Questions tagged [the-bible]
The Bible, a collection of sacred texts. Questions should deal with the literary aspects of the text as defined by the Help Center. Otherwise, questions should refer either to Christianity Stack Exchange (for general questions related to Christianity) or Biblical Hermeneutics (questions about Biblical text using techniques or rules of interpretation).
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Meaning of "S. Epiph. her. 78" in the Douay-Rheims Bible (1635)
I’m currently trying to transcribe some notes from the 1635 Douay-Rheims Bible. I have a printed Facsimile I am working with at home, so far I have been able to understand most of the footnotes ...
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What Bible passages are related to this notion?
From John Le Carré's Smiley's People:
With a sense of everything ending, Ostrakova deliberately cocked her dead husband’s pistol, and advanced with firm if painful steps, upon the door. She advanced ...
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Is the story of Jill and Eustace meant to evoke that of Cain and Abel?
Towards the beginning of The Silver Chair, Eustace and Jill get into a little fight which culminates in Eustace falling off the cliff to his apparent death.
“What are you doing, Pole? Come back — ...
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What does "we are not careful" mean in this context?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the ...
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Biblical reference in Francis Bacon's essay: Background and significance
The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he ...
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"That Christ deny’d divorce to his own", what does Milton mean here in this phrase from "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce"?
In book one of The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce, it is written:
That indisposition, unfitnes, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable, hindring, and ever likely to ...
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Of what veil does Thoreau speak and what does he mean by being missing in this passage from "A Plea for Captain John Brown"?
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau writes:
This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death—the possibility of a man’s dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; ...
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What translation/version of the Bible would Chaucer have read?
A few lines in Troilus and Criseyde remind me of a Hebrew Bible verse. I want to compare the language of the book to the language of the verse, and I'm assuming he wasn't reading it in the original ...
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Literary genres of Mark and Q in the two-document hypothesis?
According to the two-document hypothesis, the gospels are derived from two sources: the book of Mark, and a hypothetical, reconstructed document called Q, which contains wisdom sayings and material ...
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Psalm 23:4 syllable division: how does the original Hebrew come to 11 syllables?
In Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (2009), the author examines the first line of Psalm 23:4 in the Hebrew and arrives at eight words (so far so good) and eleven ...
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Why does Nick say that Moses was 130 years old when he died?
In Chapter 21 of A Prisoner of Birth we find the following scene:
Dave invited his captive audience to pick up their Bibles and turn to the book of Genesis, then informed them that Cain was the ...
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Is there a connection between Achilles's talking horse in the Iliad and Balaam's talking donkey in the Bible?
At the end of Book XIX of The Iliad we find that Achilles's horse spontaneously begins talking to him:
Automedon, whip in hand, sprang up behind the horses, and after him Achilles mounted in full ...
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What is the significance of Grendel being descended from Cain?
In the tale of Beowulf, the monster Grendel is said to be descended from the biblical character of Cain. This was surprising to me, as I'd thought Beowulf was a pre-Christian story given its setting ...
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Is this Atlas Shrugged quote a deliberate Biblical reference?
Matthew 25:21 (NIV):
His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's ...
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Do the opening lines of Frost’s poem “After Apple-Picking” contain a biblical reference?
Robert Frost's poem ‘After Apple-Picking’, collected in North of Boston (1914), is a well-known poem on man’s encounter with the natural world, probing the dilemma of his existence.
The first two ...