Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 05-03-2007, 10:53 PM

From the proposal thread.

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No wonder the atheists look at Christians and laugh.

Ecrasez L'infame · 05-04-2007, 02:12 AM

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Originally Posted by GrandpaMithras

praexus, everyone with half a brain knows the King James Version is not a good translation by any rational judgment. I stay away from this part of the forums, but just so you know, 99% of Christians know that its a bad translation. And 100% of other informed people.

Maybe, but at least it was written by people who loved English. Check out the CEV sometime for the Bible as written by a committee of management accountants. Or any other recent translation.

KJV: ...he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall...

CEV: ...he killed everyone in Baasha's family. Not one man or boy in his family was left alive...

Steven Avery · 05-04-2007, 04:51 AM

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Originally Posted by GrandpaMithras

praexus, everyone with half a brain knows the King James Version is not a good translation by any rational judgment. I stay away from this part of the forums, but just so you know, 99% of Christians know that its a bad translation. And 100% of other informed people.

Actually there are quotes after quotes of scholars and experts proclaiming the King James Bible as an excellent translation. (I have even heard orthodox Jews compliment the Tanach translation with the caveat that they disagree on some of the Messianic verses).

So you are just speaking nonsense above.

In fact even those trying to discredit the King James Bible as not pure and perfect give us lots of quotes as to how fine a translation it is overall. And how they 'use' the translation. Folks like James White and James Price who write anti-KJB books generally give us lots of those quotes.

So what is the source of your 99% and 100% quote ? Such nonsense assertions would be best noted by the moderators - however in their absence I will point out that you are just making this up.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

GrandpaMithras · 05-04-2007, 08:48 PM

Um, the King James version was written without access to the older manuscripts we have now, so QED its not a very good translation, no matter the quality of its prose.

Steven Avery · 05-06-2007, 01:16 PM

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Originally Posted by GrandpaMithras

Um, the King James version was written without access to the older manuscripts we have now, so QED its not a very good translation, no matter the quality of its prose.

GM, would you specifically state the older manuscripts that you feel offer quality enhancements to the knowledge of the NT that would have changed the Textus Receptus - and also a couple of verses where the new-old manuscripts become the tipping-point in textual analysis.

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven

bobhope2112 · 05-06-2007, 03:30 PM

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Originally Posted by praxeus

GM, would you specifically state the older manuscripts that you feel offer quality enhancements to the knowledge of the NT that would have changed the Textus Receptus - and also a couple of verses where the new-old manuscripts become the tipping-point in textual analysis.

Ehrman has a concise history of the Textus Receptus in Misquoting Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk). It portrays that translation as hastily done, from a limited set of sources, and subject to political pressure. One example where a broader scholarship has called doubts upon the authenticity of a passage comes in Luke 22. Sorry about the lengthy quote, but I think it's worth showing Ehrman's textual analysis:

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LUKE AND AN IMPERTURBABLE JESUS

Unlike Mark, the Gospel of Luke never explicitly states that Jesus becomes angry. In fact, here Jesus never appears to become disturbed at all, in any way. Rather than an angry Jesus, Luke portrays an imperturbable Jesus. There is only one passage in this Gospel in which Jesus appears to lose his composure. And that, interestingly enough, is in a passage whose authenticity is hotly debated among textual scholars.

The passage occurs in the context of Jesus's prayer on the Mount of Olives just before he is betrayed and arrested (Luke 22:3946). After enjoining his disciples to "pray, lest you enter into temptation," Jesus leaves them, bows to his knees, and prays, "Father, if it be your will, remove this cup from me. Except not my will, but yours be done." In a large number of manuscripts the prayer is followed by the account, found nowhere else among our Gospels, of Jesus's heightened agony and socalled bloody sweat: "And an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. And being in agony he began to pray yet more fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground" (vv. 4344). The scene closes with Jesus rising from prayer and returning to his disciples to find them asleep. He then repeats his initial injunction for them to "pray, lest you enter into temptation." Immediately Judas arrives with the crowds, and Jesus is arrested.

One of the intriguing features of the debate about this passage is the balance of arguments back and forth over whether the disputed verses (vv. 4344) were written by Luke or were instead inserted by a later scribe. The manuscripts that are known to be earliest and that are generally conceded to be the best (the "Alexandrian" text) do not, as a rule, include the verses. So perhaps they are a later, scribal addition. On the other hand, the verses are found in several other early witnesses and are, on the whole, widely distributed throughout the entire manuscript tradition. So were they added by scribes who wanted them in or deleted by scribes who wanted them out? It is difficult to say on the basis of the manuscripts themselves.

Some scholars have proposed that we consider other features of the verses to help us decide. One scholar, for example, has claimed that the vocabulary and style of the verses are very much like what is found in Luke otherwise (this is an argument based on "intrinsic probabilities"): for example, appearances of angels are common in Luke, and several words and phrases found in the passage occur in other places in Luke but nowhere else in the New Testament (such as the verb for "strengthen"). The argument hasn't proved convincing to everyone, however, since most of these "characteristically Lukan" ideas, constructions, and phrases are either formulated in uncharacteristically Lukan ways (e.g., angels never appear elsewhere in Luke without speaking) or are common in Jewish and Christian texts outside the New Testament. Moreover, there is an inordinately high concentration of unusual words and phrases in these verses: for example, three of the key words (agony, sweat, and drops) occur nowhere else in Luke, nor are they found in Acts (the second volume that the same author wrote). At the end of the day, it's difficult to decide about these verses on the basis of their vocabulary and style.

Another argument scholars have used has to do with the literary structure of the passage. In a nutshell, the passage appears to be deliberately structured as what scholars have called a chiasmus. When a passage is chiastically structured, the first statement of the passage corresponds to the last one; the second statement corresponds to the second to last; the third to the third to last, and so on. In other words, this is an intentional design; its purpose is to focus attention on the center of the passage as its key. And so here:

Jesus (a) tells his disciples to "pray lest you enter into temptation" (v. 40). He then (b) leaves them (v. 41a) and (c) kneels to pray (v. 41b). ORIGINALS THAT MATTER 141 The center of the passage is (d) Jesus's prayer itself, a prayer bracketed by his two requests that God's will be done (v. 42). Jesus then (c) rises from prayer (v. 45a), (b) returns to his disciples (v. 45b), and (a) finding them asleep, once again addresses them in the same words, telling them to "pray lest you enter into temptation" (vv. 45C46).

The mere presence of this clear literary structure is not really the point. The point is how the chiasmus contributes to the meaning of the passage. The story begins and ends with the injunction to the disciples to pray so as to avoid entering into temptation. Prayer has long been recognized as an important theme in the Gospel of Luke (more so than in the other Gospels); here it comes into special prominence. For at the very center of the passage is Jesus's own prayer, a prayer that expresses his desire, bracketed by his greater desire that the Father's will be done (vv. 41C42). As the center of the chiastic structure, this prayer supplies the passage's point of focus and, correspondingly, the key to its interpretation. This is a lesson on the importance of prayer in the face of temptation. The disciples, despite Jesus's repeated request to them to pray, fall asleep instead. Immediately the crowd comes to arrest Jesus. And what happens? The disciples, who have failed to pray, do "enter into temptation"; they flee the scene, leaving Jesus to face his fate alone. What about Jesus, the one who has prayed before the coming of his trial? When the crowd arrives, he calmly submits to his Father's will, yielding himself up to the martyrdom that has been prepared for him.

Luke's Passion narrative, as has long been recognized, is a story of Jesus's martyrdom, a martyrdom that functions, as do many others, to set an example to the faithful of how to remain firm in the face of death. Luke's martyrology shows that only prayer can prepare one to die.

What happens, though, when the disputed verses (vv. 4344) are injected into the passage? On the literary level, the chiasmus that focuses the passage on Jesus's prayer is absolutely destroyed. Now the center of the passage, and hence its focus, shifts to Jesus's agony, an agony so terrible as to require a supernatural comforter for strength to bear it. It is significant that in this longer version of the story, Jesus's prayer does not produce the calm assurance that he exudes throughout the rest of the account; indeed, it is only after he prays "yet more fervently" that his sweat takes on the appearance of great drops of blood falling to the ground. My point is not simply that a nice literary structure has been lost, but that the entire focus of attention shifts to Jesus in deep and heartrending agony and in need of miraculous intervention.

This in itself may not seem like an insurmountable problem, until one realizes that nowhere else in Luke's Gospel is Jesus portrayed in this way. Quite the contrary, Luke has gone to great lengths to counter precisely the view of Jesus that these verses embrace. Rather than entering his passion with fear and trembling, in anguish over his coming fate, the Jesus of Luke goes to his death calm and in control, confident of his Father's will until the very end. It is a striking fact, of particular relevance to our textual problem, that Luke could produce this image of Jesus only by eliminating traditions that contradicted it from his sources (e.g., the Gospel according to Mark). Only the longer text of Luke 22:4344 stands out as anomalous.

A simple comparison with Mark's version of the story at hand is instructive in this regard (understanding that Mark was Luke's source— which he changed to create his own distinctive emphases). For Luke has completely omitted Mark's statement that Jesus "began to be distressed and agitated" (Mark 14:33), as well as Jesus's own comment to his disciples, "My soul is deeply troubled, even unto death" (Mark 14:34). Rather than falling to the ground in anguish (Mark 14:35), Luke's Jesus bows to his knees (Luke 22:41). In Luke, Jesus does not ask that the hour might pass from him (cf. Mark 14:35); and rather than praying three times for the cup to be removed (Mark 14:36, 39, 41), he asks only once (Luke 22:42), prefacing his prayer, only in Luke, with the important condition, "If it be your will." And so, while Luke's source, the Gospel of Mark, portrays Jesus in anguish as he prays in the garden, Luke has completely remodeled the scene to show Jesus at peace in the face of death. The only exception is the account of Jesus's "bloody sweat," an account absent from our earliest ORIGINALS THAT MATTER 143 and best witnesses. Why would Luke have gone to such lengths to eliminate Mark's portrayal of an anguished Jesus if in fact Jesus's anguish were the point of his story?

It is clear that Luke does not share Mark's understanding that Jesus was in anguish, bordering on despair. Nowhere is this more evident than in their subsequent accounts of Jesus's crucifixion. Mark portrays Jesus as silent on his path to Golgotha. His disciples have fled; even the faithful women look on only "from a distance." All those present deride him—passersby, Jewish leaders, and both robbers. Mark's Jesus has been beaten, mocked, deserted, and forsaken, not just by his followers but finally by God himself. His only words in the entire proceeding come at the very end, when he cries aloud, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani" (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). He then utters a loud cry and dies.

This portrayal, again, stands in sharp contrast to what we find in Luke. In Luke's account, Jesus is far from silent, and when he speaks, he shows that he is still in control, trustful of God his Father, confident of his fate, concerned for the fate of others. En route to his crucifixion, according to Luke, when Jesus sees a group of women bewailing his misfortune, he tells them not to weep for him, but for themselves and their children, because of the disaster that is soon to befall them (23:2731). While being nailed to the cross, rather than being silent, he prays to God, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing" (23:34). On the cross, in the throes of his passion, Jesus engages in an intelligent conversation with one of the robbers crucified beside him, assuring him that they will be together that day in paradise (23:43). Most telling of all, rather than uttering his pathetic cry of dereliction at the end, Luke's Jesus, in full confidence of his standing before God, commends his soul to his loving Father: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (24:46).

It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of these changes that Luke made in his source (Mark) for understanding our textual problem. At no point in Luke's Passion narrative does Jesus lose control; never is he in deep and debilitating anguish over his fate. He is in charge of his own destiny, knowing what he must do and what will happen to him once he does it. This is a man who is at peace with himself and tranquil in the face of death.

What, then, shall we say about our disputed verses? These are the only verses in the entire Gospel of Luke that undermine this clear portrayal. Only here does Jesus agonize over his coming fate; only here does he appear out of control, unable to bear the burden of his destiny. Why would Luke have totally eliminated all remnants of Jesus's agony elsewhere if he meant to emphasize it in yet stronger terms here? Why remove compatible material from his source, both before and after the verses in question? It appears that the account of Jesus's "bloody sweat," not found in our earliest and best manuscripts, is not original to Luke but is a scribal addition to the Gospel.

If you're interested in textual analysis, buy Ehrman's book. He has excellent credentials, an interesting back story, and an accessible writing style.

Agenda07 · 05-07-2007, 05:06 AM

I can see this debate ending badly unless the two debators share broadly the same beliefs, because the 'best translation' of a text depends on its nature and purpose. If you're translating a direct quotation or speech then a translation which provides pretty much word for word accuracy is probably the best; when translating poetry, accuracy is less important than retaining the flow of the poem and the feelings it evokes.

Steven Avery · 05-07-2007, 05:12 AM

Hi bobhope,

I really had a specific question for GM and this Ehrman fancy below is a bit of a diversion. However you do give a good example of the absurdity of so much modern textual stuff. (I won't even go into the nonsense of Ehrman's 'angry' try on Mark 1:41).

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