Best christian bible meditators according to redditors

Get Shorter Christian Prayer and start praying Compline (Night Prayer) -- there's even a book with just Night Prayer in it. Once you get into the habit, add another hour, such as Morning or Evening Prayer. When you get comfortable with this, you may want to get Christian Prayer, which has more page flipping involved.

Or you could pray The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It's very simple and lovely. All the hours are the same for each day. There is a slight variation during Advent and Christmas.

I've done both the LOTR and LOBVM. Currently I pray LOBVM's Matins/Lauds every morning and Vespers most evenings. I used to pray Compline, but I haven't done so in a while.

It takes about 15-20 minutes to say the LOBVM Matins/Lauds and about 10-15 mins for Vespers.

>Is it better to start with Shorter Christian Prayer or even Magificat magazine?

I've never done Magnificat (it's an abbreviated version of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer iirc), but SCP is the easiest of the book versions. If you already subscribe to Magnificat, start there.

Were I starting all over again, I'd just use an app (like iBreviary) or universalis online to get started. Later I'd get SCP and start learning how to navigate it. There are also books like Daria Sockey's to help out -- she's a laywoman who has been praying the Hours for years. She knows a lot about it, but she makes it very approachable.

>And is the Divine Office even doable (if that is the right word) for someone who is not a priest, nun, or monk given the time required per day?

I'm just a layman and I pray it daily. I've never been to seminary. The Hours refer to the time of the day, not the amount of time it takes to pray. The hinge hours (Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer) take about 10-15 minutes to pray. The Daytime Hours and Night Prayer take about 5-10 minutes each. The longest hour is the Office of Readings, which takes about 20 minutes (and what an hour! every day you get to read something from the Church Fathers in the 2nd reading -- every day of the year!).

I started with Night Prayer, which is done just before you go to bed each night. It's the shortest of the hours, and it takes about 5-7 minutes. There's a short examination of conscience at the beginning of it and a Marian antiphon at the end, plus a psalm or two and a Gospel Canticle. It's a really lovely way to end the day.

It's also the least complicated of the Hours, as it only runs on a one-week psalter. The other Hours run on 4-week psalters and have more moving parts for feasts etc.

If you like books, there's even a standalone version of it.

The Hours are the prayer of a lifetime. It is a great habit to get into, and once you do you'll never wonder what to pray again (or at what time or what to do for a saint's feast day or during Lent). You can do one Hour or all of them and still be connected to the entire Church.

Start with Night Prayer and let it take root before moving on and adding other hours. Don't feel like you have to do more than your time allows. One hour is better than none.

I’ve been really enjoying this for daily readings before my Bible time: Daily Readings-the Early Church Fathers https://www.amazon.com/dp/152710043X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_I2VEAbY526C09

Also this for help with prayer: The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851512283/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_33VEAbQ0FRS8S

Check these out! Hope they prove useful to you.

> While I certainly agree that there is value in looking at things in a new light to see a new truth, all too often people do not actually read the actual source material and instead read modern interpretations which are fallacious, and misleading.

Sounds like we'd get along. :)

In the Jewish tradition many English speaking practitioners happily accepted Michael Berg's translation of The Zohar as being canonical.

Luckily a scholar with more of an academic eye grounded in Aramaic named Daniel Matt was willing to spend the better part of a decade trying to capture the nuanced almost poetical nature of the texts for an English audience.

This gets to a point that I think Jorge Luis Borges perfectly described in his short story 'An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain' and 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote'.

The first short explores the idea that the same book may tell many stories or that there is only one story iterated infinitely as a sort of synecdoche. The second portrays how translations are in many ways whole new works that never fully capture the original's essence, somewhat similar to Godel's incompleteness theorem.

To illustrate this look at a single simple Hebrew word that has shaped the better part of the last 2000 years of Western civilization: יֵשׁוּעַ. Most westerners think the correct pronunciation of this word is Jesus. Yeshua is far closer to the truth, but even then it doesn't entirely capture the full Hebrew vocalization on the vowels/nikkud.

How did this happen? The name Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) comes from Joshua's Hebrew name, Yehoshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ) which sometimes appears in its shortened form, Yeshua (e.g., 1 Chron. 24:11; Neh. 8:17). Yeshua, when transliterated into Greek, comes out as ᾽Ιησοῦς (pronounced YAY-soos), with the final sigma being necessary in the nominative case to designate a proper name. In old English, the "y" sound was rendered as "j," and thus we obtain "Jesus".

Put another way all interpretations and translations are necessarily corruptions.


> As an aside I have not read much re; Kabbalah, do you have a recommendation of a good book?

The tradition spans everything from neoplatonism, gnosticism, hermetica, to pythagorean mysticism. It wouldn't be exaggerating to say Kabbalah is the thread that ties together almost all of western esotericism.

There are a number of popular documentaries that give a general overview without being too inaccurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuSPtXG5dg

Rav. Michael Laitman's protege, Anthony Kosinec, does a nice job as well,

http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/kabbalah-video-clips/kabbalah-revealed-a-basic-overview

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan does a stellar job summarizing the traditional Jewish take on Kabbalah in his 1991 book "Inner Space." The book doesn't convey the feeling, however, of what it means to be really "in" the tradition.

The closest thing I think I can share to give a sense of what I'm getting at is this little paper.

Other than that though unless a person has any experience with lucid dreaming or out of body experiences, I am not sure anything I say will make any sense. Kaplan wrote two books, "Jewish Meditation, A Practical Guide" and "Meditation and the Bible", with the hopes that others could have the same sorts of lived experiences. Like anything, though, it requires a little practice. :)

Read Rabbi Kaplan's other work, "Meditation and Kabbalah"

You might also want to see "Meditation and the Bible" and "Innerspace" for background knowledge.

It is worth noting that traditional kabbalists do not recommend Kabbalistic meditation for those who are not spiritually prepared for it, even though some may at times encourage the theoretical study of it.

The more traditional path is to first be steeped in תורת הנגלה, the revealed Torah, through deep study of chazalic literature with commentaries, Rif, Rambam, Rosh, Tur and commentaries, and Shulchan Aruch. Simultaneously, one would study the process of spiritual growth through a work such as Messilas Yesharim or Chovos HaLevavos and then perhaps the Ramak's Tomar Devorah and Rav Chayim Vital's "Sha'arei Kedushah." Afterwards, there are several theoretical works on Kabbalah you would study before getting to the actual Kabbalistic meditations or כוונות (or even the Ari's works at all). B'hatzlachah in your journey!

This is the book we used at UC Berkeley. It focuses on passage meditation and is very simple and effective. Daily meditation will revolutionize your life, but it is one of the hardest things to maintain. Especially in this culture. Start small. Try not to stop. Once you stop, it is much much much harder to start again. Good luck!

I’ve been reading Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XF1LLQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_dA7XCbD1E8T9V

and it’s amazing!

A friend of mine has used www.sermontobook.com before. His book is on Amazon, so you can see what it looks like.

my dear child you are so misguided...
I pray you see the light and let the lord take you under his wing little boy.
the lord loves all boys and girls equally, especially europeans and white people

http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Misunderstood-Messiah-Biblical-Imagination/dp/083083804X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420544560&sr=1-1&keywords=biblical+books
to help you through you troubled times...

and remember to let jesus' warm sweet love flow through you.

My apologies for the very late reply. I didn't really pick it up from anywhere but I will say that it was inspired by this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Heart-Collected-Teachings-Ajahn/dp/0861713230/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ajan+chah&qid=1563068859&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Don't forget about Ajahn Chah's excellent Food For the Heart -- my personal favorite book on this. It is not literally a linear, systematic exposition of Buddhism, but it is nevertheless a very practical introduction. Chah emphasizes direct experience through meditation practice, over complex theories
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Heart-Collected-Teachings-Ajahn-ebook/dp/B003XF1LLQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468067321&sr=8-1&keywords=chah+food+for+heart

Hi redditingonthereddit PLEASE READ THIS.

My friend, a former skeptic turned pastor, wrote this book The Atheism Prophecy. It's not the typical fluff. It's hard prophecy. He provides substantial evidence to support the Bible being inspired by God.

It's an interesting read which covers much of the key themes of the Bible (providing rich "context"). Unique, biblical, historical and worth every moment invested.
https://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Prophecy-How-Christianity-Fueled-ebook/dp/B00XLTGGNM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526147742&sr=8-1&keywords=the+atheism+prophecy&dpID=41-JAK4udrL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch