Jesus often quoted scripture. If it was good enough for him to use, it’s good enough for me.
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I read an article once that mentioned parting waters in a certain place. I believe it was two islands in Indonesia that you could cross between for a few hours of the year, because the water became so shallow that a land bridge emerged, or some such. Not in the biblical way of the waters being suspended in mid-air.
This is, though, coming from an agnostic.
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I confess fessie that I’m aroused. Please tell us. And please provide cites. 
So davidw, what version of “scripture” did Jesus use?
Oh, don’t tell me you’re talking about the parting of the read sea, as there’s jokes about this same line of reasoning…like how the Egyption army drown…:smack:
oh shoot…Egyptian…the whole Egyptian.
No, I’m not. REGARDLESS of which Bible translation you use, it was most certainly NOT derived through a grand sequence of translations, like the child’s game of Telephone enacted on a grand scale. The only example cited so far that even comes close is the King James Version, which only had ONE intermediate step – and even that is blunted by the translators’ familiarity with the Greek New Testament, and their use of Greek and Hebrew scholars.
Since I never accused you of saying such a thing, your objection is irrelevant. I was specifically addressing your claims regarding how the Bible was translated. As I said, regardless of which translation you refer to, it was not done in the manner that you described.
That’s a whole 'nuther subject, dear. If you want to argue that the Bible is fallible, then take your shot – but let’s not pretend that the “multiple retranslations” argument is a valid approach. That’s not how the Bible is translated, so such an argument is futile and irrelevant.
Again, irrelevant. That objection is about interpretations, and has no bearing on whether the translatios are reliable or not. Besides which, the fact that various people disagree on certain interpretations does not prove its fallibility either. It merely shows that people disagree. This proves nothing about the soundness of the text itself, since people themselves are often wrong.
You know what, J, that’s exactly the kind of nitpicky argument I’d expect.
From the links that tomndeb provided I learned a couple of things I didn’t know (delightful about the Pit), such as the fact that the contents were chosen by votes! People voted! It wasn’t handed down in perfect form, it was selected by a panel! That may not exactly be a game of “telephone”, but it does show how the original intent of authors can be distorted by later users - which is what interpreting and translating come down to.
But nonetheless, so you don’t like two of the words I used - translation and interpretations - because of the first examples I set forth to explain my use of those words to you. Big deal. That changes nothing about my central argument.
Let’s take the constitution. It’s be “reinterpreted” hundreds of times as well, as each generation reads different meaning into the text in an attempt to apply sound principles to current life. It’s also “translated” differently by groups who want to use it to support their views - gun control comes to mind right away. It’s another fallible human document with tons of value despite its fallibility. Parts of the Bible are divine, and there’s a lot of other divine writing out there, too. My point is that there’s no reason why every discussion about religion has to come down to Bible quotes being thrown back and forth - the Bible isn’t the only way to know God. That’s what I find irritating & reductionist. Why limit God to the content of an old book?
grienspace it sounds like I’m a confirmed Gnostic & personally I think God is everywhere. One of my favorite lines by Salinger is from “Teddy” in Nine Stories where he realizes while drinking a cup of milk that he’s “pouring God into God”. We’re already “there”.
Not to speak for jthunder, but insisting on accuracy is not being “nitpicky.”
No, it does not. The selection process whereby the Biblical canon was compiled may have been flawed and influenced by perseonal preference and bias, but that is not the same thing as interpreting and translating. This is not “Alice through the Looking Dope” where you may make words mean what you wish them to mean. Your claim that that biblical texts have been garbled by inaccurate translations has been demontrated to be false, so drop that line of argument if you do not wish to be thought a fool.
Well if one is a sincere Christian, one is obliged to believe that the Bible possesses a degree of sacred insight that is not available in any other holy writing. Your claim that parts of the Bible are divine (and the corollary that other parts are not) is every bit as subjective as the FC’s claim that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God or my claim that it is just a collection of fables and didactic histories. Your perspective is no more privileged than ony other observer’s.
So are you saying you’re a pantheist?
So gobear, you’re saying that if someone is given a list of 100 subjective statements that describe “X” and they pick 62 of them and say that those are now the official description of “X”, that’s not an interpretation and translation of that first list of 100?
You’re saying that lawyers don’t translate and interpret the law when they make it applicable to their clients’ specific cases? That’s what it seems to me members of the various churches do when they choose Biblical verse for their sermons and use it to discuss current events.
And I’m not a sincere Christian. That’s the point. Why does one have to be a sincere Christian in order to hold religious beliefs? Posters keep going back to that as a reference point when I never made that assertion - why automatically assume a Christian context? Why make God a matter of Christianity?
And to return to JThunder’s objections, I’d always heard that there were disagreements re: the original Hebrew vs. current King James. I don’t have documentation, I don’t have cites, it’s just one of those things I’d heard from other people - in particular, a family friend who had mastered Hebrew and read the original text. From the SD staff reports I’ve read, I still think there’s plenty of room for skepticism. Plus when you go to the bookstores there are different bibles, plus medjugorjes and what-all else to try to explain the meaning of the text. I don’t think it’s a simple matter of content - hells bells, it took the SD staff five installments to answer the question!
But even if there weren’t, even if the Bible was one document that’s never changed from 1,800 years ago, I’d still argue that it’s just a book of collected wisdom and fables. It’s not God.
Clearly I’m not explaining myself all that well, as I don’t really mean to disrespect the Bible. But I guess I do lack respect for people who think that the only way they can know God is if some member of some church says they do, or if some particular piece of belief has been written in the Bible and is therefore OK. I don’t see why something as grand as God belongs to any particular denomination for parceling out as they see fit.
And I think it’s odd that this makes people angry, where you’d say that I’m claiming to be “privileged”. I think I’m saying that we’re all privileged. We can all learn from religious leaders and writings, and we can trust ourselves as well.
Applause for these two points.
Uh, no. I see what you are driving at, and I tend to agree. But as phrased, your statement does not convey a valid point. At its broadest definition, “a Christian” would be one who believes in Jesus of Nazareth as a person whose life and teachings have some special value not found elsewhere. Obviously most people would be quick to narrow this down to “as the incarnate Son of God whose death and Resurrection atoned for our sins,” “as one’s personal Lord and Savior,” etc., but I here am trying to give it the broadest possible connotation, the one under which, e.g., a UUist would be comfortable describing himself as a Christian.
This presupposes that the texts under which one knows what it is that this Jesus taught and did carry some degree of accuracy, albeit they were polemically written to demonstrate the authors’ individual views of who Jesus was, report miracle stories uncritically, contain statements surficially contradictory of each other, etc. It does not presuppose that “the Bible” as a whole, being a collection of religious writings by a wide variety of human authors, carries any such degree of accuracy.
Most Christians do extend that understanding of “containing truth” under the idea of divine inspiration to one degree or another, across a very broad range of meanings for what “divine inspiration” was and how it operated. But even that is more subjectivism.
Panentheist would I think be more accurate, from what little I’ve read of fessie’s views.
Wait a sec. . . are you saying that you now intend “interpretations and translations” to mean disputations about shades of meaning and abiguities in definition, and not translation from langage to language? If so, then why did you post this?
Now if you’re saying that the Bible’s veracity cannot be wholly trusted because scholars translating from Hebrew and Greek into English garbled the meaning, you have been proven wrong. If, however, you mean that the Biblical texts may be open to differing understandings depending on the reader’s own background and biases, then I and and most people would agree. But in that case, you should say “interpretations” not “translation.” Your own meaning is most unclear.
I never said you were. If you read my posts, you’ll note I used the neutral third-person pronoun “one”: “If one is a sincere Christian,” that is if a given person is a sincere Christian. And I repeat, if one is a sincere Christian, one must believe the Bible has an insight into God’s nature that the Upanishads or the Qu’ran do not.
Because your op addresses the question of Biblical understanding, and the thread title is “Biblical Threads Make My Blood Boil,” therefore you who created this thread with a Judaeo-Christian subtext. After, all the Bible isn’t the book of the Hindus or the Buddhists.
Moreover, you are making a number of assumptions in your own thinking. Why you think there has to be only one god? What if there are many gods, like the orishas of Santeria or the multiplicity of deities in the Hindu pantheon? And why do you assume that the nature of God(s) can be comprehended by limited, mortal humans? If God(s) created the universe and encompass all knowledge and wisdom, then His(Their) thoughts must be as far above your comprehension as Stephen Hawking’s must be above those of an amoeba.
In addition, given the number of contradictory and competing claims about god, someone has to be right and someone must be wrong. Either there is one god, many gods, or no god. If there is one God, does one please Him (or Her) by repenting for one’s sins, as the Christians believe? Or does one strive to obey the laws God has given His people, as the Jews and Muslims think? Or maybe God is capricious instead of just and must be placated with animal sacrifices, as the Santeria adherents hold.
I’m sure you see the scope of the problem.
And just where did I say the Bible carried any degree of accuracy? I said that for a Christian (which does not include UUs because your broadest definition is meaningless without a common understanding of the Person and divinity of Jesus) the Bible must have a unique degree of insight. Such insight might be conveyed through fable rather than literally accurate history, but it would still be valid insight into the nature of God.
I submit that my point as phrased is correct and you did not understand it.
This is the same annoying thing that happens every time religion comes up & this is why I opened this thread.
You guys don’t like the fact that I used the word “translated” without explaining my meaning more clearly. Fine. So you’ve reduced all of my statements about the nature of God into arguments about my use of that word. I started to write “Religious Threads”, chose the word “Biblical” instead. You don’t like that word for its Judeo-Christian connotation. Fine.
Those words are not key to my point.
My point is that God (a three-letter symbol for the Infinite Is and whatever deities one perceives) is much bigger and more grand than any of these words.
But people insist on focusing on the specifics instead. So that God becomes a matter of this biblical phrase versus that one, or this congregation kicks ass while that one sucks. It becomes a big Bible trivia game where one person can “win”. Silliness.
You know, I adore SDMB. I really do. I learn a great deal here, I laugh, I’m amazed, I question my assumptions. I’m impressed with the depth and breadth of members’ knowledge their witty repartee. Sometimes I make good points and sometimes I’m a dork (such as when I pick poor examples rather than explaining my point more completely).
But there are real limits to what can be known, expressed and defended through verbage. That big brouhaha from a couple of months ago regarding the existence of the soul was one, and statements like “In addition, given the number of contradictory and competing claims about god, someone has to be right and someone must be wrong.” Why is that true? You think that you know that God is finite and understandable by human beings, that you can reduce God to an accurate set of claims? No way Jose.
You guys think you can understand the whole world via logic. Well, you’re wrong. There’s a lot you can understand, a lot of ways in which we’d be lost without it. The human race is indebted to logic, but also to intuition and mysticism, to myths and fables and the sixth sense.
I guess it’s to be expected that you’d want to rely on the Bible for a definite understanding of God, one you can get your hands on and apply logically. I’m saying, well, that’s great, but it’s only a start. It’s not the be-all, end-all and it leads to a lot of arguments about who said what when - and arguments about whether the Bible was translated, transferred, transduced or Trans-Ammed.
What’s sad is when a formal religious understanding of God fails (when the explanations prove false or inadequate), and there’s nothing to fall back on because one hasn’t also stored up their own personal, intellectual, intuitive experience of God. Perhaps I’m writing this thread for my father in absentia. He was a chapter-and-verse Methodist, a grandson of a prominent Minister who passed tracts in his adolescence and taught Sunday school, until he graduated from HS and decided the logical fallacies were too much. He gave up on the deity when he jettisoned the religion, and he’s relied on logic alone ever since. And he’s not a happy man by anyone’s measure.
Interesting. Under this very broad definition I would be a Christian. Who’da thunk it?
Please explain my error. Are you sayng that the claims for one god, many gods, and no gods whatsoever can all be true simultaneously?
quote:
Originally posted by Shodan
Not splitting hairs at all, but (IMO) right on the money.
The Bible in my tradition is supposed to be treated similarly to Mary and the saints in the Roman tradition. The Bible is a window, which is supposed to show the Lord. You can focus on the streaks on the glass, or you can look at what it is meant to show you.
Regards,
Shodan
Polycarp said, "There’s a Rule of the Debating Universe that says that Shodan and I agree precisely on a given point about once a quarter. I’m pleased to announce this quarter’s Post of Agreement, above! "
Yeah, but focusing on the words in the book don’t mean there’s a god. It just means that there are some (and I stress “some”) words of wisdom in the book. It doesn’t have any direct bearing on the existence (or the need for) a god. And it doesn’t account for the other gods out there. It just strikes me as more smoke and mirrors.
fessie, first let me say that I agree with you about the Bible having lots of wisdom and great literature, and also lots of stuff in it that’s less worthy. Personally, I consider it to be a book, one of many written by human beings and no more or less divine than any other book.
Having said that–
If this is the case, then you have no ground to argue with people who believe in the Bible’s infallibility. If you can intuit truths, if certain truths are immune to logic and reveal themselves only in mystical experience or intuition, then how can you claim that Joe Fundamentalist’s intuition, sixth sense, and mystical experience doesn’t correctly tell him that the world was indeed created in six days? Heck, how could you contradict me if I told you that C J Cherryh’s Foreigner books were dictated by God herself and contain all neccesary wisdom and instruction? You couldn’t. My mystical experience tells me so, and no argument you could make would be convincing to me–using logic would be utterly fruitless.
I’m not trying to say that personal mystical experience is neccesarily invalid, just that you can’t really argue from it and then expect others to drop their own, differing experience in favor of yours on what is basically your bare assertion of the superiority of yours. Which you see, when looking at people who disagree with you, but seem not to when you talk about your own beliefs.
You seem to be trying to argue that for certain reasons the Bible isn’t as infallible as some believe–an appeal to logic. But then you say such matters aren’t subject to logic. Well, they are or they aren’t, you can’t have it both ways.
For what it’s worth, in my experience “intuition” and my “sixth sense” operate best when I have as many facts as possible. Intuition isn’t some mystical message from the cosmos, but my mind making a judgement somewhere below my level of consciousness and presenting me with the answer without letting me see the steps that got me there. It’s not infallible, but the results get better when I have lots of reliable material to feed that unconscious process. Which is where the nitpicking and close examination and insisting on getting accurate information pays off.
Well, no, what led to that argument was a particular assertion about how the Bible has been translated. And for someone who believes the Bible is divine, it makes absolute sense that they would want to understand it in as full and accurate detail as they could manage, which includes understanding just when, where, and how it was translated and what that might mean for how we understand the Bible today. Considering that the majority religions in the US rely on the Bible, it’s hardly surprising that the question of what certain passages mean would be an important one for lots of people.
Mr. Cameron that’s the third time you’ve added something useful and substantive to this thread - surely a violation of some code or another ;). You’re absolutely correct. I’m reminded again of the reason I became an artist and not a lawyer. Thanks.
For your information, gobear, the short description of the divine in my religion is “the one and the many”.