One of the things I've started doing recently, when I'm teaching Biblical material in some other class, is that I will grab a chunk of the text that I want and format it for them like a single continuous plain old story -- no chapters and verse numbers (I usually provide line numbers so that we can refer to the text in discussion). It suddenly becomes a real live story, with characters, and motives, and things happening, instead of a reference book with long chains of statements only in passing connected to the material around them, which is what it's currently presented as.
I keep wishing someone -- and it's a little surprising that Eerdman's or Fortress don't do this, as much as it is that Oxford or Penguin hasn't, yet -- would publish a complete Bible without chapters and verses. KJV is in the public domain, afaik, but it's not what I would want for studying the Bible, or I would just take that and do it my own self. You could use line numbers, and/or provide marginal references to chapters and verses (along the lines of teh way that Plato and Aristotle are typically handled in a Penguin Classics volume).
In fact, this has always seemed to me like a no-brainer volume for Penguin Classics. I would use it for all my classes where they need to buy a Bible. And I have colleagues (religious ones, too) who agree.
On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 6:52 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
>
> one question: didn't you once say that your very religious students taking
> your theology class -- evangelicals, fundamentalists -- often didn't know
> scripture especially well. that maybe they could find the passage or quote
> it, but they hadn't really thought about it. you once wrote some interesting
> remarks here about that.
>
> k
>
>
> At 10:59 PM 3/24/2010, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
>> btw - i wasn't dissing the thread, here. just for the record. but there's
>> no
>> way i can catch up now. so i'll probably be waiting for the next go-round.
>> which is sure to happen sooner or later. :)
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
>> >wrote:
>>
>> > yeah, it's true, we've had the discussion before. sometimes i'm tired of
>> > it, and sometimes it feels fresher than that.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >> Jeffrey, we've had the same thread 100 times before. You're not missing
>> >> anything.
>> >>
>> >> Although that inspired vs. actual distinction would go right over the
>> >> average New Atheist's head.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ----- Original Message ----
>> >> From: Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>
>> >> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> >> Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 11:53:00 PM
>> >> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Americans and the bible
>> >>
>> >> i can't believe i've been missing the other thread altogether, and i
>> have
>> >> no
>> >> time at the moment to catch up on it in a way to be really helpful, but
>> it
>> >> really is worth looking at all the data in this link, i think, because
>> you
>> >> see the split between protestants and catholics on the "actual word of
>> >> god"
>> >> question, and very much the same split between born-again and
>> >> not-born-again
>> >> protestants. to say that the bible is the actual word of god is a
>> vastly
>> >> different thing than to consider it "inspired," which allows much more
>> >> room
>> >> for interpretation. even the term "inspired" can be construed in a
>> variety
>> >> of ways, some more exclusivist, but most more inclusivist and
>> pluralist,
>> >> and
>> >> even with something like a modern historical orientation.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ___________________________________
>> >> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
> --
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