posted on June 21, 2001 11:13:59 AM new"Borillar- If interested try Will Durant's History of Western Civilization. It is I believe 14 vols., but each vol stands alone."
Thanks, reamond, I have heard reference to that set on several occasions. And I am happy hearing about its readability, because like the one book I'm reading now "The Crusades by Zoe Oldenbourg" [ISBN is Card Catelog 65-10013 - first ed. 1967] and it is slow and stuffy reading. I would love to read more about the Roman Empire, having devoured a gazillion books on them in my teenage years (along with Plato's Republic, Mein Kampf, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. I think I ingested about 50% and digested about 10% of that. Needs a re-reading.)
posted on June 21, 2001 12:44:02 PM new
Borillar- I would add one more element regarding celibacy and the priesthood. The early interpretation was that the priest/pope should not be "married".
This did not stop them from having children. Many priests had literal harems and many popes had children running around the Vatican, and their mother's were nuns.
While this situation might make one recoil now, it was not given a second thought back then.
posted on June 21, 2001 12:49:37 PM new
jlpiece - The idea that a fetus can be sinful conforms to the Christian idea that we are all in a state of alienation from God not because of specific acts but because of inherited lack of grace or inperfection from Adam (not Eve). The Christian solution to that is acceptance of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus. The Jewish solution was attonement through the blood sacrifice of animals, and the scape goat by a priesthood.
Here is another thought to mull over.
The scriptures say it is an abomination for a man to lie with a man the same as a woman.
Does that mean one specific set of physical acts or not? It does not say anything about women with women so is there any general prohibition for lesbians or male affections that are a general prohibition of porneia to christians or not?
posted on June 21, 2001 01:46:29 PM new
gravid, hate to butt into your conversation with my two cents, but you bring up a point that I have always that Christian interpretations were clearly wrong about. I've always seen certain parts as being allegorical in nature; such as the story of Job and of Adam and Eve.
My basis for this assumption is that in ancient times, most folks were illiterate and learning was done by word of mouth as it is done today, but not through written means. In ancient times, philosophy was incorporated into stories that allowed the listener to remember them. These are sometimes the legends that we hear about - mere morality plays.
I can imagine the Jewish priests sitting around arguing about the Nature of Sin and Man. Is Man created with certain traits and inclinations towards sinful acts, or is it something that one learns? Then came the proposal: what if the Perfect Man and the Perfect Woman were created by the very sinless Hand of God and placed directly into an environment absolutely perfect and free of Sin or any sinful thing that could be learned from that environment. Would Man develop the same attitudes and proclivities towards Sin in that perfect instance?
Obviously, the answer was NO. So the philosophers sat around and added Man's baser nature in the form of a serpent and tempt them. The rest of the story you know.
While the Old Testament is rich in historical fact, not all of it is simply fact. I think that at the very least, this simple story of the Perfect Man and the perfect Woman being placed into the Perfect Environment and the failure of humans to stay sin-free when tempted by their baser natures can hardly be a serious story! However, that's just my opinion, of course.
edited for sp.
[ edited by Borillar on Jun 21, 2001 02:00 PM ]
posted on June 21, 2001 01:58:22 PM new"The early interpretation was that the priest/pope should not be "married".
reamond, that depends upon how far back you want to place the Catholic Church as an organization. If you are referring to the time period after the Roman Emperor Constantine I, you are correct. If you are referring to the period after the Council of Nicia in 325 ad., that may also be the case, as I am not too sure; although I've been given the impression that it was OK to be married. If you look at the beginnings of the Church from early, primitive Christianity, you'll see that priests were allowed marriages, taking after the rabbinical practices in Israel. It is often the time period following the Christian Caesar that many modern churches like to talk about, while ignoring five or six centuries of historical beginnings.
I've also heard that there were Popes that were swingers and swung back and forth. There are so many dull Catholics that deny the non-celibacy of Popes, Nuns, Priests and whatnot with near fiery retribution, so strong is their denial of facts. At least the Protestants simply give you an ugly frown and turn away when they get faced with things of this nature. Reminds me of that one famous quote by a physicist, I think, about how a beautiful hypothesis is slain by a mere, single fact.
posted on June 21, 2001 10:50:57 PM new
In written Hebrew. Obviously there are vowels in spoken Hebrew.
I find it signifigant that "There are no vowels in the original Hebrew. I guess that shows the depth of your knowledge" is all you can muster as a reply.
posted on June 22, 2001 05:14:53 AM new
Borillar - I can see where you would think the garden scene a morality play but it is obvious from the way Jesus spoke of Adam as
a real person with a line of physical real offspring that he and the people he was addressing did not think of Adam as a character but as a real man. There are times in his use of illustrations that Jesus did use fiction as a device to lay a scene before his listeners and would speak of such a character by his trade or position without a personal name - such as
the illustration of the merchant who sold all his things to raise the price of one very high value pearl.
I think it is important to know the founder's view was literal on that point.
posted on June 22, 2001 08:43:53 AM new
Yes James, but the Bible is written Hebrew not spoken. I didn't hear the Bible in Hebrew, I read it. When you made the comment that; "...you evidently can't read unvoweled Hebrew, as you've tried to do.", I simply stated that if I couldn't read unvoweled Hebrew, I couldn't have read the scriptures, because they are entirely unvoweled. I thought that that comment showed perhaps that you were the one with only a cursory knowledge of Hebrew. I can assure you that mine is very real.
"jlpiece When I read more of what you have to say, it just makes me wanna go to church all that much more. If your girl ever decides to leave ya, look me up, will ya? I'd be happy to be your lowly lil' girl servant. (as long as you will allow me the pleasure of giving you a back massage, and anything else that you may desire, every night). After all, isn't that the least a good Christian girl should do?"-bobbi355
I wouldn't know. I've never been to Church, I'm not a Christian, and neither is my girl. Sorry if that term offends you, but I really don't give a damn. My significant other, my better half, my life partner, my blah blah blah, whatever term your little heart desires, sweetie. Is that OK, princess? Girl is short for girlfriend, and a pretty accepted term, and if you don't like it that's just too bad for you. Save your derogatory comments for someone else, capische?
Back on topic:
Although as some have suggested. The bible can be interpreted more than one way in some instances, most of the time, that is only due to ignorance, by Christians and non-Christians alike. Almost all of the differences between Christian denominations are based on ignorance of their understandidng of the Scriptures. The Catholic Church is such a hybrid of early Christianity and complete paganism, that it is understandable why it used to be, (and still is to some of us) a joke. None of that changes what the scriptures say, and it is rather clear that God commanded life to be cherished - that he gave it and only he should take it away. Another key difference in the Scriptures is the usage of the verbs to murder and to kill. Almost everybody has heard the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill", but it doesn't say that, it commands that one should not MURDER. A key differnce, which is why accidental death and revenge killings and war time killings were not treated the same as premeditated murder. Knowing the significance of the choice of whether or not an unborn baby is considered a child yet, and whether or not it is wrong to kill it, shouldn't we err on the side of caution? What if it is a child? What if it can feel? What if there is a God, and he doesn't approve? If none of this is true, then choosing not to support abortion can't hurt you. But if this is true and you do support abortion, or have one, or help pay for one, etc. what position does that put you in now? Isn't it much better to be cautious if the answer is not certain? To make the choice that either way would be a safe bet. I'm not a Christian, or religious for that matter, but I'm also smart enough to acknowledge that there is a good chance that God does exist, and that maybe I will be held accountable. If I'm wrong and i'm really just over evolved pond scum, than at least I am not hurt by my decisions. But if you are wrong...
posted on June 22, 2001 08:53:31 AM newI thought that that comment showed perhaps that you were the one with only a cursory knowledge of Hebrew. I can assure you that mine is very real.
You can't assure me, because you haven't addressed the substance of a single point I wrote. Since you're addressing the substance of what others have written may I assume that you aren't addressing what I've written because you can't?
Tell me, can you read an Israeli newpaper? All Israeli newspapers are unvoweled as well.
posted on June 22, 2001 09:00:41 AM new
Modern Hebrew and ancient Hebrew are different, but although I've never tried, I'm sure that I could. As far as addressing your points, I did. I told you that your translations of the passages are completely incorrect. I couldn't go much further, because I have no idea how oyu came up with them. For all I know, you just made them up. So there. Besides, almost none of my points get responded to, but I've grown accustomed to that on these boards. Most of you can't be bothered with facts while you are trying to make a point.
posted on June 22, 2001 09:14:43 AM new
They are called 'nekudot'. But you knew that, right?
Actually modern Hebrew is stylistically different from ancient Hebrew in many ways. Yet, a 6 year old Israeli can read the Bible and understand every word of it quite easily because the differences are minute. Ancient Hebrew is realtively primitive in that it had a smaller vocabulary ('telivizia' means 'television' and obviously that word didn't exist even 60 years ago) but it's not as radical a difference as, say, Chaucer is to a reader of modern English. Hey, even I who is not a native Hebrew speaker can read the Bible in Hebrew without problem.
Of course modern Hebrew has vowel points. They were created by the Masoretes between the 7th and 9th centuries as a means of preserving the oral tradition of how to pronounce the Bible correctly. But written Hebrew, with the exception of Hebrew prayer books, Bibles and children's books are written without the vowels.
Anyway, 'for all I know you made the translation up' is the statement of someone who doesn't really know Hebrew and so can't check themselves. If you really did know Hebrew well, you'd merely whip out your Hebrew Tehillim and read Psalm 51:5 and see for yourself what it means.
Obviously you'd see that the verse doesn't say 'sin' twice because no two words in the verse are repeated.
Finally, you've been reduce to emotional appeals for not behaving a certain way in case God exists and He dissaproves. I didn't think you would try pulling something like that.
Anyway, I don't know if this technical talk is flying over anyone else's head or if anyone is even reading it (I apologize if that sounded condescending -- I only mean that I realize this is an obscure subject), but I hope it's clear to those that do that jlpiece is talking a talk and has been called on it.
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Jun 22, 2001 09:18 AM ]
posted on June 22, 2001 09:50:41 AM new
Thank you, gravid, for mentioning that. While I am wildly speculating here, I could only explain that in the same way as I did the story of Adam. Jesus must have been referring tot he fact that Adam and Eve's iniquity passed down to their children and succeeding generations. The Bible, in later years, say at Nicia in 325ad where a huge editing took place, the concept of Original Sin might not have been seen as valid if the story of Adam and Eve was merely an allegory. I can't say anything more than insinuate that the editors took it upon themselves to craft the sort of Bible that they wanted to present to the world and forbade everything else. That is what makes the Bible, especially the New Testament with the Old Testament, so difficult to reconcile at times.
As for the Story of Job, I can see those Jewish phylosophers sitting around disscussing the Nature of Man and God and the question gets asked, "If God is so Perfectly All-powerful and All-Loving, then why are some born lame?" The story of Job illustrates that misfortune from the very Hand of God can happen even to the most devout and for the silliest of reasons, even something to the level of a simple bar bet. Therefore, no one can truely fathom the Mind of God and must simply have Faith that whatever reason that you were born lame, God will reward you if your faith does not waver and you remain faithful to Him.
It's always funny to me how many folks never see it this way - even some scholars and they argue that it really happened.
posted on June 22, 2001 09:55:19 AM new
Borillar, it's a great interpretation, but like Gravid said it certain that in ancient times the Adam and Eve story were considered very much literal.
However, you might find it interesting to know that according to Jewish tradition the author of Job was Moses. There are two traditions about the book; one says that the real Job never lived and it is in fact a metaphor.
posted on June 22, 2001 10:05:08 AM new
I need not go to emotional lengths to convince anyone of anything, because I don't particularly care. However, as far as me talking the talk and not backing it up, allow me to point out your backpedaling:
"In other words, you evidently can't read unvoweled Hebrew..."-jamesoblivion
And then:
In written Hebrew. Obviously there are vowels in spoken Hebrew.-jamesoblivion
And finally:
Of course modern Hebrew has vowel points.-jamesoblivion
Impressive.
Lastly, "They are called 'nekudot'. But you knew that, right?"-jamesoblivion
Yes, but for awhile there, we didn't think that you did. Glad to see you coming around my dear James.
posted on June 22, 2001 10:15:21 AM new
Forgive me for being unclear. Hebrew like all ancient Semitic languages had no written vowels. When I said spoken Hebrew did, I meant that it isn't a language of consonants; to whit even though the first verse of the Bible states 'brsht bra elhm et hshmym vet hartz' it isn't pronounced in that awkward fashion; the words all have pronounciations that include what we would call vowels -- the dots came much later though. The fact that you couldn't properly pronounce a word of unvoweled Hebrew when you read it (the verse in Exodus which you were expounding upon like a scholar) casts aspersion on whether you know as much about it as you claim.
posted on June 22, 2001 10:37:47 AM new
Likewise. I've expounded more than any in this thread - you have failed to address these points. Let me alos point out that even without written vowel points, there is a very real and methodical way of pronouncing the consonants, and thus the vowel sounds are understood. They began to write them out because of those like yourself who would prefer to change meanings of words by mispronouncing words without the written vowel points. The vowel points make that harder to do.
posted on June 22, 2001 11:07:09 AM new
Oh really? What is this method?
The verse (Ex. 23:19) which states 'lo tivashel g'di b'chalev imo' and is known to read 'do not boil a kid in it's mother's milk' can just as reasonably be read 'lo tivashel g'di b'chailev imo' which means 'do not boil a kid in it's mother's fat'. The difference is that 'chalav' means 'milk' while 'chailev' means 'fat'. Without the vowels the two words are identical.
What method do you propose was used to discern which the Bible meant?
By the way, only a few days ago I posted to the Tim McVeigh thread the information that 'thou shall not kill' really means 'thou shall not murder'. Maybe I was your source.
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Jun 22, 2001 11:14 AM ]
posted on June 22, 2001 11:22:33 AM new
Thank you James for that information. After the first reading of the story of Job, I felt right then and there that it could not have been a factual historical account of a verifiable incident, but was symbolic in nature.
It has been made clear to me, both by you and by gravid, that the ancient Hebrews did consider the story of Adam to be factual. However, to my mind, the story reads just the same as the story of Job does - too weird to be true and cast in a metaphorical light, seems to make rational sense. I can only grasp at straws here and comment that maybe by the time of Jesus, such an allegory may have become legendary.
posted on June 22, 2001 01:27:47 PM new
Borillar I really appreciate the kind tone of your replies. These other two are really ripping into each other because they don't see eyeball to eyeball. I sometimes think that we are poorer for having lost the right to duel, but the boards almost convince me otherwise. I just ordered a new epee blade but don't want to use it all that bad.
posted on June 22, 2001 01:41:24 PM new
OK - Ya got two words. Same consonats - nada
vowels - how do you tell the difference?
It all boils down to context. With the kid you better understand if it was the custom to pouch something in milk or to deep fry it in fat as a way of cooking.
Next question. Does it really make any difference in understanding the point that is trying to be made with the text to use one word or the other?
Exaimining the surrounding texts and what this one is about the point being made is that the godly man has a limit to how much he strips out of the enviroment with greed and has a respect for life even of wild and domestic animals rather than consuming everything without limit or concern.
I would think the proper choice is milk because the owner is unlikely to slaughter both the kid and some of his breeding stock at the same time. If the ewe is lactating it would make sense it will have to be milked if the kid is not sucking. But it is offensive to use it that way. But either word could be true and the lesson could still be learned.
posted on June 22, 2001 08:52:59 PM new"Borillar I really appreciate the kind tone of your replies."
Thank you. When it comes to intellectual discussions, I try to be as rational in communication as possible. I have always had a very different take on the Bible and that has gotten me into hot water a few times with churches and church-goers alike. I have read most of the Bible, a lot about the Bible's history, and the history of the Catholic Church, not in an effort to understand God better, but to understand ourselves and why we believe what we do. History is about economics and is written about three things: Religious leaders, Military leaders, and Political leaders; as these are the ones who had the money to pay the scribes to write their history for them. So, one gets a good idea about religion and its contents.
I personally do not see God as many of the Christians mean it. For me, it is a simple matter of scale that tells me that too many commonly held beliefs about God are just plain silly. For instance, did you know that if you could take atoms and line them in a single file an inch long that an estimated 6.28 times 10 to the 23rd power atoms would reside there? not in a square inch - just a single inch-long train of atoms. Now, imagine all of the atoms that make up this world and see that God pays attention to that fact. Then all of the atoms that make up our entire solar system: Jupiter is 100 times our size and mass, the Sun is one million times the size and mass of Jupiter and so forth. Then, all of the billion solar systems in this galaxy 100,000 light years wide and 30,000 light years deep. Then, all of the BILLIONS of galaxies in this universe alone and it is figured that there may be many more similar universes of varying sizes -- all this God controls and is aware of.
And then, in all of this, God is going to worry about where you stick your pecker? Or, that you abort the unborn life of a fetus too young to even have a proto-brain? God is going to get OUTRAGED at the Abomination of it all? You see, any being or entity so capable of such power on such a grand scale so far beyond our imagination, it is sheer conceit on our part that we rate at all in the slightest for the attention from God! For me, one can only imagine that we are so important in what we do and when we do it only when we can believe that the Earth is flat and the center of the universe, our egos flattering ourselves into believing that we are just that important. Hah!
Sorry, but I think that we are absolutely insignificant in the full measure of the universe and so arrogant to think that we even rate. but therein lies the paradox: for the Bible tells us that we do. But is it God who is telling us how important that we are to Him, or is it us?
edited for sp.
[ edited by Borillar on Jun 22, 2001 08:58 PM ]
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