In terms of functioning strictly to translate without any particular prior interpretation, seems like you’d want someone who didn’t particularly believe one thing or another about the text. **Dio’s **the most unbiased translator of the Bible I’ve ever personally interacted with.
Speaking to the OP: “It’s complicated” is about all there is to be said. There are innumerable interpretations and such.
Since CitizenPained has adequately covered the Old Testament and Jewish perspectives, I’ll just stick with a summary of the stuff in the New Testament. Most of this boils down to minutiae of translation, primarily that several words (often translated as “homosexual”, “effeminate”, and “unnatural”) that Paul’s letters include do not generally translate directly to those concepts when approached from an academic-translation standpoint–thus, there’s a debate on whether Paul’s condemnations of same (as told in the KJV) were actually closer to condemnations of temple prostitution and wishy-washyness/ineffectuality.
I’ve also been told that, in the story where Jesus heals the centurion’s “son”, the word used for “son” more closely means “male slave, connoting sexual usage”–if that’s the case, and Jesus didn’t bat an eye at it or even mention it, that says something too.
CitizenPained, my point is that I’ve always heard that, for instance, “Onanism” is a euphamism for masturbation. But according to that description, masturbation is not involved at all. “Spilling his seed” comes from pulling out, not whacking off.
But yes, it is also relevant to point out that God doesn’t care that he was whacking off or really pulling out, just that he didn’t knock up his sister-in-law so she could have a male son to look after her.
IMHO (in case anyone misses the introduction, IMHO) when DtC “reports the news” his comments are exceptional. Excellent examples are his comments on hell and the Trinity.
OTOH, I think there is a bias that is highly present in discussions in topics like homosexuality and questions about the Jews involvement in the death of Jesus, as other examples.
And so IME I see the clear bias in topics like these; in which a handful of “scholars”, who universally have a bias and agenda, Monday Morning quarterback (100,000 weeks after the big game) and reinterpret the bible for us (and presume to know better than 1000 years of scholarship).
So I respectfully disagree. FWIW, I don’t ever remember seeing a comprehensive scholarly discussion about homosexuality in the bible here at SDMB, but your comments above represent exactly the kind of bias I was referring to.
When we’re simply reporting the texts I’ve seen some exceptional threads/posts. But is equally clear to me that there is often an exceptional speculative quality to the interpretation. That’s bias, plain and simple.
So, if a gay person of any gender can arrange to participate in a pleasure giving activity with a married couple, even if one of them would derive said pleasure from observation only, that would be okay? Of course the gay people would have to be married too, to some third or fourth party or other, but technically it could be arranged with the right arrangements. As long as there’s a group of people who are all married and all get pleasure, anything is possible with the right permutations. This actually sounds kinda reasonable(in a very formal way), even if it would be needlessly convoluted.
Frankly, all I want to know in response to this is whether or not you read any Greek. If you don’t, how are you qualified in any way to determine which translations are speculative or altered by agenda (unless you universally trust the people who’ve translated the bible in the service of state religions over those who do it for academic reasons, that is, in which case I don’t really understand that viewpoint at all.)?
Problem with this, is that you are showing your own bias here - in that your stated religious viewpoints happen to be similar to his interpretations on Hell and Trinity (iow, you don’t agree with either doctrine either) - but since you don’t agree with his other findings, you say HE is the one with bias.
Pot, meet the kettle.
You’re also deciding to selectively ‘forget’ the other prior discussions on the subject of Homosexuality and the bible here at the SMDB, or you’re deciding again that they weren’t scholarly, since they don’t back your viewpoint. (Or, giving you the benefit of the doubt, you missed the threads altogether). I personally don’t have links to them, I’m sure others do - but I do recall several such threads over the prior years.
Go on record, Raindog - what is your ‘scholarly’ background?
Only if that belief impacts the question at hand. Dio doesn’t believe that the bible is anything but a normal book, so has no incentive to translate it improperly. He’s not bound by protecting traditional rules, for example, nor does he particularly care if it really says something he’d consider evil (since it’s not in his view binding anyway).
Sure it is - you’re saying another poster’s work is biased - yet you haven’t provided any evidence or work to show why it is biased or more importantly incorrect. You haven’t provided anything to show that your view point is any better/more correct (other than, to use your own words that he and other posters ‘presume to know better than 1000 years of scholarship’).
More importantly, you agree with his interpretations/evidence/work when they happen to fit your current belief system, and reject others when they don’t - and again, you provide nothing to back it up.
What is your background that should make us believe your interpretation is any ‘less’ biased than DtC or any other poster?
As Zeriel stated pretty clearly, DtC doesn’t treat the book as anything other than a historical text - so I am apt to believe his approach to translation a bit more than anyone who has a religous or other agenda to push with it. Prove why I shouldn’t.
Last point - you said ‘subjective’ belief - of course that has a bias - but that does not mean that one can not objectively interpet this book without looking for a pre-concieved outcome - I would prefer any objective study over a subjective one any day of the week, but to do that, you have to treat the text like any other - without the pre-concieved belief that it is somehow ‘special’. As soon as you believe it is something ‘special’, you are out of the objective realm and into the subjective.
Thats a bit of bravado, to be sure - but having read a translation (or two) is not a scholarly background. Reading translations does not a translator (or a scholar) make. Even using a ‘side by side’ version that has text in mutliple languages does not a translator make.
What langauges have you studied? Where did you study them?
What was your method of ‘correcting translations’? Making them conform to your selected translation? Where were these ‘errors’ in the text and where did you get the ability to ‘correct them’ without bias?
What background do you have in studying of the cultures of the time that the books were written? what other items have you translated and or ‘corrected’?
What is your preffered translation? Why? Who worked on that translation? who publishes it? Has it been peer reviewed by other scholars?
You sir, are clearly much more intelligent than I gave you credit for, clearly you are so beyond the realm of us mere mortals that we should clearly accept anything you opine about what the bible means as if it came from god himself, because you read the same translation as Jesus.
And I thought, surely only an idiot would not recognize the sarcasm I responded with.
I can only assume you thought my response was less of a whoosh? or do you actually consider yourself a god among men? Do you really thinking reading the bible 34 times is enough to make you some sort of expert on it?
If you don’t want to answer honest questions - simply say so.
Heres the point, which simster may have overlooked in his/her rush to correct my gaffe.
You cannot [reasonably] say that a theist must, by necessity, be afflicted with bias by virtue of his believing. His belief may precede his reading and be replete with bias, or his belief may proceed from his reading.
Similarly an atheist may be influenced from all kinds of sources (including the current “it girl” of scholarly study) and that bias may color his [presumed] objectivity. Or…he may simply “report the news” with little or no [apparent] bias. By way of example, I listened to an NPR interview (Fresh Air iirc) with one of the It Girls of atheism spent the whole interview witnessing; no scholarly translations no facts----just witnessing.
Just as importantly, all of us here have access to the same information; bibles of many translations (including the translation Jesus used…), concordances, interlinears, and other resources. More than once I’ve made the general point that none of us should be getting our knowledge wholesale from the internet, especially a message board. Go to the source.
Toward that end I’ve said----more than once----- that you shouldn’t be taking at face value what raindog, or Friar Ted or Polycarp or DtC have to say. Look it up for yourself.
It is also worth noting that only a very, very, very small part of our GD discussions deal directly with the issue of source languages and translations. The bulk of our discussions deal more with some level of interpretation.
So if you’re inclined to assign a higher level of upfront credibility to a self-described atheist (whoever that atheist may be) because they are free from bias, you’re simply revealing your own bias. (subconsciously as it may be…)
