Jon Reading Books’s Reviews > Holy Bible: Authorized King James Version > Status Update

Jude: A short book in which Jude continues John's rants against what were seen as movements heretical to Christianity.

Revelation: The closing book of the Bible, and an important one. Apocalyptic, complex. Surprisingly, I rather enjoyed it. I read it metaphorically, and I can see how troublesome and damaging it could be to read it literally. Yikes, Christians.

Also—finally, "666" appears. yay!

Review forthcoming.

1, 2, & 3 John: Ugh. These books are representative of the chaos of early Christianity, launching into tirade against heretical teachings while at the same time featuring striking contradictions within its own texts (example: man will always be a sinner and must repent / man is born of god and thus cannot sin).

It's indicative of the growth of Christianity and the need for a more organized, bureaucratic orthodoxy.

James: A book that reads like the wisdoms and seems to disagree with those Pauline books preceding it in terms of redemption via faith vs. good works.

1 & 2 Peter: Supplemental reading casts doubt that these were actually written by Peter, as the Greek is fluent and the prose poetic even though Peter was an Aramaic-speaking Jewish fisherman. The second book is particularly aggressive in its criticisms of the lapsed.

Hebrews: What stuck with me most from this book was the grasping at straws to relate Jesus-as-divinity to the oldest books of the Hebrew bible. Great effort seems to be made to tie continuity to the New Testament here.

Titus: Echoing Timothy in its distaste for the Jews (although Cretans are included, which I found humorous), and its stressing the coming bureaucracy of the new church.

Philemon: A single page but a vastly important book to me. Inside which Paul discusses an escaped slave of a friend, and urges the friend to take the slave back. No commentary whatsoever is made on slavery being inherently evil and wrong. Laughable.

1 & 2 Thessalonians: The books are growing shorter as I continue. Most notable are some of the most direct attacks on the Jews in the New Testament so far are found here.

1 & 2 Timothy: Did you know the Bible forbids women from teaching or holding authority positions over men? You do now. This book is chock full of discussion on ecclesiastical organization and rhetoric damaging to gender equality.

Philippians: Interesting how quickly the charismatic, non-threatening, cult-leader-like Christ has disappeared after the Gospels to be replaced by the divine one in this book. The aggression shown towards potential heretics is equally striking.

Colossians: Doesn't differ much from prior Pauline books. Supplemental reading indicates it is now believed this and Ephesians were not actually written by Paul. Interesting.

Galatians: Paul seems more insecure in this letter, defending his apostleship and retierating the unnecessary act of circumcision among gentiles joining the Jesus movement.

Ephesians: Beginning oddly with an enormous single sentence, this book stresses the otherworldliness of Jesus and lays out some dogmatic principles stressing the holy justification of the church, rather than allowing it to remain a manmade entity

1 and 2 Corinthians: Paul seems more introspective in this letter. I particularly enjoyed his comparisons of the Jewish reliance on "law", or "the letter"; versus the Christian practice of worshiping on faith and reading their holy books allegorically.

Noteworthy: What I assume is the first usage of the phrase "through a glass, darkly"—Which I did not know originated from the bible. I love finding stuff like this.

Romans: I find Paul fascinating. An egotist, a man who never knew Jesus but swears by him as his lord and savior. I find myself viewing Paul in a cynical light; as a man who seized the opportunity provided by the Jesus movement, and set it on the path to the strictly structured, dogmatic entity it is in the modern day. I'd kill to see his reaction to how gargantuan and influential the church has been on Western civ.