[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

[Dennis J Perkins]

On Sun, 2007-09-30 at 13:38 -0600, Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> On 09-30 12:28, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> > Sean,
> > 
> > I appreciate your candor and thoughtfulness in your postings, it's  
> > nice to have a meaningful discussion with you about these subjects.  
> > Thanks. Oh, my comments below.
> 
> To be honest, I enjoy it, too. Reasonable discussions of topics as
> fascinating as religion and politics (that are usually off the table in most
> real-world situations) will always provide me with interest, though. :)
>  
> > On Sep 30, 2007, at 9:01 AM, Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> > 
> > >Assuming he was actually a historical Jesus, and what he said was  
> > >captured
> > >accurately (and not edited through the years), yeah, I think some  
> > >of what he
> > >did/said was great - the violent parts I could do without, but  
> > >maybe that's
> > >my Quaker imprinting speaking. I say "if" he was historical,  
> > >because of
> > >arguments like the one presented in "The God That Wasn't  
> > >There" (trailer):
> > 
> > One of the interesting facts about the Bible, or all of the letters  
> > that compose the Bible, is that we've got more numbers of manuscripts  
> > of the Bible numbering in the thousands and which are so close to the  
> > original date of authorship compared with Greek literature that is  
> > "accepted as fact" that it makes you wonder what people are thinking.  
> > i.e. most Biblical manuscripts are about 100-200 years away from the  
> > original date while the Greek manuscripts are hundreds more years  
> > away from the date of authorship.
> > 
> > From my History degree the one thing that I remember is the concept  
> > of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are first hand  
> > accounts of something while secondary sources are writings about  
> > primary sources. All of the Bible manuscripts are primary sources,  
> > not secondary ones. The Bible has never been edited because we have  
> > nearly a complete record of the accuracy of the letters of the Bible,  
> 
> Wait a second. That's not what I understand at all. In fact, one of the
> books on my "to read" list is by a Biblical scholar who contends the exact
> opposite. He started out with faith, and after delving into the Bible during
> his theological studies, ended up agnostic. That's pretty profound, if you
> ask me. It's Misquoting Jesus, by Bart D. Ehrman.
> 
> http://www.powells.com/review/2007_07_14
> 
> Quote from review:
> 
> "Those who call the King James Version of the Bible the unerring word of God
> have a slight problem. The New Testament of the KJV (as the King James
> Version is usually referred) was translated into English from a version of
> the Greek New Testament that had been collected from twelfth-century copies
> by Erasmus. Where Erasmus couldn't find Greek manuscripts, he translated to
> Greek from the Latin Vulgate (which itself had been translated from Greek
> back in the fourth century). Here the problem splits into two problems.
> First, Jesus spoke Aramaic --- his actual words, never recorded, were only
> rendered in Greek in the original gospels. Thus, the KJV consists of Jesus'
> words twice refracted through the prism of translation. Second, Erasmus's
> Greek New Testament was based on handwritten copies of copies of copies of
> copies, etc., going back over a millennium, and today is considered one of
> the poorer Greek New Testaments. It is this second problem that Ehrman
> spends most time on in Misquoting Jesus, a fascinating account of New
> Testament textual criticism.

The Vulgate itself was translated from a number of other sources, some
Greek, some probably Latin, and some probably Aramaic.  The Vulgate was
a break with Roman tradition because it was written in popular Latin,
not the refined Latin of the classical writers.

> Many people have a vague notion that all the original biblical texts are
> preserved in vaults somewhere, and translators work from those original
> texts. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. The earliest surviving versions
> of the gospels are handwritten copies dating from centuries after the
> original texts were written. Also, we don't just have a single version of
> each gospel; we have many versions, and even more fragments. The trouble is,
> none of the versions agree with each other. As Ehrman puts it, there are
> more points of disagreement between manuscripts than there are words in the
> Gospels. So which one is right? How can one tell what the original authors
> intended?"

One of those disagreements is commonly given as a cause of the split
between western (Roman Catholic) and eastern Christianity (Greek
Orthodox).  I think that disagreement is due to a word missing an "i" in
one document, giving a very different interpretation.

> > i.e. 1 out of 1000 words might be in error, but that one word does  
> > not affect the context at all. So based on this short description,  
> 
> Really? "Young woman" being translated as "virgin" doesn't change the
> context at all?
> 
> > let's trust the Bible's veracity, unless you want to delve more into  
> > these details, you can go here (
> > http://www.ankerberg.com/ ) for another source of information.
> 
> I'll try to check it out. Even if the Bible was never edited, and it's
> original was in English, and we had a MD5 checksum to ensure that it was
> never edited, that would *still* require it's claims to be independently
> verified. 
>  
> > So, now the question becomes: what about translation and  
> > interpretation. While the source can be trusted, translation and  
> > interpretation are where things can diverge some into all sorts of  
> > directions. When translating and interpreting the Bible you come from  
> > four perspectives:
> 
> Interpretation is THE central problem, IMHO, when it comes to stemming the
> tide of fundamentalism. In the past, people were kept from knowing any sort
> of "problems" in the Bible or having pangs of doubts by being kept in the
> dark: by preventing it from being translated into the vernacular:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_the_Bible
> 
> I suspect having the printing press which allowed many more Bibles to fall
> into the hands of the laity had something to do with Enlightenment, which
> allowed many dangerous questions to enter people's minds, and maybe even
> voiced.
> 
> Now, it seems that things have come full circle in a way. Now that most
> everyone can read, and can get a Bible in their own language, a lot of
> questions are asked - I know apologetics goes back centuries, but there
> seems to be more than ever. Why does something that should be obvious need
> interpretation? It's a very difficult problem...if the Bible is the inspired
> word of God, and I need special interpretations that come from man to
> interpret it "properly" (and often at odds from other interpreters), doesn't
> that pose a problem? Ever notice those interpretations change with the times
> and the sort of progress mankind has made? How does that square with God's
> law being immutable?
> 
> Why do some people claim it's literal...and yet need apologetics to explain
> away the "problems"? For example, one point that seems to be troublesome is
> the genealogies of Joseph. If Jesus is born of a virgin, why try to trace
> Jesus back to King David, through is (non)father? Of what consequence is
> Joseph's lineage? Seems to problematical...so it's literally true, except
> for the parts that aren't?
> 
> Why do I need someone to explain that problem away if it's literal? For a
> summation of the problem, see:
> 
> http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/gen_jesus.htm
> 
> I'm sure there are others, but that's one that seems to be very interesting.
> It seems one author felt the need to tie Jesus to King David to fulfill
> prophecy. Very troublesome if you're born of a virgin, though! 
> 
> 
> > 1. Historical context: what was going on during that day and time for  
> > the person to write what they've written
> > 2. Categories: looking at each word throughout the Bible and seeing  
> > for convergent and divergent definitions and building doctrines based  
> > on careful analysis.
> > 3. Exegesis: looking at the words to be as accurate with the text.
> > 4. Character of God: God is both Love and Judgement as well as other  
> > aspects, all have to be in sync.
> > 
> > As #4 above, the one factor that comes into play the most is the  
> > aspect of God's Love and Judgment toward people. Most liberals talk  
> > only about God's love and rarely, if never, of His Judgment.  
> > Conservatives are on the other end of the spectrum and talk mostly of  
> > Judgment and rarely Love. To put this in perspective, if you have  
> > kids, at what point does your love of your kids stop, probably never,  
> > but at what point do you punish your kids for doing wrong? Same goes  
> > for the Christian's Father in Heaven, while most non-believers say we  
> > get away "with murder" do not realize that we don't and we're held to  
> > a higher standard with Love being the guiding force. What most non- 
> > believers and some believers don't realize is that God allows  
> > Christians to be punished by non-believers to keep us in line with  
> > what He wants, but only with God's permission for He controls it all.  
> > If you read Habakkuk chapters 1-2 you'll see that God allows the  
> > Chaldeans (in our present day the Taliban, to provide some  
> > perspective) to punish the wrong doings of the Jews, or today's  
> > Christians. If we are doing God's will things go better for us, see  
> > Proverbs 16:7 "When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his  
> > enemies to be at peace with him."
> > 
> > So with interpretation comes some errors, Some churches emphasize one  
> > doctrine over another without looking at all parts to come to a  
> > correct conclusion. Man either adds to or takes away from what God  
> > states, i.e. either extreme asceticism or lasciviousness. For  
> > instance, water baptism of a Christian is commanded by some  
> > denominations, but when you read the Bible there is no reference of  
> > the Apostles being baptized. Why? Because God is saying that it is a  
> > ritual and NOT necessary for salvation and getting into heaven. If  
> > you see the film "Luther" you get a good glimpse of what the  
> > Reformation is about and why rituals are not the issue and the Bible  
> > is the main point.
> > 
> > While you might abhor violence, I, too, don't want it around either,  
> > but then again, why is it here? Because there is evil in this world  
> > and good must triumph over it at some point.
> 
> Well, some of the violence seems pretty arbitrary - killing someone for
> working on the Sabbath? Killing someone for using the lord's name in vain?
> Stoning to death a bride who isn't a virgin? Seems to be lots of dubious
> morality in the Bible IMHO. There are a whole bunch quoted here, one of
> which includes God asking for the first-born sons:
> 
> http://www.coppit.org/god/morals.php#Cruelty
> 
> If it's literal, why would a statement like this need apologetics to explain
> away?
> 
> "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give
> me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep.
> Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the
> eighth day." (Exodus 29-30)
> 
> I don't think any Christian (or Jew, or Muslim) would defend a literal
> interpretation of that these days.
> 
>