If it is only once a quarter, one of us had better start improving his thinking, and I don’t think it’s you.
The way I heard it explained is that the Bible is not itself the word of God, but it contains the Word of God. Guess Who is the Word of God, present in but not limited by the Bible.
Anyone else read thru the link Mangetout provided to his debate with the Happy Heretic? It looked to me as if she (the HH) was making the opposite mistake from accepting everything the Bible said uncritically. She seemed to be rejecting whatever the Bible said out of hand.
I don’t think you get very far in a discussion about Christianity without quoting the Bible. For examples and definitions, if for nothing else.
So you’re saying that liberal Christians who reject Biblical literalism are doing so out of sheer perversity and not their convictions? Boy, you take the cake when it comes to smug arrogance, pal! Several liberal Christians who disagree with your POV post here. Polycarp, Siege**, Mangetout**, Steve Wright**, just to name a few. Are you saying that they disagree with Biblical literalism because they are unrepentant sinners?
And is it just me, or is there a logical contradiction in these two sentences?
The Bbile is an interesting collection of sacred literature that has been heavily influential in our society, but it is no more “true” than the Qu’ran, the Mahabharata, the Kalevala, the Iliad, or any other tales of the interactions of gods and men. But then I’m an atheist who sees no evidence for the existence of gods, devils, elves, leprechauns, satyrs, nymphs, apsaras, gandharvas, pixies, or any other supernatural entities.
You’ve got it kind of backwards, I think. Those paintings and friezes were illustrations of stories already in the Bible–they didn’t become Bible stories because they were paintings, but precisely the reverse. Not one of those paintings changed or added or took away from anything that was already in the Bible. The books in the New Testament had already been written when those paintings were made.
Guttenberg’s printing press was influential because it was a way to make many copies inexpensively–before that, the only way to copy a book was to sit down and write it out by hand, something that made books prohibitively expensive. The printing press made it easier to make more copies more cheaply, which made it easier for people to get their hands on an actual book for themselves. But the text existed before then, it was just really expensive to get your hands on a copy.
As this board is primarily made up of Americans, and because Christianity is the majority religion in America, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to assume that a lot of posters to this board are Christian, in one form or another. Therefore, when they discuss religion, they’re going to do it from their standpoint, which is a Christian one.
If this were an Indian board, you’d expect to see religious discussions skewed toward Hinduism; if it were a Thai board, you’d expect to see them skewed toward Buddhism.
Mr. Cameron that does make sense - I forgot about the Monks whose lives consisted of copying the Bible by hand, not to mention that the Old Testament predates any of the churches I would have been studying. I was mistaken in my statement.
Captain perhaps my frustration is merely that shared by the typical person with a minority view. I don’t want to start a political correctness campaign. It just becomes tiresome to see what looks like a potentially interesting thread become an argument based on a huge set of assumptions that I don’t happen to share. I see intelligent people nitpicking about interpretations and details and it reminds me of NFL referees (only there’s no clear rule book). It’s like people arguing over cookbooks and how to follow recipes when I’d rather just eat.
Completely ignoring the ongoing argument and imparting information for Bren_Cameron: Worship of the saints is called “hagiology” according to www.dictionary.com.
Yes, there have been some older ones. I’m not commenting on those, since they are not in common use, and since I can’t claim to know what kind of scholarship which every single one of them employed. That is ultimately irrelevant though, since your criticism was levelled against the Bible itself, rather than just a few of the older translations.
No, you went far beyond that claim. You claimed very specific reasons why it cannot be trusted, and as I’ve explained, those reasons bear no resemblance to reality.
Yes, since the Catholic church includes the Deuterocanonicals. That does absolutely nothing to support the claims which you made regarding repeated translations, editing by Guttenberg, yadda yadda yadda.
First of all, you’ll find that such translations are routinely rejected by conservative Christianity. And second, people who know Hebrew and Greek can see how preposterous such translations are. To claim that “Nobody knows” is simply false.
Mroeover, such attempts at sanitizing say nothing about the reliability of the Bible itself. These efforts are reflections of the bozos who embark on these endeavors, and say nothing about the inherent reliabilty of the text.
It seems somewhat unfair of you to keep throwing “Translated from paintings” in Fessie’s face when he (she?) admitted that he (she?) was wrong about that. Second, when King James commissioned his translation of the bible, he insisted that it be translated only from Hebrew. Some passages were only available in Greek, and so were translated into Hebrew and then into English, yeilding less precise results. ( Ever play telephone when you were a kid? ) ( Also, I may have Greek and Hebrew mixed up there, it might have been the other way around. Sorry, it’s been a long time since my History of Christianity class ) Since the KJV is the version that many, if not most, fundamentalist Xans will cite as the “best” translation, you can’t claim that these translation mistakes are “ultimately irrelevant”.
Well, yes you can. The KJV may by cited as the “best” translation, even as the one Jesus used, but it’s not. And the fact that you can reference it with the Hebrew and Greek yourself does make these translation mistakes irrelevant. I tend to like to use NKJV, but also the NIV, but I don’t think any one is better than the other.
S4H, that makes no sense. You’re saying that you can overcome translation mistakes in one version by using a better translation, based upon a wider base of sources. Fine, I agree with that 100%. I was replying to JThunder who said:
Also, my point is relevent for someone who does claim that the KJV is the best translation, as many Fundies (down here in the states, anyway) do. That fact that you don’t simply means that it dosen’t apply to you.
Weirddave- nope, I use a few to see how different people translate different words or concepts, and why. For instance, if I say “God is far out because He’s so close” and you translate that word for word, it may be a contradiction, if you translate it as an idiom, you’d get a more accurate picture. Some versions do word for word, some concepts, some idioms, and they are all pretty close, but if you study it from an English perspective, you get the best understanding. I don’t believe one is better, so how then can a better one be used? I think they are all good, and you get a different perspective by using one over the other, but there is still the greek and hebrew that can be used.
Well, to be fair, not everyone accepts the literary tradition of biblical origins. I posted those mostly to clear up any misconceptions regarding the views put forth in the literary approach. Those who believe in direct divine authorship (using the various writers as amanuenses) would probably not accept the literary view, in any case.
Similarly, there are somewhat widely divergent views of what “infallible word” or “inerrant” mean, ranging from those who believe that the entire composition is factually, literally accurate in all particulars if we just understood what was meant, all the way across to those who believe that God shared his message with humanity in very human ways, including works that are mythological, allegorical, exhortative, and even contradictory, but in which the central message remains true.
I was responding to a posting made before that, wherein the existence of “modern Bible translations” was offered as an argument – purportedly to defend the claims that the Bible was edited by Guttenberg, etc. At the time, I had not yet read her subsequent posts.
Moreover, while I can appreciate it when someone acknowledges her error, I have decidedly less patience for offering tangential arguments that have nothing to do with the matter under discussion. Perhaps this is a personal failing, but when people offer such obviously irrelevant arguments, I find it hard to let such thing slide.
First of all, that would only pertain to the King James translation. It still doesn’t substantiate the specific claim made – namely, that the Bible itself has been corrupted through repeated translations. Remember, the overwhelming majority of Bible translations did NOT occur as you described.
Second, I think you’re oversimplifying the process by which the King James Version was translated. The translators consulted scholars in Greek, Hebrew and other languages, where there was room for doubt. Besides, suppose that you’re correct in describing how the King James Version was translated. Even then, there was only the one intermediate step that you mentioned, affecting only certain books. While I would likewise be wary of such a methodology, it is hardly analogous to the children’s game of Telephone, where corruption occurs through multiple retranslations.
Mind you, I’m no fan of the King James Version, and I almost never use it myself. However, to say that it – and other Bible translations – have been corrupted through a successive chain of re-translations is a gross distortion of the facts.
The thing about your arguments, J, is that you keep refining your description of exactly which Bible you’re talking about, and exactly which elements of which Bible. I never said there was nothing of value in the Bible - clearly there is. Same with other major religious documents. And plenty of secular writings - shades of Cecil!
The point is, none of it alone is enough. And I don’t believe there’s any way the Bible is infallible. It was written by flawed human beings.
The other thing I was thinking of when I objected to translations and interpretations is the way in which fans of the Bible can argue infinitely over which passages override other contradictory statements. And the way that different denominations use it to support clashing views. Gimme a break! It’s a starting point. It’s not all of the answers.
