Reddit mentions of The Bible: Authorized King James Version (Oxford World's Classics)

Read it because it's a good read. Don't see it as a holy book, but just a regular novel. Few authors can add mystery, horror, suspense, romance (Songs of Songs is like the bible's guide to oral sex) together and make it good.

If you just want the bits that calls out hypocrisy, proceed directly to the Sermon on the Mount and Plains, where twice the sermon can be Tl;Dr'd into "Hey, be nice to one another, don't be an asshole."

P.S.

KJV is the best version, but there's a modernized version of the KJV if old ond is too hard to work through. Also, to help see it just like a regular book, there's an Oxford World Classics edition of the KJV, which includes the Apocrypha.

> I've never seen a printed version with it.

Weird. Here's one, if you are interested. Many large libraries will have a first edition KJV on display - it's pretty neat to take a look at if you have the time.

You might try

• Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth
  
• Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces
  
• this Carl Jung Reader is pretty good
  
  Technically these deal with mythology, but they're sufficiently enlightening on the meaning of myth symbolic myth content to serve you for literature.
  
  One other thing worth reading: the Bible. Particularly a literary Bible like this or this.
  
  Much of the symbolism in literature hearkens back to religion or mythology (which is just old religion). So it's never a bad idea to study the most read religions in their own right. Snake, Apple, Water, Flood, Rain, Fire, Smoke. These are all fairly omnipresent symbols with a wealth of genesis in books like the Bible.

So, just the KJV?

This says 1611 edition. I don't know if that means the orthography's a disaster; I'd get a preview first to make sure. The copy suggests it is:

>This edition preserves the original 1611 printing. Word for word and page for page, the text with its original marginal notes, preface, and other introductory material appears as it first did. The sole concession to modernity is a far more readable roman typeface set by nineteenth-century master printers

Although Amazon is generally pretty good about returns.

Here's another suggestion, maybe with more essays.

A third.

This one specifically says 1611 but with updated spelling.

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I don't think you're going to find a KJV without some amount of essays and other notes. Outside of the UK, the text is public domain and so people are going to include essays to try to differentiate themselves.

Have you considered the Orthodox Study Bible?

>without commentary or annotations

Almost all Bibles are going to have annotations - notes about translation ambiguities, or just showing references to other verses of Scripture.

If you want you can find "reader editions" that don't have those things (or verse numbers), but they can be pricey.

This one served me well when I, too, decided to read the whole thing front to back. It's a huge paperback KJV version (which I insisted on for its more literary quality), but it's got everything you need including the apocryphal books. You can read a list of all the books included in any 'authorized King James version' here. There are even some handy appendices that give context to the verses in the back of the book that I've referred to occasionally.

Exactly! I think you've read Mechuta, right?

I have a very recent copy of the KJV with Deuterocanon. Found it on amazon. Brand new.

Non-religious publisher of bibles? Possible for something as old as the KJV which is out of copyright. I would look for an Oxford university press edition of it. They aren't exactly atheist publishers inc, but they aren't like say Zondervan either. For all real intents and purposes they're a secular publisher as far as I know.

For example:

https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Authorized-Version-Oxford-Classics/dp/0199535949/

or

https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-James-Version-Quatercentenary/dp/0199557608/

There are others. Look for university press published editions.

Thank you so much for this! I will definitely be picking up those books as there is no religion program at my university.

edit:What do you think about just getting The HarperCollins Study Bible for a shorter study with the study notes already on the page you want. It's the NRSV translation.

edit: Or The New Oxford Annotated Bible

I actuall wanted to get this bible as one reviewer said "If Bertrand Russell had ever published an edition of the Bible, it could not have been more forthright in its atheism than this one is." But it's in the King James Version which may be too hard to understand.