gives any information, definition, application, etc.

[nd925]

if anyone has any insights on the word translated Know in 1 John 5:13, I'd love to hear them. I have had a hard time even finding a concordance that notes this word, and gives any information, definition, application, etc.

I got this from Strong's, maybe it will help.
G1492
εἴδω
eidō
i'-do
A primary verb; used only in certain past tenses, the others being borrowed from the equivalent, G3700 and G3708; properly to see (literally or figuratively); by implication (in the perfect only) to know: - be aware, behold, X can (+ not tell), consider, (have) known (-ledge), look (on), perceive, see, be sure, tell, understand, wist, wot. Compare G3700.

G3700
ὀπτάνομαι, ὄπτομαι
optanomai optomai
op-tan'-om-ahee, op'-tom-ahee
The first a (middle voice) prolonged form of the second (primary) which is used for it in certain tenses; and both as alternates of G3708; to gaze (that is, with wide open eyes, as at something remarkable; and thus differing from G991, which denotes simply voluntary observation; and from G1492, which expresses merely mechanical, passive or casual vision; while G2300, and still more emphatically its intensive G2334, signifies an earnest but more continued inspection; and G4648 a watching from a distance): - appear, look, see, shew self.

G3708
ὁράω
horaō
hor-ah'-o
Properly to stare at (compare G3700), that is, (by implication) to discern clearly (physically or mentally); by extension to attend to; by Hebraism to experience; passively to appear: - behold, perceive, see, take heed.

I hope this helps.