ax

do not worry, I will respond to you're questions as soon as I get the time.(via personal messages).
As for the way I conduct myself-we all need to be a little crazy! come on, lighten up, I'm here to get answers and have fun.
(you're mother was a hampster and you're father
smelt of elder berries!)
Any scrap of my credibility has just been lost-
hasn't it...I thought so.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: ax ]

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: ax ]</p>

Ion

Good points.

ax

you guys are dicks.

Ion

That's very 'profound', ax: no wonder you are blown away here with such low capabilities you have.

ax

I realize the importance of being serious-but for once can you just get over you're egos and "we have the answers so listen to us you little wart"
approach to everyone.The fact is, I know that the bible has "faults" in it, but I am not kicking and screaming " its all true, its all true!!".
(Man this thread has gone on for ages!!)

Skeptical

The problem is that it does not appear from some of your comments that your are here either for "answers" or "fun". When you say things like:

"it [the bible] has a perfect balance of these things. obviously it is you that is delusional-not I"

and

"Of course the bible is the word of God..."

It doesn't appear that you are looking for any real answers but are making an a priori assumption that the stories of the OT and NT are literally true. It also doesn't look to me like you are merely trying to have "fun", but perhaps the humor is lost in the medium.

I don't have any problem with you contacting me offline as you did previously, but if you have arguments to present I believe they would be better presented in an open forum such as this so others can comment as well as I.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I feel I do have an above average understanding of the creation and development of the NT and can speak intelligently about problems/contradictions/mythology therein. Others on this list are no doubt far more educated on these topics than I and can speak even more competently on these subjects.

If your previous comments were just meant in "fun", it would be better if you would preface them a bit by letting people know that in advance. Otherwise people will just assume you are "trolling" and intentionally being obnoxious and that you have nothing of true substance to say.

Starspun

Ax,
Step away from Monty Python...slowly now, we don't want you to hurt yourself.
Now, the hot air you seem so full of is the same hot air that the bible consists of. I think the bible, if one believes in it's writing's, is to be read as the literal word of god. I come to this conclusion because it is not The Illiad or The Odyssey. This is a genuine, first rate mind-fu*k. You do not put pretty poetry in text used for control. The people of that time were taught, and they believed it was the literal word of god. Not convinced? Let's use an example (and probably not the best one). If someone from today read the bible that didn't have a clue as to the nature of the book or the xtian religion, that person would assume it was poetry and high fantasy. After all, common knowledge says that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice-versa as the bible claims. Well, let's flashback to the 16th century as a certain scientist named Galileo is placed under arrest for defying the word of god and claiming the Earth actually revolves around the Sun.
People of this era do see supposed poetry and such nonsense in the bible, due to what has been disproved by science. But, in the day, it was a first rate, control tool that people believed or payed a stiff price (usually their head) for disbelieving.

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starspun ]</p>

King Arthur

As I mentioned in my first post (before things got sidelined by all the nonsense), I decided to go check out the Hebrew of 1Kings. Haran made a big deal over the fact that Steven didn't know the language. I don't know how he arrived at this conclusion since Steven only posted the words he wanted Haran to translate. However, after looking around, it looks like Haran's transliteration of the Hebrew was correct.

I have to say I'm disappointed in some of our skeptics here. I saw a bunch of dismissals of what Haran said (one even went so far as to ask how it felt to lose, or whatever!!), but no one seems to have taken up his challenge to present scholarly material against what he was saying. And what he was saying seems to be corroborated by sources (the OT book I mentioned) and legit scholars.

I'd like to see someone quote some scholars against what he said. If the translation is so cut and dry as several here have made it sound, then surely there is some information out there against what he said. After checking his stuff out, I'm beginning to think there is something to what he was saying.

Skeptical

As I stated before, I don't believe I have the requisite linguistic skills to debate the nuances of the translations in question. However, after reading all of the translations of Kings 2:22-24 at the bible gateway website, I don't think the arguments presented by Haran for the _interpretation_ of the translation are very strong.

If you just read the verses in context, it seems clear that the young boys, lads, youths or what have you are not being overly threatening. I have seen kids 13-16 jeering at people before and not had even the slightest thought that they were actually going to try and harm those people, they were just being rowdy kids. Rude and sometimes crude, but just obnoxious, not threatening and not dangerous.

I think Haran's attempt to equate this with a mental image of a "gang" seems to be an attempt to make the situation seem much more dangerous for Elisha than is actually what is portrayed. To me the question is not whether it is _possible_ to get the sort of connotation that Haran argues for, but whether it is _probable_. To me, its just not the most probable view reading the text as its written and translated in all of the various versions. No, I don't have a scholars resource to back me up, but I think on this one I can rely on my own judgement and in any case, I think this is a very minor question.

Even granting Haran's argument that the "youths" are posing much more of a threat than is apparent from the text, it _still_ is an overreaction to have them "mauled" or "tore up" by bears, especially 42 of them since the point would certainly have been made after the first "mauling". No matter how you slice it, you have to perform some considerable mental gymnastics to reconcile this sort of story with the compassion and love preached in the NT. (and as I pointed out earlier, the dubious morality of this story pales in comparison to others in the OT)

I do agree that some of the responses may have been a little strong in completely dismissing Haran, and that was not appropriate as he does appear to have some background and knowledge in the field of OT/NT studies. However, I do think it's pretty clear that the reading he promotes still wouldn't pass most peoples morality checks, believer or no.

Steven Carr

Blah,blah, blah....

The words mean 'little children' or 'young boys', as almost all Bibles translate it.

Haran's experts ignored the word 'qatan', as it means 'young' or 'small'. Even Haran himself conceded that it means 'young in years', and that his word 'gang' was nowhere to be found.

If Haran himself said that it should not be translated 'gang', how can his delusion that 'young boys' were a gang of delinquents be backed up by scholars?

Haran wrote 'The word translated "little children" can mean "young men"' This was a lie,as he later conceded. There are two words, 'small' and 'boys'.

'Boys' can indeed mean 'young men'. Even in English, people sometimes refer to an American Football team as 'our boys'.

This does not give you carte blanche to say that the phrase 'small boys' can mean that somebody is being threatened by the New York Giants, no matter how many scholars correctly point out that people use 'boys' to refer to gangsters (Boys in the hood, and all that)

This word 'small' was important, as Haran showed by giving a web page to a 'scholar' who totally ignored the word.