breathilizer

What's with the biblical God speaking in human language? Wouldn't it be easier for him to just put the info into the minds of his "listeners?" It seems a bit odd to me that an omnimax supernatural being would speak in human language.

It makes sense that someone writing a fiction novel about a god would use their language in his place though.

Idk... Maybe I'm just really bored at the moment.

Magus55

Why would God put info into people's heads? God spoke our language, because thats how we can understand Him.

lpetrich

What's "our" language? Anyone who knows more than one (natural) language ought to be aware that they do NOT have a 1-to-1 mapping. Not in vocabulary, and not in grammar.

And if the Bible is supposed to be a universal message, why doesn't it come with instructions for translators? So that none of it will ever get mistranslated. Furthermore, languages change over time; compare:

Old English, the "English" of King Alfred's time - modern English
Old Norse - Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, etc.
Latin - its descendants: Italian, Spanish, French, etc.
Classical Greek - Modern Greek
Sanskrit - its descendants: Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Sinhalese, etc.
Classical Arabic - modern Arabic dialects
Biblical Hebrew - modern Hebrew
Old Chinese - modern Chinese dialects
etc.
And that's just what's historically attested.

So there will be a translation problem over time as well as between different languages.

Muslims have traditionally attempted to circumvent that problem by declaring that the Koran's Classical Arabic original is the only legitimate version of the Koran, with translations only being commentaries. But the translation problem still exists; someone growing up speaking English, for example, will have to learn how Arabic maps onto English.

So it might be better to implant some message inside of our heads, so it can be continually apparent to our consciousnesses.

flintknapper

It seems to me that if *all* humans are the "children of god", god would communicate to all of us in a universal language...like nature/science. No late bronze age, Middle-eastern religion that glorifies human sacrifice can be universal in my opinion, reagrdless of the language.

Rational BAC

Why would God need any spoken language in order to communicate?

God is God. He can do any damned thing he pleases.

Of course He can communicate to any of us directly any of His children directly-------without any intervening language of any kind.

DBT

I only wish He would--it sure could save a lot of argument on our part.
But sadly it seems that He has been quiet for a very long time.

breathilizer

Because it's faster.

Are you saying that God would be incapable of having us understand him without speaking our language?