Beautiful narration!!

I could have listened to the KJV Bible for free on a popular Bible app, but after comparing the robotic narration on the app to the sample of CG here on Audible, I decided it was worth spending a credit to listen here. I have no regrets; beautiful narration that really brings the word to life! Blessed is the Lord for his word and blessed it Christopher Glyn for presenting It so marvellously.

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Excellent reading of KJV bible

Serious, majestic, inviting, traditional. A fitting reading of the Book of Books. Shame no deuterocanon. But you have the full "protestant" canon, if one can licitly speak of a protestant canon.

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"There's a book..." - Actually, there's 80.

I should begin with the biggest elephant in the room:
The alleged morality found in these 80-some books of the Bible are sufficiently repetitive, vague and/or ambiguous - thus excessively interpretable - that I've easily found modern books that better and more extensively explain the ins and outs of ethics and objective causality (from which morality can conclusively be formed). Not to mention that The Bible could easily be trimmed down to 10% of its size and still contain as much wisdom and truth as it's purported to have. That's an assertion, by the way, not an actual argument. So feel free to disagree.

But it may beg the question - if true, how can better and more easily grasped morality be found beyond "God's word"?

Personally, It seems blatantly obvious to me that "God" (insofar as the term might refer to some actual, demonstrable ultimate being, regardless of what we humans read, write or narrate about "Him") must, quite literally, be "the Cosmos itself, acting upon itself". And what is "The Cosmos"? It is the product sum of our human, interpersonal ability to agree on what truth is. It is the "order in the chaos" and that which "always was, always is and always will be". As such, it is our task, whether as society, or congregation, or individual, to find the best possible methodology (i.e. science) to objectively identify "what actually is" (physically as well as metaphysically) and "how it actually affects us" (whether momentarily or perpetually), using the right combination of abduction, induction and deduction. Because the more "it" can be experienced "to be" (demonstrably, predictably and consistently at a personal as well as collective level), the more likely and quantitatively "it is", and the more you will "be connected to it", the more you "obey it", understand it and thus benefit from it - it gives you wings. Hopefully, you'll use those wings wisely and pay the message forward, thereby propagating and heralding "his kingdom" and "bearing the light unto mankind" - as opposed to becoming a childish and resentful fire-starter because the Adams of this world didn't grow up with the same divine privileges as your narcissistic ego did. The narcissist here being Satan, of course.

It's not hard for any fool to utter random strings of words and present them as profound truths. I mean, just look at what you've read thus far, in my review. As Odysseus said to his son Telemachus, albeit more specific to anger: "To be angry is easy. But to be angry at the right people, to the right degree, at the right time and for the right reasons - that is hard." In a similar sense, to read the Bible is easy. But to truly understand it in the context of the human civilization that spawned it - that is much, much harder. Even if you agree, you (as I) may still read it the wrong way. But the idea is to bring nuance into the conversation, as opposed to forcing binary extremes in an attempt at scoring edgy, self-congratulatory internet points. (I myself am clearly an S-tier Grandmaster of the latter, proving that I'm therefore right in the most circular way possible).

The Bible is a quirky, yet interesting and somewhat valuable, artifact from an age long since outdated. It's certainly not as "horrific" as some critics seem to think. Then again, when Steven Fry prefaced with the story of "flies burrowing into children's eyes" when he asked God "How dare you?", he wasn't actually "talking to God" as much as he was "talking to the sensibilities of certain people with rather absurd notions of God" (as clarified by Fry himself on multiple occasions). Conversely, when a devout Christian's biblical critique seem recklessly absent, it may not actually be the case. This is what abstract thinking affords us - the ability to experiment with thoughts, ideas and hypotheticals as a way to test the structure and consistency of some perceived potential truth, at the conceptual level. Sometimes, that requires us to go down specific tangents, one at a time. As such, don't be so quick to interpret everything you hear and read in the literal sense - not even The Bible. To do so is lazy, at best. At worst, it may be outright heresy and the worship of a golden calf. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

The Bible itself, as it stand on its own two feet (when read "as is", in first-person), definitely lacks a lot of critical facets of what we today expect of our human morality, ethics and understanding of reality. It has, for instance, a lousy track record of explaining WHY you should or should not do things. Its go-to answer is always "because God told you" or by appealing with parables to some other story's moral high ground (which begs the question of where that story got its morality from). You should ask yourself this: Would a real God really "just tell you", if he was an actual God who is trying to teach you something profound that may last a life-time (or beyond)? That's actually a question worth asking, especially if God also expects you to reasonably grasp the differences between him and a Golden Calf.

Either way, there's definitely wisdom within The Bible. Just be careful not to lose track of the example fact that, if "millions of people can't be wrong", most of Europe today might be speaking German and believe in Phrenology. Instead, appreciate The Bible as one of many collections of books in an ocean of thousands of works ranging from the paltry to the supreme. Don't just rehash your reading, but keep your wits refreshed with everything the world has to offer. The Bible deserves that respect from you, as an equally valid source of literature.

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1 person found this helpful

very well read

old testament can be a tough listen but it has always been a mission to listen to the bible. I am glad I have done it. took a while though

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Excellent audio bible

I am reading the bible for the first time, have never read it before and this book is narrated beautifully. I am going to enjoy this for a long time. Devout and newbie like me I am sure will enjoy :-)

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18 people found this helpful

Excellent

Excellently read edition of the KJV: The narrator is patient, involved, passionate, clear, & without any pronunciation faults. A brilliant book. My only criticism is that the chapters of the audiobook are not labelled, so searching for a particular passage is difficult--but, then, audiobooks are not designed for this, so five stars nonetheless.

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5 people found this helpful

The Go To Bible Narrator!

This Book and its Author need no recommendation from me but the narration of it is highly recommended. Perfect speed, diction, and emphasis makes this in my estimation the best recording of the Authorized Version/ KJV of its generation.

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simple clear reading of the most wonderful book

I am not a fan of the music introduced periodically but it is really not too intrusive

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10 people found this helpful

Simply Excellent!

Brilliant reading of the greatest Book on earth. Not only is this the most published Book of all time, in fact it is eternal. Single-handedly THE most important, significant and positively life transforming Book for every generation. Say what it's critics will, this Book outshines and outlives them all. As it declares itself, "the Word of the Lord endureth forever". If there was only one Book you could have, this is it. I will also add that of all the many narrators I have heard, this is a particularly compelling reading, topped off with excellent and clear recording. Definitely worth buying. My only gripe is that the New Testament part of the recording has some background music, which I think is a let down, as it distracts from the text sublime.

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A wonderful reading (whatever your belief)

I'm not a Christian, much less a biblical literalist, but if you want to absorb and appreciate this text, Christopher Glyn provides a beautifully delivered reading. And it's clearly laid out. Very glad to have purchased this version over others.

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