Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:49:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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3971 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
<snip>
> Just to clear up any misunderstandings, I don't read the actual original
> ancient Greek text of the New Testament, nor the ancient Hebrew of the Old
> Testament (though my girlfriend does read Hebrew and sometimes offers me her
> own translations).
<snip>
> I think there is
> a natural bias if you are a Christian who loves his own family, to try to
> lessen the harshness of Jesus's words even if it is not the best translation
> of the Greek in context. I would defer in this matter to someone better
> qualified to analyse the original Greek if I could find someone I could trust
> to be a non-interested party.
>
> -Brendan
And this is where I jump in (after reading most, but not all of this thread, so
if this has been covered, please forgive)
I think one of the first straws that sent me on my way from religion was the
revelation during a Bible study group when I was a teenager.
We were talking about Noah and the flood, and I'm all scientific--'how was there
so much water to cover the entire planet--there isn't enough water in teh
icecaps to justify that!'
And we talked about that for a bit, talking like 'God could make all the water
show up and he can make it go away'.
That wasn't sitting right with me, so we got the pastor involved, and he said
something along the lines of, 'Well, the original wording used in the passage
could be translated as 'the known earth' instead of just 'the earth'.
However, if you say the flood encompassed the 'whole earth', or the flood
encompassed the 'known earth'--that, to me, those are two really different
meanings--it's not 'egg shell' compared to 'off white'--it's 'white' compared to
'green'.
So that got me thinking at the time--what else in the bible may have been
'mistranslated' that would radically change our interpretation.
And I talked to many padres over the years, and I even attended a Christian
university that had wonderful professors and all, and I got to talk with them
about these things.
It turns out, and this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, that if you put 10
biblical scholars in a room to interpret a passage of the bible, you'll get 11
differing interpretations.
Basically after that, it came down to what I want to do with my life with
regards to the bible and religion. I have attended a variety of churches, and
noted that they all have their subtle diferences in dogma--the CRC church that I
attended for years is still pretty much hung up on 'women on office' 'cause of
what Paul mentions in a few passages about women being silent in church.
I attended catholic churches a few times--no way I'm going back there--i
wouldn't even know where to begin--the sacrements?? yeah, well, okay then...
Mennonites have no issue with gays, even to the point where gay people can be
pastors. So where does that put them in the grande scheme of 'gay bashing' from
the 'religious right' and whose interpretation of the bible is better?
I don't claim to be a scholar by any stretch of the imagination. However, I've
spoken with people who have actually had their names in print as 'editors' of
specific books of the bible for new revisions. And all of them talk about
interpretation. And there are points where they refute one another.
So if they can't come to a consensus--'known earth' and 'whole earth' being just
one of them, then where does that leave us?
I could go on about the 'new' wave of biblical criticism that follows the
premise that Jesus was a cynic, and not of divine origin at all, but that would
take yet more of your time.
Anyway, what I have gleaned from the bible and my history with Christianity, is
that I should not put my faith in a particular book or passage, for, as proven
by the 'flaws of man', they are subject to interpretation.
Dave K
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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| (...) Just to clear up any misunderstandings, I don't read the actual original ancient Greek text of the New Testament, nor the ancient Hebrew of the Old Testament (though my girlfriend does read Hebrew and sometimes offers me her own translations). (...) (18 years ago, 19-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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