"The Portable World Bible" Edited by Robert O. Ballou, Observations On A Book To Help Settle Some Conflicts

 

Many years ago, I was blessed to take an Introduction To World History course at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Kentucky, under a man named Dr. Billy Rojas, Ph. D., who had come to ALC from the Chicago area as I recall.  Billy, as he preferred to known by everyone he knew, required that students in all his history courses buy, and actually read sections of this book.  Billy taught history from a viewpoint which was strongly focused on how religion and, particularly how differences in religion had influenced the flow of history over time.  This book is edited by Robert O. Ballou, according to his publisher, Penguin Random House, brought to countless contemporary readers much of the world’s religious thought, which he selected, interpreted, and arranged in view of modern man’s quest for ultimate truths and values. His book, "The Portable World Bible" which has been in constant publication since its original publication in 1944, and is constantly relied on by students in many disciplines along with thousands of ministers, rabbis, imams, and priests.  The book is broken into seven sections with each being composed of many of the key scriptures from most of the world's leading religions.  It is an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in world religious beliefs, conflicts between believers in two or more of those beliefs, or simply anyone who wants to learn more about any particular major religion. 

The sections are labeled The Hindu, The Buddhist, The Parsi, The Jew And The Christian, The Moslem, The Confucianist, and The Taoist.The book actually begins with a General Introduction and each of the sections begins with a specific introduction of about 10 to 15 pages.  While a detractor could make the arguments that the book is a bit aged for today's world, or that it omits a few religions which have significant numbers of adherents worldwide, it is still a wonderful book for anyone who wants to actually understand how the religions of the world interact, conflict, and, oftentimes, agree.  I have depended on it for some fast answers ever since the first time I ever read it in Billy Rojas' history class.  I also have a friend of twenty years who is a minister in a rather conservative form of Christianity and a graduate of a seminary who also depends on it.  For me, it is just as productive as any other book I can find when I need fast answers about key texts in any of the religions it discusses.  Rarely will anyone write or edit a book which will still be in print more than 75 years after its initial publication. And I believe that this book will still be in use and publication in another 75 years. It is especially useful when we consider the perpetual, and currently volatile conflicts in the Middle East which are rooted almost entirely in religious differences based on three major religions whose most sacred sites are in a markedly small geographic territory in which their claimed sites often overlap.  If you don't know about this book, at least look at a copy in a book store or library and decide if it is useful to you.                 

Some Thoughts About Separation Of Church And State!

 

Several events, incidents, occurrences, and news articles over the last 5 or so years, and especially the last 16 months have prompted me to write on this blog about something which, so far as I remember I have never done, interactions on social media, only one kind of which I ever use or ever have.  That one type of social media is Facebook and I have been induced twice to leave it for extended periods of time, one in 2017 for the entire month of October.  Admittedly, I was on a long road trip then and didn't want the distraction.  And in the last several months, I took another month off, without ever signing on to Facebook, simply because I was sick of all their targeted and unblockable ads.  But this post is actually prompted by one little interaction I had on Facebook this morning and the recent trend in quite a few conservative churches in America, and especially in the south, to support Vladimir Putin's invasion of the totally innocent country of Ukraine.  I had noticed some of it myself and got into a series of messages with a Facebook friend in Western North Carolina who has also been very concerned about the amount of this insanity he has seen in his own area.  He sent me a link to this article about so-called "Christian" groups which have been praising Vladimir Putin.  The article talks about Franklin Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, which he now controls, and his contacts with and praise for Putin.  The article also addresses the World Congress of Families, another fairly right wing "Christian" organization which has actually partnered with Russian officials who have been sanctioned by the US government.  Please note that if you want to go to these two groups' websites to see what they believe you are free to do so.  But I have not and will not add links to those groups on this blog because of their works with or in praise of Putin and Russia which are helping him in his ultimate goal of destroying America, American Democracy, and general worldwide Democracy.  If you want to know what they think, find it yourself.  

 But, the incident on Facebook this morning involved a woman on my Facebook friends list who made a statement that she was unfriending and blocking people she referred to as "atheists" because of their beliefs.  Her actual statement was:  "unfriending multiple atheists who insist on being rude and insulting to those who believe. Not putting up with it."  I was instantly reminded of a Bible quote which I admit I had to find through a joint Google search and a search of Bible Gateway in the King James Version which is the only translation of the Bible I ever bother to read since I firmly believe that the more translations away from the KJV you get the farther you simultaneously get from the original intent of the writers of the particular book of the Bible you are reading. 

 

In the interest of honesty, I will say that I am not particularly religious although I firmly believe in some form of creation by a power greater than the ordinary humans who attempt to be the self-appointed mouthpieces of whichever "God" they believe in. I will also say, for the sake of honesty, that I have actually read the Bible thirteen times "kiver to kiver"  as the Old Regular Baptist preachers I knew in my youth used to recommend. Additionally, I have read major sections of the basic texts of several other world religions and was blessed to know a man named Dr. Billy Rojas, Ph. D. in my youth who was a history professor at Alice Lloyd College and used "The Portable World Bible" as a supplementary text in every course he taught in order to help his students understand that various religions have greatly influenced world  history over the centuries and that in many cases that influence was markedly negative just as it is in America today. 

 Now that I have prefaced what else I am about to say  the remainder of what I have to say about the adverse influence a few million people like the woman who partially prompted this writing have on the general public, let's get back to the gist of what I have to say. You will also find, if you do an honest comparison of many modern translations of the Bible, that quite often those modern translations have inserted words, phrases, and meanings into the text which are in direct conflict with the older translations and the actual meaning of the original wording of the various ancient texts on which the Bible is based. As a result, it is always best to read the Bible, any version of the Bible, with a copy of "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance" nearby. And you should always recognize, admit, and accept that there were numerous writers of the individual books of the Bible in at least three languages, on at least two continents, and at least a few hundred years apart.  The particular quote I was thinking of in regard to the aforementioned type of deliberate alteration of the Bible is:

Second Timothy KJV 2:24-26- 24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

I appended that quotation to her post along with this comment "I suspect that if you are really seriously religious you should actually do what the Bible tells you to do which seems pretty rare today from most self-described "Christians". And I'm not religious at all, but I have read the Bible and understand it well enough to confront those who claim to know but don't. Actually as I said previoiusly, I have read the entire Bible, "kiver to kiver" as my ancestors used to say thirteen times but not lately, hence the need to look those verses up.  The willingness of people today to use whatever interpretation of the Bible they like (generally their own or that of someone they like better than the Bible), can be traced to TRAITOR Trump and whatever most recent bizarre, illogical, and total unsupported by fact things he has said. Over the last 9 years especially since June 16, 2015, when TRAITOR Trump announced his delusion that he believed he was fit to become the president of the United States our country has steadily deteriorated morally and ethically while the people in the forefront of that deterioration claim they are doing what they do because of their religion which they can never seem to support with the actual words of the Bible. These self-described "Christians" have become more and more influenced by the Big Lie, actually thousands of Big Lies, from TRAITOR Trump to the degree that they believe a country and a leader, in the case of Putin and Russia, which have murdered, isolated, imprisoned, and endlessly sought to destroy Christianity is actually working to help them restore Christianity all over the world.  They also deny the fact that Putin actually stole the 2016 US election in order to install his stool pigeon, the TRAITOR Trump in the White House in order to destroy America. They also claim to believe that it will happen again in 2024.  The level of willful ignorance and willful blindness on the part of these people is astonishing to me.  I have written about that aspect of it on this blog many times but this effort to aggrandize two of the most evil men on earth despite their public crimes, violation of all ten commandments, and outright murder of at least a dozen former KGB/FSB agents who were involved in the contacts between Putin and TRAITOR Trump absolutely astounds me.  

 Anyone on earth, when confronted by some self-appointed spokesperson for "God", their individual "God", should listen to that person's arguments very closely, examine them even more closely, and never accept any of their quotes and misquotes of the Bible, or any other religious text, as "Gospel" until you have verified it with a close examination of the Bible,preferably the King James Version, since it is the oldest version  currently in widespread use in America today.  And do that examination with a jaundiced eye and "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance" in hand.  probably refer to this famous quotation from the Bible, which almost no one seems to remember today,  before shooting off your mouth:  

 5And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. ⁶ But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. ⁷ But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. ⁸ Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.  (Matthew 6:5-8, KJV)

And, all of these people who claim to want to turn the United States into a "Christian Nation", especially those who claim they want to do so "because that is how it was founded" need to read some history also, accurate, factual, American History as close to the Founding Fathers as possible and realize that one of the primary reasons Americans fought for independence in the American Revolution was to end the domination of their lives by the Anglican Church, more commonly known as the Church of England, and to create a country where the practice, or lack of practice of religion of any or all kinds was solely up to the practitioner and not connected in any way to the government.  That is what is called Separation of Church and State and it was, and still is, one of the most important building blocks on which this country was built.  The fastest way to destroy democracy in America would be to allow churches, any churches, to dominate life and the government.  As soon as we force all to practice one religion over all others, or we refuse to allow anyone to practice their religion of choice, whatever that religion may be, we have begun to destroy democracy.   

The Danger Of "Imposter Christianity" In America Today

I received an e-mail this morning with a link from my cousin, more like a brother, Jack Terry which had a link to a news story from CNN on it with the title "An Imposter Christianity" Is Threatening American Democracy".  I opened the link, read about two paragraphs and hit "Reply All" since Jack had also sent the message to some other family members, at least one of which has been a member or a fairly right wing radical church with a twisted interpretation of the Bible.  The message below is what I said to those people including the family member who has been sorely mislead by her church and its minister.

I read the first paragraph of this article and realized I didn’t need to read the rest, not because I don’t agree with what it says but because I knew several years ago what it says and that one of the greatest dangers to democracy in the United States is posed by people who cloak themselves in a distorted, hateful, and evil misrepresentation of what they lie to the world and call Christianity.  These same people supported the TRAITOR Trump, his many co-conspirators who are also running for all levels of offices across the country, and making a well organized attempt to destroy the country under their twisted, criminal, and evil lies which they shield with blatant misrepresentations of the Bible, or at least their selected portions of the Bible.  They are charlatans, criminals, traitors, and enemies of the United States Of America, the US Constitution, and all they represent.  This was already beginning before Putin and Russia stole the US Presidential Election in 2016 in order to install a Russian Owned TRAITOR in the White House.  But Putin and his hackers who managed to steal an 80,000 vote total lead in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania where smart enough to realize they could use TRAITOR Trump to further mislead these pseudo-Christians into helping them destroy America.  Yes, an American election has been stolen, in 2016, not in 2020 when President Biden became the first duly, legally elected President in four years.  Putin stole that election for a TRAITOR he and Russia had owned for at least 40 years.  And today, especially since the TREASON, insurrection, and domestic terrorism of January 6^th, America is facing the greatest threat to Democracy in our history and it is being driven by these TRAITORS who shield themselves behind their blatant misrepresentations of the Bible. 

Let me give you who claim to be Christians a little reading assignment.  Take a Bible, preferably a red letter edition of the King James Bible which has the words attributed to Jesus in red print, and do the following. 

1. Begin in the New Testament with the Gospel attributed to the Apostles of Jesus and read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Revelation.
2. Every time you come to one of the sections which is attributed to Jesus or one of the Apostles as a direction to their followers, the real Christians, and ask yourself, did TRAITOR Trump ever do that?  The answer will always be NO. 
3. When you get to Revelation and find those areas of the text which are purported to be the signs of the coming of the Anti-Christ, read it carefully and ask yourself could that apply to the TRIATOR Trump.  The answer will always be YES. 
4. When you have figured this out and realized I am correct, if you still believe you are a Christian or want to be a Christian, take yourself as far away from these charlatans as possible, find a church which does not support TRAITOR Trump and his many co-conspirators and does not engage in politics, and firmly supports the Separation Of Church And State and follow what the Bible actually says.
5. If you ever falter in doing that and need a refresher course in what I have just told you, go to the link below and read it again and doe exactly what it says. 

 

http://myappalachianlife.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-reading-assignment-for-self-professed.html

 

Roger

I'd like to invite all of my readers to do the same thing.  

 

"A Time To Keep Silence" by Emily Steiner--Book Review

 

 I always enjoy reading books and posting about them on these reviews on my blog post and, in general that is especially true when I write about books which were written by my numerous friends who are authors.  This is not one of those times because I have just read and am now writing about a new book by one of my friends whom I like especially well and I do not like this book nearly as much as I have three others she has written and which I have also reviewed on this blog.  The friend and author to whom I refer is Emily Steiner, a young conservative Mennonite woman whom I have known for about three years.  I respect her talent, her intelligence, her writing, her books, and her commitment to her religion.  I value our friendship and we correspond these days by e-mail since she is teaching in a small Mennonite school in Central Michigan.  We met accidentally, or serendipitously as I prefer to believe, in Old Mill Park near my home in West Liberty, Kentucky, and slightly farther away from her childhood home in Crockett, Kentucky. She was dressed in a traditional Mennonite long dress and head covering and carrying a lap top which is odd among Mennonites.  I had already read her book, "Under The Bridge", which is linked above and which is the first book in her triumvirate of books about a coal mining family in Harlan County Kentucky in the union organizing efforts of the 1920's.  While I disagreed with the book's position that Christianity and trade unionism are not necessarily compatible, I liked the book and her writing quite well overall.  I struck up a conversation with her by asking these exact words, "I don't mean to bother you, but are you Emily Steiner?"  She responded "Yes!" and I told her about having read her book and we had about a half hour conversation about her book, writing on both our parts, Appalachia, and writers I knew.  We established what has been a good, honest, communicative, and respectful friendship beginning that day despite the difficulty of an older, married, non-Mennonite man and a younger, single, Mennonite woman having a friendship which respects the social barriers her religion requires in such cases.  We sometimes read each other's writing, sometimes e-mail, and, if a community occasion makes a face to face meeting possible in her community of origin, we sometimes talk a while in plain view of other Mennonite observers.  It has helped that I am fairly well known by numerous members of her congregation because I have done business with them for quite a few years and have always respected and honored the constraints and barriers their religion places on contacts with outsiders.  

So, to repeat myself, this is a difficult review to write since I like and respect the author a great deal and am not particularly fond of the book.   But please do not assume that I am saying you, dear reader, will not like the book.  It has merit as does all the work I have ever read by Emily Steiner.  So, in order to be absolutely fair to my friend, Emily Steiner, I searched out two other reviews on the internet from other sources who have read the book to see what they thought about it.  An anonymous reviewer on the Goodreads website has this to say about the book: ...A Time to Keep Silence shows the loneliness and misunderstanding that singles can face in a tight-knit Mennonite community. This is a book that an older single may relate to, and those who are married can read to understand the challenges of singles.  I agree wholeheartedly with this reviewers statement that the book "shows the loneliness and misunderstanding that singles can face in a tight-knit Mennonite community". From my point of view, the most valuable thing I got from reading the book is that it gave me an improved understanding of the religious based social customs which govern dating and consideration of marriage among young conservative Mennonites.  But, having lived my life in the greater non-Mennonite community, I tend to believe that the social customs in question place undue burdens on those young church members.  I was left with the impression that, in most cases, young Mennonite women are almost required to accept the first young Mennonite man whom they agree to date as the person they will marry even before their first date.  That is a bit too restrictive for my blood.  

The second review I chose to read about "A Time For Silence" is by a relatively young Mennonite widow who describes herself on her blog as follows: I am Gina, a Mennonite mom who writes about books, broccoli, and baking bread. In May, 2017 my husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, which took his life two years later in May, 2019. These pages share my journey of searching for joy with cancer and widowhood."  I know nothing about Gina other than what I have read on her blog and the fact that Emily Steiner has told me she knows Gina. As it turns out, I have just discovered that Gina was the person whose writing was used in part on the Goodreads website for the first quotation I used about the book since the language is identical on that website to part of Gina's review on her blog which I recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about Mennonites, their religion, and the self-sufficient lifestyle of gardening, canning, freezing, cooking, and other things such as homeschooling and church based childhood education.  I should also say that the photo of "A Time To Keep Silence" which I have used above is taken from Gina's blog, "HomeJoys" as linked above.  I have been unable to locate other independent reviews of the book at this time and will attempt to use quotations in others I might locate in the future to update this review.  

Now to more adequately address my personal issues with this book which Emily Steiner has told me is selling better than any of her previous books.  In fact, she and I had one e-mail exchange when she was actually at her printer, Haines Printing, watching the presses run so she could pick up several hundred more copies of this book.  That could be an indication that I am wrong about the book.  But, the first critique I have of the book is that it is a story which is told in 341 pages and could, I believe, have been told in a more literary manner in 200 or 250 pages at the most.  I have told Emily in an e-mail that I think that a lot of dialogue does little to advance the plot and I stick to that assessment.  The book is broken into 60 relatively short chapters, the longest of which is about 10 pages and several are 1 page.  Emily has explained this to me as a choice she made "to keep people turning pages".  I did keep reading to the end and I will buy and read the other two books which are to follow in this series about the main characters, Justin and Monica, whom I expect to be married by the end of the third book.  I was also put off mildly by one section in the book in which the protagonist, Monica, who is working in a coffee shop she and a friend, Ida Belle, have recently bought and are operating as single Mennonite women. Monica becomes scared of a rough looking non-Mennonite man who is staying in the coffee shop too long, asking a few too many questions and is dressed somewhat inappropriately by Mennonite standards.  To see single Mennonite women operating a business as Monica and Ida Belle do in the book is uncommon but not totally rare.  I regularly do business in a bulk food store which is owned by a woman in Emily Steiner's community of origin.  I also know of a bakery business in that same community which was operated for a time by the former Mennonite divorcee daughter of a devout Mennonite friend of mine.  But I have never known of a Mennonite who pre-judged a person to the degree I perceived in that section of the book.  Monica fears are used as a tension builder before the male in whom she is interested, Justin, enters the shop to buy coffee for himself and his employees.  Monica fights the desire to ask Justin to rescue her from the perceived danger of the rough look man and allows Justin to leave before making the request.  The book also winds to a conclusion without either Monica or Justin taking any action to move their relationship to another level.  It simply ends with the two of them still thinking about the possibility of dating each other but doing nothing to bring it about.  Both are afraid of entering a dating relationship because they have both been unsuccessful in one prior dating relationship.  Both fear the disapproval of the community if they enter a relationship which does not end in marriage.  In the real world, almost no one, except Mennonites apparently, gets married to the first person they date.  In my opinion, no one, not even young Mennonites, should feel compelled to marry the first person who asks them to consider a dating relationship.  I sincerely hope the next two books in this series are better than this one.  But use your own judgment about whether or not you want to read this book, especially if you have read other books by Emily Steiner and enjoyed them.  This could turn out to be the very book you have been hoping you would find.

"A Time To Keep Silence" is available directly from the author, Emily Steiner, for $12.50 plus $3.00 shipping for a total price of $15.50 by check or money order from: Emily Steiner, 5532 N. Shepherd Road, Rosebush, Michigan 48878.  If you have questions, Emily will answer her cell phone in person or return your call if you need to leave a message at 606-495-8090.  But, if you call, please keep in mind that she is a school teacher.  Call after 4pm on weekdays, never on Sunday.