#Revised Standard Bible

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Good Samaritan

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read?" 27 And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 28 And he said to him, "You have answered right; do this, and you will live." 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 30 Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, 34 and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.' 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" 37 He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." — Luke 10:25-37 | Revised Standard Version (RSV) Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 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: Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Deuteronomy 6:24; Leviticus 18:15; Leviticus 19:18; Isaiah 58:7; Matthew 10:5; Matthew 18:28; Matthew 19:16; Matthew 24:34; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:52; Luke 10:38; Luke 16:15; Luke 18:31; Luke 19:28

[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)

[oh-dear-so-queer]

As the monumental RSV stuff-up in 1946 demonstrates, the fault for a lot of negative Christian response to homosexuality lies with those who translate, interpret and preach the Scriptures.

"In/Out: A Scandalous Story of Falling Into Love and Out of the Church" - Steph Lentz

[christianity-crucible]

Hoping to find an article I had but lost track of talking about how messed up the evangelical-favored English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible is, especially compared to the version it was cribbed from, the Revised Standard Version (RSV), which at least according to one telling tried to make it translation as accurate as possible. By contrast, the changes made in the English Standard Version were very political and were LESS linguistically accurate, though more political convenient for evangelicalism.

If I can find that article again, I'll post a link here.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Do you have a list of good sex ed books to read?

BOY DO I

please bear in mind that some of these books are a little old (10+ years) by research standards now, and that even the newer ones are all flawed in some way. the thing about research on human beings, and especially research on something as nebulous and huge as sex, is that people are Always going to miss something or fail to account for every possible experience, and that's just something that we have to accept in good faith. I think all of these books have something interesting to say, but that doesn't mean any of them are the only book you'll ever need.

related to that: it's been A While since I've read some of these so sorry if anything in them has aged poorly (I don't THINK SO but like, I was not as discerning a reader when I was 19) but I am still including them as books that have been important to my personal journey as a sex educator.

additionally, a caveat that very few of these books are, like, instructional sex ed books in the sense of like "here's how the penis works, here's where the clit is, etc." those books exist and they're great but they're also not very interesting to me; my studies on sex are much more in the social aspect (shout out to my sociology degree) and the way people learn to think about sex and societal factors that shape those trends. these books reflect that. I would genuinely love to have the time to check out some 101 books to see how they fare, but alas - sex ed is not my day job and I don't have the time to dedicate to that, so it happens slowly when it happens at all. I've been meaning to read Dr. Gunter's Vagina Bible since it came out in 2019, for fucks sake.

and finally an acknowledgement that this is a fairly white list, which has as much to do with biases with academia and publishing as my own unchecked biases especially early in my academic career and the limitations of my university library.

ANYWAY here's some books about sex that have been influential/informative to me in one way or another:

The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Michael Warner, 1999)

Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences (Laura M. Carpenter, 2005)

Virgin: The Untouched History (Hanne Blank, 2007)

Sex Goes to School: Girls and Sex Education Before the 1960s (Susan K. Freeman, 2008)

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (Mary Roach, 2008)

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Revised Edition) (Susan Stryker, 2008)

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women (Jessica Valenti, 2009)

Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex (Amy T. Schalet, 2011)

Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality (Hanne Blank, 2012)

Rewriting the Rules: An Integrative Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships (Meg-John Barker, 2013)

The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Realities (Rachel Hills, 2015)

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Tranform Your Sex Life (Emily Nagoski, 2015)

Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (Jane Ward, 2015)

Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education (Jonathan Zimmerman, 2015)

American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus (Lisa Wade, 2017)

Histories of the Transgender Child (Jules Gill-Peterson, 2018)

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights (Juno Mac and Molly Smith, 2018)

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Angela Chen, 2020)

Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (Kim Gallon, 2020)

A Curious History of Sex (Kate Lister, 2020)

Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity (Peggy Orenstein, 2020)

Black Women, Black Love: America's War on Africa American Marriage (Dianne M. Stewart, 2020)

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (Jane Ward, 2020)

Hurts So Good: The Science and Pleasure of Pain on Purpose (Leigh Cowart, 2021)

Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs (Ina Park, 2021)

The Right to Sex: Feminist in the Twenty-First Century (Amia Srinivasan, 2021)

Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles (Eric C. Wat, 2021)

Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Arielle Greenberg, 2023)

[jesuschristisgod]

Matthew 11:29–30 in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible reads: 29 "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls".30 "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light".

[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.

[transhuman-priestess]

“None of these words are in the Bible”

Really? Which translation are you comparing to?

There are hundreds, if not thousands of translations of the Bible available from everybody and their grandma.

I’m not even talking about French vs English vs Arabic etc I’m talking about just within the English language.

You’ve got King James, Revised King James, New International, English Standard, New Living, and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Some of those absolutely have the word penis in them. Quit lying, you uncultured buffoons.

[babyangelsky]

*sits at a lighted vanity mirror with clown makeup half on and a multicolored wig on a stand beside me*

I would like to share with you all a little fact about me: I have an incurable case of Fluke Pusit Heart Eyes. All I asked for Christmas was more Fluke, then all I asked for New Year's was more Fluke, then all I asked for my birthday was more Fluke.

So while that may admittedly be coloring my judgement, I'm gonna ask ya'll to let me cook here for a second.

A few days ago I ran my lil self over to Petty to share a bit of news I came across, which was that Fluke stated in a recent interview that he had a project coming up and that it was maybe a BL.

THEN, a couple of days later, Be on Cloud announced that Ta, Copper, Bible, and Bas would be at the One D press conference and it began to be speculated by some that Bas would be paired with Bible in the upcoming series 4 Minutes. Nothing was announced or confirmed at the press con...

BUT!

In an interview with The Standard, the relevant portion of which has been kindly translated here, Pond Krisda stated that the script for 4 Minutes had just finished being revised and:

THAT AN ACTOR HAS BEEN CAST TO STAR ALONGSIDE BIBLE.

Now! I love Bas. I'm very excited to see him in Man Suang when it gets released on Netflix at the end of the month because by all accounts he gave a fantastic performance. If he is paired with Bible in 4 Minutes, I'll be seated for it. I'll be seated regardless.

But! I HAVE FLUKE PUSIT HEART EYES! AND NOT ONLY DO I HAVE THEM, A MONTH AGO FELLOW FLUKE PUSIT ENJOYER CHICA PUT THIS IN MY HEAD:

DO YOU SEE WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS? DO YOU SEE?

Fluke shares that he has a project coming soon but can't share any details and then TWO DAYS LATER Pond gives an interview and says that they have a co-star for Bible! Is the co-star Bas or one of the other BOC boys? Very possible! Probable even! Is this all just coincidental timing and Fluke's new project is something else entirely? Maybe!

BUT WHAT IF IT ISN'T? WHAT IF IT REALLY IS FLUKE WHO HAS BEEN CAST TO STAR WITH BIBLE?

*secures my clown wig, completing the clown transformation, and takes deep breath*

There is absolutely no reason for this post to exist or be this long other than my profound desire to see Fluke star in something, and these may very well be the delusional ramblings of a freshly 30-year-old lady in a "-I've connected the dots/-You haven't connected shit" situation.

But I just want ya'll to consider that much like the chances of being attacked by a bear in everyday life, the chances of Fluke being in 4 Minutes with Bible are slim, but not zero.

And I would like to invite ya'll and @respectthepetty and @chicademartinica to join me in this clown car

[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…..

[coffeetime88]

If I went up to Santa- If I went up to Santa Claus-

If I rode the literally magic Polar Express with Tom Hanks as my conductor and the train is powered by belief in Christmas, then I went up to

SAINT NICHOLAS HIMSELF

And my request was for concrete and undeniable proof of The* Biblical God existing...

Santa would do that thing where he winks at me and wrinkles his nose, then points to my heart cause I'm a Good Christian Boy (tm). Then I'd get a Bible for Christmas

*I'm assuming you mean the Christian God and not just like, proof of Baal existing, cause while that would be cool I don't know what you'd do with that other than just have more questions.

If, in The Polar Ezpress, you had told Santa what you wanted for Christmas was proof of the existence of a Biblical God do you think he'd

1) Give it to you on the spot, safe in the knowledge it would dissappear come the end of Christmas like the memory of the Polar Express itself

2) Deliver it to you on Christmas morning leaving you with a document that would be incromphensible to your child brain without the knowledge of having asked Santa for it

3) Refuse on principal

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Jacob is Buried

1 Then Joseph fell on his father’s face, and wept over him, and kissed him. 2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel; 3 forty days were required for it, for so many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.

4 And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, 5 My father made me swear, saying, ‘I am about to die: in my tomb which I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.’ Now therefore let me go up, I pray you, and bury my father; then I will return.” 6 And Pharaoh answered, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.” 7 So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8 as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household; only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. 9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; it was a very great company. 10 When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father seven days. 11 When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians.” Therefore the place was named A′bel-mizraim; it is beyond the Jordan. 12 Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them; 13 for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field at Mach-pe′lah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite, to possess as a burying place. 14 After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.

Joseph Forgives His Brothers

15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil which we did to him.” 16 So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died, 17 ‘Say to Joseph, Forgive, I pray you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, we pray you, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him, and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Fear not, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he reassured them and comforted them.

Joseph’s Last Days and Death

22 So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. 23 And Joseph saw E′phraim’s children of the third generation; the children also of Machir the son of Manas′seh were born upon Joseph’s knees. 24 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die; but God will visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” 25 Then Joseph took an oath of the sons of Israel, saying, “God will visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” 26 So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. — Genesis 50 | Revised Standard Version (RSV) Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 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: Genesis 13:15; Genesis 23:16; Genesis 27:41; Genesis 30:3; Genesis 37:8; Genesis 37:26-28; Genesis 41:43; Genesis 42:21-22; Genesis 45:5; Genesis 45:11; Genesis 46:4; Genesis 47:12; Genesis 47:29-30; Genesis 49:33; Genesis 50:15; Exodus 1:6; Numbers 20:29; Numbers 32:39; Deuteronomy 34:8; Matthew 26:12; Matthew 27:60; Mark 16:1; Acts 8:2; Acts 7:16; Hebrews 11:22

Trusting God's Direction for Our Lives

[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)

[oh-dear-so-queer]

The clincher was the discovery that the word 'homosexual' first appeared in the Bible (1 Corinthians 6 RSV) in 1946, following an error in the translation of the Greek words 'arsenokoitai' and 'malakos'.

"In/Out: A Scandalous Story of Falling Into Love and Out of the Church" - Steph Lentz

[skepticalpigeon]

@anamericangirl

Sure, yeah, you can kill anything until God breathes the breath of life into it. That's what I mean. If it hasn't breathed it's first breath, it's not alive.

Also the Message Bible, New American standard Bible, New revised standard Bible, BBE, CEB, CJB, Good news translation etc say miscarriage.

[walkswithmyfather]

This is fascinating! By Stefan Hager (FB)

“We currently have 5,800 plus Greek New Testaments manuscripts, 10,000 plus Latin manuscripts, and 9,300 plus manuscripts in various languages). if we were to stack the manuscripts we have found today it would reach more than a mile high). Beating all other historical records of the ancient world. for example, no one doubts the historical person “Homer” as we have 1.800 plus manuscripts of his life, yet we have 25,000 plus manuscripts of the life of Jesus, and that doesn’t include secular sources). And considering that the earliest copies of the New Testament are written within 25 years after the death of Jesus, but the earliest copies of Homers works are written 400 years after the death of Homer. Jesus is the gold standard for historians. If we’re going to doubt Jesus. We might as well doubt all ancient history.

Comparing these manuscripts we find that the teaching, stories, doctrines of the bible are all surprisingly the same. reading a bible in English vs reading a bible in Russian. It may be worded differently but you get the same story/biblical doctrine).

Tho no one manuscript is perfect. Through the centuries, minor differences arose in the various copies of the Scriptures. The vast majority of these differences are simple spelling variants, inverted words (one manuscript says “Christ Jesus” while another says “Jesus Christ” or different ways people have spelled names). or an easily identified missing word. In short, over 99 percent of the biblical text is not questioned. Of the less than 1 percent of the text that is in question, no doctrinal teaching or command is jeopardized. In other words, the copies of the Bible we have today are pure. The Bible has not been corrupted, altered, edited, revised, or tampered with.

“The early books of the bible” were so vastly copied and wide spread that if one group in Africa wanted to change any part, believers in Israel, Rome, Alexandria would have easily identified the change to the wide spread text/message.

This is also evidenced by the Dead Sea scrolls (large portions of Old Testament) which were found in 1947. These scrolls are dated 200BC. So Jesus would have those as scripture during his earthly time, and the content of those scrolls match. If we look at any bible in any chapter and we look at the Hebrew and the same chapter it’s going to read the same way we have today, now it is true there are variations in reading/wording or translation. Every book prior to the printing press has variations. The Quran has variations, The point is, variations don’t give you a different text, a different theology, a different meaning.

Here’s a scaled down example. using textual criticism and cross checking manuscripts. We can pretty much reconstruct what the original said. How does this work?.

Consider the following example. Suppose we have four different manuscripts that have different errors in the same verse, such as Philippians 4:13:

1.I can do all t#ings through Christ

2.I can do all th#ngs through Christ

3.I can do all thi#gs through Christ

4.I can do all thin#s through Christ

Is there any mystery of what the original said?. None whatsoever. By comparing and cross checking manuscripts. the original can be reconstructed with great accuracy and the reconstruction of the New Testament is easier than this, because there are far fewer errors in the actual New Testament manuscripts than there are represented by this example. Plus a vast amount of material to work with.

Any unbiased document scholar will agree that the Bible has been remarkably well-preserved over the centuries. Even many hardened skeptics and critics of the Bible admit that the Bible has been transmitted over the centuries far more accurately than any other ancient document.

There is absolutely no evidence that the Bible has been revised, edited, or tampered with in any systematic manner. No one group has ever had control over the biblical text. The sheer volume of biblical manuscripts makes it simple to recognize any attempt to distort God’s Word. There is no major doctrine of the Bible that is put in doubt as a result of the inconsequential differences among the manuscripts.

Ancient scribes often copied books letter by letter (one by one). not sentence by sentence. It was a long process but they assured Accuracy. And they would count the letters of the copies and count the letters of the original. if the original had 500 letters and the copy had 497 letters, they would destroy the copy and restart.”