Subject:
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Re: Science and beliefs (was Re: Alien races)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Apr 2001 06:12:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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600 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
>
> > A few other basic problems with the literality of the Bible:
> >
> > - Which translation?
>
> IMO, the issue of interpretation and translations and so forth is, at a
> fundamental level, very simple: Reasonable, well-intentioned, well-informed,
> open-minded inquiry is a root necessity of any fruitful scholarly, literary,
> scientific, moral, religious, etc., etc. intellectual endeavor. At the very
> warp and woof of the issue, at some point one has to make a seasoned value
> judgment and to simply say: "I must trust my faculties in this matter, and
> thusly I conclude...." We shall never find any authoritative work that is
> beyond reasonable criticism. At some point we must apply serious, but humble,
> judgment in a matter. I judge the Bible to be reliable and trustworthy for a
> number of reasons. At the very heart of things, I do not *know* in the same
> way that I know that I exist that the Bible is reliable; but, somewhere I
> must reach a foundation upon which I state "Here am I and here I stand."
Most believers of other faiths have a holy language in which the sacred text
is written: Hebrew for Jews, Arabic for Muslims, Sanskrit for Hindus. Here
I'm particularly interested in how translation affects this communication
between the text and reader. James, when you talk about the "reliability" of
the Bible, do you mean the original text or the English translation? Or do
you see them as first-hand and second-hand human approximations of divine
will, so both more or less subject to flaws?
See also the Septuagint, the third century BCE translation of the Torah into
Greek. The story is that the seventy-odd translators all came up with the
same divinely inspired translation, confirming its accuracy. Believe it or
not, I think the fact that people needed to have confidence in the divinity
of the words they read is significant.
> I have seldom noted, however, contradictions that gave me theological pause.
> I do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture, but I do believe that it is
> divinely-inspired, and to that end I believe the books to display a very high
> degree of consistency in terms of theological content; that which the Church
> (i.e., the universal body of believers) likes to call the Harmony of
> Scripture.
What room do you leave for theological inconsistencies (eg method of
salvation, nature of the trinity, sanctity of Mary), and arguably
non-theological inconsistencies (eg if someone is born homosexual is it
possible to love the sinner, hate the sin)?
--DaveL
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Science and beliefs (was Re: Alien races)
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| (...) In terms of reliability, I believe that the basic kerygma (the proclamation of religious truth, if you will) of the Judeo-Christian faith has been passed down through the centuries "in a reliable manner" such that we may have reasonable trust (...) (23 years ago, 6-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Science and beliefs (was Re: Alien races)
|
| (...) IMO, the issue of interpretation and translations and so forth is, at a fundamental level, very simple: Reasonable, well-intentioned, well-informed, open-minded inquiry is a root necessity of any fruitful scholarly, literary, scientific, (...) (23 years ago, 5-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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