Build your own Bible!

[Bishka]

I actually would have

Tao De Ching
Bible
Book of Mormon
and a couple of my favorite short books.

 

[ayani]

seriosuly awesome idea.

my Bible would have to include:

"the imitation of chirst" by tomas a kempis
"sacred lips of the bronx" by douglas sadownick
"no greater love" by mother teresa
"stalking the divine" by kristin ohlson

 

[doppelganger]

I would round my list out with some short stories or key chapters from the fiction of Mark Twain, Dostoevsky, Kafka and James Joyce.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Suppose you were to make your own collection of scriptures. You can pick any writings you want to go into this "canon," which you need not consider inerrant (though you can if you want). The only restriction is that it should be possible to bind it in one cover and carry it around; anything much over 1000 pages would be pushing it.

What would you include, and why? For instance, would your "Bible" have the Psalms? A selection of hadiths? Martin Buber's I and Thou? Henry David Thoreau's Walden? The Bhagavad Gita? Winnie the Pooh?

Would you consider your "Bible" authoritative, or just useful and inspirational?

For Christian scriptures, I would canonize the OT and NT with the exception of Revelation and "add" the Apocrypha, 1 Clement, Pastor of Hermas, the Didache, and the the Epistle of Barnabas.

The scriptures would be used in worship only.

 

[kiwimac]

The Gathas by Zoroaster., Passages from the Rhineland Mystics of Christianity and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount / Sermon on the plain, parts of Hans Kung's On Being a Christian and some of Gerald Manley Hopkin's poetry (and perhaps some Roger White too).

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I forgot to mention that I would add a preface that blasts inerrancy and sola scriptura.

 

[Mujahid Mohammed]

Suppose you were to make your own collection of scriptures. You can pick any writings you want to go into this "canon," which you need not consider inerrant (though you can if you want). The only restriction is that it should be possible to bind it in one cover and carry it around; anything much over 1000 pages would be pushing it.

What would you include, and why? For instance, would your "Bible" have the Psalms? A selection of hadiths? Martin Buber's I and Thou? Henry David Thoreau's Walden? The Bhagavad Gita? Winnie the Pooh?

Would you consider your "Bible" authoritative, or just useful and inspirational?

Isn't that what they do and have continued to do to the bible. I mean it is still a work in progress.

 

[cardero]

Suppose you were to make your own collection of scriptures. You can pick any writings you want to go into this "canon," which you need not consider inerrant (though you can if you want). The only restriction is that it should be possible to bind it in one cover and carry it around; anything much over 1000 pages would be pushing it.

What would you include, and why? For instance, would your "Bible" have the Psalms? A selection of hadiths? Martin Buber's I and Thou? Henry David Thoreau's Walden? The Bhagavad Gita? Winnie the Pooh?

Would you consider your "Bible" authoritative, or just useful and inspirational?

This is a really great thread and one that I use in my lectures and workshops. See I believe that all scriptures (literature) is inspirational and beneficial for teaching and I encourage people to build and write their own bibles. I usually include a music theory book and then throw in my favorite book by Gunter Grass called THE TIN DRUM and then I will throw in a few of my favorite Graphic Novels and of course Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. The Art Of Penciling and Inking and Watercolor. I would include Alex Ross’s beautifully illustrated Mythology book, all 25 series of Man Myth and Magic. No Bible would be complete without The Psychotronic Video Guide. Now if I can just find someone to bind this all into a hardcover I can prepare for my second volume.

 

[MaddLlama]

Hmm...lesse...I have to think about this one.

The Tao Te Ching
The Tao of Pooh
The Parable of the Sower (a fiction book, not the story from the Bible. Actually it's an amazing book, I suggest everyone who likes sci-fi lit pick this one up)
Coloring Your Prayers (as a joural section)
The Circle Within
Natural Atheism
The Atheist Universe
And a collection of myths from the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, Egyptian, Japan, India and Native America, possibly with some Polynesia mixed in.

 

[thalassa]

so, I do have my own bible...

not that I call it that...

and it is definately non-authoritative, though I would like to think it has some good guidelines...it is also reflective and inspirational and filled with poems, quotes, stories, spiritually releveant information, and a complete copy of The Lorax by Dr Seuss...

 

[doppelganger]

I'd also put Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree in mine. It would be the last book. Sort my substitute for "Revelations."