Hi Bro. Eli,

I would like to inform you and ask your comment on this writer’s views that the Bible is a “readable mess.” Imagine him saying that and I believe someone like you can readily give answer and refute this non-sense and idiotic claim. It is very saddening to note that this newspaper, the Guardian Unlimited, one of the most influential and popular newspapers in the world, can print this kind of crap. And I believe this article is a “readable mess” — not the Bible.

Hope you will enlighten me and the whole world who are reading this very insightful blog. Thank you very much Bro. Eli and I hope you continue to give us more interesting discussions about matters of faith, religion and spirituality, which are the most important of all discourses that man should be engaged in, in these times. Once again, I am thanking God that someone like you is here today in our midst.

Sincerely,

Haruki

Dear Haruki,

This is the first installment of my reply to the article of Sam Jordison on Guardian Unlimited titled “The Bible’s Literary Sin” that you cited.

Only an idiot like Sam Jordison will not be interested in the literary quality of the Bible.

Here are some of his ignorant claims against the Bible which I had printed in red:

“The literary quality of the Bible is an issue that I think is worth addressing.”

“…the Jesus in the New Testament is an unforgiving egomaniac, obsessed with demons, who likes nothing more than to have his dirty feet kissed (Luke 7: 44-5). They might also see that the God they pray to, is, as Evelyn Waugh once quoted Randolph Churchill, “a shit.” Failing that, literalists might at least start taking the instructions about not eating shellfish as seriously as they do those that encourage homophobia, and so lessen the burden on our over-fished seas.”

Almost all of the respected literary writers of the English language were influenced by the literary power of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.

Here are few of them:

John Hayes Gardiner of Harvard University once stated that, “In all study of English literature, if there be any one axiom which may be accepted without question, it is that the ultimate standard of English prose style is set by the King James version of the Bible”. Compton’s Encyclopedia once said that the King James Version “…has been a model of writing for generations of English-speaking people.”

The 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon once declared of author John Bunyan: “Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself.” Bunyan’s allegorical novel, "The Pilgrim’s Progress," was a cornerstone of early Protestant literature; frequently, it would be the second piece of literature translated into the vernacular by missionaries, the first being the King James Version itself — though it is noteworthy that The Pilgrim’s Progress mostly quoted from the Geneva Bible. According to Thomas Macaulay, “he knew no language but the English as it was spoken by the common people; he had studied no great model of composition, with the exception of our noble translation of the Bible. But of that his knowledge was such that he might have been called a living concordance.”

John Milton, author of the blank verse epic poem, "Paradise Lost," was heavily influenced by the King James Version, beginning his day with a reading from that version of the Bible; in his later life, he would then spend an hour meditating in silence. Milton, who cast two Psalms into meter at the age of 15 while an undergraduate at Cambridge, filled his works with images obviously taken from the Bible.

For more, please visit: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/King-James-Bible

Who does Jordison think he is in saying that the Bible has ‘literary sins’? The Christ of the Bible is not an “unforgiving egomaniac who likes nothing more than have His dirty feet kissed.” How dare him; and how stupid he is to say that Christ’s feet are dirty. The writer of the Gospel of Luke is a physician — a medical doctor.

(Colossians 4:14) "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you."

Never in the Gospel of Luke, that Jordison cited, can he read that Christ’s feet were dirty when kissed by a repenting woman; and never did the Lord Jesus ask the woman to kiss His feet. I wonder how a stupid idiot, who does not even know how to read precisely, like Jordison, can be a literary critic. Tell your lies to the marines in Baghdad; not in the well-read internet.

Luke, being a physician, was the only writer of the Gospel who specifically mentioned of Christ after birth, being laid in a manger. Why? Because a sanitary measure is one of the main concerns of a medical doctor, thus, emphasizing the extra-ordinary person of Christ.

(Luke 2:6-7) "And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn."

Note that being a doctor, he (Luke) knows and wrote the term “…the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.”

And who is that super idiot who told Jordison, when God prohibited the eating of shellfish to the Israelites, “that the seas then were over-fished”. Although, now, our seas are over-fished, you can still survive without eating shellfish (though it is not prohibited in the New Testament).

(I Timothy 4:4-5) "For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer." RSV

To contribute a little knowledge to this egomaniac Jordison, this weblog advices you to make a little research that will prove that there is wisdom behind God’s prohibition of eating shellfish to the Israelites.

FAST FACTS:

Over the last several years, researchers have identified a widening range of disease agents that can contaminate shellfish. As a result, many experts are now calling for development of more comprehensive tests for determining the safety of fishing grounds. Because the Norwalk and other dangerous viruses are harder to kill than bacteria, experts are urging consumers to steam shellfish longer than is customary.

For more, please visit:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A0DE7D7173CF930A25750C0A960948260

To charge that the Lord Jesus Christ is “obsessed with demons” is blatantly idiotic. A careful reader of the New Testament can easily notice that the primary objective of the preaching of Christ is to do good and to tell people to emulate them. By casting out demons from possessed people (like Jordison), the Lord gives them a new start.

(Acts 10:38) "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him."

(Luke 8:1-3) "And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance."

One of them who learned how to do good was Joanna, the wife of King Herod’s steward, that surely belonged to the literate stratum of the Roman-dominated society.

“…it was an incredible achievement to transform the sow’s ear of the New Testament’s rough koine Greek into the silk purse that has resounded so strongly in our culture ever since.”

No master of the Greek language (who can read and understand the New Testament; who considers the importance of time element when the New Testament was written) will say that it is rough and “of sow’s ears”.

Koine Greek (Κοιν? ?λληνικ?, “common Greek”, or ? ? κοιν? δι?λεκτος, “the common dialect”) is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-classical antiquity (c.300 BC – AD 300), and marks the third period in the history of the Greek language. Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek. Koine Greek is important not only to the history of the Greeks for being their first common dialect and main ancestor of Demotic Greek, but it is also significant for its impact on Western Civilization as a lingua franca for the Mediterranean. Koine also was the original language of the New Testament of the Christian Bible as well as the medium for the teaching and spreading of Christianity[1]. Koine Greek was unofficially a first or second language in the Roman Empire

Source: http://catamaran.eu/koine_greek_en.html

If you can ride a time machine and go back to the time of one of the most powerful empires that ruled the world, tell them that their first or second language is “the sow’s ear of the New Testament’s rough koine Greek.”

The fact that the KJV has been revised for so many times to make it a more precise translation of the koine Greek original language used in writing the New Testament, is a proof of the literary quality of the original scriptures. The Bible, in general, is a record of God’s word. It can only be appreciated by Godly people — and not by beasts.

(John 8:47) "He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God."

(II Peter 2:12) "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;"

I will not marvel if Jordison never appreciates the literary quality and wisdom of God’s word in the Bible.

(To be continued)

EFS