Why is reliance upon a New Testament in the Latin language any less laughable than ...

[Boojatta]

somebody who knows no language other than English saying that any errors made in producing the King James translation of the Bible were deliberately arranged by God to correct previous errors?

Let's start with the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Of those four, how many were originally written in Latin?

[Speck Tater]

1. Originally Aramaic, later translated to Greek. Only translated to Latin in more modern times.

At least that was my understanding of the linguistic history of the New Testament.

[Deep13]

5. I believe the Vulgate Bible was toward the end of the classical period.

St. Jerome, wasn't it?

[Leontius]

9. Around 390AD

Some of the books he didn't want to translate but included under Papal request were the same that Luther disapproved of as canonical when he translated the Bible into German.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. Lots of mistranslations.

Like "virgin" instead of "young woman".

[Thats my opinion]

3. Get a grip!

Nobody said anything was written in Latin. Give everyone a break and read just a bit about both higher and lower Biblical criticism. And no reputable scholar says --or hasn't said for hundreds of years-- that there are no variances in translation. And no knowledgeable person said or has said that God corrected the efforts so that the King James version is perfect. I don't mind answering these things, but it would help if people had the foggiest idea what goes on in Biblical scholarship before throwing out "Less laughable" lines. I don't come off as an authority in quantum mechanics. But I do like to ask serious questions of those who are. That's how we all learn.

[Deep13]

6. Define "knowledgeable"

Hopefully the OP will correct me if I'm not reading the post right, but I believe the question is about people in churches who actually believe what they are hearing and reading. They are the ones claiming that KJV or the Vulgate is the perfect revelation of God.

[Thats my opinion]

10. If we are simply reduced to pop opinions

we will never have an intelligent reasoned discussion in r/t. And that has been the problem here for some time. If I'm going to post something on science, it is helpful if I know something about the subject other than what some bunch who have never been in a laboratory might think. Why is it appropriate on r/t, when no other forum in DU thinks it is clever?

[darkstar3]

11. Do you ever post anything here that doesn't deride the board?

[dmallind]

12. McDonalds sells more burgers than anyone else

Nobody knowledgeable thinks they are the best or purest burgers. But if you want to discuss the issues of burgers as they affect the world, it is elitist and self defeating to assume that you should not address McDonalds' burgers very extensively and very early in your discussion. Why should religion be different?

I think you'll find the knowledgeable folks on DU's science forum, and indeed most of them, spend a lot of time correcting laymen's misperceptions and explaining concepts in understandable language. They tend NOT to pretend that nobody thinks orbits are circular, or that time is constant and eternal, because they know full well most people DO.

That said you have a point I should acknowledge. When talking about religion as experienced in society we can, indeed must, discuss such silliness as creationism, literalism, anglocentrism, etc because that's what we encounter most often - the McDonalds of religion. However people who know better should not put forward those ideas as genuinely worthwhile or valid ones. Great burger-grillers, even passable ones, should not waste time duplicating Mickey D's.

[Boojatta]

13. Thank you for a very good contribution to this thread.

[Thats my opinion]

15. Good response

But if you want to discuss nutrition you probably don't want to survey the overly fat kids who chow down the Mcburgers. When the poster began with ridicule about another laughable matter, he probably wasn't looking for information.

[skepticscott]

33. Please tell us that you didn't think

that was an adequate, sensible, on-point response. Tell us that you just didn't understand the point being made, or that it was late and you were tired, and that you will provide a real answer soon.

[Boojatta]

14. "no other forum in DU thinks it is clever"

Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Democratic Underground primarily a political message board?

Isn't the political process influenced by many voters who don't have expert knowledge of even the status quo of executive branch policy or the status quo of existing law? It's common for a map in a fixed location to include a marking of where the map itself is located relative to everything else that is shown on the map. Evidently, knowing where we are can help us figure out how to get where we want to go.

When you have intelligent discussions about politics, do you ignore the role played by political commentators? If some commentary attempts to support its conclusions by relying upon assumptions that you know to be false, then do you consider the commentary to be unworthy of your attention, regardless of the impact it may have on the political process?

[Thats my opinion]

16. Of course you are correct.

What set me off was your first sentence about another laughable matter. That didn't feel like a statement leading to a discussion, but just one more r/t snide remark. If I took it wrong , I apologize.

Insofar as DU is a "political message board," for most of this site that is true. But it is certainly not true on r/t. and I wonder how what goes on here most of the time really has any relation to a "political message board."

[cleanhippie]

26. And you contribute NOTHING but derision and complaint.

And its getting old.

:puke:

[skepticscott]

34. Uh, maybe that would be because

of the constant intrusion of religion into the political arena in this country by Christians who think their way must be adhered to by everyone.

[Goblinmonger]

17. But you assume that nobody has knowledge in r/t

Many of those that you get into discussions with know quite a bit but get dismissed by you. And why is the OP laughable? Many, many, many religious in the US look at the bible as the true word of god with no concept, clue, or concern for the original language and changes that may have happened. The OP asks about them. Seems like a valid point.

[Thats my opinion]

20. The poster is certainly no laughable

and I never said so. The word come from the first sentence of his/her original post.
And of course, many of the posters in r/t are intelligent, but their preoccupation with anti-religion does not show their intelligence, only their prejudice. I have made about 600 responses in the past year, and they are met with ridicule. What does all of this have to do with the political response that DU is in business to foster?

[Goblinmonger]

21. They are met with ridicule because of your attitude that comes through them

That has been made clear to you on many occasions. Yet even on this thread you come in with guns blazing about how silly r/t is. You really can't see where the attitude of the responses to you comes from?

This is the area of DU that is intended for discussion of religion and theology. It is not intended to have to focus on the political response. That is clear in the description of the forum.

[cleanhippie]

27. Blah blah blah. Stop with the whining, will ya?

You are like the person at a meeting that keeps complaining that not everyone is wearing a suit and tie, and despite repeated attempts to just move the meeting forward, you keep harping on the fact that not everyone is dressed the way you would like.

[Deep13]

22. That brings up an important point.

Just what makes someone an expert in theology? A scientist is an expert in chemistry, for example, because he is aware of how atoms attach to each other and how they act as a result. Her expertise is grounded on centuries of patient testing and observation. Every fact and theoretical model she knows has been painstakingly verified by repeated testing.

So how does a theologian know? Maybe he has more of a linguistic or historical background concerning sacred texts than the average person. But that only makes him an expert on what earlier theologians have written. Nowhere is there any sort of verification of theological ideas. So I submit that a theologian is in no better position to offer an opinion about the nature of divinity than the average janitor.

Beside, isn't universality part of divinity. If god/s were real and one of the religions was an accurate description thereof, wouldn't it be apparent to everyone? The reason most people don't implicitly understand astronomy, for example, is because it deals with things outside of the average person's experience. But how could that be with god who is supposedly the origin of all things?

I still think a religion is defined by the people who practice it and not necessarily the self-appointed experts who think themselves knowledgeable.

[Boojatta]

23. Adapting the words of Keynes ...

So I submit that a theologian is in no better position to offer an opinion about the nature of divinity than the average janitor.

Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any theological influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct theologian.

Maybe being an expert on what earlier theologians have written is more beneficial than is apparent at first glance.

[Deep13]

30. Maybe it's beneficial, but it's still just speculation.

When ascertaining the true nature of divinity (which, granted, is a contradiction in terms) what reason do you have to think Aquinas, some present day doctor of divinity or the Dahli Lama knows any better than some mill operator?

[skepticscott]

32. The "pop" opinions are not ours

They are the opinions and beliefs of millions of religious believers. And yes, it IS impossible to have a reasoned, intelligent discussion with you when you continue to insist that the brand of Christianity that we criticize is a distorted and caricatured version that hardly anyone adheres to, when it fact it reflects the beliefs and practices of tens of millions of Christians in this country.

[Boojatta]

8. Not all people who sell religion are scholars.

I'm talking about people who sell religion. Your denial that they are knowledgeable doesn't prevent them from being effective at what they do. In a perfect world, they would be ineffective, but the world is imperfect.

[Thats my opinion]

18. Of course

And that is why reputable scientists need occasionally to fight off pseudo science --like no global warming or creationism, or what takes place in a lot of phony religious TV stuff. But you were asking an important question about a literary issue. And some of us tried to answer it. Most of the time reputable scientists simply ignore the hucksters, and get on with their serious investigations. I wish that were true on r/t. To hold that there is phony science is the reason to put down all science it hardly intelligent discourse. To hold that phony religion negates all religion and to search the internet for examples ad nauseum is just as absurd.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Angry Dragon]

4. From everything I have read and heard is that this Jesus Christ

guy is still alive.
If that is the case then he should be able to set the record straight
If he does not care he will not bother showing up

Problem solved

[Deep13]

7. True, that is the claim. nt

[ChadwickHenryWard]

19. None. The four canonical gospels were written in Greek.

Further, the original documents are long lost. Even the earliest version available to us are several decades or centuries younger than the originals, and have passed through some unknown number of generations of transcription. It becomes very difficult to know what was originally present in the documents and what was added later, changed through error, or cut out. The sources used in the original documents are likewise mysterious.

[Thats my opinion]

24. The earliest fragments

that became the gospel of Matthew might have been in Hebrew or Aramaic. Otherwise the stories were handed down by word of mouth and various fragments were collected by the compilers (not the authors) and a series of writings were produced in Greek.

[Leontius]

29. That's a perhaps mistaken confidence you have in your

statement given the fluid state of Gospel criticism today. Yours is one view and not an overwhelming majority view at that.

[Thats my opinion]

31. Join me

in November at the annual meeting of the Jesus Seminar, where the best liberal scholars in the world gather to work through the evidence. What is your frame of reference?

[Igel]

25. Because you have the wrong frame of reference.

1. Assume that you are in God's true church and that God has revealed his Truth to you.

2. Assume that the Roman Catholic church is and always has been in error.

(Yes, you can ignore that the "true church" that the current believer is in is an organizational descendent of the Catholic church. This point makes a lot of current Xians uncomfortable because they may diss the Pope but ultimately have to rely on Papal authority for most of their doctrines or project back some sort of Holy-Spirit-derived change that was identical in content and time with a Papal-decreed change. But we're not talking provable fact, we're talking opinions and beliefs--"laughable" is not a rigorously definable term with preset criteria.)

At this point, you've set up things so that the assertion is a trivial thing to understand.

The means of revelation in their case has to be God's Word; God's Word was, in fact, the English-language Bible. If God's Word is infallible, that means the KJV must be infallible. Notice that this assertion doesn't apply to the ASV or RSV or any of the modern Bible translations, but usually to the KJV. Perhaps the NKJV. (Also notice that many KJV-believers are fully aware of language change issues, because you need to account for them and situate the KJV in time.)

The Latinate church received a flawed revelation, if any: Many would argue that it was the apostate version of the early church, and leave aside any idea of organizational continuity from Peter and Paul to 2011. If the revelation was flawed at best there's no point in trying to argue that the means of acquiring the flawed revelation was perfect. In fact, you'd either be indifferent to the quality of the translation or have to argue that the means had to be flawed.

As for the claim that the koine NT had to be originally written entirely in Greek, that's based on a number of assumptions which may or may not be true. In the 19th century it was preferred to think they had to be true, and it countered a previous notion that koine was somehow a special language devised by God for preaching the Gospel. Now we've uncovered a lot of inscriptions and other texts written before and after 30 AD, in Greek, some of which show the same kind of Aramaic influence. Levantine koine in the NT wasn't a special, divine language; nor was it the result of rustic bumpkins' faulty translations of Aramaic texts. After the Diaspora those knowing koine would have had an easier time leaving, but Greek continued to be the lingua franca for anybody interacting with people outside of the ever diminishing Aramaic-speaking area.