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Comment by TchoBeer | Hacker News Reader

Would bible literalism be sensible if you understood Hebrew? Translation is a big problem with Christians specifically, but imo it's not "exactly the problem with religion".

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It would still be a stretch. Most of the bible was written in Hebrew or Greek, but for literalism to make any sense, you'd have to be a native speaker, not just of modern Hebrew or Greek, but of their ancient versions. Otherwise, it's like a modern English speaker trying to take Shakespeare literally. It's just not going to make a lot of sense unless you're fully immersed in the language and culture at the time.

The Bible is written in several languages. New testiment is mostly Greek. I've been told 5, but I'm not able to verify that. Not to mention the Hebrew part covers over a thousand years so I can't imagine it didn't change

The Hebrew part (depending on what you consider cannon) was more likely composed/compiled over a few hundred years. Although the stories may be older, the spelling and other elements are from the Babylonian period.

The poems do retain the older Hebrew though.

Hebrew speaker here. The old testament is readable, but difficult. The far larger problem is the lack of context.

Fortunately, the Jews have an unbroken chain of proficient Hebrew speaking Rabbis going back to the beginnings of the faith, and throughout that entire time they have written commentary. So like tracing photographs of a person back to when they were a baby, we have an unbroken chain of context to reference.

The amount of material is daunting. It really is a profession to comprehend it all - whether one believes it to be divine or not.

Even if you understand the Hebrew, much of the original meaning has been lost. I'd recommend Kugel 'How to read the Bible' for this.

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