Re: 9 Bills That Would Put Creationism in the Classroom
Suzanne
> On 13 Mei, 13:47, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > To a large degree the debate is about whether or not the Bible can be
> > > trusted. Suzanne is therefore engaging in the logical fallacy called
> > > “begging the question”.
>
> > Well, not exactly, but almost. You see, I gave my life to the Lord,
> > and
> > put my trust in him for salvation about the same time that I began to
> > learn to read. A child that makes that decison on his own still has to
> > grow up in this world, and he or she sees people struggling to
> > understand life and the Christian child goes through things himself
> > in order to learn.
>
> .
>
> >One of the reasons you don't believe is probably
> > because of liberalism in some denominations of Christianity.
>
> Change the "b" to a "t" and you might be right.
>
There are some things that need to be literal. Do you know what
"torah" means? It means "law," and therefore "instruction." For
instructions you
need literalism. You would not want someone to make you a meal
using vague recipe instructions. You would not want to receive an
electric bill that said "Give us some money or we will turn your
electricity off. And if you don't get it right by guessing, that's too
bad."
You would not want vague non-literal instructions on how to take care
of your car, in your car's operator's manual.
>
Suzanne
Bill
Is your argument that because literalism is sometimes appropriate that
it is always appropriate? I trust you see how little sense that makes.
I agree, I believe that my car owners manual is intended literally.
However, a religion that asks me to take at literal face value things
which are patently false or morally wrong is not a religion that I
approve of.
> Suzanne- Sembunyikan teks kutipan -
>
> - Perlihatkan teks kutipan -
Burkhard
Very often, they aren't - an if you read them literally, you are in
trouble. When I did my military service, the manual said of one
component: re-grease every 14 days. This however assumed that the
vehicle was moved regularly - and they thought it was so obvious that
it need not stating.
We followed orders, read it literally, squeezed in more grease every
14 days, until it cracked.
Not stating the obvious and leaving it to the reader to fill in gaps
is something even the most technical and explicit manuals regularly do
- often the source of frivolous litigation when someone doesn't ("the
manual did not say: don't put poodles in the microwave for drying")
Burkhard
> On May 13, 2:19 am, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 13 Mei, 13:47, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > To a large degree the debate is about whether or not the Bible can be
> > > > trusted. Suzanne is therefore engaging in the logical fallacy called
> > > > “begging the question”.
>
> > > Well, not exactly, but almost. You see, I gave my life to the Lord,
> > > and
> > > put my trust in him for salvation about the same time that I began to
> > > learn to read. A child that makes that decison on his own still has to
> > > grow up in this world, and he or she sees people struggling to
> > > understand life and the Christian child goes through things himself
> > > in order to learn.
>
> > .
>
> > >One of the reasons you don't believe is probably
> > > because of liberalism in some denominations of Christianity.
>
> > Change the "b" to a "t" and you might be right.
>
> There are some things that need to be literal. Do you know what
> "torah" means? It means "law," and therefore "instruction." For
> instructions you
> need literalism.
Law and legal interpretation is something every beginner in a law
degree is taught intensively (my students study it for one year, three
lectures a week) , and it is one of the disciplines that has developed
over centuries the most detailed theory of interpretation possible.
"Literal reading" is in the standard model just one amongst several
"canons" of interpretation, side by side the historical, the
teleological, the contextual, the audience oriented. etc 9up to 27,
depending on school and jurisdiction)
(Jonathon R. Macey & Geoffrey P.Miller, “The Canons of Statutory
Construction and Judicial Preferences,” 45
VAND.L.REV. 647, 647 (1992))
Mastering the skill of legal interpretation is one of the reasons you
have to the a professional lawyer and give him huge amounts of money -
if it were just a question of reading a text, everybody could do it.
Unsurprisingly, entire books have been written just on the method of
appropriate legal interpretation.n the US e.g. the two volume
treatise: Sutherland Statutes and Statutory Construction, currently
edited by Norman J Singer, J.D. Shambie Singer, See e.g. Sinclair,
Michael, "Llewellyn's Dueling Canons, One to Seven: A Critique". New
York Law School Law Review, Vol. 51, Fall 2006 for the different
methods used in legal interpretation, and how they can result in
conflicting interpretation s of the same text.
The standard example we give our students comes from H.L.A Hart, who
argued that every legal norm has a core meaning and then a penumbra of
doubt; His example: If the rule says: "no vehicles are permitted in
the park", are toy model vehicles banned? Wheelchairs? A disfunctional
tank for a veteran memorial? A remote controlled electric toy?
The text alone won't tell you, for this you need to interpret it in
its context, using additional information
(Hart, H. L. A. (1958). "Positivism and the Separation of Law and
Morals". Harvard Law Review 71 (4): 593–629)
>You would not wa
>nt someone to make you a meal
> using vague recipe instructions.
I don't know what your recipe books say, but mien are full of vague
isntructions: "Take some flour" (how much?), cook for desired texture
(what?) etc etc.
Randy C
Do you really think that the Bible should be considered no more than a
cookbook or an instruction manual? If that was the case, God should
have turned us all into programmed robots. That would be a MUCH more
efficient way to implement an operator's manual.
Most people believe that the Bible is more than a cookbook. It
contains philosophy as well. Those are the sorts of things that
people should actually THINK about.
There are people who consider cookbooks to be basically inerrant and
infallible. If the recipe says add a cup of water, then they add
exactly a cup of water.
But the better cooks use those recipes as sort of a starting point or
general guide. In order to do that they actually THINK about the
recipe and make adjustments were appropriate. Maybe they add a bit of
cayenne pepper. Or maybe they don't put in quite as much sugar as the
recipe says.
So the people who DON'T consider the recipe to be inerrant, I believe,
tend to get more out of it.
I think that the same thing is true of the Bible. People who DON'T
consider it to be inerrant actually get more out of it because they
have to THINK about it.
Consider the Lord's Prayer. Anyone who goes to church regularly can
recite it from memory. But I've asked a number of people to summarize
it for me and they can only do it after they recite it for themselves.
In other words, they haven't thought about it even though they
memorized it.
Imagine that they were given the prayer in a class, never having seen
it before, and told to improve it. In order to do so they would have
to believe that it wasn't inerrant. Right? After all you can't
improve anything that is without flaws.
But if they had to do that in a class, they would have to really READ
it and UNDERSTAND it. They might decide, ultimately, that they
couldn't improve it. But they would have really understood it while
coming to that decision.
The key is that they didn't consider it to be inerrant when they first
read it.
I think that sort of thing is true of the entire Bible. People who
DON'T consider it to be inerrant actually get MORE out of it rather
than less!
Suzanne
person that is legalistic. In the same way, believing the Bible
literally, is not the same thing as being into literalism.
>
> I agree, I believe that my car owners manual is intended literally.
> However, a religion that asks me to take at literal face value things
> which are patently false or morally wrong is not a religion that I
> approve of.
>
your disbelief that the Bible means things that are literal, don't
you know that you are a whole lot more valuable than a car?
God thinks you are. That's why he gave us a manual to follow.
When someone gets lost, they need someone to show them the
way to not be lost.
>
Suzanne
Bill
What is the difference between believing the Bible literally and
"being into literalism"? You also did not answer the earlier question,
right? You seemed to be saying that because some of the Bible was
intended literally, then all of it must have been meant literally. You
do see how inadequate that argument is, don't you?
>
> > I agree, I believe that my car owners manual is intended literally.
> > However, a religion that asks me to take at literal face value things
> > which are patently false or morally wrong is not a religion that I
> > approve of.
>
> As for your agreeing that a car manual has to be literal, but
> your disbelief that the Bible means things that are literal, don't
> you know that you are a whole lot more valuable than a car?
Once again you are thinking sloppily. I do not disagree that the Bible
contains things that were meant literally. I think it contains things
that were meant literally, other things that were meant poetically,
other things that were meant as parables, etc. And I also think that
many of the things which were meant literally are either factually
untrue or morally bad.
.
> God thinks you are. That's why he gave us a manual to follow.
If you follow the Bible literally as a manual of how to behave you
will become shockingly immoral. On the other hand, since, in spite of
your protestations to take the Bible literally, you actually use your
natural moral common sense to interpret it, you probably will continue
to act like a normal, reasonably well-behaved person. You would be at
less risk of acting immorally if you'd just dump the Bible and rely
entirely on your moral common sense, but you'll probably do OK anyway.
> When someone gets lost, they need someone to show them the
> way to not be lost.
I don't feel lost in the least.
Suzanne
except
in the instance that you mentioned. That was if the vehicle was moved
regularly. When Jesus was criticized by a passerby on the occasion
when he and the disciples got corn on the Sabbath day to eat from
a cornfield, Jesus replied to the person criticizing him that the
Sabbath
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He said that it was not
so in the beginning. In other words the person doing the criticizing
had been holding to a truth that had been corrupted by a legalistic
interpretation. The Bible truly says that someone should not be
working on the Sabbath day, but Jesus showed that it was the wrong
understanding of the law that was the problem of the person that was
doing the criticizing.
>
Suzanne
Burkhard
No. I did not say anything about "right" at all. As a matter of fact,
I think the manual was entirely right. What was wrong of us (wilfully
wrong, I might add) was to read it literally, rather then to give it a
purposive interpreation., a much better way to read most instructions.
That was if the vehicle was moved
> regularly. When Jesus was criticized by a passerby on the occasion
> when he and the disciples got corn on the Sabbath day to eat from
> a cornfield, Jesus replied to the person criticizing him that the
> Sabbath
> was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He said that it was not
> so in the beginning. In other words the person doing the criticizing
> had been holding to a truth that had been corrupted by a legalistic
> interpretation. The Bible truly says that someone should not be
> working on the Sabbath day, but Jesus showed that it was the wrong
> understanding of the law that was the problem of the person that was
> doing the criticizing.
Can't quite see how this adds anything to the discussion, aprt from
possibly the fact that the bible itself says in this apssage the
literal interpretations are not a good idea. So we can put that down
as another own goal for you?
>
> Suzanne
Suzanne
from what was said in reply? You were saying that it is right, only in
the
instance that the vehicle was moved as it normally might've been. I
understood that you were saying it was not right under the
circumstance
where it had not been moved.
>
> > regularly. When Jesus was criticized by a passerby on the occasion
> > when he and the disciples got corn on the Sabbath day to eat from
> > a cornfield, Jesus replied to the person criticizing him that the
> > Sabbath
> > was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He said that it was not
> > so in the beginning. In other words the person doing the criticizing
> > had been holding to a truth that had been corrupted by a legalistic
> > interpretation. The Bible truly says that someone should not be
> > working on the Sabbath day, but Jesus showed that it was the wrong
> > understanding of the law that was the problem of the person that was
> > doing the criticizing.
>
> Can't quite see how this adds anything to the discussion, aprt from
> possibly the fact that the bible itself says in this apssage the
> literal interpretations are not a good idea. So we can put that down
> as another own goal for you?
>
>
Suzanne
alextangent
I think I can too. It's *interpretation*, not translation.
Do I get one of your husband's mother's cookies as a prize?
Suzanne
"Is your argument that because literalism is sometimes appropriate
that
it is always appropriate?"
someone
says that they believe the Bible, why would you label them with the
word
"literalism." Your questions are so labored. You seem to be saying,
Since you believe the Bible, do you think you should always believe
the
Bible? What kind of question is this? Someone tells you they believe
the Bible, that means they believe the Bible, period. If they did
anything
less, then they don't believe the Bible. If someone says that they
believe
the Bible literally, they are saying that they believe the Bible. If
someone
does not believe the Bible literally, then they do not believe the
Bible.
>
> > > I agree, I believe that my car owners manual is intended literally.
> > > However, a religion that asks me to take at literal face value things
> > > which are patently false or morally wrong is not a religion that I
> > > approve of.
>
> > As for your agreeing that a car manual has to be literal, but
> > your disbelief that the Bible means things that are literal, don't
> > you know that you are a whole lot more valuable than a car?
>
> Once again you are thinking sloppily. I do not disagree that the Bible
> contains things that were meant literally. I think it contains things
> that were meant literally, other things that were meant poetically,
> other things that were meant as parables, etc. And I also think that
> many of the things which were meant literally are either factually
> untrue or morally bad.
>
all the Bible should be open to interpretation. They look at it for
it's
symbolic meaning and lessons that are conveyed.
It appears to me that you did not notice some of what I had replied
to you. I had taken time to explain to you that if someone says
they believe the Bible literally, they are aware that some of it
contains parables which could be hypothetical creations that
illustrate a point, that some metaphors (Jesus the Lamb of God), and
even some idomatic expressions. They know, in other words that Jesus
will not start saying "Baaaa-aaaa-aaa." But when the Bible tells of
Noah and the
Ark and the Flood, and that person is in the family genealogies as
being
a real person, then a person who literally believes the Bible will
know and believe that Noah was a real person. Jesus spoke of the flood
as actually being real.
>
> > God thinks you are. That's why he gave us a manual to follow.
>
> If you follow the Bible literally as a manual of how to behave you
> will become shockingly immoral. On the other hand, since, in spite of
> your protestations to take the Bible literally, you actually use your
> natural moral common sense to interpret it, you probably will continue
> to act like a normal, reasonably well-behaved person. You would be at
> less risk of acting immorally if you'd just dump the Bible and rely
> entirely on your moral common sense, but you'll probably do OK anyway.
>
I guess you better explain what you mean by "If you follow the Bible
literally as a manual of how to behave you will become shockingly
immoral." That doesn't make any sense.
>
Before I comment on that, please explain what you are meaning.
Why do you think that someone will become immoral if they follow
what is a moral example? Are you saying that no one can keep
morals perfectly? If you are, that is correct, no one can be perfect
in keeping morals. Is this what you mean?
>
> > When someone gets lost, they need someone to show them the
> > way to not be lost.
>
> I don't feel lost in the least.
>
I was referring a hypothetical person.
>
Suzanne
Suzanne
idea.
It is saying that when someone criticized Jesus for picking an ear
of corn, saying that it is unlawful to do that on the Sabbath, this
literally happened. Jesus did not say that the man should not take
the Bible literally, he said that the man's beliefs did not represent
what keeping the Sabbath holy meant. He said that the idea that
man had about the law was corrupted from what it originally was.
He didn't say the man who criticized was corrupt but what the
law had become in that man's day, was not what it originally meant.
>
Regards,
Suzanne
Bill
It's not clear to me exactly what you mean by "believe the Bible,"
though I think it comes pretty close to "agree with Suzanne's
interpretation of the Bible."
.
>If someone says that they
> believe
> the Bible literally, they are saying that they believe the Bible. If
> someone
> does not believe the Bible literally, then they do not believe the
> Bible.
I suppose that someone could "believe in the Genesis story" and yet
not think that it was literally true. They might think that the
message of the creation story was that God made the world, thinks the
world is good, gave the world into man's stewardship, and that man's
nature is flawed containing an unavoidable tendency to do bad things.
One might believe that that was a true message, even the "original
meaning" of the first few chapters of Genesis. I don't believe that,
but I've met people who do.
>
> > > > I agree, I believe that my car owners manual is intended literally.
> > > > However, a religion that asks me to take at literal face value things
> > > > which are patently false or morally wrong is not a religion that I
> > > > approve of.
>
> > > As for your agreeing that a car manual has to be literal, but
> > > your disbelief that the Bible means things that are literal, don't
> > > you know that you are a whole lot more valuable than a car?
>
> > Once again you are thinking sloppily. I do not disagree that the Bible
> > contains things that were meant literally. I think it contains things
> > that were meant literally, other things that were meant poetically,
> > other things that were meant as parables, etc. And I also think that
> > many of the things which were meant literally are either factually
> > untrue or morally bad.
.
>
> Are you a biblical contextualist? That is someone that believes that
> all the Bible should be open to interpretation. They look at it for
> it's
> symbolic meaning and lessons that are conveyed.
I'm an atheist. You, however, are clearly a Biblical contextualist,
since you interpret Jesus' statement about hating your parents in the
context of his other statements, and in the context of the Rachel/Leah
story. You interpret the laws of Deuteronomy and Leviticus and their
application to you in the context of the New Testament. You interpret
all the parables based on their "symbolic meaning."
.
>
> It appears to me that you did not notice some of what I had replied
> to you. I had taken time to explain to you that if someone says
> they believe the Bible literally, they are aware that some of it
> contains parables which could be hypothetical creations that
> illustrate a point, that some metaphors (Jesus the Lamb of God), and
> even some idomatic expressions. They know, in other words that Jesus
> will not start saying "Baaaa-aaaa-aaa." But when the Bible tells of
> Noah and the
> Ark and the Flood, and that person is in the family genealogies as
> being
> a real person, then a person who literally believes the Bible will
> know and believe that Noah was a real person. Jesus spoke of the flood
> as actually being real.
No, I noticed what you replied, and your reply seems to boil down to
"A literal reading of the Bible is literal, except when it isn't." It
seems obvious to you that the Prodigal Son is a parable but that the
Flood or the 6 day creation story is not. Why? The Bible does not come
with signposts saying "This bit is meant literally," "this bit is a
parable," "this is a bit of poetic license."
And speaking of poetic license consider
1 When Israel came out of Egypt,
Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
2 Judah became God’s sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.
3 The sea looked and fled,
the Jordan turned back;
4 the mountains leaped like rams,
the hills like lambs.
5 Why was it, sea, that you fled?
Why, Jordan, did you turn back?
6 Why, mountains, did you leap like rams,
you hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool,
the hard rock into springs of water.
You doubtless think that the parting of the Red Sea was a real event,
but how did the sea "see" God leading Israel out of Egypt? and do you
think that mountains leapt into the air, or that there was an
earthquake, or that the poet was just waxing lyrical about how all of
nature was impressed by God's power? There's certainly nothing
explicit in the text which tells you the answer, though doubtless you
have an opinion, already validated by the Holy Spirit. Still, a
Christian might "believe the Bible" and yet think that much of that
Psalm was not meant literally.
I chose that Psalm because there are statements in there which I think
were intended literally, those which are almost certainly simply
poetic, and everything in between.
>
> > > God thinks you are. That's why he gave us a manual to follow.
>
> > If you follow the Bible literally as a manual of how to behave you
> > will become shockingly immoral. On the other hand, since, in spite of
> > your protestations to take the Bible literally, you actually use your
> > natural moral common sense to interpret it, you probably will continue
> > to act like a normal, reasonably well-behaved person. You would be at
> > less risk of acting immorally if you'd just dump the Bible and rely
> > entirely on your moral common sense, but you'll probably do OK anyway.
.
>
> I guess you better explain what you mean by "If you follow the Bible
> literally as a manual of how to behave you will become shockingly
> immoral." That doesn't make any sense.
>
> Before I comment on that, please explain what you are meaning.
> Why do you think that someone will become immoral if they follow
> what is a moral example? Are you saying that no one can keep
> morals perfectly? If you are, that is correct, no one can be perfect
> in keeping morals. Is this what you mean?
No, that is not what I mean. I do not think that the Bible is a moral
example, not at all. It is fortunate that you Christians for the most
part are guided by moral common sense and not by what is written in
the Bible.
Old Testament morality is often (not always) appalling. God sanctions
genocide of the original inhabitants of Judea, tortures Job to win a
cheap bar bet with Satan, prescribes the death penalty for all sorts
of crimes for which the death penalty is ridiculous (e.g.
homosexuality, Sabbath breaking, adultery, having sex during your
period, etc), orders the mock execution of Issac and praise the
deranged father who would go along with it; other posters could easily
lengthen this list.
New Testament morality is more pernicious because it is less obviously
repulsive. But Jesus' morality is often based on what goes on in your
head rather than on the actual consequences of your actions on other
people; equating lust with adultery and anger with murder trivializes
the difference between real actions with human consequences and
internal feelings. The whole salvation by faith alone bit, in which I
think Paul went way beyond what Jesus actually said, undermines
morality. It puts the focus on what goes on in your head (faith) and
away from the consequences of your behaviour. [I like James, though,
the only one of the Epistles I really do like]. I knew an evangelical
Christian in college who wouldn't donate blood to a Red Cross blood
drive because he was afraid that he might be donating in order to earn
merit in God's eyes by his works. That's an extreme example, but it is
representative of the self-absorption of Christian morality.
Now, I doubt you behave like that, because you seem like a decent
person, but you behave well in spite of the Bible, not because of it.
There are good moral bits in the Bible, the Golden Rule, institutions
of Jewish law designed to make life better for the poor, Jesus' being
pretty clear that feeding the hungry and clothing the naked were
prerequisites for getting into heaven (that's what I mean about Paul's
salvation by faith alone not really matching what Jesus said),
breaking down of ethnic stereotypes in the Good Samaritan story. So
decent Christians use their natural, human moral sense, and pick out
of the Bible the moral bits as an inspiration and ignore or explain
away the hideous bits. That's good. I'm glad you guys do that. But it
would be easier if you'd just drop the Bible and rely on your own
moral common sense entirely.
Burkhard
Yes,he is saying that, quite literally. To be precise, he rejects a
literal interpretation of the rule for a teleological" or "purposive"
interpretation.
"Purposive" interpretations are in the theory of interpretation one of
the several approaches that are typically contrasted with a literal
interpretation.
a quote from a US landmark case nicely contrasts purposive or
teleological interpertation rom literal or plain meaning
interpretation:
"What interpretation is to be given the words should depend upon the
court's perception of the purpose of the provision and the context of
the words, rather than on their dictionary meaning. The "plain
meaning" approach to judicial interpretation is not necessarily the
most apposite. In my view, words hardly ever have a meaning in vacuo.
Words take on a meaning in association with the other words in whose
context they are used." Asare v. Attorney General
For a more theoretical and in-depth discussion of the difference
between literal and purposive interpretation, i already referred you
to the book by Aharon Barak, "purposive interpretation in law".
>he said that the man's beliefs did not represent
> what keeping the Sabbath holy meant.
Indeed and he does so on the basis of a non-literal, ie. purposive,
interpretation, There is no contradiction. The literal interpretation
of the rule, which he rejects, is quite clear: don't eat on the
Sabbath. But it is not the best interpretation, for this you need to
consider the purposive of the rule (man's well-being, according to
Christ) and its historical context
Randy C
> "A literal reading of the Bible is literal, except when it isn't." It
> seems obvious to you that the Prodigal Son is a parable but that the
> Flood or the 6 day creation story is not. Why? The Bible does not come
> with signposts saying "This bit is meant literally," "this bit is a
> parable," "this is a bit of poetic license."
Just as a side note, I've actually met creationists who insist that
all of the parables in the New Testament are literally true as well.
They actually believe that a parable constructed from the imagination
of Jesus would be a lie if any part of it was untrue.
Clearly they don't get it.
Earle Jones
<ba5ea745-7e6c-4532...@z19g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
Suzanne <leil...@hotmail.com> wrote:
*
Suzanne: Did this really happen?
KJV, Numbers 15:32-36
32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found
a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found
him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the
congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared
what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man
shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with
stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without
the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded
Moses.
Or is this just a parable?
Thanks,
earle
*
Suzanne
have to go to that extent to understand the Bible. Children can
understand it. If you
don't understand something, you go to something that you can
understand.
The Holy Spirit helps someone to understand it. The things that I've
written
in the last few posts are crystal clear to most people. How is it that
you all
are so blindingly brilliant about some things, but can't grasp what
things I
have been saying? It's not that vague as "take some flour" as you
write
above.
>
OK...I see that you all will heckle me, and take a view against what I
say.
Or give me a hard time about my viewpoints. That is obvious. But, when
someone explains what someone says they don't get about the Bible in
here, why is it that the explanations are turned away? No one is
allowed
to be right, only the unbelievers. They say "we can't understand
this."
So people explain it and I've seen perfectly correct explanations get
turned away. The ones objecting to the explanations sound like they
just can't understand something but boy if an explanation is given
they
suddenly get so smart and know more, supposedly, than the person or
persons trying to explain the verses to them.
>
You are giving the impression with this post, that someone has to have
a law degree and then also take your classes for over a year, three
times
a week, in order to ever understand the words in the Bible. It just
isn't
so. So what are you saying all this for?
>
Suzanne
Bill
Burkhard is not heckling you. He is merely pointing out that what you
think of as "just reading what the Bible says, without interpretation"
is more complex than you seem to think. You yourself do not simply
read the text and understand it based on the simple dictionary meaning
of individual words. Your goal, as you yourself say, is to understand
the "original meaning." You do that by putting each individual verse
into context within the chapter and book in which it occurs, by
looking at other sections of the Bible, by applying what you know, or
think you know about the history of the period (e.g. the Eye of a
Needle market gate in Syria) or linguistics, to understand what is
written and to get back to "the original meaning."
Neither Burkhard nor I claim that there is anything at all wrong in
your doing that. Everybody does that whenever they read anything, even
a recipe or a law book. The only thing that strikes us as odd is your
intense resistance to calling what you are doing "interpretation," as
though interpretation were some tricky liberal way to "water down" the
Bible. Everybody has to interpret everything that they read. It is
absolutely unavoidable. And many people of good will may come to
different conclusions about what the "original meaning" of a text is,
whether that text is the Bible, a political essay, or the US
Constitution. What is slightly off putting, I must admit, is the
implication that you, Suzanne, read the text simply and get to its
original meaning easily, just like a child, with the help of the Holy
Spirit, while anyone who gets a different "original meaning" from the
text must be engaging in "interpretation."
Suzanne
than that I think the Bible is a wonderful book that I wish everyone
could understand.
I think they can also see that I hold the Bible in high regard. But
showing
that the Bible can be understood even by a child, or showing that you
can
at least understand it as well as a cookbook would not lower the
worth of
the Bible, it would instead elevate the level of your worth, that the
Lord
wants you to understand him.
>
Well, that's an interesting viewpoint. It might help a few people to
approach things that way, but I don't think it would help most to
learn that way. You seem to be for your hypothetical person to
learn on his own with no instruction. He does not know what to
do unless you give him a fence. When you give him a fence to
oppose and push against, then he can learn why he should not
push against it.
>
Suppose that there is a lad who wants to get his driver's license
at 16. His family has a beautiful new car. Are his parents going to
just turn him loose with the family car? Not if they love him. In one
way he is not going to learn unless they trust him to drive the car,
but in another way, he needs to have some basic guidelines before
he should take that car out for a solo flight. Like, for example,
don't
you think that he should learn to drive first?
>
And like your "better cook," don't you think he had to first learn
the basics of cooking before he invented recipes? You cannot
be a leader until you, yourself, have learned to be a follower.
So it's better if that "better cook" first learned how to follow a
recipe or two before inventing some, if he wants to be a great
cook.
>
So the 16 year old lad would have to first receive instructions
about which he can't be inventive in order for the parents to
let him drive the family car. He is supposed to use the brake
some of the time, and he can't be inventive about it. He is
supposed to use turning signals or signal with his arm, and
he can't be inventive with that. He has to know the rules of
the road and he can't be inventive about that, or he will get
arrested.
>
If his parents just simply don't teach him, or let him be taught
the rules of the state or place that he lives, then they are
not being responsible parents. They don't show love to him
if they never want him to drive, but they also don't love him
if they don't see to it that he knows the rules of the road, and
some ways to drive defensively. Now, would it suit him to
create a philosophy out of the driver's manual? Or should he
follow exactly what it said? The law says he has to know how
to obey the driving rules or they won't give him a license.
>
I know there are people who are very self-sufficient that could
learn much on their own with no help from anyone. But is that
true of all people? No, it is not. Most people need rules to
go by and the rules don't make them feel tied up, they actually
help them to feel secure. It also is going to benefit even a very
self sufficient person to first learn how to follow some basic
rules.
>
Best Regards,
Suzanne
Harry K
>
> - Show quoted text -
were it not for "interpretation" there wouldn't be thousands of
different churches, sects, cults, etc. all claiming to be "Christian"
and each and every one certain that they have the only _true_ meaning
of the bible.
Harry K
Burkhard
No. They are possibly crystal clear to a small group of people you
tend to converse with.
>How is it that
> you all
> are so blindingly brilliant about some things, but can't grasp what
> things I
> have been saying?
Personal guess? So far you always ever had to explain your position to
people who share it anyway. That is comparatively easy as in these
situations, the listener fills in the missing bits and ignores the
inconsistencies. Once you have to explain yourself to people outside
your herd, as it is, it often becomes obvious that your explanations
are far from clear.
>It's not that vague as "take some flour" as you
> write
> above.
I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with a
quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true. Most
cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>
> OK...I see that you all will heckle me, and take a view against what I
> say.
> Or give me a hard time about my viewpoints. That is obvious. But, when
> someone explains what someone says they don't get about the Bible in
> here, why is it that the explanations are turned away?
They are tested, like any other claim. If they are found wanting, this
is pointed out. I gave in every instance reasons, mostly backed up by
citations, why your claims are flawed - not necessarily your claims
about the bible per se, but your claims about interpretation, how much
of it is needed to support your reading, and if they are good reasons
to chose between different interpretations.
>No one is
> allowed
> to be right, only the unbelievers.
no, only the person who can substantiate his/her claim by sound
arguments and evidence. Believing or not believing really doesn't
enter the equation.
> They say "we can't understand
> this."
Mhh, here an overly literal reading on your side may have caused
problems. Very often, "I don;t understand this" is not a statement
expressing ignorance (as when a child says: I don't understand that
math problem), but in the context of a discussion, it is typically a
polite form of saying: what you just said does not make any sense.
> So people explain it and I've seen perfectly correct explanations get
> turned away.
No, explanations that you _think_ are correct are tested - and in some
cases found wanting
and I typically gave the reasons why they are flawed, with citation
where applicable.
>The ones objecting to the explanations sound like they
> just can't understand something but boy if an explanation is given
> they
> suddenly get so smart and know more, supposedly, than the person or
> persons trying to explain the verses to them.
>
So essentially, we should just take your word for it? sorry, this is
not how it works. If you go public with your opinions you risk that
they are analysed.
> You are giving the impression with this post, that someone has to have
> a law degree and then also take your classes for over a year, three
> times
> a week, in order to ever understand the words in the Bible. It just
> isn't
> so.
Nope. _Your_ claim was that _laws_ don't need interpretation and have
to be written n such a way that they can be just read literally. I
pointed out that this is plain wrong, and that a typical law degree
not just requires, but indeed centres on teaching students how to
interpret statutes - and that there is a heavy body of knowledge and
academic writing that deals with nothing else, knowledge a student is
supposed to master. Bringing in law was your idea, not mine.
>So what are you saying all this for?
Because once again, you chose to back up your position by a flawed
argument, in this case, a flawed argument about law and legal
interpretation
One of your most persistent confusions is between the validity of a
position, and the validity of an argument to support this position. If
you back up your position by obviously flawed analogies or arguments,
like your " Torah means law argument", don't be surprised if people
point this out. That, in itself, does not invalidate your position, it
does however show that your arguments in favour of your position are
flawed.
> Suzanne
Ilas
news:3d34c82d-8c24-4054...@14g2000yqo.googlegroups.com:
> Suppose that there is a lad who wants to get his driver's license
> at 16. His family has a beautiful new car. Are his parents going to
> just turn him loose with the family car?
He could just pray for a new one for himself. I've heard that works.
Randy C
> > cookbook or an instruction manual? If that was the case, God should
> > have turned us all into programmed robots. That would be a MUCH more
> > efficient way to implement an operator's manual.
> I don't think that any logical person would conclude anything other
> than that I think the Bible is a wonderful book that I wish everyone
> could understand.
The problem is that there are MANY ways to understand the Bible.
> I think they can also see that I hold the Bible in high regard. But
> showing that the Bible can be understood even by a child, or
> showing that you can at least understand it as well as a cookbook
> would not lower the worth of the Bible, it would instead elevate the
> level of your worth, that the Lord wants you to understand him.
If you use the Bible to try to understand God, you are forced to come
away with the belief that God is cruel, deceptive and incompetent
since the Bible is ONLY consistent with a God who has those
characteristics.
> > I think that sort of thing is true of the entire Bible. People who
> > DON'T consider it to be inerrant actually get MORE out of it rather
> > than less!
> Well, that's an interesting viewpoint. It might help a few people to
> approach things that way, but I don't think it would help most to
> learn that way. You seem to be for your hypothetical person to
> learn on his own with no instruction. He does not know what to
> do unless you give him a fence. When you give him a fence to
> oppose and push against, then he can learn why he should not
> push against it.
But you keep arguing that the Bible is so simple to read that even a
child can understand it.
Now you are saying that it can be only read with “instruction”.
Those are contradictory claims.
If something is very easy to read, then instruction shouldn’t be
needed.
> Suppose that there is a lad who wants to get his driver's license
> at 16. His family has a beautiful new car. Are his parents going to
> just turn him loose with the family car? Not if they love him. In one
> way he is not going to learn unless they trust him to drive the car,
> but in another way, he needs to have some basic guidelines before
> he should take that car out for a solo flight. Like, for example,
> don't you think that he should learn to drive first?
> And like your "better cook," don't you think he had to first learn
> the basics of cooking before he invented recipes? You cannot
> be a leader until you, yourself, have learned to be a follower.
> So it's better if that "better cook" first learned how to follow a
> recipe or two before inventing some, if he wants to be a great
> cook.
Which means that you earlier claim that even a small child can
understand the Bible is inaccurate.
What you are arguing now is that people should be basically
“brainwashed” to get one particular interpretation from the Bible.
Presumably before you read the Bible someone should INSTRUCT you that,
for example, the stories in Genesis are real rather than mere
parables.
> So the 16 year old lad would have to first receive instructions
> about which he can't be inventive in order for the parents to
> let him drive the family car. He is supposed to use the brake
> some of the time, and he can't be inventive about it. He is
> supposed to use turning signals or signal with his arm, and
> he can't be inventive with that. He has to know the rules of
> the road and he can't be inventive about that, or he will get
> arrested.
Not teaching a child how to drive a car before they get behind the
wheel is VERY DANGEROUS. I agree.
By using that analogy, you are claiming that it is VERY DANGEROUS to
allow people to read the Bible with an open mind! Their minds must be
first programmed correctly in order to get the interpretation you want
them to get from the Bible.
Someone reading the Bible without a pre-programmed mind would
immediately realize that the God depicted in that book is cruel,
deceptive and incompetent. You can’t allow someone to get that
message from the Bible. Since that is the only message that someone
can get without having their minds pre-programmed, you must “INSTRUCT”
them first.
But that means that young children can’t read the Bible. But I
thought that you said they could!
Suzanne
Suzanne
> In article
> <ba5ea745-7e6c-4532-ad55-2445d5cdd...@z19g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
coming to Moses. The instructions to the children of Israel in the
wilderness was that they were to gather manna on Friday for
two days. God would give them enough to gather so that on the
Sabbath they did not gather, and they also were not even to light
a fire. Any cooking was to be done the day before. But they were
supposed to be able to eat on the Sabbath day. Now, how does
a person eat? They have to pick up the food with their hands
somehow, and bring it to their mouths. Apparently that is not
considered work to lift the food with your hands and bring it
to their mouths. Jesus and the disciples were not picking corn
in order to cook it. I asked my father about that, and he said
that when they were growing up (they had to do things like
pick cotton - he is one of 11 children) if they were in the
fields working, they all carried a salt shaker in their back
pants pockets so that when it was time to eat, they would
pick tomatoes and or corn and eat it like that from the stalk.
>
Suzanne
Randy C
>
> > 32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found
> > a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found
> > him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the
> > congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared
> > what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man
> > shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with
> > stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without
> > the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded
> > Moses.
> > Or is this just a parable?
> Suzanne:
> Hi Earle. I believe this was real because it mentions real people
> coming to Moses. The instructions to the children of Israel in the
> wilderness was that they were to gather manna on Friday for
> two days. God would give them enough to gather so that on the
> Sabbath they did not gather, and they also were not even to light
> a fire. Any cooking was to be done the day before. But they were
> supposed to be able to eat on the Sabbath day. Now, how does
> a person eat? They have to pick up the food with their hands
> somehow, and bring it to their mouths. Apparently that is not
> considered work to lift the food with your hands and bring it
> to their mouths. Jesus and the disciples were not picking corn
> in order to cook it. I asked my father about that, and he said
> that when they were growing up (they had to do things like
> pick cotton - he is one of 11 children) if they were in the
> fields working, they all carried a salt shaker in their back
> pants pockets so that when it was time to eat, they would
> pick tomatoes and or corn and eat it like that from the stalk.
>
> Suzanne
You're kidding, right?
The issue is whether or not someone should be put to death for picking
up sticks on the Sabbath. How does your answer address that?
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
I'm pretty sure that manna is a part of the story that was hastily
added only when someone pointed out that if the Jews were stuck in the
desert for forty years, they'd have pretty quickly starved. Then
someone pointed out that collecting manna on the Sabbath wouldn't be
allowed, either.
Also, what sticks was that guy gathering, anyway?
<http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/torah/twotrad.html> apparently
considers the stick story, and others, to be internal inconsistencies
in Exodus, since God told Moses /earlier/ that people who do stuff on
the Sabbath have to be killed, but here they ask God again. Although
I'd be inclined to accept that they were sceptical that he really
meant it, so they asked again.
I don't think that my personal insight that the point in-story of the
whole wilderness forty years thing was so that all of the golden calf
people would be dead after all, either of old age or due to doing some
other thing that God didn't like, before anyone was allowed into
Canaan, has any foothold amongst serious scholars. But the way I see
it, this God can afford to wait. In the end he gets what he wants -
one way or the other, you die.
<http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
chariot, which presumably is slower than a horse. And through mud.
Randy C
> long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
> chariot, which presumably is slower than a horse. And through mud.
Both estimates use 2 million Israelites. That’s a REALLY big number,
especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
ago (see http://www.crivoice.org/exodusdate.html). According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates there were
only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
Egyptian records.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> > <http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
> > long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> > point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> > passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> > estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> > that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
> > chariot, which presumably is slower than a horse. And through mud.
>
> Both estimates use 2 million Israelites. That’s a REALLY big number,
> especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates> there were
> only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
> So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
>
> How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
> Egyptian records.
But the population estimate is probably based on counting back, and
without taking account of God smiting sinners the whole time. Like
maybe right before Noah's flood there were 7 billion people alive.
Right after, I dunno, eight? Eight people?
But there's a hard figure of 600,000 men, adult males. 1.5% of your
world population already.
I think most of the tribal headcounts in Numbers and Deuteronomy are
suspiciously round numbers, if they were to be taken as true and exact
figures. I wonder whether the tribes traded members around, or if God
carefully smote the right number of sinners - and arranged births at
the right times - to make these important statistics conveniently easy
to memorise. Relatively so, that is.
Suzanne
>
Hello Burkhard, part of your reply is not to me I don't think. So I
don't have a comment on part of this. But whose idea is it that
someone was not supposed
to eat on the Sabbath? I don't think that is accurate. There are some
that
think that lifting a fork to your mouth to eat on the Sabbath is work
and that
would be very legalistic of someone to think that. It's my
understanding that,
such as in the wilderness during the Exodus, the Jews were to gather
enough "manna" in the desert on Friday before the Sabbath, so that
they
would not have to be gathering it on the Sabbath, nor were they to
light a
fire to cook anything on that day. However, they were supposed to eat.
>
And then also I see that there is still discussion about the
difference between
interpretation and translation. The professional translators website
that I
provided should clear that up without having to go to any discussion
of what
courts and judges do with respect to these two words. There are two
different types of translating. One is oral, such as what takes place
at the United Nations, and one is translating words on paper. The
person doing the oral
translation is called "an interpreter." Obviously the two words are
closely
related. Some people even use them interchangeably so when you are
speaking to someone about the difference, they may not recognize that
there is any difference at all. Biblical translators though, insist
that there
is a difference. They do not like to be called "interpreters" because
it gives
the connotation that they have a bias to what they translate. That is
based
on the idea that there are several definitions for the word
"interpret." They
try extremely hard to not be biased and to stick with the meaning of
the
original. The KJV translators went so far as to put things in italics
that
were words they had to add in order to make the meaning more clear.
Where they did not know how to translate something, they left it
alone,
and printed it as is. When they translated the part about how God
cut into Adam and took out one of his ribs, they did not understand
why
it says that God "closed up the flesh thereof." That was speaking of
the
membrane surrounding the rib, and not the outer flesh of the entry
into
Adam's side. The word set up modified the "flesh of the rib," and not
the outer flesh of the body, so, rather that ruin what could have been
different than they knew about, they were sure to include that the
flesh
which God closed up that it was speaking of, was of the flesh of the
rib. It turns out that the membrane that encloses a rib, the
periosteum,
is very fleshy and thick, and not like a thin skin like it is on other
kinds
of bones in the body. It turns out that this flesh of the ribbone
contains
a whole lot more osteoblasts (bone forming cells) and osteoclasts
(bone
eating/smoothing cells) than other bones in the body. Most of the
other
bones initially get their osteoclasts and blasts from marrow. Other
bones
in the body need to heal when they are broken just to mend a break,
and smooth it out after it rejoins. But a ribbone can regenerate, so
long
as a base portion is left, and if the periosteum is sewn back up so
that
it can work properly. In other words, Adam did not have to go around
always without a rib, it would have regenerated. Science only learned
about this in the fairly modern times, but there it is in the Bible
from
thousands of years ago. So, it's amazing that the KJV translators
allowed us by the way they did things, to be able to see this because
of the way they translated so well in this case.
>
Suppose that you have a train that is blue and the open cars in it are
also blue. It transports it's load of coal, corn, and hay to another
location. Then workers empty the blue cars and put their loads on
a - let's say - green train. The coal, the corn, and the hay are put
into separate green open cars. The green train then goes to it's
destination and the individual loads are unloaded and distributed
to their destinations. This represents what translation is. The blue
cars represent words in the original language. The coal, the corn,
and the hay represent the true meaning of the words. The green
open cars represent the new language the original is being
translated into. A translation is not a word for word transposition.
Languages have differences. They may not have the same kind
of symbols for their alphabets. They hopefully have an equivalent,
but they don't always have an equivalent. That's why we have the
expression "you lose something sometimes in a translation." With
the Bible, though, since it is so important to people, the translators
do the best possible job to translate, that is to convey the most
exact meaning possible into the words in the second language.
This is what I taught for years. English "as a second language."
This much you probably know. But there is more...
>
If we translated a technical book into another language, it is written
in a book, of course and its not a conversation. But much of the
Bible is the transfer of the spoken words into a second language.
For example, they tell what Jesus said, what God said, what
Moses said, what Abraham said, what Pharaohs said, what
kings said, what Sarah said, what the angel said, what Job
said, what Job's friends said, what David said, what Cain said,
what Abel said, what the Serpent said, what Mephibosheth
said, and so forth. So a whole lot of what is in the Bible is
conversational. Conversational language contains the metaphors,
the parables, the idioms, and the indiginous phrases and structures
of a particular group of people in a given time frame. Grammar
and word order may be very, very different from the way in which
we know of English to be. A translation - not an interpretation -
will adequately transfer the meaning in the appropriate way.
So, you look for the right train car to carry the coal, the corn,
and the hay, that will deliver the product that was ordered, the
coal instead of wood, the corn instead of "hi-gear" (hegira -
cattle feed), and the hay instead of tumbleweed. Translation is
a transferrence of the meaning, and not a substitute. That's
actually what the word translate means. It comes from the
Latin and it means to transfer. It is also backed up that way
by the Bible, which has an ability to translate itself as in...
Colossians 1:13:
"For He (God the Father) has delivered us from the power of
darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son (Jesus Christ)."
Obviously, this means you. It would not do you any good for
him to transfer someone that just looked like you.
I think you have received the exact meaning with this
example. And I had a little supernatural help. <smile>
>
Suzanne
Suzanne
A parable does not have to be from real life, but what they are saying
is that it doesn't have to be a lie, either. It's merely a story,
whether
from having been created to illustrate a point, or whether drawn from
an actual happening in real life, it doesn't matter. If you argue with
someone about it, chances are you could not prove that it was not a
true story, and they may not be able to prove that it was a true
happening. A parable is simply a comparison that is made in order
to accurately convey a certain truth.
Parables, whether they are drawn from real life or are hypothetical,
they are not lies. But some incorrectly claim that they are just
fables.
But that is not what the root word of parable means. It comes
from the word "parabola," a scientific word. Parabola means:
"A plane curve generated by a point moving so that its distance from a
fixed point is equal to its distance from a fixed line: the
intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to an
element of the cone."
So, a parable is a story of comparison that transfers an idea across
with the target being the point of someone's understanding.
Suzanne
Suzanne
>
wrote what I did about the verbs showing degrees of comparison that
you saw some
others that had the same opinion. I didn't consult them, and they
didn't
consult me. So how could we come up with identical opinions?
>
Suzanne
>
Bill
.
>
> I can't get it without the Lord's help. Bill, you did say that when I
> wrote what I did about the verbs showing degrees of comparison that
> you saw some
> others that had the same opinion. I didn't consult them, and they
> didn't
> consult me. So how could we come up with identical opinions?
I think that when you say "I can't get it without the Lord's help,"
that you are saying that a plain, literal reading of the text does not
get you to the original meaning. If such a plain reading could indeed
get you to the original meaning, you wouldn't need the Lord's help. It
sounds a lot like you are saying that the Lord guides you to a correct
interpretation. If the meaning were obvious, you'd hardly need to call
in an all-powerful spirit to explain it to you.
What do you conclude when your interpretation of some verse in the
Bible differs from that of another Christian? How do you tell who is
getting the straight scoop from the Holy Spirit and who is wrongly
convinced that the Holy Spirit has given them a correct understanding
of the original meaning?
Yes, many people have interpreted Jesus' "hate your parents" bit as
meaning "love me more than you love your parents," and, in support of
that view they have made the argument you advance about Rachel and
Leah. Perhaps a spirit sent the same opinion to all of you, but more
likely, this is simply a traditional interpretation of a "hard saying"
of Jesus, that is widespread in your religious tradition; it got
started by someone a few hundred years ago and has spread; that's why
you agree about it. I disagree with that interpretation of both
sayings, but yours is not obviously wrong.
On the other hand you still seem not to have gotten the point that the
simple grammatical claim that "Hebrew has no way to express
comparisons except by the use of opposites" is simply false. It may be
that sometimes, for rhetorical emphasis, someone wrote, in Hebrew,
"hate" to mean "love less." It is just amazing to me, though, that you
cannot separate the two issues, one a grammatical issue about the
Hebrew language, and the other an issue of the meaning of a particular
verse.
Suzanne
Suzanne
"translation," is exactly why we have so many denominations.
>
Suzanne
Harry K
>
> - Show quoted text -
So jusst which one of those hundreds, if not thousands, of sects,
cults, off-shoots, have the "correct" translation? They can all be
right but each one is sure they are the one with the 'on true
version'.
Harry K
Harry K
> > <http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
> > long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> > point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> > passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> > estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> > that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
> > chariot, which presumably is slower than a horse. And through mud.
>
> Both estimates use 2 million Israelites. That’s a REALLY big number,
> especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
> only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
> So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
>
> How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
> Egyptian records.
No stranger than the total lack of any mention of Ye Floode and those
records run right through the supposed flood time.
Harry K
Bill
Then you are very fortunate to belong to the one denomination that
seeks the true translated meaning instead of those mere
interpretations sought by all the other denominations.
alextangent
You do write a load of rubbish.
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=parable
early 14c., "saying or story in which something is expressed in terms
of something else," from O.Fr. parable, from L. parabola "comparison,"
from Gk. parabole "a comparison, parable," lit. "a throwing beside,"
from para- "alongside" + bole "a throwing, casting, beam, ray,"
related to ballein "to throw." Replaced O.E. bispell. In V.L. parabola
took on the meaning "word," hence It. parlare, Fr. parler "to speak."
Ilas
news:b6c8073b-0ce3-4f76...@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com:
10s of thousands of religions over the years, and Suzanne just happens to
have exactly the right one, and exactly the right interpretation, and god
is talking to her. Lucky for her, or she might not have got that car, and
she might not live for ever. Phew!
Of course, she can't see that the man who detonates his explosive vest in
the cafe in Baghdad is equally convinced that he has the right religion and
and the right interpretation, and god is talking to him. This week, god is
telling him to kill. And she may understand why I find him scary, but
she'll never understand why I find her scary.
Ilas
news:5d2d1bf3-4c4c-4dfb...@r33g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
> So jusst which one of those hundreds, if not thousands, of sects,
> cults, off-shoots, have the "correct" translation? They can
I think you missed "'t"
all be
> right but each one is sure they are the one with the 'on true
> version'.
Catholicism is the right one, despite what Suzanne thinks. I know that
because I was brought up by Catholic parents and family, went to a Catholic
school and the parish priest was a family friend, and they all said so.
Luckily, I was brought up by Catholic parents and family, went to a
Catholic school and the parish priest was a family friend, so I got
precisely the right religion to absolutely ensure eternal life. What are
the chances of that, eh? Of all the religions, I chanced on the only
correct one. Imagine if I'd been brought up Muslim - I'd never have known,
and would have spent my whole life thinking Islam was the right one.
Suzanne
>
> >How is it that
> > you all
> > are so blindingly brilliant about some things, but can't grasp what
> > things I
> > have been saying?
>
> Personal guess? So far you always ever had to explain your position to
> people who share it anyway. That is comparatively easy as in these
> situations, the listener fills in the missing bits and ignores the
> inconsistencies. Once you have to explain yourself to people outside
> your herd, as it is, it often becomes obvious that your explanations
> are far from clear.
>
though,
and proud of it.
>
> >It's not that vague as "take some flour" as you
> > write
> > above.
>
> I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
> about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
> clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with a
> quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true. Most
> cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>
Why would you do that?
>
>
> > OK...I see that you all will heckle me, and take a view against what I
> > say.
> > Or give me a hard time about my viewpoints. That is obvious. But, when
> > someone explains what someone says they don't get about the Bible in
> > here, why is it that the explanations are turned away?
>
> They are tested, like any other claim. If they are found wanting, this
> is pointed out. I gave in every instance reasons, mostly backed up by
> citations, why your claims are flawed - not necessarily your claims
> about the bible per se, but your claims about interpretation, how much
> of it is needed to support your reading, and if they are good reasons
> to chose between different interpretations.
>
the difference between "translate" and "interpret."
>
> >No one is
> > allowed
> > to be right, only the unbelievers.
>
> no, only the person who can substantiate his/her claim by sound
> arguments and evidence. Believing or not believing really doesn't
> enter the equation.
>
by biblical translators and teachers of Hebrew. You reject it with
what
seems like a cavalier wave of the hand.
>
> > They say "we can't understand
> > this."
>
> Mhh, here an overly literal reading on your side may have caused
> problems. Very often, "I don;t understand this" is not a statement
> expressing ignorance (as when a child says: I don't understand that
> math problem), but in the context of a discussion, it is typically a
> polite form of saying: what you just said does not make any sense.
>
>
> > So people explain it and I've seen perfectly correct explanations get
> > turned away.
>
> No, explanations that you _think_ are correct are tested - and in some
> cases found wanting
> and I typically gave the reasons why they are flawed, with citation
> where applicable.
>
mention
the website of the Hebrew teacher.
>
> >The ones objecting to the explanations sound like they
> > just can't understand something but boy if an explanation is given
> > they
> > suddenly get so smart and know more, supposedly, than the person or
> > persons trying to explain the verses to them.
>
> So essentially, we should just take your word for it? sorry, this is
> not how it works. If you go public with your opinions you risk that
> they are analysed.
>
you and the comments from the people heretofore mentioned that
you should have considered.
>
> > You are giving the impression with this post, that someone has to have
> > a law degree and then also take your classes for over a year, three
> > times
> > a week, in order to ever understand the words in the Bible. It just
> > isn't
> > so.
>
> Nope. _Your_ claim was that _laws_ don't need interpretation and have
> to be written n such a way that they can be just read literally. I
> pointed out that this is plain wrong, and that a typical law degree
> not just requires, but indeed centres on teaching students how to
> interpret statutes - and that there is a heavy body of knowledge and
> academic writing that deals with nothing else, knowledge a student is
> supposed to master. Bringing in law was your idea, not mine.
>
It's a Bible thing. : )
>
> >So what are you saying all this for?
>
> Because once again, you chose to back up your position by a flawed
> argument, in this case, a flawed argument about law and legal
> interpretation
>
I only posted the reason for a translation from Hebrew and
from Greek. If you don't want to consider it or accept it, that's
up to you.
>
> One of your most persistent confusions is between the validity of a
> position, and the validity of an argument to support this position. If
> you back up your position by obviously flawed analogies or arguments,
> like your " Torah means law argument", don't be surprised if people
> point this out. That, in itself, does not invalidate your position, it
> does however show that your arguments in favour of your position are
> flawed.
>
Bible,
the torah or "law" was given at Mt. Sinai by the Lord through Moses.
>
Suzanne
Suzanne
Ilas
news:c676ac2a-8786-46d6...@m10g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
> On May 17, 4:01 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>> I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
>> about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
>> clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with a
>> quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true. Most
>> cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>>
> Now that's novel. You buy cookbooks that only give vague measures.
> Why would you do that?
He didn't say that. You've interpreted it incorrectly. See how easy it is
to do that?
Suzanne
>
> > Suppose that there is a lad who wants to get his driver's license
> > at 16. His family has a beautiful new car. Are his parents going to
> > just turn him loose with the family car?
>
> He could just pray for a new one for himself. I've heard that works.
>
>
Suzanne
Randy C
> "translation," is exactly why we have so many denominations.
>
> Suzanne
But they are ALL sincerely trying to find the "true meaning" of the
Bible.
But you concede that there are many different "true meanings" that
come about.
At most, only ONE of them is right.
How can you be sure that YOURS is that correct one?
You can't.
You can say that "God is speaking to you". But then 1000 other people
who get different interpretations will say the same thing with just as
much sincerity as you do.
In fact ANYTHING you say to support your interpretation of the Bible
is said by those many others with equal sincerity.
So how do you know?
You can't.
In fact, if you think about it, it is pretty much a certainty that you
are simply fooling yourself.
Burkhard
> > > > possibly the fact that the bible itself says in this passage the
It was at least intended to, but there seem to have been a google
inflicted snip where there should not have been one. If you mean the
part where I write "Yes,he is saying that, quite literally.", it was
meant as a reply to your "Jesus did not say that the man should not
take
the Bible literally, he said that the man's beliefs did not represent
what keeping the Sabbath holy meant.", though that got a bit lost
somehow.
So I
> don't have a comment on part of this. But whose idea is it that
> someone was not supposed
> to eat on the Sabbath?
A simple case of hasty typing on my side., I meant of course "prepare
food", not "eat"
>I don't think that is accurate. There are some
> that
> think that lifting a fork to your mouth to eat on the Sabbath is work
> and that
> would be very legalistic of someone to think that.
True, but this still could be the "intended meaning" - what would b
the argument to reject that interpretation?
>It's my
> understanding that,
> such as in the wilderness during the Exodus, the Jews were to gather
> enough "manna" in the desert on Friday before the Sabbath, so that
> they
> would not have to be gathering it on the Sabbath, nor were they to
> light a
> fire to cook anything on that day. However, they were supposed to eat.
>
> And then also I see that there is still discussion about the
> difference between
> interpretation and translation. The professional translators website
> that I
> provided should clear that up without having to go to any discussion
> of what
> courts and judges do with respect to these two words.
The website you cited adresses a recent confusion caused, in the
English speaking world only, by a distinction in the job description
between "translators " (written text) and "interpretors" (spoken
word.
It has nothing to do with the discussion here. The relevant meaning of
"interpretation" for which I gave you citations not just from legal
sources, but also linguistics and history, is well established, and
widely discussed in law, history, theology and linguistics. Your site
really does not add anything particularly useful to this I'm afraid.
There are two
> different types of translating. One is oral, such as what takes place
> at the United Nations, and one is translating words on paper. The
> person doing the oral
> translation is called "an interpreter." Obviously the two words are
> closely
> related. Some people even use them interchangeably so when you are
> speaking to someone about the difference, they may not recognize that
> there is any difference at all. Biblical translators though, insist
> that there
> is a difference. They do not like to be called "interpreters" because
> it gives
> the connotation that they have a bias to what they translate. That is
> based
> on the idea that there are several definitions for the word
> "interpret."
Not quite. They _think_ that one can translate without interpretation
(as the word is commonly understood, not just meaning "oral
translation") A huge body of knowledge, going back hundred of years to
the first treatise on interpretation disagrees, (and indeed quite a
lot of rabbinic literature on interpreting the OT deals with the same
thing), I gave you several cites to the relevant academic discussion.
>They
> try extremely hard to not be biased and to stick with the meaning of
> the
> original.
Which firstly begs the question what "the" meaning is - what the
author intended, what a typical audience would have understood, what
the author would have said had he been in the possession of additional
facts etc are all different ways on which one can interpret a text and
establish "its" meaning.
Which approach is appropriate depends on the nature of the text, and
what you want to find out about it.
Secondly, "interpretation" does not mean"biased". It means to decide
between the various readings that the words cover on rational
grounds.
>The KJV translators went so far as to put things in italics
> that
> were words they had to add in order to make the meaning more clear.
> Where they did not know how to translate something, they left it
> alone,
> and printed it as is.
Well, in line with what people knew at the time, they did this in
varying degrees. It is what today every "text critical" edition of a
translation of a text would do, just much more systematically.
>When they translated the part about how God
> cut into Adam and took out one of his ribs, they did not understand
> why
> it says that God "closed up the flesh thereof." That was speaking of
> the
> membrane surrounding the rib, and not the outer flesh of the entry
> into
> Adam's side. The word set up modified the "flesh of the rib," and not
> the outer flesh of the body, so, rather that ruin what could have been
> different than they knew about, they were sure to include that the
> flesh
> which God closed up that it was speaking of, was of the flesh of the
> rib
I don't understand what you mean here, and have difficulties parsing
the sentence.
There are at least two problems/issues here with translation - but I
can't see any of them flagged up by the writers of the KJV, at least
in my version.
the first is if "(t)sela", is really best translated as "rib". the
Hebrew word as several meanings, including "side" and "rib", but also
"beam" , "chamber". or even "wing of a building". We find something
similar in other languages, a "pars pro toto" construction.
A particularly nice parallel exists in Latin, where "Costa" is "rib"
or "side", which in English becomes "coast" - "coast-of the sea" is
the "sea-side"
If all of these meanings were in use at the time Genesis 2 was
written is a bit beyond my pay grade, but that would be the first
thing to check.
A number of translators, especially more recent ones, prefer the
"side" reading, making it a much more major operation. The advantages
of this reading is that it makes more sense in the context of
Genesis 2:23 that says Eva is not just made from bone, but also from
flesh, and also 2:24: If Adam really lost almost "half of himself" in
the process of making Eve, the "_Therefore_ he leaves father and
mother" makes much more sense. He is truly incomplete, and only in the
union regains his "full" personality. ("becoming one flesh") You find
this in very early Talmudic commentaries too.
If the "side" translation/interpretation is the better one, your
discussion below becomes pretty much obsolete.
I'm not sure what you mean with the "thereof" part. the Hebrew has
"tach·ten·nah". That seems to me to translate more closely to "in its
place", with a clear connotation of "a gap being filled". I can't find
any grammatical structure in the Hebrew that links is as a possessive
to "rip".
>. It turns out that the membrane that encloses a rib, the
> periosteum,
> is very fleshy and thick, and not like a thin skin like it is on other
> kinds
> of bones in the body.
I'm not sure what you mean with this either. Periosteum comes from
Greek Peri - "surrounding" and -osteon, meaning "bone". It surrounds
all bones in the human body
> It turns out that this flesh of the ribbone
> contains
> a whole lot more osteoblasts (bone forming cells) and osteoclasts
> (bone
> eating/smoothing cells) than other bones in the body. Most of the
> other
> bones initially get their osteoclasts and blasts from marrow. Other
> bones
> in the body need to heal when they are broken just to mend a break,
> and smooth it out after it rejoins. But a ribbone can regenerate, so
> long
> as a base portion is left, and if the periosteum is sewn back up so
> that
> it can work properly. In other words, Adam did not have to go around
> always without a rib, it would have regenerated. Science only learned
> about this in the fairly modern times, but there it is in the Bible
> from
> thousands of years ago.
Well, firstly, your science is somewhat shaky on this. Ribs have more
of an ability to regrow than most other bones, that much is true. But
if an entire rib is removed, you need a medical gel as a scaffold to
support the regrowth or it won't work- and in any case, what you get
is a much weaker and differently shaped bone - it is thin, flat, and
lacking cancellous bone. (see Satheesh J. Philip et al: Morphological
study of rib regeneration following costectomy in adolescent
idiopathic scoliosis. European Spine Journal 2005)
So you only trade in an Adam with one rib less than normal (not a
major medical problem) to one with a partly regrown rib.
>So, it's amazing that the KJV translators
> allowed us by the way they did things, to be able to see this because
> of the way they translated so well in this case.
I can't see how their translation indicates this. The " instead
thereof" in KJV does not indicate to me that a specific part of flesh
associated to the rib is replaced.
But let us recap what your argument here is, and how one can evaluate
its soundness as a method of interpretation. Your are in a nutshell
saying that Genesis really says: "And God replaced the periosteum"
where the English KJV translation has "the flesh thereof", and you
think the KJV was cautious enough to allow this reading, even though
they did not know about the correct medical terminology. Te Bible, in
this interpretation had medical knowledge that was either lost since
it was written, or unknown to humans at all until very recently.
You are offering two reasons for this interpretation. One is a claim
about Hebrew grammar and the original text - a possessive reading of
"thereof" that links "rib" and "flesh" more intimately - it is "the
flesh belonging to" the rib.
I can't see that in the Hebrew myself. "tach·ten·nah" does not carry
that connotation, for all that I know. It is much closer to "place",
which is how several Bible translations these days render it:
"and closed up its place with flesh" in the English standard version
seems to me closest to the Hebrew text, much earlier, the Douay-Rheims
Bible gets very close to this too: "and filled up flesh for it."
Luther's German translation too has the explicit idea that there is
simply a gap that is filled with flesh (ruling pretty much out the
idea that something can regrow there:Und er nahm seiner Rippen eine
und schloß die Stätte zu mit Fleisch.
So you'd need to give some support for that. Where do you see the
possessive here, what does the relevant literature on Hebrew grammar
say?
Your second argument is again a use of the "principle of charity": if
the wording of the texts permits, chose the interpretation that
increases the correctnesses of the text.
This is often a valid approach to interpretation, and you'll find it
in all the literature I cited. However, it is also known to be a
problematic canon that needs to be used with care. You don't want your
interpretation to cause the original author to be dumber than he was -
but you also don't want to make him more knowledgeable. The danger is
to project current ideas back into a text where they are utterly
ahistorical.
OK, at that point secular and liberal-religious on the one side, and
more orthodox religious interpretors on the other would briefly part
company. The first group would say there is no reason to believe that
the priests who wrote Genesis 2 had the medical knowledge to identify
the periosteum as a specific type of "flesh" that is necessary for
ribs to regrow. That alone would be enough reason to reject your
interpretation as an ahistorical projection, an anachronism, and we
would without any doubt do this e.g. in the case of an anatomic
treaties of that time.
For certain types of believers of course, the "author" of Genesis is
omniscient, and therefore arguments from historical knowledge are
simply irrelevant to decide between interpretations.
But even in this case, it is at best a moot point I'd say. As noted
above, there are good reasons not to talk about a "rib" here in the
first place -good grammatical, contextual and theological reasons.
The normal interpretation/translation does not cause any
inconsistencies with the rest of the text either. Nowhere in the Bibel
does it say Adam's rib regrew, nor does the idea that he lived without
a rib as opposed to a badly regrown one causes any problems, medical
or theological. It is not forced by the text itself either, as far as
I can see, there is in the Hebrew no possessive that clearly links
"rib" to "flesh"
So in summary, your interpretation that Genesis talks here about the
periosteum is, even for a very Christian -orthodox reader who does not
care about historical constraints that much, at best a _possible_
interpretation _permitted_ by the text. It is pretty far fetched, and
there are good methodological arguments to prefer a generic reading of
flesh as the "outer flesh" as you call it.
<snip for later if I can make any sense of it>
Randy C
> On May 16, 6:53 am, Randy C <randyec...@gmail.com> wrote:> > No, I noticed what you replied, and your reply seems to boil down to
> > > "A literal reading of the Bible is literal, except when it isn't." It
> > > seems obvious to you that the Prodigal Son is a parable but that the
> > > Flood or the 6 day creation story is not. Why? The Bible does not come
> > > with signposts saying "This bit is meant literally," "this bit is a
> > > parable," "this is a bit of poetic license."
>
> > Just as a side note, I've actually met creationists who insist that
> > all of the parables in the New Testament are literally true as well.
> > They actually believe that a parable constructed from the imagination
> > of Jesus would be a lie if any part of it was untrue.
>
> > Clearly they don't get it.
> Maybe what they want to convey is like this, possibly...
> A parable does not have to be from real life, but what they are saying
> is that it doesn't have to be a lie, either. It's merely a story,
> whether
> from having been created to illustrate a point, or whether drawn from
> an actual happening in real life, it doesn't matter.
You're right, it doesn't matter whether the parable is real.
But the person I'm referring to insisted that it must be completely
true. For example, there must have been a literal Good Samaritan or
else the parable is meaningless.
Why isn't that same thing true for all of the stories in the OT? Why
do they have to be literally true for in order for there to be some
useful message you can get from the story?
> If you argue with
> someone about it, chances are you could not prove that it was not a
> true story, and they may not be able to prove that it was a true
> happening. A parable is simply a comparison that is made in order
> to accurately convey a certain truth.
But that is a pointless conversation since it doesn't really make any
difference. The story of Santa Claus is known to originate from a
real person. But how does that affect Santa having a list of who's
naughty and who's nice?
> Parables, whether they are drawn from real life or are hypothetical,
> they are not lies. But some incorrectly claim that they are just
> fables.
> But that is not what the root word of parable means. It comes
> from the word "parabola," a scientific word. Parabola means:
I'm not saying that they are lies. I'm saying that it doesn't make
any difference whether or not they are true. Maybe Jesus heard a
story of a Good Samaritan in his youth, put it in his memory and told
people about it later. Or maybe he just made it up.
Who cares?
In the same way, why does the concept of "Original Sin" really depend
on a literal Adam and Eve and Garden of Eden? Many theologians have
no problem accepting original sin without also accepting the concept
of a talking snake.
> "A plane curve generated by a point moving so that its distance from a
> fixed point is equal to its distance from a fixed line: the
> intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to an
> element of the cone."
> So, a parable is a story of comparison that transfers an idea across
> with the target being the point of someone's understanding.
I agree.
Now explain why the obvious myths in the OT have to be literally true
in order for them to have meaning if parables don't have to be
literally true in order to have meaning.
Burkhard
"Herd" purely in the sociological sense. I'm member of several herds
too, everyone is.
>
> > >It's not that vague as "take some flour" as you
> > > write
> > > above.
>
> > I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
> > about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
> > clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with a
> > quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true. Most
> > cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>
> Now that's novel. You buy cookbooks that only give vague measures.
> Why would you do that?
No, I _observe_ that most cookbooks I have, let alone the recipes
handed down to me by mother and grandmother, use vague terms aplenty.
There are good reasons for that. Subtle differences in the ingredients
you use, e.g. the type of flour, affect the amount you need. So for
moderately experienced cooks, it is much better to say: "add flour as
needed" which they then can interpret contextually depending on the
made of flour they have, than to give a precise measure that will be
wrong in many cases.
>
> > > OK...I see that you all will heckle me, and take a view against what I
> > > say.
> > > Or give me a hard time about my viewpoints. That is obvious. But, when
> > > someone explains what someone says they don't get about the Bible in
> > > here, why is it that the explanations are turned away?
>
> > They are tested, like any other claim. If they are found wanting, this
> > is pointed out. I gave in every instance reasons, mostly backed up by
> > citations, why your claims are flawed - not necessarily your claims
> > about the bible per se, but your claims about interpretation, how much
> > of it is needed to support your reading, and if they are good reasons
> > to chose between different interpretations.
>
> My claims? I gave you information from biblical translators telling
> the difference between "translate" and "interpret."
While I don't think you gave anything like a convincing cite, this is
not the point I mean. You gave an interpretation of several biblical
passages (The Leah story, e.g.) My point here is that while I (or
Bill) do not necessary disagree with your interpretation of that
passage, we disagree, with good reasons, for the reasons you offered
in favour of that interpretation .
>
> > >No one is
> > > allowed
> > > to be right, only the unbelievers.
>
> > no, only the person who can substantiate his/her claim by sound
> > arguments and evidence. Believing or not believing really doesn't
> > enter the equation.
>
> You have been given sound scholarly information, websites, words
> by biblical translators and teachers of Hebrew. You reject it with
> what
> seems like a cavalier wave of the hand.
No, I gave for all of your sources pretty good reasons why they are
not reliable. A private website by someone who has merely an advert of
a university does not make it a scholarly source, e.g.
And I had a look at them, and gave you the reasons why they are either
not supporting what you claim they do, or do so in an equally
unconvincing way.
>
>
>
> > > You are giving the impression with this post, that someone has to have
> > > a law degree and then also take your classes for over a year, three
> > > times
> > > a week, in order to ever understand the words in the Bible. It just
> > > isn't
> > > so.
>
> > Nope. _Your_ claim was that _laws_ don't need interpretation and have
> > to be written n such a way that they can be just read literally. I
> > pointed out that this is plain wrong, and that a typical law degree
> > not just requires, but indeed centres on teaching students how to
> > interpret statutes - and that there is a heavy body of knowledge and
> > academic writing that deals with nothing else, knowledge a student is
> > supposed to master. Bringing in law was your idea, not mine.
>
> Actually, torah means "law" and "instruction," is what I brought in.
> It's a Bible thing. : )
And your point is? Nobody disagrees that Torah means law.
But you used this as an argument why the text needs no interpretation,
and is meant to be clear and precise. But for the reason I gave, the
fact that the OT is partly a legal text does not mean that it need no
interpretation - law is all about interpretation.
Apart from my secular examples of legal interpretation, the entire
body of rabbinic literature, the Talmud, is nothing else but a legal
interpretation of the Torah, often very subtle and also often very
controversial, with good (and not so good) arguments for and against
various interpretations of pretty much every passage.
>
> > >So what are you saying all this for?
>
> > Because once again, you chose to back up your position by a flawed
> > argument, in this case, a flawed argument about law and legal
> > interpretation
>
> I have not been giving you an argument about interpretation.
> I only posted the reason for a translation from Hebrew and
> from Greek. If you don't want to consider it or accept it, that's
> up to you.
You made a claim about Hebrew grammar in support of your
interpretation of the Leah story. You not only failed to support tat
claim, but as Bill and my example showed, was plain wrong on the face
of it and contradicted by other passages in the Bible.
>
> > One of your most persistent confusions is between the validity of a
> > position, and the validity of an argument to support this position. If
> > you back up your position by obviously flawed analogies or arguments,
> > like your " Torah means law argument", don't be surprised if people
> > point this out. That, in itself, does not invalidate your position, it
> > does however show that your arguments in favour of your position are
> > flawed.
>
> Torah means "law" and therefore "instruction." According to the
> Bible,
> the torah or "law" was given at Mt. Sinai by the Lord through Moses.
And who debates this, and what does it have to do with my point?
>
> Suzanne
Harry K
Getting poked with a sharp stick like he just did is funny?
Harry K
SkyEyes
> > <http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
> > long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> > point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> > passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> > estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> > that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
> > chariot, which presumably is slower than a horse. And through mud.
>
> Both estimates use 2 million Israelites. That’s a REALLY big number,
> especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
> only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
> So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
>
> How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
> Egyptian records.
And doubly surprising that Egypt's economy didn't completely fall
apart when 2 million of its inhabitants (out of a possible 8 million
total) up and left.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
skyeyes nine at cox dot net
Suzanne
I have many, many cookbooks and they don't use vague terms. They
use pretty precise measures. The word "measures" was applied due
to something eariier that he said about taking "some" flour, etc.
>
>
Suzanne
Bill
> On May 20, 4:05 am, Ilas <nob...@this.address.com> wrote:> Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote innews:c676ac2a-8786-46d6...@m10g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
>
> > > On May 17, 4:01 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > >> I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
> > >> about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
> > >> clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with a
> > >> quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true. Most
> > >> cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>
> > > Now that's novel. You buy cookbooks that only give vague measures.
> > > Why would you do that?
>
> > He didn't say that. You've interpreted it incorrectly. See how easy it is
> > to do that?
>
> No I haven't. He said "most cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty."
> I have many, many cookbooks and they don't use vague terms. They
> use pretty precise measures. The word "measures" was applied due
> to something eariier that he said about taking "some" flour, etc.
>
> Suzanne
Then please go ahead and post the full text of a recipe from one of
your precise cookbooks, and we will show you how you need to use
interpretation to use the recipe.
Burkhard
> On May 20, 4:05 am, Ilas <nob...@this.address.com> wrote:> Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote innews:c676ac2a-8786-46d6...@m10g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
>
> > > On May 17, 4:01 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > >> I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
> > >> about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
> > >> clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with a
> > >> quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true. Most
> > >> cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>
> > > Now that's novel. You buy cookbooks that only give vague measures.
> > > Why would you do that?
>
> > He didn't say that. You've interpreted it incorrectly. See how easy it is
> > to do that?
>
> No I haven't.
To be precise, you have. You added "buy" to my sacred post,which
wasn't there before - I might steal them, get them as gifts, or write
them
and you changed :plenty" to "only". Both interpretations not supported
by the text. :o)
JAB
> your precise cookbooks, and we will show you how you need to use
> interpretation to use the recipe.
>
A few terms ...
"cut into rough chunks"
"thickly sliced"
"very roughly chopped"
"thickish pieces"
"lightly squashed"
"A few"
"A glass of"
"2 large"
"one good handful"
"finely chopped"
"A large knob"
.... and that was just from a small number of recipes.
Suzanne
> > Harry, "interpretation," instead of seeking the true meaning of
> > "translation," is exactly why we have so many denominations.
>
> > Suzanne
>
> But they are ALL sincerely trying to find the "true meaning" of the
> Bible.
>
> But you concede that there are many different "true meanings" that
> come about.
>
people "interpret," that is the reason for many translations. But when
people translate, instead of interpreting, they come up with less
variation. The goal is to translate, not just interpret.
>
> At most, only ONE of them is right.
>
>
> How can you be sure that YOURS is that correct one?
>
> You can't.
>
waiting for an answer.
>
> You can say that "God is speaking to you". But then 1000 other people
> who get different interpretations will say the same thing with just as
> much sincerity as you do.
>
a verse in Hebrew or Greek. I only have a few of you opposing what
I contributed to something one of you presented to me as what they
believed was a Bible conflict.
>
> In fact ANYTHING you say to support your interpretation of the Bible
> is said by those many others with equal sincerity.
>
about a few verses. I have not had opposition to what I had said
about the Hebrew and Greek, except in this thread. There are not
"others" opposing me except a few in here.
>
I've made a point to say that with the few verses you have heard me
say anything about, that I was translating and not interpreting, which
is a little different. But basically, I was following the King James
Version's translation of the Hebrew words about Jacob, Rachel, and
Leah. They translated it that Jacob loved Leah less. But they also
showed that "hated" means the same thing in the Hebrew as "loved
less," since they used both wordings about the same thing. So I was
not talking about my own translation, but theirs. Then I backed up
what they did by presenting the thing about the Hebrew grammar
utilizing two opposite words to express degrees of love or hate in
their translation. That was not my translation, that was the KJV
translation. I only showed why they translated it that way. You
ask though, why I think I am right. You should ask why do I think
the KJV translators are right. The same thing is present in the verse
where Jesus says (the translation says) "hate" your father and
mother, (and other relatives) "if" you would be my disciple. The "if
clause" introduces a comparison. These words "hate" and "love"
were verbs, not adverbs or adjectives. People opposing what I
had presented only used adverbs or adjectives to show degrees
of comparisons in Hebrew or Greek, but not verbs. If the KJV
were an interpretation, they could have expressed degrees of
comparisons with other parts of speech, but because it is a
translation and not an interpretation, they were wanting to keep
with verbs just as the original languages of Hebrew and Greek
had done.
>
> So how do you know?
>
> You can't.
>
> In fact, if you think about it, it is pretty much a certainty that you
> are simply fooling yourself.
>
know an answer to a difficult-to-translate few verses in the Bible?
There are probably many people that could have presented this
besides me. But they are not here to presented it, so I just happened
to be here. I don't have a long, white beard, or a flock of sheep to
make me look more the part. Sorry about that. Perhaps you were
expecting Moses? : )
>
Best Regards,
Suzanne
Randy C
> > Bible.
> > But you concede that there are many different "true meanings" that
> > come about.
> No, I don't think there are many "true meanings." I agreed that when
> people "interpret," that is the reason for many translations. But when
> people translate, instead of interpreting, they come up with less
> variation. The goal is to translate, not just interpret.
I have no idea what you just said.
> > At most, only ONE of them is right.
> I agree.
> > How can you be sure that YOURS is that correct one?
> > You can't.
> Well, you asked me a question and then answered it instead of
> waiting for an answer.
Here's your opportunity to answer it yourself!
It isn't like I was talking behind your back.
> > You can say that "God is speaking to you". But then 1000 other people
> > who get different interpretations will say the same thing with just as
> > much sincerity as you do.
> I don't have a thousand other people opposing a translation of
> a verse in Hebrew or Greek. I only have a few of you opposing what
> I contributed to something one of you presented to me as what they
> believed was a Bible conflict.
But...
Surely not everyone who opposes your view is on this forum.
Right?
If you extrapolate the people who disagree with you on this forum with
different interpretations (or translations or whatever you want to
call them) across the entire population, "thousands" is probably on
low side of the number of people who disagree with you.
In other words, it is likely that there may be THOUSANDS of different
interpretations (or translations or whatever you want to call them)
when you factor them across all of the people who read and try to
understand the Bible.
> > So how do you know?
> > You can't.
> > In fact, if you think about it, it is pretty much a certainty that you
> > are simply fooling yourself.
> Why does it strike you as being so unusual that someone might
> know an answer to a difficult-to-translate few verses in the Bible?
Because YOU are a fallible human being?
Or is that something that you cannot accept?
> There are probably many people that could have presented this
> besides me.
As well as thousands of others who would support every other
interpretation (or translation or whatever you want to call it) of the
Bible.
Hree's a fact: there are a bit more than 30,000 different Christian
deoniminations.
All of the members of each denomination agree on SOME interpretation
(or translation or whatever you want to call it) of the Bible.
So each interpretation (or translation or whatever you want to call
it) of the Bible probably has MANY supporters.
So are you saying that we should "count heads" in order to decide how
to properly interpret (or translate or whatever you want to call our
reading of the Bible)?
> But they are not here to presented it, so I just happened
> to be here. I don't have a long, white beard, or a flock of sheep to
> make me look more the part. Sorry about that. Perhaps you were
> expecting Moses? : )
No. Especially since Moses is almost certainly a mythical being.
Bill
<snip>
.
>
> I don't have a thousand other people opposing a translation of
> a verse in Hebrew or Greek. I only have a few of you opposing what
> I contributed to something one of you presented to me as what they
> believed was a Bible conflict.
>
> I have not had opposition to what I had said
> about the Hebrew and Greek, except in this thread. There are not
> "others" opposing me except a few in here.
>
What, are you kidding? Nixon will never get elected. I don't know
ANYBODY who's gonna vote for Nixon.
> Best Regards,
> Suzanne
Walter Bushell
<6aecd2e2-d79b-4c1c...@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
Bill <broger...@gmail.com> wrote:
Nixon would probably make a better President than anyone we can expect
to get.
--
The Chinese pretend their goods are good and we pretend our money
is good, or is it the reverse?
Suzanne
there were a lot of people that voted a straight ticket. They ended
up electing someone that had died.
>
Suzanne
Suzanne
> In article
> <6aecd2e2-d79b-4c1c-8e00-12b2c98a6...@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
>
>
> Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 22 Mei, 05:10, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > <snip>
> > .
>
> > > I don't have a thousand other people opposing a translation of
> > > a verse in Hebrew or Greek. I only have a few of you opposing what
> > > I contributed to something one of you presented to me as what they
> > > believed was a Bible conflict.
> > .
>
> > > I have not had opposition to what I had said
> > > about the Hebrew and Greek, except in this thread. There are not
> > > "others" opposing me except a few in here.
>
> > What, are you kidding? Nixon will never get elected. I don't know
> > ANYBODY who's gonna vote for Nixon.
>
> > > Best Regards,
> > > Suzanne
>
> Nixon would probably make a better President than anyone we can expect
> to get.
>
He lowered the speed limit to 55 mph.
>
Bill
Whoosh!!! The point was that people who said "I don't know ANYBODY
who's gonna vote for Nixon" were liberals (like myself) who spent
most of their time talking about politics with fellow liberals. So
they almost never talked with anyone who was going to vote for Nixon.
They therefore had the false idea that he couldn't possibly get
elected.
Similarly, you mostly talk abou Bible interpretation (or translation
or searching for the original meaning) with your fellow evangelical
Christians. That's why you have the false impression that only a
handful of people disagree with you.
>
> Suzanne- Sembunyikan teks kutipan -
>
> - Perlihatkan teks kutipan -
Burkhard
Ah, a nice illustration of a point that I had tried to make earlier,
but I must admit that one was too subtle for me too - but then I'm not
American. I thought it was poking fun at Suzanne's tendency to
suddenly talk about something entirely different, without any apparent
connection to the issue, leaving everybody else confused :o)
alextangent
So why was 2011 the safest on record?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/new-cars/auto-news/us-motorists-enjoy-least-deadly-driving-year-since-1949/article1971022/
Obama will save more lives -- if he's allowed to introduce a 1st class
health service to replace the 3rd world affair that the US has now.
And I know of what I speak, having fallen ill twice while on business
in California. It's truly a rotten state of affairs.
Walter Bushell
<b204a2a2-8c00-497f...@j31g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
alextangent <bl...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>
> Obama will save more lives -- if he's allowed to introduce a 1st class
> health service to replace the 3rd world affair that the US has now.
> And I know of what I speak, having fallen ill twice while on business
> in California. It's truly a rotten state of affairs.
A good health care system would depress the profits of the insurance
companies, which will not be allowed.
Harry K
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Except the statistics don't show that.
Harry K
RMcBane
But he didn't lower the speed limit to save lives.
And one might argue that the time lost by driving slower speed off was
greater than the the time would have been lost by shortening lives due
to accidents if driving speeds were higher speeds. I recall the DOT did
a study while Dole was Secretary of DOT that concluded exactly that.
--
Richard McBane
Suzanne
> > > KJV, Numbers 15:32-36
>
> > > 32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found
> > > a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found
> > > him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the
> > > congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared
> > > what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man
> > > shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with
> > > stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without
> > > the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded
> > > Moses.
> > > Or is this just a parable?
> > Suzanne:
> > Hi Earle. I believe this was real because it mentions real people
> > coming to Moses. The instructions to the children of Israel in the
> > wilderness was that they were to gather manna on Friday for
> > two days. God would give them enough to gather so that on the
> > Sabbath they did not gather, and they also were not even to light
> > a fire. Any cooking was to be done the day before. But they were
> > supposed to be able to eat on the Sabbath day. Now, how does
> > a person eat? They have to pick up the food with their hands
> > somehow, and bring it to their mouths. Apparently that is not
> > considered work to lift the food with your hands and bring it
> > to their mouths. Jesus and the disciples were not picking corn
> > in order to cook it. I asked my father about that, and he said
> > that when they were growing up (they had to do things like
> > pick cotton - he is one of 11 children) if they were in the
> > fields working, they all carried a salt shaker in their back
> > pants pockets so that when it was time to eat, they would
> > pick tomatoes and or corn and eat it like that from the stalk.
>
> > Suzanne
>
> You're kidding, right?
>
> The issue is whether or not someone should be put to death for picking
> up sticks on the Sabbath. How does your answer address that?
>
The Ten Commandments show that you should not do any work on the
Sabbath day. Exodus 35:3 shows that you should not even kindle a fire
on the Sabbath day. When the man was found picking up pieces of
wood on the Sabbath day, the people that found him doing that knew
that it was because he had in mind cooking on the Sabbath. What I was
showing you above was that people ate the food from a corn field, or
even a wheat field, without breaking the law to build a fire and cook
on
the Sabbath day. So the fellow that was being critical of them for
getting
the corn on the Sabbath day, assumed they were breaking the law,
when they were not breaking the law. Jesus' answer to him was that
in the beginning, what the critic said that the law said, was not what
the
law really said. Jesus was letting the guy know that the original
reason
for the law had become lost because the people had become legalistic
about the law. My point was to show that even though they were getting
the corn (or wheat some say) from the field, was not to cook it, but
to
eat it right then and there. They did not have to light a fire to eat
it.
I'm also showing what many people do not realize, and that is that the
people will sometimes eat from a field without cooking what they are
eating. I did not know that people working in a field will eat these
things without cooking them, but my father, who grew up in a farming
community knew this and told me this. Jesus' answer to the man
shows that the original intent of the law was that people should not
cook on the Sabbath, which is what the idea of picking up sticks is
for. The man in the Exodus trip that was found picking up sticks was
breaking the law because it indicated that he or they were going to
cook on the Sabbath, which is against the law to cook on that day.
The man gathering the sticks knew that what he had done was
against the law. If the man had done that thing out of ignorance,
there was a different remedy for that, which was that the priest
should make a sin offering in his behalf. In this case it was
determined
that this man knew that he was breaking the law, apparently because
they knew that he had to die for breaking the law.
>
Suzanne
>
Randy C
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Wow. So many words.
So, yes or no, is it OK to put someone to death for picking up sticks
on the Sabbath?
AGW Facts
That is why political parties should be banned. One can teach a
chicken how to vote for political party members: humans who do it
are about as stupid as chickens.
Speaking of which, there was a chicken at the local casino that
played tic-tac-toe and always won or stalematted.
AGW Facts
wrote:
> On 5/22/2011 5:27 AM, Suzanne wrote:
> > On May 21, 7:52 pm, Walter Bushell<pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> In article
> >> <6aecd2e2-d79b-4c1c-8e00-12b2c98a6...@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
*CUTS*
> >> Nixon would probably make a better President than anyone we can expect
> >> to get.
> > He saved more lives than any other president. You know why?
> > He lowered the speed limit to 55 mph.
> But he didn't lower the speed limit to save lives.
> And one might argue that the time lost by driving slower speed off was
> greater than the the time would have been lost by shortening lives due
> to accidents if driving speeds were higher speeds. I recall the DOT did
> a study while Dole was Secretary of DOT that concluded exactly that.
That strikes me as amusing. And for the people who are upset by
the loss of life driving "slowly" inflicts upon them: KILL YOUR
TELEVISION! Television sucks the life out of people.
AGW Facts
Hell, that's NOTHING compared to the number of American lives
Nixon saved when he and his Congress created the EPA.
> So why was 2011 the safest on record?
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/new-cars/auto-news/us-motorists-enjoy-least-deadly-driving-year-since-1949/article1971022/
>
> Obama will save more lives -- if he's allowed to introduce a 1st class
> health service to replace the 3rd world affair that the US has now.
> And I know of what I speak, having fallen ill twice while on business
> in California. It's truly a rotten state of affairs.
"... in 2010 alone, EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act
saved more than 160,000 [American] lives, avoided more than
100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of
respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced US
productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept US
children healthy and in school."
On March 1, 2011, the EPA released a report that estimated, "...
the direct benefits from the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments are
estimated to reach almost $2 trillion [by] the year 2020, a figure
that dwarfs the direct costs of implementation ($65 billion)."
http://www.epa.gov/air/sect812/prospective2-2.html
No wonder the Republican Party hates the EPA: it protects human
life and saves money.
Bill
There are two possibilities (at least) here. Possibility #1. Jesus was
simply pointing out that the Law prohibits cooking, not eating, on the
Sabbath, and that therefore the people picking corn were not breaking
the Law. Possibility #2: Jesus was pointing out that, in case of real
human need, one could break some of the specific "legalistic"
provisions of the Law, ie. "The Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for
the Sabbath."
You seem to be arguing for possibility 1. Is that a translation or an
interpretation.
Or perhaps you are arguing for a stronger position, which would be
that the "letter of the Law" properly understood could never come in
conflict with real human need. That would mean that possibilities 1
and 2 always come to the same thing in the end. In fact, I'm willing
to bet that that is just what you'll say.
>They did not have to light a fire to eat
> it.
> I'm also showing what many people do not realize, and that is that the
> people will sometimes eat from a field without cooking what they are
> eating. I did not know that people working in a field will eat these
> things without cooking them, but my father, who grew up in a farming
> community knew this and told me this. Jesus' answer to the man
> shows that the original intent of the law was that people should not
> cook on the Sabbath, which is what the idea of picking up sticks is
> for. The man in the Exodus trip that was found picking up sticks was
> breaking the law because it indicated that he or they were going to
> cook on the Sabbath, which is against the law to cook on that day.
.
> The man gathering the sticks knew that what he had done was
> against the law.
Well, off with his head then. He should have known better.
Suzanne
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> On May 19, 9:31 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 12:57 pm, Earle Jones <earle.jo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > > In article
> > > <ba5ea745-7e6c-4532-ad55-2445d5cdd...@z19g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
>
> > > Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On May 15, 3:51 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > > > > On May 15, 7:42 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On May 14, 5:19 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On May 14, 10:48 am, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > > > using vague recipe instructions. You would not want to receive an
> > > > > > > > > electric bill that said "Give us some money or we will turn your
> > > > > > > > > electricity off. And if you don't get it right by guessing, that's
> > > > > > > > > too
> > > > > > > > > bad."
> > > > > > > > > You would not want vague non-literal instructions on how to take
> > > > > > > > > care
> > > > > > > > > of your car, in your car's operator's manual.
>
> > > > > > > > Is your argument that because literalism is sometimes appropriate
> > > > > > > > that
> > > > > > > > it is always appropriate? I trust you see how little sense that
> > > > > > > > makes.
>
> > > > > > > > I agree, I believe that my car owners manual is intended literally.
>
> > > > > > > Very often, they aren't - an if you read them literally, you are in
> > > > > > > trouble. When I did my military service, the manual said of one
> > > > > > > component: re-grease every 14 days. This however assumed that the
> > > > > > > vehicle was moved regularly - and they thought it was so obvious that
> > > > > > > it need not stating.
>
> > > > > > > We followed orders, read it literally, squeezed in more grease every
> > > > > > > 14 days, until it cracked.
>
> > > > > > > Not stating the obvious and leaving it to the reader to fill in gaps
> > > > > > > is something even the most technical and explicit manuals regularly do
> > > > > > > - often the source of frivolous litigation when someone doesn't ("the
> > > > > > > manual did not say: don't put poodles in the microwave for drying")
>
> > > > > > You did agree that under certain conditions the manual is right,
> > > > > > except
> > > > > > in the instance that you mentioned.
>
> > > > > No. I did not say anything about "right" at all. As a matter of fact,
> > > > > I think the manual was entirely right. What was wrong of us (wilfully
> > > > > wrong, I might add) was to read it literally, rather then to give it a
> > > > > purposive interpreation., a much better way to read most instructions.
>
> > > > > That was if the vehicle was moved
>
> > > > > > regularly. When Jesus was criticized by a passerby on the occasion
> > > > > > when he and the disciples got corn on the Sabbath day to eat from
> > > > > > a cornfield, Jesus replied to the person criticizing him that the
> > > > > > Sabbath
> > > > > > was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He said that it was not
> > > > > > so in the beginning. In other words the person doing the criticizing
> > > > > > had been holding to a truth that had been corrupted by a legalistic
> > > > > > interpretation. The Bible truly says that someone should not be
> > > > > > working on the Sabbath day, but Jesus showed that it was the wrong
> > > > > > understanding of the law that was the problem of the person that was
> > > > > > doing the criticizing.
>
> > > > > Can't quite see how this adds anything to the discussion, aprt from
> > > > > possibly the fact that the bible itself says in this apssage the
> > > > > literal interpretations are not a good idea. So we can put that down
> > > > > as another own goal for you?
>
> > > > This is not saying that the literal interpretations are not a good
> > > > idea.
> > > > It is saying that when someone criticized Jesus for picking an ear
> > > > of corn, saying that it is unlawful to do that on the Sabbath, this
> > > > literally happened. Jesus did not say that the man should not take
> > > > the Bible literally, he said that the man's beliefs did not represent
> > > > what keeping the Sabbath holy meant. He said that the idea that
> > > > man had about the law was corrupted from what it originally was.
> > > > He didn't say the man who criticized was corrupt but what the
> > > > law had become in that man's day, was not what it originally meant.
>
> > > > Regards,
> > > > Suzanne
>
> > > *
> > > Suzanne: Did this really happen?
>
> > > KJV, Numbers 15:32-36
>
> > > 32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found
> > > a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found
> > > him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the
> > > congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared
> > > what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man
> > > shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with
> > > stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without
> > > the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded
> > > Moses.
>
> > > Or is this just a parable?
>
>
> > > earle
>
> > Hi Earle. I believe this was real because it mentions real people
> > coming to Moses. The instructions to the children of Israel in the
> > wilderness was that they were to gather manna on Friday for
> > two days. God would give them enough to gather so that on the
> > Sabbath they did not gather, and they also were not even to light
> > a fire. Any cooking was to be done the day before. But they were
> > supposed to be able to eat on the Sabbath day. Now, how does
> > a person eat? They have to pick up the food with their hands
> > somehow, and bring it to their mouths. Apparently that is not
> > considered work to lift the food with your hands and bring it
> > to their mouths. Jesus and the disciples were not picking corn
> > in order to cook it. I asked my father about that, and he said
> > that when they were growing up (they had to do things like
> > pick cotton - he is one of 11 children) if they were in the
> > fields working, they all carried a salt shaker in their back
> > pants pockets so that when it was time to eat, they would
> > pick tomatoes and or corn and eat it like that from the stalk.
>
> added only when someone pointed out that if the Jews were stuck in the
> desert for forty years, they'd have pretty quickly starved. Then
> someone pointed out that collecting manna on the Sabbath wouldn't be
> allowed, either.
>
Manna wasn't added as a concession of something like that. God told
them about the manna, Robert, and he gave them instructions about it.
Desert scientists can tell you that it grows on the plants under
certain
conditions. It's a fungus kind of thing, which is what a mushroom is,
too.
It sounds awful to think that they were eating a fungus sort of thing,
but
we don't usually balk at the flavor of mushrooms. Mushrooms are
actually a fungus! Whatever manna was it was very edible, and quite
apparently nutritious. One time they got really tired of manna
though,
and when they did, God sent them doves to eat. We also know that
there are psychedelic mushrooms, and yet there is no case in the
Exodus trip that sounds like anyone was reeling from having eaten the
manna. It tasted like coriander seed, but when dried and ground up,
it could be made into a wafer that tasted like honey. Yet, if it was
kept
in it's natural state, it would melt and stink and rapidly decay. If
you
have ever purchased mushrooms from the grocery store, you know
that they do not last long in the refrigerator.
>
OK now....listen to this. You are wondering if something can exist
like
this manna from heaven that is described. There is a mushroom that
does exist and it is called the psilycybe mushroom, that fits the
exact
description of the biblical manna. Manna means "what is it." The
psilocybe mushroom though, is a psychedelic mushroom. That does
not mean that there is not one that is not psychedelic, so don't jump
to conclusions. There is no indication that the manna caused any
kind of altered state. We eat mushrooms in our foods and they are
not psychedelic inducing drugs. You can see from these articles,
though, the existence of something that is like what is described in
the Bible about manna, and you can see from this that the people in
the Exodus could easily have had access to a similar kind of food.
At least you can see that it is possible that manna was a real food
that grew up overnight, and that they had access to. Moses was not
surprised when he saw the manna, and some think he probably had
encountered it when he was taking care of his father-in-law Jethro's
flooks on the "backside" of the desert. Some of this area they were
in during the Exodus we know was moist because when they built
the Suez Canal, a lot of it dried up and contributed to what we
know of as the growth of the Sahara Desert.
>
>
> Also, what sticks was that guy gathering, anyway?
>
> <http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/torah/twotrad.html> apparently
> considers the stick story, and others, to be internal inconsistencies
> in Exodus, since God told Moses /earlier/ that people who do stuff on
> the Sabbath have to be killed, but here they ask God again. Although
> I'd be inclined to accept that they were sceptical that he really
> meant it, so they asked again.
>
It's not inconsistent, the sticks were used to build fires for the
purposes of cooking. You can read about them not being
supposed to cook on the Sabbath in Exodus 35:3. They were
not to even start a fire. That's what the wood would have been
for that the man was gathering. He was put to death, not for the
actual touching of the wood, but because he was going to build a
fire to cook on the Sabbath, most probably. When you read
Exodus 35:3, you can figure that out.
>
> I don't think that my personal insight that the point in-story of the
> whole wilderness forty years thing was so that all of the golden calf
> people would be dead after all, either of old age or due to doing some
> other thing that God didn't like, before anyone was allowed into
> Canaan, has any foothold amongst serious scholars. But the way I see
> it, this God can afford to wait. In the end he gets what he wants -
> one way or the other, you die.
>
The golden calf people who would not repent died immediately in the
desert because of an earthquake. Moses asked all those that were
going to continue with him to come get up with him, and those that
refused....the ground opened up and swallowed them in an earthquake.
The reason that they wandered for 40 years is that they would not go
into the Holy Land at Kadesh-Barnea. Do you know that place we
always read about in the newspaper as sending bombs and missiles
to Jerusalem, known as the Golan Heights? It is where Hebron is.
Hebron is where the false "Tomb of the Patriots" is. Underneath
that false tomb is the real place, the Cave of Machpelah, where
Abraham bought it for Sarah's burial. It is also/ and was in his day,
supposed to be filled with his ancestors, too. When it says in the
Bible, "And (whomever) slept this his fathers," this is the place that
it was talking about. It is entry into the Jerusalem area of Israel.
Well, Kadesh-Barnea is just south of that place, and yet they did not
want to enter because of the giants that lived there. Hebron was the
place that Goliath was from. It formerly was called "Arba" which was
the ancestor of Goliath (this is all in the Bible). Remember in the
story of them not wanting to enter into the Holy Land that way, that
they sent in spies which included Joshua and Caleb, and they
brought back grapes on a cluster that was so heavy that it took
muscles of several men to even carry it on poles? Those were the
"Grapes of Eschol?" Well, Eshcol was a guy that had this vineyard,
really near to where Hebron and the Cave of Machpelah was
located.
>
So, see, while you are thinking God was so cruel to them, they
had a chance to enter the Holy Land before any 40 years journey,
and they refused it.
>
We in our own lives make choices that parallel this. We try to make
the right choices, but we can look back and see where we made
choices where we could have made better ones. But because we
made the ones that we did make, we make things harder for
ourselves. These were real people living this life that is recorded
in the Bible. But they are there for us to learn from, too. What they
went through to illustrate how one should live the right way, are
there for all of us to see and compare ourselves with.
>
> <http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
> long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
>
I was interested in that too, and read a lot about it. The Bible says
that they didn't have to go through mud though. It says that God sent
a wind that dried out the ground. There are a couple of places that
are speculated about as to where they crossed the Red Sea. One
version is that when they crossed the Yam Sup (Red Sea) it was a
more marshy place that was not yet a desert until the Suez Canal
caused it to dry up. The ones that believe it was there, are talking
about the area between the Sinai Penensula and Egypt on the
north of that land. Oh, and also they render that the word "Red" in
Red Sea is really "Reed," because in that area a lot of reeds
would have grown up in the Sea, being that it was closer to a
marshy kind of land. But there is another location that sounds
more like it to me, and that is further south near the southern
end of the Sinai Peninsula. There is a known shelf in the
seafloor that when there is a strong eastern wind, will acutally
cause the sea to split and it dries out the seafloor. There is a
story of Napoleon's having encountered that phenominon one
time. Being that he must've been egotistical, I guess he believed
that he was God's man, and knew the story of the sea dividing,
and he believed he could ride his horse down into it. He did so,
according to the story and the sea started to turn in on him, and
he and the horse barely made it out alive. This location has
been shown on TV quite a few times as the possible location
where they could have crossed.
>
The crossing location is at Nuwabia on the East side of the
Sinai Peninsula. There is a plate underneath the Gulf of Aqaba
there that shifts. The Bible said that an east wind blew strongly
all night and dried out the ground between the wall of water on
one side and the other side of this landbridge. This is also the
location of two giant columns that were supposed to have
been placed there by Solomon, which in modern times have
been taken down (And why would they do that!). Ron Wyatt
found that place, saw the columns, told people about them,
but the location was known before he went there, and there
were chariot wheels found in the seafloor before he was
there that were shown on TV many years ago. Wyatt and
some other divers found chariot wheels there, as well as
publishing information about the columns. This is where
Napoleon also is supposed to have entered the sea on his
horse. It's hard to find the story online because when you
type in Napoleon, Red Sea, you get information about a
fish in the Red Sea called a Napoleon Wrasse. But you
can find the story online.
>
The problem with the location of Nuwabia is that after crossing
the Red Sea, the Israelites then went to the waters of Marah,
which is a body of water that was "bitter," and that is up nearer
the top part of Sinai Peninsula. Unless it was another body of
bitter water, they would not have run back to the top of the
Sinai Peninsula after crossing over into Saudi Arabia. They
know about bitter waters over on the west side of the Sinai,
near to where the Suez Canal now is, just north of that, and
also Elim, the place with the 12 springs is over in that area,
also. So it's more likely that they crossed from Egypt to the
Sinai. The tree that likely was what sweetened the waters
of Marah was likely to be the shrub called a Moringa. It
is similar to the shrub we have in the parts of coastal areas
in many places in the world called the mangrove, which
helps purify water in brackish areas where fresh water
mingles with salt water at the mouths of rivers emptying
into the sea.
>
The moringa was plentiful in the Northern Sinai area before
the Suez Canal was built and before the land got more of
the growing Sahara Desert. I found (on the Internet) that
a woman that lived in Egypt long ago, had some tablets
written upon that listed a recipe for wrinkles, from supplies
she could get probably from the Sinai Peninsula, and in it
was listed "Moringa," because of it's purifying properties.
Now the moringa is located growing futher to the south.
In her day it evidently was abundant earlier.
>
Suzanne
Bill
<snip>
.
>
> It's not inconsistent, the sticks were used to build fires for the
> purposes of cooking. You can read about them not being
> supposed to cook on the Sabbath in Exodus 35:3. They were
> not to even start a fire. That's what the wood would have been
> for that the man was gathering. He was put to death, not for the
> actual touching of the wood, but because he was going to build a
> fire to cook on the Sabbath, most probably. When you read
> Exodus 35:3, you can figure that out.
OK, this is clear, no interpretation required. The God whom you think
is the source of all goodness and morality requires capital punishment
for someone who was going to build a cooking fire on the Sabbath. And
we're supposed to think this is OK because he wasn't killed for
touching the wood, but for wanting to make a cooking fire? Think about
this. Imagine it in your mind. Think of real human beings. Think about
killing another human being because he wanted to cook a meal on the
Sabbath. Imagine him asking for mercy. Imagine the look on his face.
Imagine the cries of his family. And then remember why you are about
to kill him. For cooking.
When I and others tell you we think the Bible is a lousy source of
morality this is exactly the sort of thing that we mean. There are
many other examples, but this one is fine. Why on earth would you want
to worship a god who tells you to kill someone for cooking on the
Sabbath? That is simply wrong and barbaric. You, Suzanne, wouldn't
really do such a thing. Why would you want to worship a God who wold
command it?
>
>
<snip>
Suzanne
> > <http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
> > long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> > point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> > passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> > estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> > that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
>
> Both estimates use 2 million Israelites. That’s a REALLY big number,
> especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
> ago (seehttp://www.crivoice.org/exodusdate.html). According tohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimatesthere were
> only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
> So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
>
> How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
> Egyptian records.
>
Solomon put them up at what he believed was the crossing of the Red
Sea were taken down in recent years. It's also interesting that after
Hatshepsut reigned in Egypt (22 years, approx.,) that her image was
defaced and any mention of her was tried to be obliterated from the
record. It's also interesting that her
fabulous mortuary was covered up with sand before they could find it
and
obliterate it and deface it. Then there is the famous occurrence we
all know about when Zahi Hawass was going to go into the room that is
under the
sphinx and reveal to the world what was in there. We all tuned in on
what was supposed to be a view into that place and he evidently was
not allowed to do
that. Some think he was not allowed to do that. It's also interesting
that the Egyptian chronology has some problems, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut
>
Suzanne
Randy C
> > especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
> > ago (seehttp://www.crivoice.org/exodusdate.html). According tohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimatestherewere
> > only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
> > So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
> > How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
> > Egyptian records.
> Yeah, isn't it?
Actually it is not very strange at all if you accept the obvious
conclusion:
The Exodus account in the Bible is nothing but a myth.
> It's also interesting that the columns that read that
> Solomon put them up at what he believed was the crossing of the Red
> Sea were taken down in recent years.
Unsupported assertion noted.
In other words, you've made a claim without a shred of supporting
evidence.
But then, you are a creationist...
> It's also interesting that after
> Hatshepsut reigned in Egypt (22 years, approx.,) that her image was
> defaced and any mention of her was tried to be obliterated from the
> record.
Totally irrelevant comment noted.
What POSSIBLE relevance does the defacing of a single image have to do
with a complete lack of records of 5% of the entire population of the
Earth migrating?
The most reasonable conclusion is, therefore, that the Exodus account
in the Bible is nothing but a myth.
> It's also interesting that her
> fabulous mortuary was covered up with sand before they could find it
> and
> obliterate it and deface it.
See above.
The most reasonable conclusion is, therefore, that the Exodus account
in the Bible is nothing but a myth.
> Then there is the famous occurrence we
> all know about when Zahi Hawass was going to go into the room that is
> under the
> sphinx and reveal to the world what was in there. We all tuned in on
> what was supposed to be a view into that place and he evidently was
> not allowed to do
> that. Some think he was not allowed to do that. It's also interesting
> that the Egyptian chronology has some problems,
> too.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut
More totally irrelevant comments noted.
The most reasonable conclusion is, therefore, that the Exodus account
in the Bible is nothing but a myth.
So we seem to agree that the Exodus story in the Bible is nothing but
a myth.
Right?
Randy C
The problem is obvious.
Creationists will not accept ANY flaws in the Bible.
But...
In order to meet the goal of no flaws in the Bible, creationists are
MORE than willing to accept flaws in God's character.
In fact, they are completely willing to accept a God who is cruel,
deceptive and incompetent.
But they are NOT willing to accept a Bible with a single flawed
passage.
Strange...
Bill
If you mean to say that there's been a clever conspiracy to hide all
ancient Egyptian records of the Exodus feel free to come out and say
it.
Klaus Hellnick
You idiot! California has one of the most socialized health care systems
in the US; probably only behind D.C. and Hawaii.
California is bankrupt because of the cost of all the social programs
plus the persecution of private businesses. Michigan is in a similar
condition.
Klaus
Suzanne
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> On May 19, 3:09 pm, Randy C <randyec...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > > <http://creation.com/red-sea-crossing> provides two versions of how
> > > long it would take to move the Jews across the Red Sea, which is a
> > > point I got interested in a while back; but read the relevant bible
> > > passage first, then the argument, then decide. Alternatively,
> > > estimate their speed, from the other facts stated and argued. Note
> > > that it should be slower than a top-grade horse-drawn Egyptian war
> > > chariot, which presumably is slower than a horse. And through mud.
>
> > Both estimates use 2 million Israelites. That’s a REALLY big number,
> > especially considering that this supposedly took place some 3500 years
> > ago (see <http://www.crivoice.org/exodusdate.html>). According to
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates> there were
> > only about 40 million people alive on the entire Earth at that time!
> > So that’s roughly 5% of the entire Earth’s population.
>
> > How strange, then, that no records of the Exodus appear in any secular
> > Egyptian records.
>
> without taking account of God smiting sinners the whole time. Like
> maybe right before Noah's flood there were 7 billion people alive.
> Right after, I dunno, eight? Eight people?
>
> But there's a hard figure of 600,000 men, adult males. 1.5% of your
> world population already.
>
> I think most of the tribal headcounts in Numbers and Deuteronomy are
> suspiciously round numbers, if they were to be taken as true and exact
> figures. I wonder whether the tribes traded members around, or if God
> carefully smote the right number of sinners - and arranged births at
> the right times - to make these important statistics conveniently easy
> to memorise. Relatively so, that is.- Hide quoted text -
>
Hi Robert. The counts come from the Bible.
Exodus 38:25 - 26:
25. "The silver obtained from those of the community who were counted
in the census was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels, according to the
sanctuary shekel--
26. one beka per person, that is, half a shekel, according to the
sanctuary shekel, from everyone who had crossed over to those counted,
twenty years old or more, a total of 603,550 men."
See this whole page to get an idea of this. Information is in several
books, not just one:
http://bible.cc/exodus/30-12.htm
>
Suzanne
Ilas
news:6bfb5a35-b639-4ad0...@l26g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
> On May 20, 4:05 am, Ilas <nob...@this.address.com> wrote:
>> Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote
>> innews:c676ac2a-8786-46d6...@m10g2000yqd.googlegroups.c
>> om:
>>
>> > On May 17, 4:01 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>> >> I have once again no idea what you mean. What "it" are you talking
>> >> about. _Your_ claim was that cook book instructions have to be so
>> >> clear that they don't require interpretation. I pointed out, with
>> >> a quote from one of my cook books, that this is simply not true.
>> >> Most cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty.
>>
>> > Now that's novel. You buy cookbooks that only give vague measures.
>> > Why would you do that?
>>
>> He didn't say that. You've interpreted it incorrectly. See how easy
>> it is to do that?
>>
> No I haven't. He said "most cookbooks I know use vague terms aplenty."
Yes, he did. But you didn't read it as that, you read it as "only", which
changes the meaning completely. In other words, you interpreted it
incorrectly. That happens a lot when people pass stories and information
on, even when there are no language difficulties.
> I have many, many cookbooks and they don't use vague terms.
So? What difference does that make to your interpretation of what
Burkhard said? I've never seen a black swan.
> They
> use pretty precise measures. The word "measures" was applied due
> to something eariier that he said about taking "some" flour, etc.
I know you like folksy little stories, so here's one. When my niece was
three, I told her not to cross the road, turned round and there she was
on the other side of the road. She flat out denied she'd crossed the
road, even though we could all see quite clearly she had. Suzanne, for
once just say "OK, you've got me. I crossed the road". You see, we can
all see what you've done, we're not stupid.
alextangent
>
> > Obama will save more lives -- if he's allowed to introduce a 1st class
> > health service to replace the 3rd world affair that the US has now.
> > And I know of what I speak, having fallen ill twice while on business
> > in California. It's truly a rotten state of affairs.
>
> You idiot!
Yes, I know, silly old me for falling sick.
> California has one of the most socialized health care systems
> in the US; probably only behind D.C. and Hawaii.
> California is bankrupt because of the cost of all the social programs
> plus the persecution of private businesses. Michigan is in a similar
> condition.
All told, my treatment cost my company $1200 first time round; and
$300 the second, for a 30min consultation & prescription that I
subsequently discovered on my return to the UK was not only a
misdiagnosis, but included chemicals ($90) that were not fixing
anything. I didn't see the social aspect of US medicine at all; this
was entirely private.
> Klaus
Arkalen
For one thing, they didn't have corn (in the sense of maize) or
tomatoes in that place and time so that's pretty irrelevant. And wheat
grains right off the stalk aren't much of a meal. Manna might be a
different story, but manna was Magic so there's no need to compare it
to real-life situations.
But anyway you still haven't answered the question. Do you think it's
right to impose the death penalty for picking sticks or cooking on one
day of the week ?
alextangent
I think Suzanne will come back with one I've heard occasionally
before; the New T supersedes the Old, and Jesus was sent to change the
old order. It was all badness until he arrived; then sweetness and
light.
Burkhard
No, I offered that interpretation to her, but she rejected it explicitly
- it would have meant that the NT story in question is an explicit
endorsement of purposive interpretation of rules, rejecting the older
literal interpretation.
alextangent
While watching Suzanne's specialty of digging a square and sorta round
'oles, I must have missed her declaration of absolute squareness and
simultaneous perfect circularity on this one.
I'm still mystified why so many people find this book the source of
inspiration. It takes a peculiar set of arguments to support the
murder of a Sunday chef.
Suzanne
> On May 20, 9:50 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 9:50 pm, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On May 17, 8:31 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On May 14, 5:14 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > On May 14, 9:03 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On May 13, 2:19 am, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On 13 Mei, 13:47, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > To a large degree the debate is about whether or not the Bible can be
> > > > > > > > > trusted. Suzanne is therefore engaging in the logical fallacy called
> > > > > > > > > begging the question .
>
> > > > > > > > Well, not exactly, but almost. You see, I gave my life to the Lord,
> > > > > > > > and
> > > > > > > > put my trust in him for salvation about the same time that I began to
> > > > > > > > learn to read. A child that makes that decison on his own still has to
> > > > > > > > grow up in this world, and he or she sees people struggling to
> > > > > > > > understand life and the Christian child goes through things himself
> > > > > > > > in order to learn.
>
> > > > > > > .
>
> > > > > > > >One of the reasons you don't believe is probably
> > > > > > > > because of liberalism in some denominations of Christianity.
>
> > > > > > > Change the "b" to a "t" and you might be right.
>
> > > > > > There are some things that need to be literal. Do you know what
> > > > > > "torah" means? It means "law," and therefore "instruction." For
> > > > > > instructions you
> > > > > > need literalism.
>
> > > > > degree is taught intensively (my students study it for one year, three
> > > > > lectures a week) , and it is one of the disciplines that has developed
> > > > > over centuries the most detailed theory of interpretation possible.
> > > > > "Literal reading" is in the standard model just one amongst several
> > > > > "canons" of interpretation, side by side the historical, the
> > > > > teleological, the contextual, the audience oriented. etc 9up to 27,
> > > > > depending on school and jurisdiction)
> > > > > (Jonathon R. Macey & Geoffrey P.Miller, The Canons of Statutory
> > > > > Construction and Judicial Preferences, 45
> > > > > VAND.L.REV. 647, 647 (1992))
>
> > > > > Mastering the skill of legal interpretation is one of the reasons you
> > > > > have to the a professional lawyer and give him huge amounts of money -
> > > > > if it were just a question of reading a text, everybody could do it.
> > > > > Unsurprisingly, entire books have been written just on the method of
> > > > > appropriate legal interpretation.n the US e.g. the two volume
> > > > > treatise: Sutherland Statutes and Statutory Construction, currently
> > > > > edited by Norman J Singer, J.D. Shambie Singer, See e.g. Sinclair,
> > > > > Michael, "Llewellyn's Dueling Canons, One to Seven: A Critique". New
> > > > > York Law School Law Review, Vol. 51, Fall 2006 for the different
> > > > > methods used in legal interpretation, and how they can result in
> > > > > conflicting interpretation s of the same text.
>
> > > > > The standard example we give our students comes from H.L.A Hart, who
> > > > > argued that every legal norm has a core meaning and then a penumbra of
> > > > > doubt; His example: If the rule says: "no vehicles are permitted in
> > > > > the park", are toy model vehicles banned? Wheelchairs? A disfunctional
> > > > > tank for a veteran memorial? A remote controlled electric toy?
>
> > > > > The text alone won't tell you, for this you need to interpret it in
> > > > > its context, using additional information
> > > > > (Hart, H. L. A. (1958). "Positivism and the Separation of Law and
> > > > > Morals". Harvard Law Review 71 (4): 593 629)
>
> > > > > >You would not wa
> > > > > >nt someone to make you a meal
> > > > > > using vague recipe instructions.
>
> > > > > isntructions: "Take some flour" (how much?), cook for desired texture
> > > > > (what?) etc etc.
>
> > > > Burkhard, thank you for explaining to me your perspective. You don't
> > > > have to go to that extent to understand the Bible. Children can
> > > > understand it. If you
> > > > don't understand something, you go to something that you can
> > > > understand.
> > > > The Holy Spirit helps someone to understand it. The things that I've
> > > > written
> > > > in the last few posts are crystal clear to most people. How is it that
> > > > you all
> > > > are so blindingly brilliant about some things, but can't grasp what
> > > > things I
> > > > have been saying? It's not that vague as "take some flour" as you
> > > > write
> > > > above.
>
> > > > OK...I see that you all will heckle me, and take a view against what I
> > > > say.
> > > > Or give me a hard time about my viewpoints. That is obvious. But, when
> > > > someone explains what someone says they don't get about the Bible in
> > > > here, why is it that the explanations are turned away? No one is
> > > > allowed
> > > > to be right, only the unbelievers. They say "we can't understand
> > > > this."
> > > > So people explain it and I've seen perfectly correct explanations get
> > > > turned away. The ones objecting to the explanations sound like they
> > > > just can't understand something but boy if an explanation is given
> > > > they
> > > > suddenly get so smart and know more, supposedly, than the person or
> > > > persons trying to explain the verses to them.
>
> > > > You are giving the impression with this post, that someone has to have
> > > > a law degree and then also take your classes for over a year, three
> > > > times
> > > > a week, in order to ever understand the words in the Bible. It just
> > > > isn't
> > > > so. So what are you saying all this for?
>
> > > > Suzanne
>
> > > Burkhard is not heckling you. He is merely pointing out that what you
> > > think of as "just reading what the Bible says, without interpretation"
> > > is more complex than you seem to think. You yourself do not simply
> > > read the text and understand it based on the simple dictionary meaning
> > > of individual words. Your goal, as you yourself say, is to understand
> > > the "original meaning." You do that by putting each individual verse
> > > into context within the chapter and book in which it occurs, by
> > > looking at other sections of the Bible, by applying what you know, or
> > > think you know about the history of the period (e.g. the Eye of a
> > > Needle market gate in Syria) or linguistics, to understand what is
> > > written and to get back to "the original meaning."
>
> > > Neither Burkhard nor I claim that there is anything at all wrong in
> > > your doing that. Everybody does that whenever they read anything, even
> > > a recipe or a law book. The only thing that strikes us as odd is your
> > > intense resistance to calling what you are doing "interpretation," as
> > > though interpretation were some tricky liberal way to "water down" the
> > > Bible. Everybody has to interpret everything that they read. It is
> > > absolutely unavoidable. And many people of good will may come to
> > > different conclusions about what the "original meaning" of a text is,
> > > whether that text is the Bible, a political essay, or the US
> > > Constitution. What is slightly off putting, I must admit, is the
> > > implication that you, Suzanne, read the text simply and get to its
> > > original meaning easily, just like a child, with the help of the Holy
> > > Spirit, while anyone who gets a different "original meaning" from the
> > > text must be engaging in "interpretation."- Hide quoted text -
>
> .
>
>
>
> > I can't get it without the Lord's help. Bill, you did say that when I
> > wrote what I did about the verbs showing degrees of comparison that
> > you saw some
> > others that had the same opinion. I didn't consult them, and they
> > didn't
> > consult me. So how could we come up with identical opinions?
>
> I think that when you say "I can't get it without the Lord's help,"
> that you are saying that a plain, literal reading of the text does not
> get you to the original meaning. If such a plain reading could indeed
> get you to the original meaning, you wouldn't need the Lord's help. It
> sounds a lot like you are saying that the Lord guides you to a correct
> interpretation. If the meaning were obvious, you'd hardly need to call
> in an all-powerful spirit to explain it to you.
>
No, Bill, that is not what I meant. I meant that even though I can see
all that you say, I want it to be what the Lord is telling me that it
is.
I want his viewpoint.
>
> What do you conclude when your interpretation of some verse in the
> Bible differs from that of another Christian? How do you tell who is
> getting the straight scoop from the Holy Spirit and who is wrongly
> convinced that the Holy Spirit has given them a correct understanding
> of the original meaning?
>
If we are talking about the purest form of meaning from the original
language, that would be translating, not interpreting. If I were to
explain what a verse meant by paraphrase that would be more like
an interpretation. I could translate something and then for a person
that does not understand then I could interpret if it was necessary.
But if we are talking only about the purest meaning of the original
words, that is what translating is, according to people that do this
professionally with biblical translating.
>
...And you asked what would I conclude if my interpretation is
different from another Christian's? I presume here you mean
translating? If I was sure that what I had said was the Lord's
meaning, if he had shown me his meaning, I would conclude
that I should stand up for what the Lord had shown me that he
means by that verse. However I would try to do that in as
respectful manner as was possible. If the other person insists
he is right, the Lord could work in the hearts of the hearers
that would listen to him.
>
>
> Yes, many people have interpreted Jesus' "hate your parents" bit as
> meaning "love me more than you love your parents," and, in support of
> that view they have made the argument you advance about Rachel and
> Leah. Perhaps a spirit sent the same opinion to all of you, but more
> likely, this is simply a traditional interpretation of a "hard saying"
> of Jesus, that is widespread in your religious tradition; it got
> started by someone a few hundred years ago and has spread; that's why
> you agree about it. I disagree with that interpretation of both
> sayings, but yours is not obviously wrong.
>
> On the other hand you still seem not to have gotten the point that the
> simple grammatical claim that "Hebrew has no way to express
> comparisons except by the use of opposites" is simply false. It may be
> that sometimes, for rhetorical emphasis, someone wrote, in Hebrew,
> "hate" to mean "love less." It is just amazing to me, though, that you
> cannot separate the two issues, one a grammatical issue about the
> Hebrew language, and the other an issue of the meaning of a particular
> verse.
>
You are not representing what I was talking about. I was talking about
ancient Hebrew not using the same grammatical form that we use in
English to show degrees of comparison. Their sentence is not formed
the way that we form a sentence to show this. They use opposite verbs
to do this. I wrote out the Hebrew words in order as they are written
in
the original tongue, and people could see that what was written is
that
"Jacob loved Rachel Leah, and that Jacob it says "hated Leah." It was
very obvious that this Hebrew sentence was not written like a sentence
in English. We don't say "I love Danny Brenda and I hate Brenda."
Next,
I showed attention to the strongly opposite verbs which are
" 'ahab," (love) and "sane' " (hate). These are verbs. They are not
adjectives or adverbs. In Hebrew if it was with adjectives or adverbs,
that can be expressed in degrees. But these words "love" and "hate"
in this case are used as verbs. So the idea is to translate and not
to interpret, according to the professional translators.
>
Your idea that so many people got this wrong, because someone
way back when started teaching it wrong. You assumed that all
people that said something similar to what I said, got this from
others. Where are you getting this idea from that they got it from
others? Why wouldn't you conclude that each got the information
independently of each other? Also, why haven't you figured out
that the person you are speaking of from long ago also got his
information independently from the same source that they rest
of us got it from? What is your thinking? Are you skeptical because
you say they are saying the same thing that I am saying, so you
can't believe we would each come up with something the same
independently of one another without having read it from a
common source? Why would you conclude that? Is it because
you are skeptical? : D
>
Best Regars,
Suzanne
Suzanne
> On May 19, 8:55 pm, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 10:51 pm, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > different churches, sects, cults, etc. all claiming to be "Christian"
> > > and each and every one certain that they have the only _true_ meaning
> > > of the bible.
>
> > > Harry K
>
> > Harry, "interpretation," instead of seeking the true meaning of
> > "translation," is exactly why we have so many denominations.
>
> > Suzanne- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> cults, off-shoots, have the "correct" translation? They can all be
> right but each one is sure they are the one with the 'on true
> version'.
>
> Harry K- Hide quoted text -
>
The problem is not the translation so much as it is the understanding
of the translation. I think that just reading the Bible would clear up
a lot of it. There are many things they do believe alike though.
>
Suzanne
Burkhard
Mhh, debatable. I dare say if someone came to you saying: "Far out
man, your strawberry bush just talked to me.. Woah, and then suddenly
it was on fire, only afterwards it wasn't burned, like. Your
strawberries are way cool, man" you would "probably" recommend a drug
test.
The scientists that you refer to, who identified "manna" as Psilocybe
cubensis, argue exactly like that ; They start with the observation
that there are lots of examples in the OT, especially regarding Moses,
that have the ha;marks of drug induced hallucination. They then argue
that this is a common feature in religions at that time or at that
level of civilisational progress.
The identification of manna with Psilocybe cubensis is then only a
last step which they offer as evidence for this interpretation.
You find this argument e.g. here Wasson, R. Gordon, Stella Kramrisch,
Jonathan Ott, and Carl A. P. Ruck. Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and
the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
or here:
Dan Mercur: 2000. The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of
the Bible. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.
Personally, I find the manna argument very weak, while generally
sympathetic to the entheogenic interpretation that they offer (and
which is also documented in some of the more spiritual schools o early
rabbinic thinking) But there is just not enough detail in the text to
make the identification plausible.
>It tasted like coriander seed, but when dried and ground up,
> it could be made into a wafer that tasted like honey. Yet, if it was
> kept
> in it's natural state, it would melt and stink and rapidly decay. If
> you
> have ever purchased mushrooms from the grocery store, you know
> that they do not last long in the refrigerator.
>
> OK now....listen to this. You are wondering if something can exist
> like
> this manna from heaven that is described. There is a mushroom that
> does exist and it is called the psilycybe mushroom, that fits the
> exact
> description of the biblical manna.
Well, it is one of several candidates put forward by people who prefer
a natural explanation over a miracle. They all work "sort of" - they
share some features with manna as described in the Bible, and they
have some etymological justification, but given how little detail the
text provides, they're all rather inconclusive.
For one thing, al the substances identified have very low nutritional
value psilycybe would make you forget about hunger and pain for a
while - but you can't really live from it. This would fit into the use
of drugs documented in many cultures, including cultures nearby -
think about the chewing of Khat, but it only works as a temporary fix.
You don't feel hungry, but your body remembers it is cheated.
Another candidate for Manna is tamarisk resin, which is sweet,
yellowish and generally closer to the biblical description than
psilycybe. again, not very nutritious (essentially sugar) and still
sold today as a sweat in the area. But apart from the low nutritional
value, you would also not fidn enough for 600000 people - a problem
with all the candidates. This is that favourite of the Jewish
encyclopaedia, and I think still the most mainstream contender.
It might also have been crystallized honeydew that certain insects
leave behind, or the vegetative tissue of some lichens. This last one
has the advantage that it is known to have been used as food source by
some nomadic cultures (though more in Asia) As with the tamarisk
resin, it has the advantage that it tastes sweet, matching te "honey"
description in the bible. Nobody however would describe psilycybe
mushrooms as honey tasting, they are rather bitter.
>Manna means "what is it."
Again, this is one possible etymological derivation (more precisely,
from the question "What (on earth) is _that_ ) The actual derivation
is extremely problematic, and it is unclear what the source language
would have been - possibly a variation of Aramaic. The Tamarisk
proposal e.g. traces it back to an Egyptian word, mannu, meaning food,
the honeydew school links it to the Arabic term man, "lice",. all of
them are possible etymological derivations, all of them are pretty
weak and rely more on guesswork than documented connections.
>The
> psilocybe mushroom though, is a psychedelic mushroom. That does
> not mean that there is not one that is not psychedelic,
Well yes, it pretty much means that...
I think you are missing Robert's point here. the inconsistency is not
the rule against lighting a fire on the Sabbath itself, but why they
had to ask about this rule, when they had been told so before.
There are several possible solutions to the problem. One is that the
time line got mangled, and some of the texts of the OT are in the
wrong order.
Another is that two inconsistent sources are used for the two
passages.
A third, as Robert indicates, is that given the severity of the
punishment, they feel it prudent to ask if they understood the rule
correctly "God, are you sure you meant..."
another is that the question here is merely procedural or rhetorical,
the way a judge asks the jury: "did you reach verdict" when at that
point he already knows, and this is only for the benefit of the
audience.
and yet another is that the author is using the question as a
pedagogical device ("I'm glad you ask me" or "Is it right that
someone should be killed for... I hear you ask" Using questions like
this is a common device in educational texts in any cultures (cf e.g.
the Socratic "dialogues")
The last three options all seem perfectly reasonable, and make the
apparent contradiction go away. I woudl probably go with the
procedural one, as it is closer to the text than the "rhetorical
question" device and the "let's ask the boss again if he is serious"
reeks of insubordination, soemthing the writers would probably have
commented on.
>He was put to death, not for the
> actual touching of the wood, but because he was going to build a
> fire to cook on the Sabbath, most probably. When you read
> Exodus 35:3, you can figure that out.
>
<snip>
Suzanne
> On May 20, 10:55 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 10:51 pm, Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On May 16, 7:50 pm, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > > > > On May 14, 5:14 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On May 14, 9:03 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On May 13, 2:19 am, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > On 13 Mei, 13:47, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > > To a large degree the debate is about whether or not the Bible can be
> > > > > > > > > > trusted. Suzanne is therefore engaging in the logical fallacy called
> > > > > > > > > > “begging the question”.
>
> > > > > > > > > Well, not exactly, but almost. You see, I gave my life to the Lord,
> > > > > > > > > and
> > > > > > > > > put my trust in him for salvation about the same time that I began to
> > > > > > > > > learn to read. A child that makes that decison on his own still has to
> > > > > > > > > grow up in this world, and he or she sees people struggling to
> > > > > > > > > understand life and the Christian child goes through things himself
> > > > > > > > > in order to learn.
>
> > > > > > > > .
>
> > > > > > > > >One of the reasons you don't believe is probably
> > > > > > > > > because of liberalism in some denominations of Christianity.
>
> > > > > > > > Change the "b" to a "t" and you might be right.
>
> > > > > > > There are some things that need to be literal. Do you know what
> > > > > > > "torah" means? It means "law," and therefore "instruction." For
> > > > > > > instructions you
> > > > > > > need literalism.
>
> > > > > > > using vague recipe instructions.
>
> seeks the true translated meaning instead of those mere
> interpretations sought by all the other denominations.- Hide quoted text -
>
You interpreted what I had said, your way. I didn't mention my
denomination, nor was I thinking of it. You did not understand
my meaning. : )
>
Suzanne
Suzanne
> On May 20, 3:32 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 6:53 am, Randy C <randyec...@gmail.com> wrote:> > No, I noticed what you replied, and your reply seems to boil down to
> > > > "A literal reading of the Bible is literal, except when it isn't." It
> > > > seems obvious to you that the Prodigal Son is a parable but that the
> > > > Flood or the 6 day creation story is not. Why? The Bible does not come
> > > > with signposts saying "This bit is meant literally," "this bit is a
> > > > parable," "this is a bit of poetic license."
>
> > > Just as a side note, I've actually met creationists who insist that
> > > all of the parables in the New Testament are literally true as well.
> > > They actually believe that a parable constructed from the imagination
> > > of Jesus would be a lie if any part of it was untrue.
>
> > > Clearly they don't get it.
>
> > Maybe what they want to convey is like this, possibly...
>
> > A parable does not have to be from real life, but what they are saying
> > is that it doesn't have to be a lie, either. It's merely a story,
> > whether
> > from having been created to illustrate a point, or whether drawn from
> > an actual happening in real life, it doesn't matter. If you argue with
> > someone about it, chances are you could not prove that it was not a
> > true story, and they may not be able to prove that it was a true
> > happening. A parable is simply a comparison that is made in order
> > to accurately convey a certain truth.
>
> > Parables, whether they are drawn from real life or are hypothetical,
> > they are not lies. But some incorrectly claim that they are just
> > fables.
> > But that is not what the root word of parable means. It comes
> > from the word "parabola," a scientific word. Parabola means:
>
> > "A plane curve generated by a point moving so that its distance from a
> > fixed point is equal to its distance from a fixed line: the
> > intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to an
> > element of the cone."
>
> > So, a parable is a story of comparison that transfers an idea across
> > with the target being the point of someone's understanding.
>
> > Suzanne
>
> You do write a load of rubbish.
>
> http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=parable
>
> early 14c., "saying or story in which something is expressed in terms
> of something else," from O.Fr. parable, from L. parabola "comparison,"
> from Gk. parabole "a comparison, parable," lit. "a throwing beside,"
> from para- "alongside" + bole "a throwing, casting, beam, ray,"
> related to ballein "to throw." Replaced O.E. bispell. In V.L. parabola
> took on the meaning "word," hence It. parlare, Fr. parler "to speak."- Hide quoted text -
>
What I said was not rubbish, it was orderly, and spoke to the point.
What you add is cluttered. So there.
>
Suzanne
Suzanne
> Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote innews:b6c8073b-0ce3-4f76...@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com:
> have exactly the right one, and exactly the right interpretation, and god
> is talking to her. Lucky for her, or she might not have got that car, and
> she might not live for ever. Phew!
>
> Of course, she can't see that the man who detonates his explosive vest in
> the cafe in Baghdad is equally convinced that he has the right religion and
> and the right interpretation, and god is talking to him. This week, god is
> telling him to kill. And she may understand why I find him scary, but
> she'll never understand why I find her scary.
>
You are illustrating that Bill did not represent what I had said
because
Bill interpreted what I said his way, and you just accepted it that
way
without a thought. In your quest to respond to me according to Bill's
interpretation of what I said, you've thrown in a man from Baghdad,
and make sport of a car that was prayed for, all because you
accepted his view. And yet it is me that you say is scary.
>
Suzanne
>
Ilas
news:126f1994-6fd4-4255...@f31g2000pri.googlegroups.com:
> You are illustrating that Bill did not represent what I had said
> because
> Bill interpreted what I said his way, and you just accepted it that
> way
> without a thought. In your quest to respond to me according to Bill's
> interpretation of what I said, you've thrown in a man from Baghdad,
The point of that, which you'll never understand, is that the man from
Baghdad is just as convinced of his rightness as you are. He knows the
absolute truth too, and god is talking to him too.
> and make sport of a car that was prayed for, all because you
> accepted his view. And yet it is me that you say is scary.
You're scary becaue when god starts talking to people, he often seems to
tell them to do and to believe scary things. If you believe the stuff you
write on here (Katrina being a punishment from god, killing people for
working on Sundays, etc), you've got a very warped morality, and it seems
it's religion that's done that.
Suzanne
> Harry K <turnkey4...@hotmail.com> wrote innews:5d2d1bf3-4c4c-4dfb...@r33g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
> > So jusst which one of those hundreds, if not thousands, of sects,
> > cults, off-shoots, have the "correct" translation? They can
>
>
> all be
>
> > right but each one is sure they are the one with the 'on true
> > version'.
>
> because I was brought up by Catholic parents and family, went to a Catholic
> school and the parish priest was a family friend, and they all said so.
> Luckily, I was brought up by Catholic parents and family, went to a
> Catholic school and the parish priest was a family friend, so I got
> precisely the right religion to absolutely ensure eternal life. What are
> the chances of that, eh? Of all the religions, I chanced on the only
> correct one. Imagine if I'd been brought up Muslim - I'd never have known,
> and would have spent my whole life thinking Islam was the right one.
>
There is only one denomination. It is the group of people who have
their
names written in the Lamb's book of life. These are the people who
have
accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord. You will find them in many
churches. John 3:16 explains: "For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not
perish, but have everlasting life." It does not say whosoever
believeth
and is a Baptist. It does not say whosoever believeth and is a
Methodist. It does not say whosoever believeth and is a Catholic. It
does not say whosoever believeth and is an Episcopalian. It does
not say whosoever believeth and is Church of Christ. It says
whosoever. No denomination got up on the cross and died for
people. Only Christ did that.
>
>
Suzanne
alextangent
What you said was unadulterated folksy hokum. The root of the word
"parable" is not and never has been "parabola" in the newer
mathematical sense; it's in the definition shown here, not your made
up stuff.
Randy C
> their
> names written in the Lamb's book of life.
Is that the same book that determined that Judgment Day was last
Saturday?
Bill
<snip>
.
> You are not representing what I was talking about. I was talking about
> ancient Hebrew not using the same grammatical form that we use in
> English to show degrees of comparison. Their sentence is not formed
> the way that we form a sentence to show this. They use opposite verbs
> to do this.
Can you give an example where a pair of opposite verbs, other than
"love" and "hate" is used in this way in Biblical Hebrew?
Is your claim that it is impossible to say in correct Biblical Hebrew
"Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah," except by saying (in a word for
word translation) "Jacob loved Rachel and hated Leah" ? I am not
asking you if "Jacob hated Leah" might not mean "Jacob loved Leah
less." I am asking you if you claim that there was no other way to
express this idea.
I am skeptical because I doubt that a language like ancient Hebrew
would really be incapable of distinguishing between the two ideas
"Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah," and "Jacob loved Rachel and hated
Leah." I do not doubt that one might say "Leah was hated" as a very
strong way of saying "Leah was loved less." I do not doubt that. I
only doubt your claim that Hebrew has no other options.
>
> Best Regars,
> Suzanne
Randy C
> language, that would be translating, not interpreting.
You're making a purely rhetorical argument. You CAN'T translate from
one language to another without doing some interpretation.
Most words in most languages have multiple meanings. You can't
translate sentences from one language to another unless you interpret
the words in context and determine which of those meanings makes the
most sense. Occasionally the specific meaning to use is not clear.
There are NUMEROUS translations of the Bible. Biblegateway.com has
more than 20 English translations. They are all different.
If no interpretation was needed why would they be different?
Suzanne
> On May 20, 1:41 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 2:27 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:> On May 16, 7:46 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On May 15, 3:51 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > On May 15, 7:42 am, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On May 14, 5:19 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On May 14, 10:48 am, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > On 14 Mei, 15:03, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > On May 13, 2:19 am, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > > On 13 Mei, 13:47, Suzanne <leila...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > > > > To a large degree the debate is about whether or not the Bible can be
> > > > > > > > > > > > trusted. Suzanne is therefore engaging in the logical fallacy called
> > > > > > > > > > > > “begging the question”.
>
> > > > > > > > > > > Well, not exactly, but almost. You see, I gave my life to the Lord,
> > > > > > > > > > > and
> > > > > > > > > > > put my trust in him for salvation about the same time that I began to
> > > > > > > > > > > learn to read. A child that makes that decison on his own still has to
> > > > > > > > > > > grow up in this world, and he or she sees people struggling to
> > > > > > > > > > > understand life and the Christian child goes through things himself
> > > > > > > > > > > in order to learn.
>
> > > > > > > > > > .
>
> > > > > > > > > > >One of the reasons you don't believe is probably
> > > > > > > > > > > because of liberalism in some denominations of Christianity.
>
> > > > > > > > > > Change the "b" to a "t" and you might be right.
>
> > > > > > > > > There are some things that need to be literal. Do you know what
> > > > > > > > > "torah" means? It means "law," and therefore "instruction." For
> > > > > > > > > instructions you
> > > > > possibly the fact that the bible itself says in this passage the
> > > > > literal interpretations are not a good idea. So we can put that down
> > > > > as another own goal for you?
>
> > > literal interpretation of the rule for a teleological" or "purposive"
> > > interpretation.
> > > "Purposive" interpretations are in the theory of interpretation one of
> > > the several approaches that are typically contrasted with a literal
> > > interpretation.
>
> > > a quote from a US landmark case nicely contrasts purposive or
> > > teleological interpertation rom literal or plain meaning
> > > interpretation:
>
> > > "What interpretation is to be given the words should depend upon the
> > > court's perception of the purpose of the provision and the context of
> > > the words, rather than on their dictionary meaning. The "plain
> > > meaning" approach to judicial interpretation is not necessarily the
> > > most apposite. In my view, words hardly ever have a meaning in vacuo.
> > > Words take on a meaning in association with the other words in whose
> > > context they are used." Asare v. Attorney General
>
> > > For a more theoretical and in-depth discussion of the difference
> > > between literal and purposive interpretation, i already referred you
> > > to the book by Aharon Barak, "purposive interpretation in law".
>
> > > >he said that the man's beliefs did not represent
> > > > what keeping the Sabbath holy meant.
>
> > > interpretation, There is no contradiction. The literal interpretation
> > > of the rule, which he rejects, is quite clear: don't eat on the
> > > Sabbath. But it is not the best interpretation, for this you need to
> > > consider the purposive of the rule (man's well-being, according to
> > > Christ) and its historical context
>
> > > He said that the idea that
>
> > > > man had about the law was corrupted from what it originally was.
> > > > He didn't say the man who criticized was corrupt but what the
> > > > law had become in that man's day, was not what it originally meant.
>
> > > > Regards,
>
> > Hello Burkhard, part of your reply is not to me I don't think.
>
> It was at least intended to, but there seem to have been a google
> inflicted snip where there should not have been one. If you mean the
> part where I write "Yes,he is saying that, quite literally.", it was
> meant as a reply to your "Jesus did not say that the man should not
> take
> the Bible literally, he said that the man's beliefs did not represent
> somehow.
>
OK...thanks for explaining.
>
> So I
>
> > don't have a comment on part of this. But whose idea is it that
> > someone was not supposed
> > to eat on the Sabbath?
>
> A simple case of hasty typing on my side., I meant of course "prepare
> food", not "eat"
>
Oh, good. I thought I remembered that they did eat then.
>
> >I don't think that is accurate. There are some
> > that
> > think that lifting a fork to your mouth to eat on the Sabbath is work
> > and that
> > would be very legalistic of someone to think that.
>
> True, but this still could be the "intended meaning" - what would b
> the argument to reject that interpretation?
>
Well...do you remember the story of Peter and the sheet that was
let down from heaven? That was much later after Christ had
died and was resurrected and went to heaven. Peter was a Jew
and it was automatically ingrained him him by his being taught,
that a person had to obey the law. When God showed him the
vision, the sheet contained animals that were forbidden by
God for the Jews earlier to eat. But on this occasion, God said
to Peter "take, eat." Peter refused God! But again God told him
to eat of them. Then God let him know "What I call holy, call
thou not unholy." Peter realized from this that God is the
one who says what is holy and what is unholy and he learned
the law does not take precedents over the lawgiver. Peter
also realized that God was reaching him about opening up
to preach to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. He said that
he had learned that God is no respecter of persons, meaning
that he was not showing partiality, but the salvation was open
to all.
>
When Peter automatically reacted to what was in the sheet
that the vision showed, and he had been being legalistic.
That is, his Jewish mindset had been taught that the law
had to be obeyed, and he suddenly found himself putting
the law above God, which he realized then was not right.
>
Peter was automatically being legalistic, just like the man who
criticized Jesus and the apostles for eating out of the
corn field. Jesus corrected the man and reasoned with him.
The man exhibited the same legalistic mindset that Peter
had exhibited when he was the vision of the sheet being
let down from heaven.
>
> >It's my
> > understanding that,
> > such as in the wilderness during the Exodus, the Jews were to gather
> > enough "manna" in the desert on Friday before the Sabbath, so that
> > they
> > would not have to be gathering it on the Sabbath, nor were they to
> > light a
> > fire to cook anything on that day. However, they were supposed to eat.
>
> > And then also I see that there is still discussion about the
> > difference between
> > interpretation and translation. The professional translators website
> > that I
> > provided should clear that up without having to go to any discussion
> > of what
> > courts and judges do with respect to these two words.
>
> The website you cited adresses a recent confusion caused, in the
> English speaking world only, by a distinction in the job description
> between "translators " (written text) and "interpretors" (spoken
> word.
>
> It has nothing to do with the discussion here. The relevant meaning of
> "interpretation" for which I gave you citations not just from legal
> sources, but also linguistics and history, is well established, and
> widely discussed in law, history, theology and linguistics. Your site
> really does not add anything particularly useful to this I'm afraid.
>
> There are two
>
> > different types of translating. One is oral, such as what takes place
> > at the United Nations, and one is translating words on paper. The
> > person doing the oral
> > translation is called "an interpreter." Obviously the two words are
> > closely
> > related. Some people even use them interchangeably so when you are
> > speaking to someone about the difference, they may not recognize that
> > there is any difference at all. Biblical translators though, insist
> > that there
> > is a difference. They do not like to be called "interpreters" because
> > it gives
> > the connotation that they have a bias to what they translate. That is
> > based
> > on the idea that there are several definitions for the word
> > "interpret."
>
> Not quite. They _think_ that one can translate without interpretation
> (as the word is commonly understood, not just meaning "oral
> translation") A huge body of knowledge, going ...
>
I'm sorry but when people are talking about biblical translators, they
call themselves translators, rather than interpreters because of the
accuracy that they wish to convey, rather than just a paraphrase.
>
Suzanne