David Conklin

EXCELLANT QUESTION! Very good! It appears that shortly after the Christians started to relax/lower their standards (starting around 135-150 A.D. and continueing through ab't the time of Constantine--marched his army into a river and when they came out the other side pronounced them now to be Christians) there was a large influx of "pagans" into the Church. In doing so they broiught with them their beliefs and practices (such as worshipping images, Sunday-keeping, etc.).

See above. We can also add the period of the Dark Ages (i.e., a loss of knowledge) helped a great deal. Add to that the fact that the NT portion of the Bible was written in Greek and the loss of knowledge as to its meaning. Greek was no longer the lingua franca of Europe and the Med. basin.

True, but the Bible isn't the only basis on which people know right from wrong: conscience. And God knows what we know and how we know it and what we don't know and why we don't know it.


None of the above. God gave you a brain to use and He expects you to use it wisely when you make your choices (and not let your hormones make them for you).

There is only one set of rules: The Ten commandments.

If Paine is assuming that "a book written by the hand of man" means that it was created solely by man then he is correct. But, since God inspired the writers (thought inspiration) then Paine's conclusion is false.

Correct, the Bible warns us against false prophets.

God says to text Him and see if what He says is true. He never said to not trust "ANY of these books". That's why He says "by their fruits ye shall know them".

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: David Conklin ]</p>

Butters

Posted by David Conklin,
What Paine meant is that just because someones book claims to be written by God, there is no way to KNOW that it was. God would have communicated some other way.

As far as I know, thats what the book your showing me says, but how do I know it wasn't just written by a man? If the Christian Bible was judged by it's fruits, we would have gotten rid of it long ago. It's brought more misery than it has ever done good

Thanks for just brushing off the fact that Christians have not known what their religion REALLY said, and have led billions of people astray (only God and Jesus know how many, led astray by the church and burning in hell through no fault of there own). This is what Paine was talking about. God would not allow this to happen, yes man is sinfull and has free will and all that, but even if that were true, God KNOWS this, if he wanted to comunicate, he would have picked a better way.
And yes, we have a conscience, and thats what it's there for, to know right from wrong. If we spent our time developing it instead of trying to shape it to follow some rules laid down by some supernatural being, we'd all be a lot better off.

After using my brain, I realized that Paine was right! If one religion is true to the exclusion of all others, than billions and billions of people are wrong!

Well this confuses me. WHICH ten commandments, the Jewish version? The Catholic version? The Protestant version? Do you see what Paine was saying now?

BTW- I'm having a little trouble finding the ten commandments in the Bible.

BrotherMan

The 'ten' commandments start in Exodus 20 and continue through Exodus 23.

Butters

Maybe I am confused, it seems ALOT more than ten!

David Conklin

That's why God said to test His word. We can check and verify specific bits of informatiopn, enough to be sure that He spoke to us through the writers of the Biblical text.


Why "would"? Shouldn't that be "could"? that would be true, in some cases He spoke verbally, in some cases through dreams and visions.

[quote]
--------------------------------------------------God says to text Him and see if what He says is true. He never said to not trust "ANY of these books". That's why He says "by their fruits ye shall know them".
--------------------------------------------------
As far as I know, thats what the book your showing me says, but how do I know it wasn't just written by a man?

Because man can't prophecy what would happen hundreds or thousands of years in advance.


The misery was there long before the book was. We just don't realize how bad it really is yet, btw, it will get much worse soon.

[quote]
-------------------------------------------------Second, if this is true, then what most people have thought was the word of God has been misinterpreted for at least as long as it has been taught in english. All those poor billions of people led astray, just because no one could remember what the Bible REALLY said.
---------------------------------------------------True, but the Bible isn't the only basis on which people know right from wrong: conscience. And God knows what we know and how we know it and what we don't know and why we don't know it.
--------------------------------------------------
Thanks for just brushing off the fact

I have tried very hard to be very honest in my answers to you. It is not part of my character to "brush off" anything.


Says who? On what basis was that judgment made?


Who played God to determine that?

See the book Through No Fault of Their Own? No one is yet bunring in hell and no one will die in hell through no fault of their own.


He has tried to communicate to us through natuire, common sense, reason, through the Bibleand through His own Son. What more could He have done? You want sky-writing?


The rules God laid down are part of our nature. We are made like God to love and be loved. The 10C's are based on love for God and for opur fellow man.

Yes and no. We are all sinners, but God knows what we know and what we don't know (and why) and He'll take that into account.

See the Bible, not the words of man.

See Exod. 20: 3-17. Obviously vs. 18 isn't one of the commandments.

David Conklin

To follow-up on the differences between the various translations we should also note the difficulty in translating metaphors, figures of speech and idioms.

Try the following web sites:

1) <a href="http://simsim.rug.ac.be/Zmaalej/transmeta.html" target="_blank">http://simsim.rug.ac.be/Zmaalej/transmeta.html</a>

2) <a href="http://www.translation.su.se/french.cultural.images.html" target="_blank">http://www.translation.su.se/french.cultural.images.html</a> -- unfortunately the orig. paper is in Swedish--only the abstract is available in Enbglish

3) <a href="http://www.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de/linguist/issues/11/11-1036.html" target="_blank">http://www.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de/linguist/issues/11/11-1036.html</a> -- useful for the sources that are provided for further research

4) <a href="http://biblepacesetter.org/bibletranslation/archives/01-01/msg01537.html" target="_blank">http://biblepacesetter.org/bibletranslation/archives/01-01/msg01537.html</a> -- translating idioms

5) <a href="http://www.kkhec.net/miscellanyforumlinguistics.htm" target="_blank">http://www.kkhec.net/miscellanyforumlinguistics.htm</a> -- examples of English idioms

6) <a href="http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~hr/bible/lit-trans.html" target="_blank">http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~hr/bible/lit-trans.html</a>

7) <a href="http://www.cels.bham.ac.uk/resources/essays/ennis1.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.cels.bham.ac.uk/resources/essays/ennis1.pdf</a> -- pdf file, note the very first two paragraphs

8) <a href="http://gnujake.med.yale.edu/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2000-12/3502.html" target="_blank">http://gnujake.med.yale.edu/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2000-12/3502.html</a> -- last paragraph: "It is helpful periodically to go back to the definitions posted for "idiom" by Steven Craig Miller of this list. He gave two definitions, of which the first is the only one that has the meaning of true linguistic idioms, as we are discussing them in this topic thread. Such idioms cannot be translated from one language to another so that those who use the translation can understand their original meaning. It's just the nature of figurative language, and especially the nature of idioms which are a unique kind of figurative language whose words do not let us know what the meaning of the entire idiom is. In translation, if we want people to understand the meaning of the original idiom, we have to find an accurate way to state that meaning in the translation language. It is usually not very difficult to do so, except in cases where we do not know for sure what the original idiom meant, such as "heaping coals of fire upon a person's head"."

NOGO

A lot of useless verbiage.
There are people out there who spend their lives studying ancient languages.

Tell us what you know that they don't know and which help you with your interpretation of Mt24.

Otherwise you are just blowing in the wind.

David Conklin

Au contraire! First, one has to understand that the "plain and literal reading" is virtualy inmpossible.

True enough. It is partly they that I point you to so that you can understand the complexity of their task.

That would be like putting the cart before the horse. If you don't understand, or worse have even have a clue, as to what goes on in translating then you can't understand where I'd be coming from.

BTW, I already did exactly what you suggested earlier when I noted that someone else had studied and showed the different Greek words were being used in the text--and one response (not understanding the complexity of what is involved came up with the "Stupid God theory").

That's an idiom! {To play on your quip--&gt;} are you just blowing wind? Now imagine some foriegner trying to say that the word "wind" means the same in both sentances! Or, responds that this just shows that we're both stupid!

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: David Conklin ]</p>

NOGO

I speak three languages. You do not need to tell me about the difficulties in going from one language to another.

For this to have any relevance then all scholars would agree with your interpretation of the text.

But that is far from the case. There are many scholars who are not trapped in religious dogma who call a spade a spade.

People like you try to use the translation excuse to change a text to mean exactly the opposite of what it says. I have seen it over and over again so do not be surprized if I do not go along with your little game.

The absurdity of your position is best shown by pointing out that all the Bibles that I consult have been translated by believers. So your position is that they are all incompetent. Fine, show us your translation and see how it holds out to criticism.

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

R.J.

Here's another reply from:
&lt; <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors_In_The_Christian_Bible" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors_In_The_Christian_Bible</a> &gt;
&lt; <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors_In_The_Christian_Bible/message/1219" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors_In_The_Christian_Bible/message/1219</a> &gt;