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November 27, 2015 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 27 November 2015

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General Debate

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Kimbo

@ Odakyu-sen

When it comes to translating the Greek and Hebew texts (and I’ll leave aside for here the issues of textual criticism where by biblical scholars determine are the more likely versions of those) there are a number of options options.

Literal translations, such as the NASB – is very wooden, and euphemisms and colloquialisms from the original context just don’t translate. e.g, “covering his feet” means having a crap

Dynamic equivalence (the NIV)

or paraphrase, such as the “Good News” and “Living Bible”

Rule of thumb – use a number and compare to canvas the possibilities..and the trends the specialist scholars are pointing to that may dispel your immediate (and sometimes mistaken) instincts. Christianity is not like Islam, demanding an allegedly perfect original and copy in the original language through a “human telephone”. That is not a doctrine contained in Scripture. Indeed, Jesus even seems to have used the Septuagint/LXX (a Greek translation of the original Hebrew Old Testament) in Luke 4, so if translations are good enough for him…
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November 27, 2015 10:02pm
Johnboy

Blessed be the Godnutters for they would put the “O” in GD given the chance! 🙂
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November 27, 2015 10:04pm
Kimbo

194/9. Hmm. Let’s see if the “bowling friendly” conditions under lights can get us back into the game…
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November 27, 2015 10:04pm
Johnboy

Time I went off to bed down my sheep….well done team! 🙂
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November 27, 2015 10:06pm
Odakyu-sen

Kimbo,

You can’t translate the words; you have to translate the underlying meaning. To do that, you have to know the thoughts and intentions of the author.

That can be tricky.
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November 27, 2015 10:06pm
Kimbo

@ Griff

Well considered comment Odakyu-sen
The original text does not exist for the christian gospels. We only have later versions as transcribed some 200 years after the death of Christ.
Add in what was deemed to be wrong and ignored or deleted into that mix.

For someone who accuses others of debating about angels on pinherads, and denyimg you have any specialist expertise or interest in the topic, you sure go “all in” on your bidding, don’t you!

Um, maybe acquaint yourself with the Isaiah scroll discovered at Qumran in 1947. Before then, the oldest copy of Isaiah (admittedly an Old Testament book, but there are principles here for New Testament textual transmission) was dated to 800AD. And of course, the claim was made…”Chinese whispers, transmission errors, fables…no one knows what was originally written”, etc.

The Qumran discovery pushed that date back 1000 years to 200BC…and while there were some variations, there were no significant doctrinal or ethical differences. The people who transmitted the Scriptures considered it Holy, so took special care.
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November 27, 2015 10:12pm
SPC

Quick and the dead is a western concept.
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November 27, 2015 10:14pm
SPC

Kimbo, the tradition that the word came from God to Moses, letter by letter, probably reflects the way they copied scripts.
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November 27, 2015 10:22pm
Griff

What is the definition of Gospel kimbo?

I dont doubt that older copy exist for the old testament or Torah or that early works that are not accounts of the life of Jesus can also be found.

Mathew Mark Luke and John are the ones accepted into your bible are they not ?

They are not the only gospels that exist or evidence suggest existed.

The dating for earliest known fragments for the gospels is from ce 200 or later .
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November 27, 2015 10:28pm
SPC

shunda, google says surgery and checking the estrogen balance (too much) with testosterone levels (not enough).
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November 27, 2015 10:33pm
Kimbo

@ SPC

Quick and the dead is a western concept.

Actually, as referred to by Paul in 1st Corinthains 15 as the resurrection of the living/quick and the dead”, it is Hebraic, or at least it came via interaction with Persian concepts and beliefs.

Daniel 12:2, Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
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November 27, 2015 10:34pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@shunda barunda 9:52

re gynecomastia…

Surgery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znkighDYbMw
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November 27, 2015 10:35pm
Nookin

Bye-bye Mr Warner. Welcome back Mr Boult.
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November 27, 2015 10:36pm
SPC

Knowledge can be a troublesome thing – too much estrogen could mean that alcohol intake is limiting capacity to remove it.

http://stronglifts.com/3-tips-to-lose-man-boobs-naturally/
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November 27, 2015 10:49pm
SPC

Sorry Kimbo – I should clarify

Quick and the dead is a western concept.

Faye Wray, rather than Phay-roe, is a jungle book concept.
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November 27, 2015 10:51pm
Kimbo

@ Griff

What is the definition of Gospel kimbo?

Great question and I was tempted to chime in earlier when some were claiming the Gospels are “history”. “What is a Gospel?” is also, incidentally, a really good question you regularly get in 2nd or 3rd year New Testament biblical theology exams. You can canvas all the existing options from the period around the 1st Century – Pagan epics, Hebrew apocalypses, “Heroes tales”, “histories of the Gallic Wars. etc…and I think the best conclusion is…they are a unique genre. Sure they, claim to be referncing history (and bear in mind that is a slioppery term that has a different technical meaning then compared to what moderns consider history (with guys like Marx and Foucault, etc, throwing their views into the mix. Ultimately they are kerygmaproclamation…which may have much, some, little or no value for historical knowledge, depending on your prejudices. For me, whatever it is, the New Testament is most certainly a well attested artifact of the Ancient World, and if it wasn’t for the fact that some folks still have a pricker over Christendom, it could be universally considered as such.

?I dont doubt that older copy exist for the old testament or Torah or that early works that are not accounts of the life of Jesus can also be found.

Mathew Mark Luke and John are the ones accepted into your bible are they not ?

Yes. “Canonical” is the technical term.

They are not the only gospels that exist or evidence suggest existed.

Correct. Others were written, some heretical/clearly non-Apsotolic in doctrine when compared to the rest of the New Testament (the Gospel of Thomas from the 1947 Nag Hammadi discovery is one), while others are simply “not up to standard”. There is an “internal test” they just don’t meet. Mind you, I could live with James, the 2nd and third epistles of John and Jude being removed from the canon…but that’s just me.

The dating for earliest known fragments for the gospels is from ce 200 or later .

Umm, no. Papyrus 52 has been dated to approximately 110AD I believe:

http://www.bible-researcher.com/papyrus.52.html

Plus you also get corroboration of key elements from the Gospels in the epistles. Some scholars like to date Matthew, Luke and John to the late 2nd Century AD (I think that is untenable – I think by the end of the 1st Century is perfectly reasonable), but not even the most liberal scholar will dispute the Pauline authorship and essential textual authenticity of his letters to the Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and I and II Thessalonians. Romans is jammed packed with reference to the death and resurrection of Christ. And I Corinthians contains the following, which seems as good a summation of what you will find in the Four Gospels and also Acts, including Paul’s conversion):

I Corinthians 15: 1-11
1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Muslims and skeptics claim that the idea of Jesus’ resurrection is this “later invention”. Well, here is Paul, less than 30 years later appealing to what is clearly a well known and believed account that he did. And frankly, if you try and remove that from Paul’s letters, let alone the rest of the New Testament, it comes apart like threads in your hand. The resurrection is the “core” of the New Testament message…and also the primitive church’s too. Forget the “ethical teacher with other folks gulding the message with miracle stories decades later”. It may not prove Christ’s resurrection as such, but there seems little doubt the Church believed it, right from the beginning.
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November 27, 2015 10:54pm
Kimbo

@ SPC

Sorry Kimbo – I should clarify

Quick and the dead is a western concept.

Faye Wray, rather than Phay-roe, is a jungle book concept.

No, my apologies. Sorry, very obtuse on my part to miss your amusing quip. Kinda like Ma-la-chi (rhymes with party) is an Italian prophet.
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November 27, 2015 11:01pm
Griff

the Jews, “For us
anyone,” so that
spoke en to show
die.
and summoned
and said to
Jews?

with a similar content on the other side .
Dated to the first half of the second century or later .
A dozen broken lines with different translations available in a quick search is hardly convincing evidence of authenticity for a non believer kimbo
As I said very early on the teachings of Paul are not the philosophy of your prophet the man I accept existed .
Paul never meet Jesus and his idea of Christianity his epiphany on the road to Damascus was not that of the Jewish christian church founded by Jesus’s apostles.
Many non Christian scholars find the so called Coptic Gospels like Thomas or Mary are probably closer to Jesus than your bible and are just as early as your chosen canon.
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November 27, 2015 11:20pm
Kimbo

@ Griff

with a similar content on the other side .
Dated to the first half of the second century or later .
A dozen broken lines with different translations available in a quick search is hardly convincing evidence of authenticity for a non believer kimbo

Welcome to the world of Biblical textual scholarship. But i’m not aware of any scholar, Christian or not, who would dispute the authenticity. You have “faith” in the consensus scientists reach. Then it is only reasonable to do the same with a discipline with its own “tests” and peer review. But then again, for those who are determined there is no evidence, none can be produced. Put it this way – positing the Gospel of Thomas is the original message of the church is easy compared to the real heavy lifting that the guys searching and sifting through papyrus fragments, including using xrays to see faded ink, etc, do. These are the “real scholars” of biblical and Ancient study!

As I said very early on the teachings of Paul are not the philosophy of your prophet the man I accept existed .
Paul never meet Jesus and his idea of Christianity his epiphany on the road to Damascus was not that of the Jewish christian church founded by Jesus’s apostles.
Many non Christian scholars find the so called Coptic Gospels like Thomas or Mary are probably closer to Jesus than your bible and are just as early as your chosen canon.

Indeed, some scholars do. But, IMHO, it is unlikely – Thomas’ Gospel is clearly rooted in the Neo-Platonic thought of Greece that spawned Gnosticism (which is actually more a “flavour” and rag-bag of eclectic thoughts, rather than a specifically codified belief), rather than the essential and indispensable Palestinian Jewish apocalyptic expectation that both the Jesus of the Synoptics and John, and also Paul, not to mention the rest of the New Testament all share – even if (unsurprisingly) at times they use their own motifs and terminology to convey their message.
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November 27, 2015 11:33pm
Kimbo

…not to deny the fact that, at times, the New Testament reflects elements of Platonic dualism. The Gospel of John, the letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation/Apocalypse all have key elements of a heavenly world above, and an earthly world beneath. But then as the essential Jewish apocalyptic belief is that heaven and earth become one place via the renewal of creation (rather than escape from it characteristic of Neo-Platonic and Gnostic thought, and also exhibited in the Gospel of Thomas), they are not ultimately incompatible with the “this age..the age to come” linear Jewish conception.
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November 27, 2015 11:46pm
Shunda barunda

@shunda barunda 9:52

re gynecomastia…

Surgery

Whoa!!! hold on a second!, I just noticed a slight jiggle when wearing a T shirt today, it’s not like I’ve grown a full set of great wobbling wazzoobies!

Surgery? really? I was hoping there may be some sort of exercise that could sort it out 😉

I think I’ll just buy a bra 😀
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November 27, 2015 11:57pm
Griff

I am not disputing the authenticity of the fragment kimbo it is the first date able know fragment of a gospel.
See my post that said at lest a century after Christ for known written copy’s
It only proves the authenticity those specific words are part of the later know remnants and the complete text from the full copy’s dated 200ce or later
I understand even then it does not have space for the full passages contained in later versions.
Paul disagrees with James in his writings of this there is no dopt
James represented the church of jesus the prophet not Paul the interlopers version
This is why i found Odakyu-sen comment interesting and insightful as what he said agrees with my view of the present Christian church teachings including yours on the philosophy of Jesus.

Still when it comes to bible study I suffer from DK.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
😆
I will henceforth bow to your far superior knowledge of Christianity.
But still retain the right to not agree with you.
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November 28, 2015 12:04am
Kimbo

@ Griff

I will henceforth bow to your far superior knowledge of Christianity.
But still retain the right to not agree with you.

fair enough. Have a good night.
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November 28, 2015 12:21am
Scott Chris

Wish I had a better quality link but this just smokes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNk4rDxU36I
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November 28, 2015 3:09am
Left Right and Centre

I see the latest GD Suzanne Paul of godformecials has been busy spraying godfitti all over the place like a dog lifting its leg to piss all over its territory.

Then there was some debate about popular works of fiction and nonsense – it’s like seeing Star Trek nerds going at it – dorks.
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November 28, 2015 3:48am
starboard

“Wish I had a better quality link but this just smokes:

Lol..it does if you’re a poof who likes Prince and Beyonce..Bawhahahahahaha!!
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November 28, 2015 10:31am

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