Enlightenment

When it came around to Christmas time yet again, I felt a sudden urge to read through the bible. On my 21st birthday, I received a beautiful bible from my grandparents, and never got a chance to read it. It had been sitting around for almost 2 years, before I decided to pick it up.

The bible they gave me is the Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version.

It is a new translation from the old texts, and it is written in a way that people of modern times can follow it more easily. They actually specified that they took into account that far more people only HEAR the bible read to them, and so it was very important to find a way to word things (along with grammar) to make sure the reader would read it out loud correctly; as that may be the only time the listener ever hears the story, and they need to be able to fully understand and interpret the story right then and there.

I sat for a couple of days before Christmas, and literally read the entire bible from cover to cover. I must say, I am highly impressed by this version of the bible. It gave new meaning to Christianity and faith for me, and answered questions I had that I never thought the bible would be able to answer.

This version so intrigued me that I immediately wanted to find out even more information about these times in our human history; and about our religions. I then remembered having heard a few years ago about the “gospel of Simon”, and so once I came home from my wonderful visit with my grandparents, I came online and got “digging”. I found these four books in my research, and I have ordered them all for myself:

The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
The Gospel According to Simon of Cyrene: What Every Catholic Should Know

The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed
The Lost Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel of Judas Iscariot
I can’t wait for these books to arrive. I am so keen to read them. I am an avid researcher just by my very nature, and once I stick my nose into something, I need to go all out for it. They sound like fascinating books, and even though I have not read them yet, I would most certainly recommend them to others!

So, all in all, I found that the last few weeks of 2009 were very inspiring for me. If you have read the bible before, and not found much meaning to it, or not been able to follow it completely – please consider checking out the new Contemporary English Version. I give it a 10 out of 10!