King Arthur

Dead freakin' gummit, Bede!

Would you read my stinkin' posts. You keep accusing me of things I don't say.

As a matter of fact, in my initial post, I made it very clear that Christians didn't try to disown or bury the Septuagint. Steven is simply wrong.

I think you need to re-read my initial post and analyze it in some detail before saying you disagree with me. I'm much closer to what you keep saying that what you keep putting on me.

Jayhawker Soule

I found Karen H. Jobes' <a href="http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Septuagint.htm" target="_blank">Excerpts from Invitation to the Septuagint</a> instructive, e.g.:

King Arthur

Exactly what I have been saying and providing quotes about... Thank you.

Jayhawker Soule

Don't mention it. ( I hate it when you're right. )

Bede

King Arthur,

Apologies. My two statements in point three should be decoupled. The septuagint point was aimed at Steven and was not meant to suggest you also subscribed to it. I have read you posts carefully and do think you over emphasise the discontinuities but expect that is due to the contrast with the material your were critquing.

Steven,

Childish? Actually, I just found it quite amusing much as I do alot on Holding's site. I stand by claiming Raglan iss useless and using him to score points for Jesus (or Churchill) is daft. I thought Justin showed this quite effectively and I'm not about to start bad mouthing my star contributors! Your website certainly suggests you think the Septuagint is thought to be an embarressment and has been covered up. I suggest some rewriting to stop simple souls like me getting the wrong idea.

B

King Arthur

I'm not sure I feel like debating this stuff anymore because Steven is not about to change his website for anyone or acknowledge any of his sources.

However, I would be interested to know more specifically what (other than my intentionally severe rhetoric) I "over emphasize"?

Steven Carr

I too thought at one time that Christians did not reject the Septuagint, but there was a posting by Mark Goodge, a Christian, on uk.religion.christian
on 28th November 1997

CARR
The early Christians thought it was a divinely
inspired translation

GOODGE
Not true. And, judging from your ealier posts, you *know* that's not true. So why say it?

CARR
and almost all the New Testament quotes of the
Old Testament are drawn from the Septuagint.

GOODGE
Not true. And, judging from your ealier posts, you *know* that's not true. So why say it?


GOODGE later wrote
'It's a big jump from the writings of a few individuals to a categorical statement that "the
early Christians" considered the LXX to be inspired. The evidence of the NT itself is that they did not consider it to be.'

GOODGE then wrote
'But it has never been official policy of any major denomination to consider a specific translation to be of equal authority
to the original texts.'



CARR in 2002.
SO Christians accuse me of lying when I say the early Christians used the LXX rather than the Hebrew, yet King Arthur accuses me of deliberately misleading when I say Christians today largely reject the Septuagint. Sometimes you just can't win.

Something which is just a plain, unvarnished fact.

(Note. 'largely reject' does not mean 'bury'. It just means that almost all Christians today refer to the Hebrew Scriptures, as Bede knows very well, despite his strawman claims that I say that Christians today 'disown' or 'bury' the Septuagint - words never to be found on my web site)

Fact - Christians plainly told me that no demonination has ever thought the LXX to have the same authority as the original texts.

Is it my fault if Christians lie to me, and I , in all naivety, believe them?

Steven Carr

That may be difficult. But let me take a writer who does write very clearly.


On page 159 of 'The Blind Watchmaker', Richard Dawkins writes 'A miracle is something which happens, but which is exceedingly surprising.If a marble statue of the Virgin Mary suddenly waved its hand at us we should treat it as a miracle , because all our experience and knowledge tells us that marble doesn't behave like that.'

On your web site, you write that Dawkins says that if a statue of the Virgin Mary waved its hand, we should never look for a supernatural explanation.

If you can get the wrong idea from such a clear writer as Dawkins, what chance do I stand?

Bede

Probably just the rhetoric. Someone reading your main post could go away thinking there were no contentions between the Septuagint and NT. Of course, we both know they were manifold and intimate even if the examples you give from Steven's work didn't actually include them.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Steven Carr

What are intimate and manifold contentions?