What is Bible2.com?

Bible2.com is a project I'm working on to "de-mystify" the text of the Bible.

I was raised in a Christian home. Growing up, my family and I were very devout to our faith, and we demonstrated it in our weekly travels to our home church, which we had assisted in establishing in New York. For a long time, we experienced shifts in religious and social culture that would eventually result in our departure. I, in particular, was saddened when this happened, and for a period of time, I decided to take a step back from daily reading of the Bible, but focused on preserving the principles which I was taught and consequently understood.

Then something around me began to change.

The world (as far as I had known) was no longer this facade of terror and uncertainty that I was led to believe. In fact, this realization started to happen once I attended university. My former misconceptions about the rest of the world began to deteriorate, as I slowly began to take in my surroundings.

But then I noticed something else happening.

I began to take an outsider's perspective on what religion was and how people misinterpreted it. There was a lot of flaws in the religious systems that had been overlooked; and coming out of that system, I began to realize that there was something about it that seemed generally distasteful - to the point where it would cause people to turn away from religion; but more drastically and unfortunately, turn away from faith.

Notice I said faith. Not The Faith, A Faith, One Faith. But Faith.

So I decided to do something radical.

Modernizing the Bible

Since the beginning of civilization, there has been two predominant factors in controlling the minds of the public: one, through politics, the other, through religion. There is no coincidence that the two operate closely together, because they both utilize the power of the mind. And throughout history, we can trace the pattern of both the rise and falls of civilizations and religions. As a young boy, I had my shared difficulties of understanding the Bible, and as I grew to understand and appreciate it, I wondered why others didn't share the same level of interest I had in it.

Then recently, it struck me.

Who was responsible for the earliest major distribution of the Bible?

This was a pretty simple answer, actually. This would trace back to the printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440. This was a controversial piece of technology, primarily because religion and politics worked together to influence the public. Because of this, once Gutenberg began to print out copies of the Bible years later, there was a move to restrict its usage.

But why? Why would the church (the system responsible for the distribution of faith-based messages and literature) fight so hard against it?

Well, there's an entire history of how we got to this point, and I'd love to share it with you all sometime in the future. Eventually, as more revisions of the Bible came about, there soon came out a version that would become the staple of most present day churches: the well loved (my personal choice!), most distributed, and well received King James Version. This is probably the most common version you'll see in hotels, motels, public churches, etc. Heck, even other Bibles that came about were revisions based on this version as well - the New King James Version being a prominent example.

But there's an obvious, glaring issue with the Bible - it's still unreadable.

The Structure of the Bible

The Bible, in its simplest description, is the collected writings of prominently religious men who recorded events as they happened. You could reasonably say that they were today's vloggers, or even streamers, recording how they saw the world as they interpreted it in real-time. But who realistically writes out their recordings of their experiences in such an arbitrary fashion?

This question brought me back to investigating the original prints of the Bible, and I noticed something -

There are no such thing as verses.

Verses never truly existed in the original writings of the bible, and if you review the Protestant Reformation period in history, there was a gentleman who sparked the religious and social change that would fundamentally change how religious doctrine was distributed. Another revolution, this time instead of the printing press, it would eventually lead to evangelism.

But Martin Luther's Bible didn't have verses in it. So, why does it have it today?

Bible 2

This question is what I strive to answer. And because I had difficulty reading it as a young child, there were many questions I held about the world, and what this mysterious book was really saying. And today, if a child were to read the Bible, they would also have the same questions as I did about the Bible.

And today, we now have the tools in our hands to experience the Bible the way it should be experienced - individually.

And I'm taking the first step.

The rules I intend to abide to is this:

1. Absolutely NO CHANGES to the words in the Bible. Yes, that means outdated spellings, run-ons or repeated phrases, and anything else that would grieve the English professors. This is a historical book, and it needs to be treated respectfully and responsibly in its proper context.

2. The ONLY changes permitted is to PUNCTUATION and LINE BREAKS. The power of punctuation is incredible, as it brings human emotions and connections to what otherwise would be static text.

3. I will release each chapter as I go through them on a regular basis. I invite you to read it in comparison to the original, and if there are any words that have been added or removed, to please notify me as soon as you can identify it. This is a collaborative effort, and I am approaching this from the same perspective that any other well-meaning person would, if they weren't religious.

Yes, I will be using the King James Version, and I understand there are some changes between the KJV and NKJV. However, I want to retain my integrity, and as such, will not be referencing any other versions.

ALSO, and MOST IMPORTANTLY - I will not be using this site to preach, teach, or solicit any doctrine. All I wish to do is to share the Bible in a format where people can read it, and not have to go through the hoops of deciphering verses. I do not promote any religion, or anything that could potentially create a social divide. I only wish to make the Bible clear, and for others to read it for themselves, and draw their own conclusions. We are responsible for ourselves, and by undergoing this task, I wish to make it more accessible for those who are interested in reading the Bible, but not interested in going to church.

Let's do this!

-Brandon Braye, aka TheRealPbHero