(Unless the name is John. Then it's kind of a good clue that the book isn't John).
Do not trust in a friend;
Do not put your confidence in a companion;
Guard the doors of your mouth
From her who lies in your bosom.
For son dishonors father,
Daughter rises against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.
Therefore I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
My God will hear me.
Also yeah it's weird that I have to wait a day to do the next one. I get the appeal of having a daily routine fun site, but why not also let me do a random one each time I pass/fail if I want?
Perhaps I should make it clearer that correctly identifying the book on the first try is not the expectation. Maybe I will add a clarification that the goal is "as few guesses as possible" or maybe "as few guesses as you can".
It's quite a variable challenge. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. (Usually it's not.) I appreciate your feedback.
*Despite them both being in the same section. Oops.
It's not quite true that "it genuinely could have been from any OT book". First, when you make a guess it doesn't just tell you whether you got the book right, it also tells you whether you got the right section (major prophets, gospels, etc.). So if you guess that something's from Isaiah, after that you will at least know whether it's from Ezekiel or not.
I agree that this one could be from almost-but-not-quite anywhere in the OT, but bear in mind that the target audience (1) may well have read the whole thing multiple times and (2) may well have a good idea of the "tone" of various different books.
(I've been a godless heathen for many years, though I was a Christian for many years before that. In the present case my first guess was the same as yours but I didn't try your second guess, not only because of the can't-be-in-that-section thing but because I have a pretty good idea what sort of thing is in that book and I don't think there's much there that reads like this verse. It did, none the less, take me quite a lot of guesses. If I were still in the habit of reading the Bible a lot I expect I'd have done better. Which is kinda the point.)
more like "guess who" in taking out entire categories
Also let me plug the system I'm developing which helps you learn Biblical Greek, by reading selections of scripture where you know all the words but one or two. Each one takes about the effort of a Wordle (or Bibdle) puzzle to decode. https://www.laleolanguage.com
Edit: I'd also appreciate an RSS feed so that I can get notified when a new puzzle is released.
I spent a decent amount of time trying to add the Deuterocanonical books. Ultimately I put it on hold, because I was worried that adding those books would make a challenging game even harder (at least for my initial audience of 20 family and friends). I also wondered if adding those books would put off any Protestant visitors... but I see their omission has caught your attention, that's Orthodox 1, Protestant 0. I'll find an elegant way to work them in.
And I never thought of adding an RSS feed! I'll add that to the todo!
Maybe offer options on which canon? Does not work well with daily format though. OTOH I would like to play more than once a day!
It is difficult. Maybe weighting towards the new testament (i.e. non-random selection) would make it easier? I think a lot of us are more familiar with it.
That's because you are a believer.
Knowledge of apocrypha and gnostic gospels is suppressed by the power structures of the church.
Hilarious to worry about "putting off" protestants by including orthodox books rather than the whole believing those people will suffer an eternity of pain and suffering because they believe the same god but the wrong way(TM).
Yikes, got a fun one right away. That seems like rather unhealthy behavior to me. Maybe not really for the younger ones then.
What is it that only the god can provide?
Source: the Our Father prayer
1. God does not exist.
2. Objective ethics do exist.
3. Objective ethics do not come directly from the mandate of a friend, a companion, or another human.
Where for example do they derive absolutely objective goals from?
Surely not sustenance in the sense of food so I presume it's what we usually call meaning? People might get it from whatever fulfills them. For many it's giving back to the community in some way. It's not something I was told, more something that feels right and would scale well if everyone did it.
What are absolutely objective goals here? Are we talking about what do I want to be true at the end of my life? Staying healthy, looking back when you're old and not regretting a lot, being part of and respected by your community, those things. What would be a goal that God would suggest one works toward in this context. Can you relate that to what you have in mind?
Not having read the bible the words sounds so specific and strong.
> Do not trust in a friend; Do not put your confidence in a companion; ... For son dishonors father, Daughter rises against her mother, ... A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.
I guess you have to read the whole thing to imagine the context in which this won't, even accidentally, be interpreted literally. I'm not judging or anything, genuinely curious, obviously these are historical texts from a certain time in history. That's why I'm so curious about the value people see in reading them over and over again in the current times.
Proverbs 14:29
I'd like a 'true or false' game based on those quotes, but then it might be unbalanced.
Now get thee to a nunnery.
It's pretty easy to tell that something is old or new testament based on the writing styles. What's hard is the OT has a fair number of similar writers and a lot of books. The first question I got was [redacted] (lol) which is really hard to track down as they all sound the same to me.
Edit I didn't realize everyone had the same question. So pulled out the hint.
Personally, I know Genesis/Exodus, Psalms, and the Gospels well. I can recognize Epistles on sight, but identifying the exact one is really just a guessing game. Most everything else I am not familiar with and will take me a while to guess.
I think that's why people have enjoyed it so far, because of the tradeoff of getting a verse you recognize (so you can guess the book quickly) or getting an unfamiliar verse (so you get to expand your familiarity with the Bible).
I do not know the Bible particularly well compared to many other people, and I know the New Testament better than the Old (not uncommon - its both smaller and more important to Christians).
OT is a lot harder simply because of the number of writers and how boring/similar a lot of the writing is. To be successful you'd need to have something pulled from like the pentateuch. Maybe psalms or something like Kings/Chronicles.
It also, of course, only contains the protestant canon.
There are more free translations. Not knowledgeable enough to recommend one. Mostly there is no significant difference, but of course there are passages and translations which are contested.
There are Bible apps which will let you install multiple translations and read them side by side. That plus a paper Bible (a good translation such as NRSV) goes a long way.
The new king james translation is better. As is NIV.
If you are really up for studying the bible, then you can't do much better than getting the Oxford annotated bible (which is based on the NRSV). That has all the footnotes pointing out translation choices and giving historic context to passages based on the current best biblical research.
NET and WEB are probably the best modern translations.
What translation is this? What part of the religion (Maccabees, Mormons)? Is there Ge'ez portions (46 book in OT!)? How about the dead sea scrolls?
I think, if it takes off with some of the probing from here, then adding in a harder mode with larger apocrypha or duterocanonical texts would be great. Maybe make a section where you can select the translation and sect you want to learn about.
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. "
No mention of religion there, and it says "most politics" not all politics.
"Anything that good hackers would find interesting" and it seems reasonable for that to include philosophy, religion etc. and definitely an interesting web app is of interest.
Also, tbf, there are regular posts on the HN front page that I would consider "political". (Though I'm not bothered by them.)