What the hell?
Look, I’m not about to go do a survey on comparative doctrines regarding hell. I really, really don’t care in the least about the subject. Moreover, it’s a really lousy way to determine how a church interprets Revelation. A much better way would be to look at how the church interprets Revelation. And, outside of conservative evangelicals, very few interpret it literally.
Aramaic, I think.
That person would be me. Tomndebb already posted some of the main historical errors. There are many others as well as some significant contradictions. For instance, Matthew and Luke indicate dates for the birth of Jesus which would have to be at least ten years apart. They also give conflicting accounts of the death of Judas (Luke gives his account in Acts, not his Gospel). These are not translational errors, they are present in the Greek text. We can start with those examples, if you wish, or you can address any of the other examples which have already been offered.
Are you claiming that Luke does not state that there was a census for the whole world? I can find the passage (in Greek) where he says that, even though it never happened. Are you claiming that when the Hebrew Tanakh gets the names of the Chaldean and Persian emperors wrong, they are correct in the original, but that every translation into Latin, Greek, French, German, English, Spanish, Coptic, Syriac, Aramaic, and any other language just happened to mistranslate the names (all in the same way)?
That kind of argument has been going on since Martin Luther. There are now many different translations of the Bible into English, most of them direct translations from the original Hebrew or Greek, no doubt some are more accurate than others. Could you be specific, about particular mistranslated passages with particular doctrinal implications?
Do you mean “errors” in the sense that what we now think of as the “original” texts are garbled versions of older texts now lost? Or “errors” in the sense that they describe events that never happened as described? As to the first, there’s no way we can know. As to the second, we can definitely say “yes,” there are clear historical errors. E.g., the Exodus almost certainly never happened, because it would have left historical evidence in Egyptian records as well as archaeological evidence in the Sinai. See this thread.
Wait. Is the OP seriously contending that, for instance, in the original Hebrew version of Genesis, there are no errors of fact? Like, say, our corrupted English versions say that Methuselah lived 900 some odd years, which is obviously wrong, but if we read the original Hebrew we’ll find that he lived only 90 years?
Dude, the original Hebrew text of the Torah is still around. It has been unchanged for more than 2000 years. The Hebrew Torah in every synagogue is the same Torah that existed 2000 years ago, not only word for word, but character for character. Anybody who wants to can learn Hebrew and read the original Torah. The contention that English translations of the Bible are full of factual errors, but the Hebrew version isn’t is just ludicrous. Yes, we can find errors or controversial translations in any particular translation.
So what? What exactly are you getting at?
I’m sorry, but this is silly. You made the claim that
That is clearly a false statement. Neither the Orthodox Church nor the Catholic Church have ever taught that Revelation is a literal depiction of events. You made the claim that “today’s churches” (no qualification) “teach it literally.” In fact, outside a fairly small number of American Evangelical churches (and some missionary programs they have established in Britain and Latin America), there is no Christian Church that teaches Revelation as literal and since you made the (inaccurate) claim, it is up to you to provide evidence to support your claim.
Polycarp:
I’ve certainly been the most active lately, but I’m not the only Orthodox Jew on the SDMB. zev_steinhardt doesn’t seem to have posted in a month.
Excellent – I made it a point to say “it appears” for just that reason. So your stance, as I understand it, is that “the original” of the Bible is without error but that anything we have today has inevitably had error creep in? Considering that we have no original manuscripts and that it’s extremely improbable we ever will, of what value is that assertion? Or are you in hopes it can be reconstructed by textual criticism?
In short, where are you going with this premise? What would you like to see done with it?
And, kindly accepting my apology for the misprision of your intent, would you care to comment on the remainder of my summary on Bible views as seemingly held here?
I’m having a hard time keeping up with the posts and I don’t think I can respond to them all.
An example of what I’m getting at would be the concept of hell. Todays church teaches that it’s an eternal pit of fiery horror and that’s not what Scripture says. Because that’s so contrary to what most Christians believe today, people generally think I’m off my nut for suggesting it’s an incorrect belief.
Hell is simply “the grave”. Nothing more, nothing less.
Another would be that the churches today generally teach that if you don’t “accept” Christ you’ll “burn” in hell for eternity. Scripture doesn’t “actually” teach that either.
A lot of people challenge Scripture as having errors, but I suspect that the errors are due to translation errors and if God is perfect the original writings are perfect. The Hebrew and Greek texts are all we have, but when compared to what we’re being taught today there’s a huge gap in understanding.
Is literal dictation of Torah a tenet of Orthodoxy as a whole? Or of the particular school of Orthodoxy you belong to, Chaim? I’m not asking to be provocative, but out of honest curiosity – one of my closest friends in high school was an Orthodox boy who became a rabbi, and I got no clue that he believed this (or the opposite) in years of discussions on a wide range of things with him.
You’ve already been offered numerous examples of factual errors and contradictions which exist in the original languages of the extant manuscripts. Do you have any explanations for them?
Your extropolation that either the existence or perfection of God proves the truth of the Bible is a non-sequitur, by the way. God can theoretically exist and be perfect and not be the author of the Bible. Also, there are claims in the Bible which logically can’t be true, regardless of the existence of God. For instance, according to 1 Kings 7:23, the value of pi is 3. Obviously, even the existence of God can’t make pi=3.
If you have access to the History Channel, they have a good show on the history of the idea of hell that you might find interesting. When perusing through the TiVo this morning, I think I saw that they’re going to show it again soon.
You’re assuming here that God wrote the scriptures, or dictated them to someone (or to several people) word for word. Some people do believe that, but some of us believe that the scriptures were inspired by people’s experience of God, but not literally written or dictated by God. I think of them as being like a student’s lecture notes from a class given by God. Anyone who has looked at a student’s lecture notes knows that they don’t necessarily get down what was said in class perfectly…
But couldn’t there be later errors that canceled out earlier ones? Someone could make the reverse of an earlier translation error, and then the newer version would be more accurate.
If by “original” you accept the current Hebrew Torah, then as a native Hebrew speaker I can tell you there are some apparent inconsistencies, and even contradictions in it.
The question is – how do you interpret these? a secular (such as myself) may consider these “glitches” of the editor. Orthodox Jews, OTOH, have been debating these issues for centuries, and have found solutions (from their POV) to these problems, and even to problems most people probably never even considered.
Yes. The Orthodox believe that God dictated the Torah to Moses.
You couldn’t be more wrong. That’s why I asked you to interpret the concept of hell.
You didn’t respond to the hell question so I don’t know what you believe, but as an example of errant teaching - every mainstream Christian church today promotes that the “acceptance” of Christ as your Savior is the only way to Heaven. It’s true to a degree, but there’s more to it than that.
Scripture teaches that Christ is the Savior of all mankind, not just those who believe it.
Directly related to the Book of Revelation is the meaning of “hell”. It’s the grave, not a fiery pit. When you look at Revelation literally you get “fiery pit”. Metaphorically it’s very different. God’s fire consumes works of the flesh and isn’t a literal fire. It’s a purifying fire.
John 3:16 “…and those who believe will not perish” The Greek word used is “apollumi” (destroy) the root of apollumi is “apo” (separation) and the base word is “olethros” which can mean ruin, destroy, death, but it also means “for the destruction of the flesh” or fleshly/earthly works.
I haven’t been in a church in 30 years that understands this.
No. The truth of Scripture proves God. It’s our only evidence of Him. “god” can exist, but if Scripture has “never” been perfect, then logically “God” is not perfect and the most he could be is “god”. YWHW is God (to me). He is not Allah or Buddha or Krishna. The Torah and Septuagint are Testaments of YWHW, not Allah, Buddha or Krishna. If the Torah and Septuagint writings are not the Word of YWHW, there’s no other evidence to suggest that He exists.
Polycarp:
I’m rather certain that any Jew who labels himself Orthodox in any form does believe that the Torah was dictated letter-for-letter from G-d to Moses. I can’t say absolutely…there might be some more liberal congregations that take a less fundamentalist view and still call themselves some form of Orthodox. But I’d wager that there are very, very few, if any.
YHWH can exist and still not be the author of the Bible. The hypothetical existence of YHWH, in itself, has no necessary relevance to the truth or falsity of anything the Bible says about him. The imperfection of the Bible proves absolutely nothing about God.
No the original texts don’t have any errors, if by “error” you mean “copy change from the original text.” Then, by definition, they cannot have errors. However, in addition to that being pointless, it’s also irrelevant. This no one source of “original” texts. All we have are copies of copies of copies of all sort of different lineages. Judiasm has actually done an incredible job of preservation over millenia, but there’s still nothing to suggest that it was perfect or that what we think of as the originals wasn’t cobbled together from disparate parts earlier on.
The Genesis story is a perfect example of this. Most people know that there seem to be at least two different somewhat conflicting stories told there of, for instance, human origins (though many interpret these to be just different levels of detail on the same story). However, more interesting is the fact that these two stories actually seem to relate back to two different suspiciously similar creation myths that may have pre-dated the genesis story, and which the genesis story has woven together into a single narrative, albiet a somewhat bumpy one.