Benjamin Franklin

Hi Polycarp,

Sorry I mispelled your name again. It is not a freudian slip but rather crap sounds to me more like an English word than carp(fish)

Tjun Kiat

Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by TJUN KIAT TEO: Whenever I debate Christianity, I assume that the other party holds the inerrancy position. I know I am overgeneralising but then again, if the other party does not presuppose inerrancy, it is hard to determine what doctrines the he holds. That's why I am still in the midst of exploring liberal Christianity. I agree with you that mistakes in the bible does not invalidate the Christian faith but Thomas Seehan's intpretation of Christianity would still be too liberal for many conservative Christians who do not hold the inerrancy doctrine. That's why it is hard to debate someone who holds a liberal Christian attitude because there are such a wide range of interpetations that one does not know which interpretation one is debating

Hello again!

Based on what you’re saying now, it seems clear that you don’t reject Christianity based on the errancy of the bible. I still don’t feel any closer to knowing what you believe. You’ve said a lot about what you don’t believe, but nothing much about what you actually do believe.

It sounds like you’ve thought a lot about these issues, but you don’t seem comfortable sharing your views because you’re not sure of them. That’s fine. I’m in the same boat on many topics. Since we’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about this, I’m really curious to hear your views on Christianity. Who do you think Jesus was?


Peace,

Polycarp

Benjamin Franklin

If I answered this question I might turn this into a personal forum(I hope the moderators might comment on this becuse we seem to be digressing a lot from the main topic) of why I am not a Christian but I do have a question for both of you and Nomad to answer

if you look at the versus John 3:16-18, 2 Corinthians 6:14 and Mark 16:16 and some other verses of the bibe, it seems to me that the people who wrote this verses seem to imply that God would send people like Ghandi and Buddha to hell if they have heard about Jesus but refused to accept his divinity/resurrection. So how should one deal with this verses

1 ignore them
2 treat them as not divinely inspired but written by falliable men who put words into Jesus mouth or pretend that God inspired them to say that in an overzealous attempt to advocate the Christian faith.
3. treat them as divinely inspired but since they contradict common sense and the goodness of God, assume, that me as an finite being have interepret the scripture wrongly since a finite being cannot fully understand a infinite being.

But to answer your question who I think Jesus is . Human, the main reason being I am an atheist with regards to the the type of God who is omnipotent, benevolent and going to solve all our problems for us after we die. There are other reasons like the difficulties with of the idea incranation, the idea of someone dying for our sins . And I agree with Thomas Seehan, who Jesus is ultimately is irrelvant to Christain faith. Even if as Nomad says, the evidence of resurrection of Christ is good, I reject it as a criteria for salvation for the same reason Thomas Paine reject divine revleation, for such issuses as personal slavation, I refuse to be treated as a second class citizen who has to trust the testimony of other people. I want to have the same evidence as other people who saw Jesus resurrect. I also have a practical reason for rejecting the resurrection but I will save it for another time.

I have a leaning towards metaphysical naturalism although I wonder about the mystical feeling that people can like Willaim Bagley and Marus Borg have. I really wonder about the feeling that my Christians friend have that blocks their common sense with regard to the inerrancy of the bible. As my Christian friend say, there are parts of the bible that are intellectual unsatisfying and it is difficult to reconcile the barbaric nature of God of the old testament with the goodness of God but these should not be an impedient to the believing in the inerrancy of the bible. I am tempted to dismiss it nothing more as mental placebo which gives them a feeling of emotioan/intellectual security becuse for most of them a personal relationship with Christ does not seem to have changed their outward behavior at all

Vorkosigan

Will you quit calling him "PolyCRAP?" It is totally unwarranted by any behavior on his part.

Polycarp is showing a patience here that is positively atheist.

Michael

Benjamin Franklin

Hi Michael

My mispelling of Polycarp's name is unintentional. There is no intentional rudeness on my part. I really should check my spelling before post I my messages. Once again, I would like to extend my apologies to Polycarp if I have offended him.

Tjun Kiat

CX

There are a number of interesting answers here, but a fair amount of theological (or atheological) axe grinding is evident as well. Here's my take:

The largest difference between KJV and NIV is the family of greek manuscripts used. The KJV uses the Byzantine family of manuscripts which are generally considered less reliable on the whole than those used for the NIV. The NIV uses the alexandrian family of manuscripts which are more consistent, better attested and in general accepted by biblical scholars (real ones not clergy with an agenda) as superior.

In my personal opinion, having studied them both, I agree with the concensus that the NIV better reflects the meaning of the original greek texts. If you compare difficult or obscure readings from both translations to the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament with NA26/27 variants, there is a closer relationship to the text in the NIV. Furthermore the KJV translators had a much bigger agenda and more pronounced translational bias than the NIV translators. In my cases great liberties are taken with the text to meet criteria for literary form over textual content. It's much like the "Living Bible" which tries to translate the greek and hebrew texts in modern, common americanized english. Also more difficult readings are overtly removed from the KJV versus the NIV. Here is a case in point:

GMk 1:2 (NIV)
It is written in Isaiah the prophet: "I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way".

GMk 1:2 (KJV)
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

Westcott-Hort (transliterated because this forum doesn't support the archaic greek character set)

kaqwV gegraptai en tw hsaia tw profhth idou apostellw ton aggelon mou pro proswpou sou
oV kataskeuasei thn odon sou

Now even if you don't read Koine Greek, though I strongly suggest you become at least somewhat familiar with it, it isn't too hard to realize that the greek text says: KAQWN GEGRAPTAI EN TW HSAIA...

What is the English rendering? "As it is written in Isaiah..."

Why should this be of interest? Because AMk (the author of the gospel attributed ot Mark) makes a mistake here. The passage he quotes from the old testament, which is a messianic prophecy, is not in Isaiah but is rather in Malachi 3:1. Now the KJV translators simply translated this out because it is an obvious mistake. The NIV leaves it in AND notes in the footnotes that it really refers to Mal 3:1.

As a side note Mark's confusion is not totally incomprehensible, since there are a number of messianic prophecies in Isaiah (Though the one on which the infancy narratives in GMt and GLk are based on cannot be consider a prophecy about Jesus)and a lot of the oral tradition of Jesus' sayings makes reference to it. What this tells us is that Mark was either not Jewish or not terribly well read in Jewish scriptures. The former seems more likely since he is also not terribly familiar with the geography of 1st century Palestine and gets somewhat confused about Jewish traditions. Furthermore though his greek syntax is clunky and inelegant (with not nearly the literary finesse exhibited by ALk) it does not appear to be translational in nature. Another argument in favor of this is that Mark is clearly writing for a gentile audience since he goes to the trouble of explaining aramaisms which any first century Jew would have understood since aramaic was the common language of the people.

Benjamin Franklin

Hi

there are two problemtatic translations that I would like someone who is knowledgeble to comment

In the Niv Version Genesis 2:19
It is written that Lord God had formed out of the ground out of the ground all the beasts of the fields. Now my friend took this to show that the animals were created before man and thus not contracdiction with Genesis 1. In most other tranlsations, the had is not there indicates that
animals were created after man

In the NIV Version Micah 5 the first line reads
And he will be their peace.
In the KIV version, there is a comma after the peace.
My friend took the NIV version to mean that the rest of the passage was referring to a entirely different person from the first part of Micah 5 for the obvious reason the latter passage does not fit Jesus at all and if one connects the first part to second part, it is clear that Jesus did not fulfill the Messianhic prophecies at all.

Tjun Kiat

PolyCarp/Nomad - I have a started a thread called liberal Christianity in the miscellanous religious discussion form. Can we bring our discussion there, because we are seriously straying of course here. Also there is thread in the same section called calling all infidels which ask people for their opinion of Christianity
I will probably answer it at some point in time.

Tjun Kiat

[ December 20, 2001: Message edited by: TJUN KIAT TEO ]</p>

CX

The OT is not my area of knowledge, but it is important to note that neither Ancient Hebrew nor Koine Greek have punctuation so commas etc. in English translations are just the translators' best guesses as to the original meaning.

CX

Errata: I should have said the redactors of the Byzantine manuscripts edited out the mistake not the translators of KJV. The passage is different in the Byzantine manuscripts.

Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by turtonm: Will you quit calling him "PolyCRAP?" It is totally unwarranted by any behavior on his part. Polycarp is showing a patience here that is positively atheist.

Is this a backhanded compliment??? To atheists I mean...

But seriously... I think Tjun has indicated that English is not his/her first language, so it hasn't really bothered me. I can't complain because Tjun obviously knows English far better than I know my second or third languages.

Peace,

Polycarp