First of all, I want to make it perfectly clear that, while I have no fear of being burned as a witch for consulting the Oracle, I don’t want to alienate my Christian Substack friends.
My view of the I-CHING is that it operates similarly to a Rorschach test. Its value comes from forcing the individual to face a conclusion and then ponder whether he/she can abide by its implications. This is one of the valid approaches in psychiatry when dealing with anxiety.
I was curious about your interest in the I Ching and read a little about it. It was mentioned in connection with the Tao Te Ching - though they are different in content and purpose..
I have read the Tao Te Ching two or three times over many years, each time comparing and contrasting its contents with the Bible.
I have tried a couple of times to read nothing but the Bible and Christian literature, but that never lasted long. Some exposure to the ideas and history of the world at large is - for me at any rate - an important part of my Christian life, and differing ideas, even though unbiblical, can offer interesting food for thought.
Thus with the Tao Te Ching. Many things in it are wrong from a biblical point of view, but some ideas are suitable for a Christian - not being too interested in fame, power, or money for example.
I also like the Tao's emphasis on the mysterious and unknown nature of God. Even though in Christianity we have a much fuller revelation, we allow our theology and our knowledge to obscure the fact that there is still an unknowable dimension to God, and a mystery to the divine that is sometimes lost in our commentaries and bible memorization (and having memorized many parts of the Bible does not necessarily equal knowledge of God).
About the I Ching, I know little, except that it asserts a connectedness between all parts of the universe, and that because of this connectedness certain events can reveal other events, or something like that. Hence the significance of divination.
Except, all events are controlled directly or indirectly by God, who either causes things to happen, or allows things to happen when he could prevent it. In this case, the entire I Ching is nothing but a profound misunderstanding about the nature of reality. And, by your own account, it is also very ambiguous.
This does not mean I suggest you read nothing but the Bible and Christian literature. If anyone wants to study Taoism, Buddhism, Marxism, Freudianism, empiricism, Platonism, whatever, it does not hurt to look into different things and to try and see where and how they are right or in what ways they are wrong - but the ultimate reality is found in God and nowhere else.
This does not mean I advocate joining a church and going every Sunday. Many churches are nothing but social clubs, shallow, trivial and boring. And even those that make more of an effort are deeply influenced by American culture. But I do think there are deeper avenues into the unseen spiritual reality behind the physical world than the I Ching or any of the Oriental religions and philosophies - which is also true of many Western philosophies and religious varieties.
Have you read the Tao Te Ching? You might find it has more of real life than any divination practice.
I also read the Analects of Confucius. Much of it seemed uninteresting, even obvious, but here and there were some really remarkable insights. If I still had my copy of it I would be glad to give a few select quotes, but haven't been able to accumulate a library, moving as often as I did.
Also, some general overviews of the history of Western philosophy written on an introductory level for laymen like ourselves, from the pre-Socratics of ancient Greece up the latest European anti-philosophies, might be interesting.
It is always a pleasure (and often an education) to read your comments, Joe. Let me attempt to explain my mindset and why I believe as I do. As you know, my great great great, etc. grandfather Jakob Clement first stepped onto the soil of the New World in 1706. Most of my male ancestors were Mennonite ministers. I was baptized twice and have always instinctively asked for Jesus' protection in times of need.
However, that history and faith has been tested by the likes of Cotton Mather, John Hathorn, Jonathan Corwin, and that disgusting liar and traitor Joe Biden.
After studying comparative religions in college, it became clear to me that all civilized societies and religions (with the exception of Mohammedism and outright Satanism) have the same basic morality and very similar reports of Creation.
I believe in the ideas of C.G. Jung. We all have good and bad within us. Why do I accept the I CHING as inspired writing? I do so because there is such a thing a quantum entanglement and we will never understand spiritual matters until death - and maybe not then.
I remember your saying something about your ancestry, and family can have a great influence. However, authentic religious belief in Christ is not inherited, and must be found by each individual independently.
It is a mistake to allow our understanding of Christianity or any religion to be determined by its worst practitioners. The Salem witch trials went on for a short time, before people recognized it was wrong and stopped the practice. Christianity should be judged by its teachings and by Christ as its example, not by pedophile priests, or phony TV evangelists, judges of witchcraft trials or whatever.
The woman brought before Christ could have been sentenced to death by the same Mosaic law that imposed the death penalty for witchcraft. Christ set that law aside for Christians, saying with his higher level of revelation that it was not for us to impose the death penalty for moral offenses. The New England Puritans you mentioned did not follow Christ’s example.
And Biden? What does he have to do with Christianity?
Why not focus on more serious members of the Christian community who have done so much to make the world a better place without much fanfare or publicity?
About the study of comparative religions in college, there is a basic human morality which comes from the conscience, the sense of right and wrong God has planted in us. But there are basic teachings of Christianity that are absolutely unique, and have a higher standard of ethics and morality than what is commonly found in the world. That many Christians have not lived up to it is too bad, but Christ said, “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it.”
I am not familiar with Jung – I have read a bit about him here and there in passing. I have read other secular authors, and find general histories of philosophy to be interesting and informative, but have paid little interest in psychology.
Comparing and contrasting secular authors with biblical teaching is a useful exercise for me. But Christ is the revelation of the invisible God, and his way is the way of eternal life – which, unfortunately, is not evident in many churches, which are often nothing more than social clubs and best avoided.
We all have good and bad within us? Yes, by human standards. But by God’s standards of ultimate perfection, “There is none righteous, no not one.”
As to quantum entanglement, even if that is true, there is no guarantee that the I CHING shows the true nature and meaning of that entanglement. You have said yourself on a couple of occasions I believe that results gained from the methods of I CHING are obscure and open to various interpretations.
Moreover, if “Quantum entanglement is a correlation that can exist between two or more quantum systems,” what does that have to do with our daily life?
If I take up a glass of water to drink it, on the quantum level all sorts of things are happening on the subatomic level of that glass that cannot be fully understood, but we do not use or experience the glass on a quantum level. Quantum physics or mechanics take place on a very minute scale reality and are tightly restricted within larger parameters.
Thus, the glass remains a fixed and stable object that we can use with confidence, no matter what is going on inside the glass on the atomic level.
If I eat a hamburger, what do I care about the subatomic realities of the ketchup?
Maybe we are getting more knowledge than we know what to do with. Going deeper and deeper into the material world will never reveal to us the meaning of life.
Quantum mechanics as a field of study has nothing to do with the human soul, with love, with meaning, guilt and forgiveness, and neither does quantum mechanics have anything to say about how we should live. Principles of right and wrong can not be based on or derived from quantum mechanics.
If I am canoeing on a lake and I go by a turtle on a log, and my presence causes it to slip off the log and into the water, there is an interconnectedness. My presence has an effect on the world around me. So? That does not tell me how to live. It does not tell me what happens after death, but Christ does tell me how to live, and he does tell me what happens after death.
Quantum mechanics has nothing to do with real life, because subatomic particles are a very limited aspect of reality.
Why not try reading a biography of D.L. Moody or John Wesley, or missionaries in the third world who brought literacy and elementary hygiene where none had existed before. Or some biography of a guy in prison whose life was changed by the Bible someone gave him?
I love chatting with true intellectuals and I consider you to be one. I confess that I have lived as a religious dilettante for most my life, priding myself on my intelligence and the number versions of the Bible I had read. My escape from Adventism is particularly interesting to me. After 9/11, I returned to church for an evening Bible Study - hoping for encouragement - and, instead a member said the Bush'es speech in the National Cathedral was EVIDENCE that soon America would have mandatory Sunday Worship. I fell on the ice, leaving the meeting. Maybe it was a sign.
Since then, I have wrapped myself in metaphysics and eastern philosophy. I am currently reading SWEDENBORG: Buddha of the North and my next planned purchase is MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS by Jung. As I understand it, Nietzsche preceded Jung and then Hermann Hesse became an acolyte of Jung. If you are uninterested in philosophy (and I can understand why), Jung introduced the concept of synchronicity (which confirms quantum mechanics) and archetypes. He also believed that man is inherently both good and evil and we must explore our hearts and minds to determine which way to go.
All that said, Jesus is my savior and nothing more has to be said about that. You would have fit in nicely with a group of men that I studied with pre-Covid.
As far as your adventure with the turtle, that is beautiful. Nevertheless the I CHING was right when it told me that Biden would leave office after 420 days and it will be easy to see if I have been led astray if the war in Ukraine does not end with Trump's rise to power.
PS. On a non-religious subject, do you think the plan of sending two living and one dead Jew in return for 300 Palestinian criminals and terrorists will go on for long?
I admit I do have some intellectual tendencies, but try not to lose sight of the simplicity of Christ, and see human knowledge as inferior to the revelations of Scripture.
About the number of Bible versions, I maintain that the KJV is the best and most reliable translation in English. The modern versions have too much paraphrasing, and watering down of the text to make it simpler for the modern reader. They also remove verses on the basis of faulty critical principles, and this I believe is an insult to God that robs the word of its power, even if the basic message is all there.
About Adventism, I know little about it, but do believe that many modern churches are best avoided. They ignore Paul’s clear instructions for a worship service in I Corinthians, and consist primarily of listening to the same person give a lecture Sunday after Sunday as if no one else in the church has anything to say.
I am interested in philosophy, and have read a number of general histories of Western philosophy, including individual works by Plato and Aristotle (years ago), and others – including Nietzsche. Have you read any Kierkegaard? I think his conception of faith is very incomplete, but some people admire him. Others call him a boring windbag.
It is psychology that I have generally avoided. I have read that Jung had some extremely eccentric ideas, no doubt with some truths mixed in, but never had an interest in him or Freud.
Jung’s ideas of exploring our own hearts and minds to figure out which way to go is a bad mistake, yet one typical of modern secularism. There are external truths and we need those, we cannot rely on ourselves, we need to be delivered and saved from ourselves.
About Jesus being your savior, if he is your savior then shouldn’t you prize and value his teachings above all else? Can Jung tell you what happens after death, or what God is like, or what God expects of you?
Belief in Christ includes belief in the teachings of Christ. I can readily understand the fact that your experiences of religion have alienated you from establishment Christianity, but the Christ of the New Testament is very different from that.
About that study group, I would enjoy something like that. I was involved with a discussion group at my last workplace, but it petered out.
About Biden being out of office at the end of his term, that was no great prediction, and of course says nothing to you about how you should live to be a better human being. And the war in the Ukraine ending with Trump’s re-election? Since he has said many times he will do that, and since the US has incredible leverage over Zelensky, that also is not a difficult prediction, and also one that does not make me a better person or reveal to me my hidden faults.
I don’t believe that ceasefire can possibly hold up, as the criminals of Hamas have a deeply religious bloodlust for killing Jews, and think it humiliation and a disgrace to even have to negotiate with Jews on a basis of equality.
And wasn’t Yahya Sinwar released in a prisoner exchange? And if there were happy photos at that time of the released Israeli soldier being greeted by his family, those were more than cancelled out by the grief and suffering Sinwar masterminded.
Instead of happy photos of a few lucky families, people should be focusing on the greater devastation to come after Hamas carries out its next attacks, as they will continue to do if allowed.
PS. It is not correct that I "prophesied" that Biden would leave office today. I wrote several months ago that, as the Beast of Revelation, the Big Guy would have 42 months to speak his blasphemies and, sure enough, exactly 42 months after he became president, Biden quit.
PS Charles, it just occurred to me that when it comes to reading, I have found history very useful, and am currently reading at intervals a history of the French Revolution and a detailed biography of Chairman Mao. Few people realize what an inhuman monster of cruelty he was.
Also, biographies. John Toland's biography of Hitler has a lot of information about German history and international relations. Biographies of Lincoln, Churchill, Napoleon and also biographies of lesser known people, especially people who have survived extreme conditions (Soviet labor camps, Nazi death camps, the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides, true survival stories like Into Thin Air by John Krakauer) say a lot more about real people and real life than Jung's wild and speculations about archetypes and who knows what else.
It's always a pleasure to hear from you. I haven't read Kierkegaard, but I've read Spinoza and I've attempted to tackle a couple essays by Alexander Dugin. Philosophers speak in language that I often cannot decipher; but I struggle to understand as much as my limited intelligence allows. My favorite biography is TRUMAN by David McCullough. Like you, I despise the new translations that treat us like children; but on the other hand, I was brought up reading THE BIBLE STORY (that Adventist series that used to be in all doctor's offices) and, though it presented the Bible in a manner understandable to a child, it did not delve into the deeper things. Still, the bare bones of the story came through loud and clear. 65 years after I first read it, I consider it a great primer for actually reading the bible.
I admire Jung for his intellect and his understanding of symbols. And I enjoyed INTO THIN AIR.
My view of the I-CHING is that it operates similarly to a Rorschach test. Its value comes from forcing the individual to face a conclusion and then ponder whether he/she can abide by its implications. This is one of the valid approaches in psychiatry when dealing with anxiety.
I was curious about your interest in the I Ching and read a little about it. It was mentioned in connection with the Tao Te Ching - though they are different in content and purpose..
I have read the Tao Te Ching two or three times over many years, each time comparing and contrasting its contents with the Bible.
I have tried a couple of times to read nothing but the Bible and Christian literature, but that never lasted long. Some exposure to the ideas and history of the world at large is - for me at any rate - an important part of my Christian life, and differing ideas, even though unbiblical, can offer interesting food for thought.
Thus with the Tao Te Ching. Many things in it are wrong from a biblical point of view, but some ideas are suitable for a Christian - not being too interested in fame, power, or money for example.
I also like the Tao's emphasis on the mysterious and unknown nature of God. Even though in Christianity we have a much fuller revelation, we allow our theology and our knowledge to obscure the fact that there is still an unknowable dimension to God, and a mystery to the divine that is sometimes lost in our commentaries and bible memorization (and having memorized many parts of the Bible does not necessarily equal knowledge of God).
About the I Ching, I know little, except that it asserts a connectedness between all parts of the universe, and that because of this connectedness certain events can reveal other events, or something like that. Hence the significance of divination.
Except, all events are controlled directly or indirectly by God, who either causes things to happen, or allows things to happen when he could prevent it. In this case, the entire I Ching is nothing but a profound misunderstanding about the nature of reality. And, by your own account, it is also very ambiguous.
This does not mean I suggest you read nothing but the Bible and Christian literature. If anyone wants to study Taoism, Buddhism, Marxism, Freudianism, empiricism, Platonism, whatever, it does not hurt to look into different things and to try and see where and how they are right or in what ways they are wrong - but the ultimate reality is found in God and nowhere else.
This does not mean I advocate joining a church and going every Sunday. Many churches are nothing but social clubs, shallow, trivial and boring. And even those that make more of an effort are deeply influenced by American culture. But I do think there are deeper avenues into the unseen spiritual reality behind the physical world than the I Ching or any of the Oriental religions and philosophies - which is also true of many Western philosophies and religious varieties.
Have you read the Tao Te Ching? You might find it has more of real life than any divination practice.
I also read the Analects of Confucius. Much of it seemed uninteresting, even obvious, but here and there were some really remarkable insights. If I still had my copy of it I would be glad to give a few select quotes, but haven't been able to accumulate a library, moving as often as I did.
Also, some general overviews of the history of Western philosophy written on an introductory level for laymen like ourselves, from the pre-Socratics of ancient Greece up the latest European anti-philosophies, might be interesting.
It is always a pleasure (and often an education) to read your comments, Joe. Let me attempt to explain my mindset and why I believe as I do. As you know, my great great great, etc. grandfather Jakob Clement first stepped onto the soil of the New World in 1706. Most of my male ancestors were Mennonite ministers. I was baptized twice and have always instinctively asked for Jesus' protection in times of need.
However, that history and faith has been tested by the likes of Cotton Mather, John Hathorn, Jonathan Corwin, and that disgusting liar and traitor Joe Biden.
After studying comparative religions in college, it became clear to me that all civilized societies and religions (with the exception of Mohammedism and outright Satanism) have the same basic morality and very similar reports of Creation.
I believe in the ideas of C.G. Jung. We all have good and bad within us. Why do I accept the I CHING as inspired writing? I do so because there is such a thing a quantum entanglement and we will never understand spiritual matters until death - and maybe not then.
I remember your saying something about your ancestry, and family can have a great influence. However, authentic religious belief in Christ is not inherited, and must be found by each individual independently.
It is a mistake to allow our understanding of Christianity or any religion to be determined by its worst practitioners. The Salem witch trials went on for a short time, before people recognized it was wrong and stopped the practice. Christianity should be judged by its teachings and by Christ as its example, not by pedophile priests, or phony TV evangelists, judges of witchcraft trials or whatever.
The woman brought before Christ could have been sentenced to death by the same Mosaic law that imposed the death penalty for witchcraft. Christ set that law aside for Christians, saying with his higher level of revelation that it was not for us to impose the death penalty for moral offenses. The New England Puritans you mentioned did not follow Christ’s example.
And Biden? What does he have to do with Christianity?
Why not focus on more serious members of the Christian community who have done so much to make the world a better place without much fanfare or publicity?
About the study of comparative religions in college, there is a basic human morality which comes from the conscience, the sense of right and wrong God has planted in us. But there are basic teachings of Christianity that are absolutely unique, and have a higher standard of ethics and morality than what is commonly found in the world. That many Christians have not lived up to it is too bad, but Christ said, “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it.”
I am not familiar with Jung – I have read a bit about him here and there in passing. I have read other secular authors, and find general histories of philosophy to be interesting and informative, but have paid little interest in psychology.
Comparing and contrasting secular authors with biblical teaching is a useful exercise for me. But Christ is the revelation of the invisible God, and his way is the way of eternal life – which, unfortunately, is not evident in many churches, which are often nothing more than social clubs and best avoided.
We all have good and bad within us? Yes, by human standards. But by God’s standards of ultimate perfection, “There is none righteous, no not one.”
As to quantum entanglement, even if that is true, there is no guarantee that the I CHING shows the true nature and meaning of that entanglement. You have said yourself on a couple of occasions I believe that results gained from the methods of I CHING are obscure and open to various interpretations.
Moreover, if “Quantum entanglement is a correlation that can exist between two or more quantum systems,” what does that have to do with our daily life?
If I take up a glass of water to drink it, on the quantum level all sorts of things are happening on the subatomic level of that glass that cannot be fully understood, but we do not use or experience the glass on a quantum level. Quantum physics or mechanics take place on a very minute scale reality and are tightly restricted within larger parameters.
Thus, the glass remains a fixed and stable object that we can use with confidence, no matter what is going on inside the glass on the atomic level.
If I eat a hamburger, what do I care about the subatomic realities of the ketchup?
Maybe we are getting more knowledge than we know what to do with. Going deeper and deeper into the material world will never reveal to us the meaning of life.
Quantum mechanics as a field of study has nothing to do with the human soul, with love, with meaning, guilt and forgiveness, and neither does quantum mechanics have anything to say about how we should live. Principles of right and wrong can not be based on or derived from quantum mechanics.
If I am canoeing on a lake and I go by a turtle on a log, and my presence causes it to slip off the log and into the water, there is an interconnectedness. My presence has an effect on the world around me. So? That does not tell me how to live. It does not tell me what happens after death, but Christ does tell me how to live, and he does tell me what happens after death.
Quantum mechanics has nothing to do with real life, because subatomic particles are a very limited aspect of reality.
Why not try reading a biography of D.L. Moody or John Wesley, or missionaries in the third world who brought literacy and elementary hygiene where none had existed before. Or some biography of a guy in prison whose life was changed by the Bible someone gave him?
I love chatting with true intellectuals and I consider you to be one. I confess that I have lived as a religious dilettante for most my life, priding myself on my intelligence and the number versions of the Bible I had read. My escape from Adventism is particularly interesting to me. After 9/11, I returned to church for an evening Bible Study - hoping for encouragement - and, instead a member said the Bush'es speech in the National Cathedral was EVIDENCE that soon America would have mandatory Sunday Worship. I fell on the ice, leaving the meeting. Maybe it was a sign.
Since then, I have wrapped myself in metaphysics and eastern philosophy. I am currently reading SWEDENBORG: Buddha of the North and my next planned purchase is MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS by Jung. As I understand it, Nietzsche preceded Jung and then Hermann Hesse became an acolyte of Jung. If you are uninterested in philosophy (and I can understand why), Jung introduced the concept of synchronicity (which confirms quantum mechanics) and archetypes. He also believed that man is inherently both good and evil and we must explore our hearts and minds to determine which way to go.
All that said, Jesus is my savior and nothing more has to be said about that. You would have fit in nicely with a group of men that I studied with pre-Covid.
As far as your adventure with the turtle, that is beautiful. Nevertheless the I CHING was right when it told me that Biden would leave office after 420 days and it will be easy to see if I have been led astray if the war in Ukraine does not end with Trump's rise to power.
PS. On a non-religious subject, do you think the plan of sending two living and one dead Jew in return for 300 Palestinian criminals and terrorists will go on for long?
I admit I do have some intellectual tendencies, but try not to lose sight of the simplicity of Christ, and see human knowledge as inferior to the revelations of Scripture.
About the number of Bible versions, I maintain that the KJV is the best and most reliable translation in English. The modern versions have too much paraphrasing, and watering down of the text to make it simpler for the modern reader. They also remove verses on the basis of faulty critical principles, and this I believe is an insult to God that robs the word of its power, even if the basic message is all there.
About Adventism, I know little about it, but do believe that many modern churches are best avoided. They ignore Paul’s clear instructions for a worship service in I Corinthians, and consist primarily of listening to the same person give a lecture Sunday after Sunday as if no one else in the church has anything to say.
I am interested in philosophy, and have read a number of general histories of Western philosophy, including individual works by Plato and Aristotle (years ago), and others – including Nietzsche. Have you read any Kierkegaard? I think his conception of faith is very incomplete, but some people admire him. Others call him a boring windbag.
It is psychology that I have generally avoided. I have read that Jung had some extremely eccentric ideas, no doubt with some truths mixed in, but never had an interest in him or Freud.
Jung’s ideas of exploring our own hearts and minds to figure out which way to go is a bad mistake, yet one typical of modern secularism. There are external truths and we need those, we cannot rely on ourselves, we need to be delivered and saved from ourselves.
About Jesus being your savior, if he is your savior then shouldn’t you prize and value his teachings above all else? Can Jung tell you what happens after death, or what God is like, or what God expects of you?
Belief in Christ includes belief in the teachings of Christ. I can readily understand the fact that your experiences of religion have alienated you from establishment Christianity, but the Christ of the New Testament is very different from that.
About that study group, I would enjoy something like that. I was involved with a discussion group at my last workplace, but it petered out.
About Biden being out of office at the end of his term, that was no great prediction, and of course says nothing to you about how you should live to be a better human being. And the war in the Ukraine ending with Trump’s re-election? Since he has said many times he will do that, and since the US has incredible leverage over Zelensky, that also is not a difficult prediction, and also one that does not make me a better person or reveal to me my hidden faults.
I don’t believe that ceasefire can possibly hold up, as the criminals of Hamas have a deeply religious bloodlust for killing Jews, and think it humiliation and a disgrace to even have to negotiate with Jews on a basis of equality.
And wasn’t Yahya Sinwar released in a prisoner exchange? And if there were happy photos at that time of the released Israeli soldier being greeted by his family, those were more than cancelled out by the grief and suffering Sinwar masterminded.
Instead of happy photos of a few lucky families, people should be focusing on the greater devastation to come after Hamas carries out its next attacks, as they will continue to do if allowed.
PS. It is not correct that I "prophesied" that Biden would leave office today. I wrote several months ago that, as the Beast of Revelation, the Big Guy would have 42 months to speak his blasphemies and, sure enough, exactly 42 months after he became president, Biden quit.
"predict" is different from "prophesy"
Also, what does the Beast of Revelation have to do with I Ching?
And, Biden didn't resign from the White House. He decided not to run again, but he served his full term.
PS Charles, it just occurred to me that when it comes to reading, I have found history very useful, and am currently reading at intervals a history of the French Revolution and a detailed biography of Chairman Mao. Few people realize what an inhuman monster of cruelty he was.
Also, biographies. John Toland's biography of Hitler has a lot of information about German history and international relations. Biographies of Lincoln, Churchill, Napoleon and also biographies of lesser known people, especially people who have survived extreme conditions (Soviet labor camps, Nazi death camps, the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides, true survival stories like Into Thin Air by John Krakauer) say a lot more about real people and real life than Jung's wild and speculations about archetypes and who knows what else.
It's always a pleasure to hear from you. I haven't read Kierkegaard, but I've read Spinoza and I've attempted to tackle a couple essays by Alexander Dugin. Philosophers speak in language that I often cannot decipher; but I struggle to understand as much as my limited intelligence allows. My favorite biography is TRUMAN by David McCullough. Like you, I despise the new translations that treat us like children; but on the other hand, I was brought up reading THE BIBLE STORY (that Adventist series that used to be in all doctor's offices) and, though it presented the Bible in a manner understandable to a child, it did not delve into the deeper things. Still, the bare bones of the story came through loud and clear. 65 years after I first read it, I consider it a great primer for actually reading the bible.
I admire Jung for his intellect and his understanding of symbols. And I enjoyed INTO THIN AIR.