Re: Conlang Website

Yoon Ha Lee wrote, quoting myself:

> > My favourite part of the Bible is the letters, because they're so
> > very conversational - almost like reading email - and because the
> > emotion and earnestness behind them comes out so clearly ("Oh you
>
> I liked Psalms, Proverbs, and Revelation. :-p (I read the Song of
> Solomon in 4th grade--read the Bible straight through, in fact--and was
> completely confused....) The letters intrigued me, but there's a lot
> about the culture involved that I still don't quite understand, and
> reading anything by Paul tends to make my teeth clench even when I
> agree with him. <sigh>
I would definately recommend William Barclay's commentaries on whatever
New Testament books intrigue you the most - their whole purpose is to
help the average human being to understand the Bible more thoroughly.
They are a very famous series, and should therefore be easy to get hold
of. In addition to the commentaries, there are titles like "Ethics in a
Permissive Society", and, "The Plain Man Looks at the Apostle's Creed".

It's fascinating to learn about the original Greek words used in the
Bible. For example, in "Blessed are the meek", the word translated 'meek'
is actually quite untranslatable. Aristotle defined it as the happy
medium between a person who is angry all the time, and a person who is
never angry at all. Barclay argues that this trait is characteristic
of great leaders, and that "For they shall inherit the earth" is not
as outrageous as it's sometimes made out to be.

> I have a Good News Bible, which is so colloquial sometimes it worries
> me. I really should acquire a NSRV copy.
I have an NRSV. For general purposes I prefer the freer translation of
the J.B.Phillips, but as I said, one really needs at least two different
translations to get the most out of it.

> > I come from a rather scientific family. For example my Dad's a
> > geologist.
>
> I come from a rather medical family. Dad's a surgeon, one aunt is a
> dentist, another is some other kind of doctor, an uncle who's an
> orthopedist, two cousins who are in medical research...eek!
Lessee...

Dad - geologist. Grandfather (late) - mechanic. Uncle - lecturer in
biochemical engineering. Uncle - church minister. Cousin - nurse.
Cousin's wife - doctor. Grandfather on Mum's side - farmer. Uncle -
doctor.

> However, the more salient part, I guess, is that I come from an
> atheist/agnostic family. Our folks respect that my sister and I are
> Christian, because they find it pretty irrelevant.
Although I was raised in a Christian household (although not a household
in which spiritual things were often discussed : my parents are
definately not theologians) I did not become a Christian personally until
my early teens.

--
web.       | Here and there I like to preserve a few islands of sanity
netyp.com/ | within the vast sea of absurdity which is my mind.
member/    | After all, you can't survive as an eight foot tall
dragon     | flesh eating dragon if you've got no concept of reality.