Jesus on Marriage...

[Buford]

I'm pretty certain that Buford hasn't read a single one of BP's posts.

Talk about gay.

BP stated that every Biblical translation available on the planet is incorrect.

You and BP are very ill.

Based on the history of the translations, I'd say that is quite an accurate statement by her.

If we had any "originals" closer to the time it was written, that might be helpful.

Did you ever play the game "telephone" in grammar school? I think all small children should be exposed to that game - it's a great learning experience at an age where they remember that lesson the rest of their lives. Well, most will remember it.

They need to call it "my first lesson in critical thought", IMO.

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

 

[Buford]

Buford--

What bothers you most about people who don't agree with your every utterance?

Sky Dancer--

What bothers you most about people who don't agree with your every utterance?

 

[Si modo]

BP stated that every Biblical translation available on the planet is incorrect.

You and BP are very ill.

Based on the history of the translations, I'd say that is quite an accurate statement by her.

If we had any "originals" closer to the time it was written, that might be helpful.

Did you ever play the game "telephone" in grammar school? I think all small children should be exposed to that game - it's a great learning experience at an age where they remember that lesson the rest of their lives. Well, most will remember it.

They need to call it "my first lesson in critical thought", IMO.

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Way to dodge the comment and question.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Buford--

What bothers you most about people who don't agree with your every utterance?

Sky Dancer--

What bothers you most about people who don't agree with your every utterance?

Nothing. If I expected to have complete agreement I'd be hanging out with people who completely share my values.

Why is it you demand that I answer your questions while being unwilling to answer any of mine?

 

[Buford]

When a book has been translated as many times as the Bible has been, it's easy for things to get lost in translation. Some subjects can also be politicized.

For instance, Phoebe, a patroness of paul in the early church, is referred to in the Greek version of scripture as "diakonos" in Romans 16:1. This is the same term translated as "deacon" in reference to male church leaders, but you'll note that the verses that describe Phoebe are translated as "servant," even though the tense and usage of the words is exactly the same as the usage translated as "deacon."

If you review the English translations currently available, all of them use "servant" in Romans 16:1, but deacon elsewhere for "diakonos."

Political decision or "inspiration"?

It's hard to say. The bible spans almost 2,000 years of widely shifting cultural dynamics. The verses that have influenced a diminished role of women in the church have also been shifted by translators who chose words that reflected the desire to put women in a limited role, as recently as the NIV translation.

MOst people don't even think beyond a single English translation to consider the possible shifts in word and contextual/cultural meaning in these passages that have occurred as the books of the new testament have been translated from their original aramaic into hebrew, then latin, then greek, and then into the King James's English translation, and then modern english translations.

There was an obvious agenda even with the King James edition:



Authorized King James Version - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Link includes a lot of information on the problems with English translations of the Bible).

It deserves to be said that the oldest versions of any new testament book currently in existence date from 100+ years after the books of the new testament were purportedly written...many from 300 or more years since the death of Christ. We don't have ANY of the original versions of these books and letters. Even authorship of some of these books is suspect. And, modern versions eliminate the apocryphyal books, which up until the 1800s were standard.

There have been enough politically motivated shifts just from Greek to English to modern English that saying definitely what the Bible says on any particular moral issue is pretty difficult.

What I would say is this...on a lot of these subjects...it's between you and God. It's up to you to take these issues up with God and come to a place of accountability with him. That's an individual process that each person has to go through. Pretending that you're entitled to tell others what they should believe, as if this is all black/white is simply ignorant. A lot of it isn't black/white, which is why the Southern Baptist denomination (in which I grew up) used to emphasize unity in the essentials (apostle's creed) and tolerance in the non-essentials.

It's a shame that fundamentalist perspectives on this subject have lead to such ignorant dogmatism. In a lot of ways, that ignorant dogmatism does more harm than anything else to the cause of Christ, but that's just my take on it. YMMV.

p.s. Buford has made it clear in this thread that he's here to troll, and that's about it.

Correct...and see here's why I am wrapping up my participation on this thread. Catz makes a great post explaining translations problems and the instructions James I gave to the translators about ensuring that the translation fit his agenda. A mere two posts later KG writes:



No they weren't committed to accuracy. They were committed to James' agenda fully aware that if they refused they would be put to death. Note as well:

Further, the King gave the translators instructions designed to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England.[9] Certain Greek and Hebrew words were to be translated in a manner that reflected the traditional usage of the church.[9]

Authorized King James Version - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In other words they knew even THEN that there was a difference between what was originally written and what had become "traditional" by the 17th century and chose to go with what was traditional instead of what was accurate. Committed to accuracy my rosy red ass.

That is a great point. You'd think the uberChristians would be up in arms over this perversion of God's word.

LOL. Reminds me of a little mouse climbing a hill of crap, finally getting to the top and planting his little cheese flag and declaring himself emperor of the north.

 

[Buford]

Based on the history of the translations, I'd say that is quite an accurate statement by her.

If we had any "originals" closer to the time it was written, that might be helpful.

Did you ever play the game "telephone" in grammar school? I think all small children should be exposed to that game - it's a great learning experience at an age where they remember that lesson the rest of their lives. Well, most will remember it.

They need to call it "my first lesson in critical thought", IMO.

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Way to dodge the comment and question.

Comment on the post. I'm not the topic.

 

[Si modo]

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Way to dodge the comment and question.

Comment on the post. I'm not the topic.

It was a comment on your post.

Keep dodging.

 

[Buford]

Way to dodge the comment and question.

Comment on the post. I'm not the topic.

It was a comment on your post.

Keep dodging.

Oh yes. All the people who specialize in language and the Scriptures are "dodging" because the scriptures say homosexuality is condemned by God. Right.

 

[Si modo]

Comment on the post. I'm not the topic.

It was a comment on your post.

Keep dodging.

Oh yes. All the people who specialize in language and the Scriptures are "dodging" because the scriptures say homosexuality is condemned by God. Right.

Well, you're still dodging, but it is sort of an improvement.

The history of the translation of the "scriptures" indicates that the "scriptures" have a lot less to do with what the original "Word" was and more to do with certain human agenda. Thus, my comment about the game of telephone.

I would say that I bet you knew that, but I'm not so sure I would place that bet.

 

[Si modo]

Comment on the post. I'm not the topic.

It was a comment on your post.

Keep dodging.

Oh yes. All the people who specialize in language and the Scriptures are "dodging" because the scriptures say homosexuality is condemned by God. Right.

Well, you're still dodging, but it is sort of an improvement.

The history of the translation of the "scriptures" indicates that the "scriptures" have a lot less to do with what the original "Word" was and more to do with certain human agenda. Thus, my comment about the game of telephone.

I would say that I bet you knew that, but I'm not so sure I would place that bet.

 

[catzmeow]

I'm pretty certain that Buford hasn't read a single one of BP's posts.

Talk about gay.

BP stated that every Biblical translation available on the planet is incorrect.

You and BP are very ill.

Based on the history of the translations, I'd say that is quite an accurate statement by her.

If we had any "originals" closer to the time it was written, that might be helpful.

Did you ever play the game "telephone" in grammar school? I think all small children should be exposed to that game - it's a great learning experience at an age where they remember that lesson the rest of their lives. Well, most will remember it.

They need to call it "my first lesson in critical thought", IMO.

If you look at the bible as ancient writings that attempt to capture spiritual "Truth" in metaphors and stories, then the Bible includes a lot of really inspiring information on how to relate to god/mankind. If, however, you look at it as a perfectly transcribed, factually accurate source of information on God's opinions and/or a science/history textbook, you're bound to wind up with some weird positions on issues. Unfortunately, fundamentalism has pushed many segments of Christianity away from the first pole and towards the second. Not a good thing, in my book.

 

[catzmeow]

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Actually, they were controlled by the political and religious hierarchy and forced to transcribe these "sacred" writings in ways that supported the political/religious status quo and/or pushed specific political/religious agendas for the powerbrokers of specific eras. So, you're correct about the telephone issue (translation errors were more intentional than unintentional), but there is no getting away from the fact that much of the original meaning (and all of the original versions of the documents) have been lost. Thus, we don't really know what the original versions said about anything at all. We just know what the early church fathers wanted us to think they said.

 

[catzmeow]

God LOVES the Perversion of his Creation also known as Homosexuality...

Apparently, you're correct.

I grew up on a farm. Our female cows humped each other all the time. This is a relatively normal behavior for livestock. If God created all living beings, he seems to have created a lot of species in which homosexual behavior is normal. Thus, he must like it.

 

[Foxfyre]

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Actually, they were controlled by the political and religious hierarchy and forced to transcribe these "sacred" writings in ways that supported the political/religious status quo and/or pushed specific political/religious agendas for the powerbrokers of specific eras. So, you're correct about the telephone issue (translation errors were more intentional than unintentional), but you're also far too literalist in your use of scripture from a historical perspective.

Interesting perspective but unfortuantely it won't hold up under scrutiny as there were no political status quo at the time the scriptures were written. Because of the uniformity of the manuscripts, we can be fairly certain that the scribes were meticulous in exact copies as much as possible. If there was any question re intent, however, they would sometimes make a notation in the margin of the manuscript, and after careful research and analysis, the experts have identified a number of places in which subsequent copies of the manuscripts probably included some of those 'scribal glosses' which then became part of the whole test rather than an annotation.

The main problem came in the final editing of what became the Old Testament. Sometimes multiple copies of a text were included creating parallel passages sometimes closely placed in the final edit and sometimes fairly widely separated. That accounts for the sense of de ja vu that we sometimes experience in reading translations of the ancient text. The final edit also grouped the text in sections of law, history, prophecy, poetry, wisdom literature, etc. without concern for the chronology of when the texts were produced.

We find some of the same problems in the New Testament canon that was finally adopted.

 

[BluePhantom]

BP stated that every Biblical translation available on the planet is incorrect.

You and BP are very ill.

Based on the history of the translations, I'd say that is quite an accurate statement by her.

If we had any "originals" closer to the time it was written, that might be helpful.

Did you ever play the game "telephone" in grammar school? I think all small children should be exposed to that game - it's a great learning experience at an age where they remember that lesson the rest of their lives. Well, most will remember it.

They need to call it "my first lesson in critical thought", IMO.

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Actually that's PRECISELY what they did. Do you think they had printing presses in the 1st century? Most Biblical stories in BCE were handed down according to oral tradition. The Levites were the priestly class. They were the Rabbis and they would send their sons to teach all the other tribes. The sons were raised according to the oral tradition and the very few written documents they grew up with and they passed it along in adulthood orally to the other tribes.

By the time Jesus came along it was still primarily word of mouth. There were written scriptures of course but if someone wanted them they had to copy them BY HAND. Now you are trying to argue that Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, etc which were written 500-1000 years prior or thereabouts were copied completely accurately every time? You are absolutely delusional.

Furthermore, this manipulation didn't stop (still hasn't). In the Revelation for example we knew for centuries that the number of the beast was 666, right? Sure because the oldest surviving copy said so. But alas...just in the last decade archaeologists have discovered an even older version of Revelation and guess what? The number is not 666, it's 616. Well why would that be? Well it's quite simple. The Jews were using a code known as gematria wherein names are turned to numbers. They did this to avoid being thrown to the lions for speaking against Rome. When you apply gematria to 666 it spells the name of Emperor Nero. When you apply gematria to 616 it spells the name of Emperor Caligula.

The answer is quite obvious. The earlier version refers to the antichrist as Caligula because he was in power when it was written. When Nero took the throne decades later Revelations was copied, but since Caligula was dead and therefore irrelevant, they simply changed it to Nero to reflect a more current state of political affairs.

The scripture have been changed constantly....constantly and it was very much a game of "telephone".

Beast's real mark devalued to '616'

Revelation! 666 is not the number of the beast (it's a devilish 616) - This Britain - UK - The Independent

Gematria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

666 wrong number of prophetic beast?

Oh wait, wait.....let me guess. I am a liar and a homo, right? What an unbelievable tool. We would get better debate if we were talking to a parsnip.

 

[mal]

"mal-ing"

LMAO!

^Daves WAY too much about me after over 3 years...



peace...

 

[mal]

God LOVES the Perversion of his Creation also known as Homosexuality...

Apparently, you're correct.

I grew up on a farm. Our female cows humped each other all the time. This is a relatively normal behavior for livestock. If God created all living beings, he seems to have created a lot of species in which homosexual behavior is normal. Thus, he must like it.

Animals do a LOT of things... I'm not one to Justify my Actions on what Animals do... Just sayin.



peace...

 

[Buford]

Typically a eunuch is defined as a castrated male. This is incorrect. Castration means to remove the testicles (that were already there) or emasculate. If all eunuchs were castrated males then why would Jesus say that "some were born that way?" A eunuch is a man who has no desire or ability to have sexual relations with a woman. These men were commonly used to protect the harems. Since the Word of God is for everyone we can apply the spiritual concept found in Galatians 3:28 where the Apostle Paul says: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Therefore, a eunuch can be male or female in this passage.

Jesus addressed three types of eunuchs.

1. Those born that way. (That's people like me who are born gay.)

2. Those made that way by men. (Those castrated or those sexually abused people who choose to be gay as a result of this abuse rather than because it is their natural sexual affinity.)

3. Those who elect not to have a sexual relationship for the sake of the kingdom. (For example a priest or nun. This group makes the decision on their own.)

So here, our Lord Jesus states that not everyone will marry according to the custom as in male and female. He also said that not everyone can accept this. He says that those that can accept it should accept it. Can you accept what Jesus said? I can.
What Did Jesus Say?

Your interpretation of Galatians 3:28 is a deliberate twisting of Scripture to say something that it never implies. You took a Scripture that explains our standing with God in Christ and then twisted it to make it mean something about sexuality. You are a liar.

 

[Buford]

It was a comment on your post.

Keep dodging.

Oh yes. All the people who specialize in language and the Scriptures are "dodging" because the scriptures say homosexuality is condemned by God. Right.

Well, you're still dodging, but it is sort of an improvement.

The history of the translation of the "scriptures" indicates that the "scriptures" have a lot less to do with what the original "Word" was and more to do with certain human agenda. Thus, my comment about the game of telephone.

I would say that I bet you knew that, but I'm not so sure I would place that bet.

I would say you have nothing to base your accusation on except lies and ignorance. Naive college kids will swallow it, but it doesn't sell when peddled to people who actually have studied and have knowledge of the Scriptures and how they were transcribed. Try again.

 

[Buford]

Scribes didn't use the game of telephone to preserve the Scriptures. Sell that to some naive college kid.

Actually, they were controlled by the political and religious hierarchy and forced to transcribe these "sacred" writings in ways that supported the political/religious status quo and/or pushed specific political/religious agendas for the powerbrokers of specific eras. So, you're correct about the telephone issue (translation errors were more intentional than unintentional), but there is no getting away from the fact that much of the original meaning (and all of the original versions of the documents) have been lost. Thus, we don't really know what the original versions said about anything at all. We just know what the early church fathers wanted us to think they said.

When were the original Scriptures first altered and who did it?