Tuesday, February 24, 2004 10:24:21 PM
O/T, but scholastically relevent to the recent discussions:
I think it's rather funny how everyone seems so terrified of a well-studied or correctly referenced religious - Christian in my case - viewpoint. "....Heavens to Mergatroid...." that anyone should mention the "..G-word.." or the "..J-word.." and upset the little "..if it feels good do it.." apple cart. It makes one wonder what the apparently offended and anti-vampire, finger-crossing squeamish are so desperate to hide from.
FWIW: The Bible has been one of the most important historic and formative documents ever printed, and it's still the biggest seller - the last time I looked. It's certainly no threat to anyone, unless one is personally feeling some overwhelming pangs of conscience, of course. Cookie Jar syndrome for the secularly correct among us...!! Tee hee hee.
This is not a promotion of any kind, it's simply a suggested mind expanding excercise.
I have an interesting acedemic challenge for anyone with the scholarly fortitude to take me up on it. First, let's consider the Bible as just another book. It's got a front cover, a beginning and an ending, a spine, a rear cover, and goodly collection of pages in between. War & Peace is about the same size.
Rather than grind through it the hard way, I would suggest picking up (..borrowing, if you like..) a set of audio tapes (..or CD..) of the entire book - read by someone with a Charlton Heston or George C. Scott quality voice. Now, I'll tell you before hand, the "..begets and begats.." section of the first half ( Old Testament ) reads about like the storm and rough seas portion of Das Boot - the German sea sick sub movie. After that, it's easily as readable and story-full as the Hobit, A Tale of Two Cities or any other semi-historical novel. Besides, you're not actually reading - just coasting along scanning with the help of the narrator
The nice thing about completing a read/listen like that is the ability to use or recall some of the references that people use in conversations. Or, in Simon and Garfunkel tunes, etc.... I don't suspect that many will get into Concordance review or comparing the actual English text to the original Hebrew/Greek, but there are a lot of words and phrases that have had their meanings highly skewed from their original Herbrew/Greek context.
One item in particular that I found interesting is the "...thou shalt not kill.." verbiage associated with the 10 Commandments. Lots of people wave their Bibles and proclaim "...thou shall not kill..." at executions, and deployments to war, etc. Actually, that's not what that passage says at all. The original Hebrew/Greek from which that phrase is taken is properly translated as "..thou shall not murder..". In other words, there is no Biblical statement preventing properly considered and just executions or death in righteous battle. It is clearly forbidden, however, to shoot someone; i.e.: convenience store robbery or jealous rage style.
I'm certainly not asking you to subscribe to the views in the above paragraph one way or the other. But, it is fun to know what the original text REALLY said, as opposed to what someone might try and erroniously convince you it said.
Well. There's still a month or so of winter to coast through. So, maybe someone will give it a try - just for the educational value.
What they "..hey..", aye..................
John
I think it's rather funny how everyone seems so terrified of a well-studied or correctly referenced religious - Christian in my case - viewpoint. "....Heavens to Mergatroid...." that anyone should mention the "..G-word.." or the "..J-word.." and upset the little "..if it feels good do it.." apple cart. It makes one wonder what the apparently offended and anti-vampire, finger-crossing squeamish are so desperate to hide from.
FWIW: The Bible has been one of the most important historic and formative documents ever printed, and it's still the biggest seller - the last time I looked. It's certainly no threat to anyone, unless one is personally feeling some overwhelming pangs of conscience, of course. Cookie Jar syndrome for the secularly correct among us...!! Tee hee hee.
This is not a promotion of any kind, it's simply a suggested mind expanding excercise.
I have an interesting acedemic challenge for anyone with the scholarly fortitude to take me up on it. First, let's consider the Bible as just another book. It's got a front cover, a beginning and an ending, a spine, a rear cover, and goodly collection of pages in between. War & Peace is about the same size.
Rather than grind through it the hard way, I would suggest picking up (..borrowing, if you like..) a set of audio tapes (..or CD..) of the entire book - read by someone with a Charlton Heston or George C. Scott quality voice. Now, I'll tell you before hand, the "..begets and begats.." section of the first half ( Old Testament ) reads about like the storm and rough seas portion of Das Boot - the German sea sick sub movie. After that, it's easily as readable and story-full as the Hobit, A Tale of Two Cities or any other semi-historical novel. Besides, you're not actually reading - just coasting along scanning with the help of the narrator
The nice thing about completing a read/listen like that is the ability to use or recall some of the references that people use in conversations. Or, in Simon and Garfunkel tunes, etc.... I don't suspect that many will get into Concordance review or comparing the actual English text to the original Hebrew/Greek, but there are a lot of words and phrases that have had their meanings highly skewed from their original Herbrew/Greek context.
One item in particular that I found interesting is the "...thou shalt not kill.." verbiage associated with the 10 Commandments. Lots of people wave their Bibles and proclaim "...thou shall not kill..." at executions, and deployments to war, etc. Actually, that's not what that passage says at all. The original Hebrew/Greek from which that phrase is taken is properly translated as "..thou shall not murder..". In other words, there is no Biblical statement preventing properly considered and just executions or death in righteous battle. It is clearly forbidden, however, to shoot someone; i.e.: convenience store robbery or jealous rage style.
I'm certainly not asking you to subscribe to the views in the above paragraph one way or the other. But, it is fun to know what the original text REALLY said, as opposed to what someone might try and erroniously convince you it said.
Well. There's still a month or so of winter to coast through. So, maybe someone will give it a try - just for the educational value.
What they "..hey..", aye..................
John
.......According to the Great Pumpkin, ".....You're in .....iHub....., Charlie Brown....."!!!
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