Doctor X

Not really. For example--at the risk of pissing some here off--current scholarship adheres to Mt and Lk using Mk as a source.

They rewrite Mk. They "say" quite a different thing.

Move on to the birth narratives--historically incompatible--cannot blame Mt and Lk, they did not expect to be in the "same book!"

Another favorite--YHWH makes David take a census . . . so he can squish him for it! This is in the Deuteronomistic History. The Chronicler softens this considerably by having "Satan"--in his debue . . . unless you read Job first--order the census. Not much of a "soften."

My favorite, of course, is the YHWH's demand for child sacrifice in Exodus. This is "softened" in Ezekiel where YHWH states he made people follow "bad laws" so they would be defiled by them. Not exactly "nice," but it was a solution used by the author.

The point of my [Ramblings.--Ed.] discussion is not that "there are inaccuracies in the Bible Pbbbbbbbbstttt!" It indicates that there are disagreements and reworkings of the stories within the work. Thus, "same story" does not describe the situation.

Are they? And how does one decide which is which? Seriously. Take Genesis . . . you have basically two creation myths stitched together. Leave aside that they describe events contradicted by science . . . which one do you choose? Take "In the beginning" from P and you lose the whole Adam, Eve, and the Tree of Life story from J.

Lost me here . . . do you mean The Bishop's Bible or do you imply "original gospels" are false? Sorry, I am not sure what you mean.

How is "ancient text correct"? Return to the creation myths, they do not describe cosmology correctly. Peruseth the Flood Myth topics here to see that they do not describe reality either. They are based on Sumerian and Babylonian myths. Does this make those earlier myths "correct?"

Return to the NT . . . which version is "correct?" Clearly, Mt and Lk did not think Mk "correct enough!"

--J.D.

Dargo

I've known fundy Christians who attended seminaries and knew Greek and Hebrew who admitted the KJV is a rather poor translation. These were not evil liberal Christians mind you, but men who believed the original manuscripts of the Bible were without error, and that current manuscripts were without any doctrinally significant errors. They went to nice conservative seminaries too like Dallas Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Seminary. In fact, I've never known a fundy who understood Greek and Hebrew who believed the KJV was the best English translation although some do exist.

They felt the manuscripts available to the KJV translators were not of the highest quality being much more recent than the ones available to Biblical scholars today. They also said that knowledge of Greek and Hebrew has improved considerably since the 17th century.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Dargo,

You have to separate the translation issue, and the underlying source from which the translation was made issue. What I'm saying is that the underlying Greek text from which the KJV translators translated was far superior to the Westcott & Hort text, which is the basis of all "modern" translations (I'm talking about the NT of course).

If you have a lousy Greek text from which you're translating, then no matter how good the translator is the results will still be poor.

Best,

Yuri.

Calzaer

Um, Badfish? The monarch of your Holy Monarchy, King James, was more flamingly homosexual than that blond guy on "Are You Being Served?". You sure you want to follow a gay guy's translation of the Bible?

In Other News: Actually making a translation of the Bible by studying Hebrew language and idioms rather than making it up from the seat of your pants because you're a King is a Satanic Conspiracy! Film at 11!

Dargo

I'm afraid most modern Bible scholars disagree with you, Yuri. That's the reason most of those evil modern translations use the Westcott & Hott text. Not even all fundies believe the manuscripts used for the KJV version are better than those available to modern Bible scholars.

Yuri Kuchinsky

So what? Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

Quote:

That's the reason most of those evil modern translations use the Westcott & Hott text. Not even all fundies believe the manuscripts used for the KJV version are better than those available to modern Bible scholars.

Hey, I fully accept that at this time we have better manuscripts as compared to what was available to the translators of KJV. But so what? Having the better manuscripts and actually _using_ them are two completely different things...

The problem is that Hort didn't use the best manuscripts for his text.

Best,

Yuri.

spin

What exactly did he use and what other text that were availableto him would you have used?


spin

Haran

W&H based their text on codex Vaticanus and used other ancient MSS that they knew of. For many reasons, Vaticanus has been considered one of the earliest and probably purest exemplars.

Some of the things I've read seem to indicate that at least some of the major OS texts that Yuri prefers had only become available shortly before the W&H text was created. Up to that time, scholars believed the Greek text was original because Greek MSS were what they had and because Greek was the lingua franca of the area in which the texts were supposed to have originated (among many other reasons).

Yuri, if you feel that I'm incorrect about the OS texts becoming available only shortly before the W&H text, then what Syriac texts do you think they had that they should have considered over the Greek? The Peshitta might have been available to them, but it seems even more obviously a translation from the Greek.

Doctor X

Something is not a fallacy if it is true and relevant to the topic.

--J.D.

spin

I thought Hort had another Alexandrian codex to consult, Sinaiticus perhaps? (I don't remember.)

Yuri was packaging the problem as a sin of omission, so it might be nice for him to solidly formulate his gripe. Specifics are what we want, not invective.

He also seems to have some difficulty with the self-depracating writing style of the humble scholar in the late 19th century.


spin