#New Revised Standard Version Bible

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Do All Things in Love

Let all that you do be done in love. — 1 Corinthians 16:14 | New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved. Cross References: 1 Corinthians 14:1; 1 Corinthians 16:15

[quotesfromscripture]

Never again

"The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you. Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

(Deuteronomy 19:20-21 NRSVA, 1995)

[bluecatwriter]

Jonathan: Do I have to read it, oh my dear one?

Me: (cries)

Jonathan: "I will keep my mouth as it were in a bridle: while the ungodly is in my sight. I held my tongue, and spake nothing: I kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was pain and grief to me. My heart was hot within me; and while I was thus musing the fire kindled."

Me: (cries harder) Do you have to remind me!

OKAY BUT THE INCLUSION OF THIS LINE HAS ME GOING FERAL

(Theological ramble incoming. You have been warned.)

Jonathan is reading from the Book of Common Prayer, but the scripture is Psalm 39. (I originally thought that this was a quote from Jeremiah 20:9, which uses similar language to show the prophet's frustration with burning up inside if he refuses his call to prophesy, but this is even better.)

The psalmist here is a great example of how people's responses to God in the Bible do not fit neatly into the "unquestioning obedience and reverence" framework any more than Jonathan's actions do. The narrator of this psalm speaks despairingly about the vanity of life, begs God to stop heaping hardship on him ("Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand"), and while he expresses near the middle that his ultimate hope is in God ("And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee"), he also flat-out asks God to leave him alone (the last line of the psalm in King James Version says "O spare me, that I may recover strength/before I go hence, and be no more," though I love the more modern translations such as the New Revised Standard version, which reads, "Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again/before I depart and am no more").

It's a gut-wrenching psalm that doesn't flinch from the realities of life: things feel meaningless, hardships are heaped on those who are faithful, humans are fragile, riches cannot safeguard against death— and the right to rage and weep before God is a given. It ends not with the line of hope from the middle but with a challenge to God, and the main conflict of the psalm is not resolved or neatly tied up. Like all the Wisdom literature in the Bible, it invites the readers to sit in the tension and the confusion and the pain, rather than hastening on to a "correct answer" or even a sense of resolution.

I assume this is why it's included in the Book of Common Prayer's burial service: death cannot be tied up with a bow, or smoothed over with platitudes. This psalm expresses solidarity with people from every generation who have tried to make sense of their hardships and pain and the devastating reality of mortality.

Anyway, inclusion of this line in this scene was absolutely stunning. I suspect that many of Bram Stoker's original readers would have familiarity with the burial service since it would be read at every funeral, so adding in the words was wonderful to enhance the experience for the modern non-Anglican reader. This passage helped drive home how thematically resonant these words are with what's happening in the story in the moment. Very cool.

[and-her-saints]

What do you recommend for someone who's starting to read the bible? Like where to start, complementary readings, methods of study, etc

short answer: not really, i am so sorry. i have not found anything i would publicly recommend. there has always been some really heavy drawbacks that make me not want to back them.

the only thing (method-ish) i would recommend for Gospel readings wholeheartedly is the podcast Imagine: A Guide to Jesuit Prayer . however, it IS a contemplation podcast. not a bible study.

long answer: hmmmmm… my buddy El really recommends the The New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) but i do not own it, i pretty much only read the bible in Spanish (REINA-VALERA‼️🔥) but the NRSV is a very good, recent and accurate translation 👍 or so i’ve heard…

in regards to Bible studies… i’ve taken so many Bible study/Theology online courses and they have all SUCKED 👎 i don’t have many (if any) recs on that end.

many (many) people would recommend “Bible in a Year” with Fr. Mike Schmitz, however! i cannot stand him (respectfully) i am SO sorry…

this America article has some really good points on how to approach Catholic bible studies and has some recommendations.

i must finally add that i will be checking out the Agustine Institute’s podcast on the Bible/Bible in a Year because i’ve really enjoyed the experience of the “Amen” app. but i’ll have to give it a shot first.

i’m sorry this was SO unhelpful. i’m sure some people on here might have some actual suggestions and recommendations. pls add them. pls….. for the sake of us all…..

[wolfythewitch]

Maybe try "The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version"?

Ooo I like the sound of that title

[vital-information]

"In 1946, the term 'homosexuals' appeared for the first time in an English Bible. This new figure appeared in a list of sinners barred--according to a verse in the Apostles Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians--from inheriting the kingdom of God. The word change was made by leading Bible scholars, members of the translation committee that labored for over a decade to produce the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible. With an approach inspired by text-critical scholarship, many of their choices upset readers of the older King James Version, the favored Bible of Protestant America since the colonial era. Amid the outrage over other changes--to the red-letter words of Jesus and the old Shakespearean idiom--another modernizing innovation went virtual unremarked. Two enigmatic Greek nouns, referenced in the King James as 'effeminate' and 'abusers of themselves with mankind,' now appeared as a single, streamlined 'homosexual.' Subsequent Bible commentaries approached the new term as age-old tradition...

Some Bible readers, however, responded with surprise to this textual change. In everyday use, the verse in I Corinthians had other meanings. The author of a 1956 advice book on how to write sermons recounted the embarrassing tale of one minister's well-loved sermon. That sermon, delivered on various occasions, expanded on the 'general meaning' of the Apostle Paul's reference to the 'effeminate,' which the pastor took as warning against 'the soft, the pliable, those who take the easy road.' The take-away point was that Christians must undertake the difficult path of faith. It was a fine sermon, or so the pastor thought, until he read the RSV. He discovered 'to his amazement and chagrin; that 'effeminate' was translated 'homosexuals.' The confusion was a lesson, the author of this advice book chided, on the need to use recent translations. A check through earlier Bible commentaries confirms that outdated reference tools may indeed have contributed to this pastor's error. An eariler edition of The Interpreter's Bible, published in 1929, said nothing at all about homosexuality in its commentary on the same verse in I Corinthians. It noted that the Apostle Paul was keenly aware of the 'idolatry and immorality' of the pagan world. However, the named vice that so perturbed the apostle was 'self indulgence of appetite and speech,' an interpretation that more readily fit with the pastor's call to a disciplined faith. If Christianity did indeed set itself against homosexuality from the first, then this popular Christian reference text neglected to make that prohibition clear.

Several scholars of American religion have puzzled over the peculiar silences of early twentieth-century Christian texts on the topic of same-sex sexuality. After surveying the published Christian literature of that time, Randall Balmer and Lauren Winner concluded that during those decades, 'the safest thing to say about homosexuality was nothing.' They note that even the published commentary on 'sodomy,' which would seem to be the clearest antecedent to later talk about homosexuality, yielded little that would illumine a long tradition of same-sex regulation. Although many Bible reference tools mentioned that damnable 'sin of Sodom,' the muddled and circular commentary on this 'loathsome vice' offered little that clarified its nature. Historian Rebecca Davis, on her own hunt to find Christian teachings about homosexuality, similarly notes the profound absence in early and mid-twentieth century Protestant literature--and especially in the writing by conservative fundamentalists. 'The extant printed record,' she observes, 'suggests that they avoided discussions of homosexuality almost entirely.' Adding further substance to this void are the findings from Alfred Kinsey's study of the sexual behavior of white American men, conducted between 1936 and 1946. The study suggested that Christians, although well acquainted with the sinfulness of masturbation and premarital intercourse, knew very little about what their churches had to say about same-sex acts. 'There has not been so frequent or so free discussion of the sinfulness of the homosexual in religious literature,' Kinsey wrote. 'Consequently, it is not unusual to find even devoutly religious persons who become involved in the homosexual without any clear understanding of the church's attitude on the subject.' Before the 1940s, the Bible's seemingly plain condemnation of homosexuality was not plain at all.

...

What this book [Reforming Sodom] shows is that the broad common sense about the Bible's specifically same-sex meaning was an invention of the twentieth century. Today's antihomosexual animus, that is, is not the singular residue of an ancient damnation. Rather, it is the product of a more complex modern synthesis. To find the influential generators of that synthesis, moreover, we should look not to fundamentalist preachers but to their counterparts. Religious liberals, urbane modernizers of the twentieth century, studiously un-muddled the confused category of 'sodomitical sin' and assigned to it a singular same-sex meaning. The ideas informing this shift germinated out of the therapeutic sciences of psychiatry and psychology, an emerging field of the late nineteenth century that promised scientific frameworks for measuring and studying human sexual behavior. Liberal Protestants were early adopters of these scientific insights, which percolated through various early twentieth-century projects of moral reform. Among the yield from the convivial pairing of medicine and morality was the midcentury translation of the RSV. The newly focused homosexual prohibitions evidenced the grafting of new therapeutic terms onto ancient roots. The scores of subsequent Bible translations produced in later decades adopted and sharpened the RSV's durable precedent. In the shelves of late twentieth-century translations and commentaries--none more influential than the 1978 New International Version, which quickly displaced the King James as America's best-selling Bible--American Christians read what might be called a 'homosexualized' Bible. Instead of the archaic sinners and enigmatic sodomy talk found in the King James, these modern Bibles spoke clearly and plainly about the tradition's prohibition against same-sex behavior. The subsequent debate about the implications of these self-evident meanings overlooked a nearly invisible truth: the Bible's plain speech about homosexuality issued from a newly implanted therapeutic tongue."

Heather R. White, Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights

[bible-word-counter]

I'm super-new to this, how many english translations are there? Which one should I read as a first-time reader? I'm sorry if people've already asked you this

There are over a hundred translations of the Bible into English and over three thousand total for all languages.

The most common ones used are

King James Version (The one I use)

New International Version

New Revised Standard Version

As far as which one to start with? I would say the one that you can understand the best. Though it is fun to read KJV out loud because you sound like a Shakespearean actor

[tajcox]

“How art thou fallen from heauen (o Lucifer) thou faire mornige childe? hast thou gotten a fall euen to the grounde, thou that (notwithstondinge) dyddest subdue the people?”

-The Coverdale Bible 1535

“How art thou fallen from heauen (O Lucifer) thou faire mornynge childe? how hast thou gotten a fall euen to the grounde, and art become weaker then the people?”

- The Great Bible 1539

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? and cut down to the ground, which didst cast lots upon the nations?”

-Geneva Bible 1560

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

- King James Version 1611

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low”

-English Revised Version 1885

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!”

-American Standard Version 1971

“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!”

-New International Version 1973

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!”

- New King James 1982

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!”

- English Standard Version 2002

Be careful!! God had made the Bible to be understood plainly. Overtime men had changed words and or phrases thinking that it’s a necessity to be more plain, while in reality their mystifying that which is plain due to traditions. Gods word as a whole, is a perfect chain, one portion linking into and explaining another. True seekers for truth need not err, for not only is the Word of God plain and simple in declaring the way of life, but the Holy Spirit is given as a guide in understanding the way to life therein revealed.

[bones-ivy-breath]

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."

Genesis 2.18

To be fully human one needs to be in relation to others who correspond to oneself. Helper, not in a relationship of subordination but of mutuality and interdependence.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy

[tanadrin]

The KJV is a bad translation?

the kjv is, as i understand it, a particularly poor translation for the modern english speaker. and probably not a great translation even for its day.

some of this is a historical problem. the kjv is a lightly edited revision of the bishop's bible; by the time it was put into print its language was already a hundred years out of date.

some of this is a time marches on problem: our understanding of the source texts and the number of manuscripts available to us to analyze is simply much better now than it was back when the kjv/bishop's bible/other early vernacular bibles were printed. not to mention our understanding of the historical context of those texts as furnished by, e.g., archeology.

some of this is a language marches on problem: "tabernacle" is from a Latin word meaning "small hut," which was probably a fine way to translate the hebrew word used for the dwelling place of god back in the sixteenth century, but now, thanks in part to its use in translations of the bible, basically only has a specialized religious meaning that obscures more than it illuminates when used in conservative translations of the bible. there are english-language turns of phrase in the kjv that are now consistently misunderstood just because standard english usage has changed sufficiently in the intervening centuries to alter the fundamental meaning of some passages.

and some of this is a dogma problem: there are passages in the bible that religious publishers with an agenda will insist on mistranslating because the plain meaning of the text is awkward for their particular dogmas. because of the role of the kjv in the second great awakening and american protestantism's fixation on this version of the text, there is the particular pathology of the "kjv-only" movement in american protestantism which insists that the kjv is not only fine, but is actually the best and only good translation of the bible and all the other english translations are corrupted by the devil or something, idk.

what translation of the bible is best probably depends on what you want to use the bible for (devotional purposes vs critical understanding of hte new testament vs critical understanding of the hebrew bible, etc.), but one can definitely do better than a translation published in the seventeenth century.

[tiodolma]

On hindsight, on the whole ethics point of it. Sure friends can be sacrificed but is it really sacrifice if it's done without their consent?

or are they just choosing a scapegoat?

In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.

Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. — Leviticus 16:21–22, New Revised Standard Version

The scapegoat was a goat that was designated (Hebrew: לַעֲזָאזֵֽל) la-'aza'zeyl; "for absolute removal" (for symbolic removal of the people's sins with the literal removal of the goat), and outcast in the desert as part of the Yom Kippur Temple service, that began during the Exodus with the original Tabernacle and continued through the times of the temples in Jerusalem.

..the way Morgana was cast out multiple times, even in her time a princess, killed and then whisked away into the wilderness;

...the way that Morgana of Camelot and Morgana the Witch + High Priestess can be said to be the two kid goats. One is killed for the sake of "saving the kingdom" and the other is cast away and blamed for everything "wrong" about magic;

...the way no one cared about what happened to her in s4 and in the s4-s5 timeskip (even though there were rumors);

...No Morgana, No Problem attitude promoted by gaius, kilgharrrah and merlin (and eventually arthur).

.

.

anyway, these are just things i cant stop thinking about.

“it’s not very good manners to sacrifice a friend.” -terry pratchett

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Do Not Grow Weary

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. — Galatians 6:9 | New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved. Cross References: Psalm 126:5; Proverbs 11:18; Ecclesiastes 11:1; Isaiah 40:31; Jeremiah 45:3; Matthew 10:22; 1 Corinthians 15:58

[quotesfromscripture]

Life for a life

"But if someone at enmity with another lies in wait and attacks and takes the life of that person, and flees into one of those cities, then the elders of the killer's city shall send to have the culprit taken from there and handed over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. Show no pity; you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you."

(Deuteronomy 19:11-13 NRSVA, 1995)

[dailyanarchistposts]

Footnotes, 1-50

[1] Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), 1:263.

[2] Quotations from the Bible are taken from the Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

[3] H. Richard Niebuhr, as reported to me by Reverend Coleman Brown.

[4] William Sloane Coffin, Credo (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 159.

[5] Richard K. Fenn, Dreams of Glory: The Sources of Apocalyptic Terror (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 60.

[6] William Sloane Coffin, The Heart Is a Little to the Left (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999), 44.

[7] Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., stanza 96, in The Poetic and Dramatic Work of Alfred Lord Tennyson (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1899), 246.

[8] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952), 37.

[9] Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 218.

[10] Ibid., 219.

[11] Davidson Loehr, America, Fascism and God: Sermons from a Heretical Preacher (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2005), 88.

[12] Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Dallas, TX: Craig, 1973), 585–590.

[13] In September 2002, Tommy Thompson, then U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced the award of 21 grants from the White House’s new faith-based initiative. More than 500 institutions had applied. Operation Blessing was one of the winners, receiving more than $500,000. See remarks by Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, in a Pew forum titled “The Faith-Based Initiative Two Years Later: Examining Its Potential, Progress and Problems,” March 5, 2003, Washington, DC, pewforum.org. More than 7 percent of the $2,154,246,246 going to faith-based grants was awarded to abstinence-only education programs. See “Federal Funds for Organizations That Help Those in Need,” Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, www.whitehouse.gov.

[14] Katherine Yurica, “What Did Mr. Bush’s 2nd Inaugural Address Really Mean? Biblical Code Unraveled,” The Yurica Report, February 24, 2005, www.yuricareport.com Bush2ndInauguralMeans.html.

[15] Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, 581; 583–584.

[16] Mark A. Beliles and Stephen K. McDowell, America’s Providential History (Charlottesville, VA: Providence Foundation, 1991), 26.

[17] “The Vision of GRN,” Global Recordings Network, http://global recordings.net/topic/vision.

[18] “True Liberty,” Global Recordings Network, http://globalrecord ings.net/script/ENG/171.

[19] Joseph Goebbels, Signale der neuen Zeit (Munich: Eher, 1934), 34; Gerd Albrecht, Nationalsozialistische Filmpolitik: Eine soziologische Untersuchung über die Spielfilme des Dritten Reiches (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1969), 464.

[20] Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. 2003), 73.

[21] Paxton, Anatomy of Fascism, 202.

[22] Garry Wills, Under God: Religion and American Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 15. The Gallup data are found in George Gallup and Jim Castelli, The People’s Religion: American Faith in the 90s (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 56, 58, 61, 63 and 75. Data on the Rapture are found in Marlene Tufts, “Snatched Away Before the Bomb: Rapture Believers in the 1980s” (PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1986), vi.

[23] Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 9.

[24] Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Random House, 1965), 154–155.

[25] Ibid., 157–158.

[26] Ibid. 164.

[27] I heard Kennedy say this at my seminar with him at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.

[28] Curtis White, “The Spirit of Disobedience,” Harper’s, April 2006.

[29] The Christian Coalition of America lists 15 issues as key to its “Legislative Agenda.” Its 2004 “Congressional Scorecard” rated (on a 100-point scale) members of the House of Representatives on 13 of these issues; 163 members of the House received an overall rating of 90 or higher on all 13. Members of the Senate were rated on six issues; 42 members of the Senate received an overall rating of 100 on all six. See “Congressional Scorecard,” Christian Coalition of America, www.cc.org scorecard.pdf. Also Glenn Scherer, “The Godly Must Be Crazy,” Grist, October 27, 2004.

[30] “American Values: The Triumph of the Religious Right,” Economist, November 11, 2004, www.economist.com displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=375543; Transcript of interview with Jim DeMint, NBC News’ Meet the Press, October 17, 2004, www.msnbc.com; Hanna Rosin, “Doctor’s Order: Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn Is Back on Capitol Hill, Budgetary Scalpel at the Ready,” Washington Post, December 12, 2004, D1, www.washingtonpost.com.

[31] MSNBC.com, “Exit Polls—President,” www.msnbc.msn.com/ id/5297138.

[32] President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives by executive order on January 29, 2001, just nine days after his inauguration. Congress has not passed legislation allowing for faith-based initiatives, so President Bush has repeatedly used executive orders to push the policy through. See “Executive Orders,” Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, www.white house.gov/government/fbci/executive-orders.html. In February 2006, President Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, reauthorizing welfare reform for another five years and extending the “charitable choice” policy, which allows faith-based groups to continue receiving funding “without altering their religious identities or changing their hiring practices.” See “Fact Sheet: Compassion in Action: Producing Real Results for Americans Most in Need,” Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, www.white house.gov/news/releases/2006/03/print/20060309-3.html.

[33] In fiscal year 2003, $1.17 billion out of a $14.5 billion budget in competitive social-service grants were awarded to FBOs. See “Grants to Faith-Based Organizations FY 2003,” Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, www.whitehouse.gov/ government/fbci/final_report_2003.pdf.

[34] President George W. Bush, “President Highlights Faith-Based Results at National Conference,” www.whitehouse.gov releases/2006/03/20060309-5.html.

[35] Out of $19,456,713,768 in grants, $2,004,491,549 went to FBOs. See “Grants to Faith-Based Organizations FY 2004,” Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, www.whitehouse.gov/ government/fbci/final_report_2004.pdf.

[36] Out of $19,715,661,808 in grants, $2,154,246,246 went to FBOs. See “Grants to Faith-Based Organizations FY 2005,” Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, www.whitehouse.gov/ government/fbci/final_report_2005.pdf.

[37] David M. Fine, “Ohio Counties to Adopt Diebold Voting Machines,” The Mill, January 18, 2004, www.gristforthemill.org/ 010418diebold.html.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Mark Crispin Miller, “None Dare Call It Stolen,” Harper’s, September 7, 2005, www.harpers.org; Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, “Hearings on Ohio Voting Put 2004 Election in Doubt,” Columbus Free Press, November 18, 2004, www.commondreams.org 1118–30.htm.

[40] Ray Beckerman, “Basic Report from Columbus,” November 4, 2004, www.freepress.org.

[41] Mark Crispin Miller, “None Dare Call It Stolen.”

[42] The National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 1.1 million students were home-schooled in 2003, a 29 percent increase from 1999. The National Home Education Research Institute says that 1.7 million to 2.1 million children were home-schooled during the 2002–2003 academic year. From Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming, 2.

[43] Barbara Parker and Christy Macy, “Secular Humanism, the Hatch Amendment, and Public Education,” People for the American Way, Washington, DC, 1985, 8.

[44] Quoted in Bill Moyers, “9/11 and the Spirit of God,” address a. Union Theological Seminary, September 7, 2005, www.uts.columbia.edu.

[45] Sunsara Taylor, “Battle Cry for Theocracy,” Truthdig.com, May 11, 2006, www.truthdig.com _theocracy.

[46] Augustine, quoted in William Sloane Coffin, The Heart Is a Little to the Left, 6.

[47] Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), xii.

[48] Beth Shulman, “Working and Poor in the USA,” Nation, February 9, 2004.

[49] Robert Morley, “The Death of American Manufacturing,” Trumpet, February 2006, www.thetrumpet.com cle&id=1955.

[50] Martin Crutsinger, “United States Cites China and Other Nations in Report on Unfair Trade Practices,” Associated Press, March 31, 2006.

[karlcain-123]

yes I love ❤️ jesus my LORD & shepherd my SAVIOUR. His TEACHINGS ON EVIL SPIRIT'S 😈 are very POWERFUL in his GOSPEL OF CHRIST HOLY BIBLE new Testament 🙌 it is my manual book 📖 my A TO Z How to FIGHT BACK Against EVIL SPIRIT'S 😈 AND EVIL 😈 AMEN THANK YOU JESUS. THANK YOU JESUS THANK-YOU JESUS MY SAVIOUR THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME AMEN. 🙏

King James Bible

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

New King James Version

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

New American Standard Bible

and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

NASB 1995

and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

NASB 1977

and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Legacy Standard Bible

and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Amplified Bible

And you will know the truth [regarding salvation], and the truth will set you free [from the penalty of sin].”

Christian Standard Bible

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Holman Christian Standard Bible

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."”

American Standard Version

and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

“And you will know the truth, and that truth will set you free.”

Contemporary English Version

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Douay-Rheims Bible

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

English Revised Version

and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

GOD'S WORD® Translation

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Good News Translation

you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

International Standard Version

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." AMEN THANK YOU JESUS AMEN. .KCAIN

[stephyytheseeker]

Figs

Knowledge, Sex, Shame, Possibility.

I believe that figs represent a thirst for knowledge. A desire to know everything; to be everything. A hunger for godlike powers. It is thought by some that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which Adam and Eve ate from was a fig tree. This could be because figs are an ancient symbol of wisdom.

In Genesis, Adam and Eve covered themselves specifically with fig leaves when they became ashamed of their nakedness after eating from the tree (Genesis 3:7). For this reason, I think that figs also represent shame. The ancient Greeks considered figs to be a symbol of fertility, sex, and love. The fig represents acknowledging and embracing your sex and sexuality while simultaneously wanting to hide it away; pretending that it doesn’t matter or exist. The fig to me represents the unfortunate awareness I have of the realities of my sex; the beauty as well as the limitations that come with it. The fig to me represents my sexuality; my desire as well as the shame that I feel about that very desire. It represents my awareness of the ways the world tries to suppress it.

When these multiple meanings are combined, figs end up representing the shame that comes along with having wisdom and awareness; of the world around me and of myself. Knowledge is power but it’s also my kryptonite. My knowledge of the horrors in this world keeps me from feeling joy. Sometimes I wish I was ignorant. Maybe then my life would be easier. Maybe then I’d be happy. Knowledge makes me confused. I know a lot but I am not an expert in one thing. I’m at best mediocre at many things. If I could be an expert at only one thing, maybe I would know which path to choose. I am ashamed of my indecisiveness. I am ashamed because I know too much but also because I know too little to make anything of myself. In Sylvia Plath’s famous novel The Bell Jar, the main character Esther Greenwood compares the inability she possesses to decide what to do with her life to a fig tree: 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet” (Plath 77)

I feel the same things that Esther expresses in this passage. I want every fig. I want all of the knowledge; all of the possibilities. I want to live every life. But that desire prevents me from acting on any of the figs. I want to do and be everything but I can’t. Ultimately I am left paralyzed, unable to decide.

References

Coogan, Michael David, et al., editors. “Genesis 3.” The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With The Apocrypha: An Ecumenical Study Bible, Fifth ed., Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 15–17.

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed., HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.