>>>>and (hold onto your hat <g>) the Bible.
>>>
>>>What version? I think the NIV version is easier to understand.
>>
>>But King James is poetry. (not to mention the MVP)
>>
>>Understanding may not always be a virtue - if you read Leviticus in NIV it is hard not to giggle.
>
>Don't press me for details but there was a fairly recent article in The New Yorker about the translations of the Bible. This one said, in more or less words, that much of what we think we understand today is incorrect. Not incorrect necessarily in terms of faith, just incorrect translations. Some of the most famous passages were tarted up, so to speak, from the original Hebrew.
>
>The bottom line, IMO, is this is not the word of God. It is the word of man.

No argument here. Among historians this has been pretty much consensus certainly since I was in college. One of the first things I learned was about the Council of Nicea in 353 when what we currently know as the Bible was assembled by committee. The translation problems were well known then ( the 60s, not during the Council <s> - the Nag Hammadi / Dead Sea scroll stuff really cranked up the focus on this beginning in the 50s ) I like the poetry, but don't take it more seriously than I do the Baghavid Gita, the book of Mormon or Beowulf. But it is a fascinating cultural document that has to be understood since it is a major underpinning of our history and literature. (that's why I prefer the King James)

For the reasons you state, I'm don't have much faith in doctrine by holy book. I've never been a believer that any particular human's take on the ineffable is more literally valid than my own experience. (Transcendentalism anyone?)

A friend once described me as a "devout Unitarian Pagan"