I never trust other people's Bible quotes unless I've read the passage myself. Yeah, any quote can be manipulated, but goddamit how often people do it with the Bible.
I would highly recommend Daniel Quinn's book "Ishmael" to anyone really interested in this stuff. Certainly the most interesting book I've read in relation to bible interpretations, and perhaps my favored viewpoint as well. I will also say that this whole thing about attacking the Bible by finding supposed contradictions within it is pretty dumb. I mean, it wasn't originally written in English, so how can analyzing the word for word English phrasing possibly matter?
Christians quote the Bible out of context to serve their agendas too. I actually got mad enough to blog about this at one point.
I think translations are overrated. I mean, a translation must have a minimum resemblance to the original text unless the translator was drunk or something. For example, if the original verse was written "This is green" the translation won't be "This is transparent blue with pink dots!". It is not like there were puns in the Bible.
It's not that simple. For example, in japanese they have two words "aoi", which roughly means the color of the ocean, and "midori", which roughly means the color of a leaf. In general, aoi is translated as blue in english, while midori is translated as green. Which seems reasonable... except that if you've ever looked at the ocean you'll note it can have an incredibly green hue to it, and as a result many objects (such as the "go" color on a traffic light) are actually referred to with "aoi" in japan, which clearly doesn't match the exact English meaning of blue.
of course the old testament was written without punctuation and vowels... so it's rather interesting how mistakes can happen. For example, i believe one of the opening lines referring to God creating the leviathans of the ocean can be translated as giant lizards if you assume one vowel instead of another. The actual 'punctuation' of the old testament is passed down as oral tradition, and wasn't written down until about 60 AD, if memory serves. (shortly after the second temple was destroyed).
Actually the Bible is full of puns, starting in Genesis 2 with Adam (a wordplay on "dust", because he was made from dust). And if you don't think there are actively harmful translations out there, you haven't looked hard enough. On trying to find Biblical contradictions: This is a losing enterprise even in the original manuscripts, because the Old Testament survives only in fragmentary manuscripts riddled with clerical errors, and the final text is the result of some aggressive ancient editing akin to those "All 4 Gospels in 1" books. People who argue that the Bible is literally word-for-word true simply don't know what they're talking about; the sensible version of this position is to believe that the Bible is 100% true about Christianity.
Geez. It is a wonder we can actually read and understand the Bible in its actual state, considering how it has faced such bad translators! So yeah, the Bible is basically useless. People should stop quoting the Bible (including and specially christians) whatsoever, since every single verse of it is a (probable) mistranslation. On trying to find Biblical contradictions: It actually makes sense. Say, there are people who think the Holy Bible as it is now is the direct word of God, and it is perfect. If I find contradictions within it, I am proving to them that the Bible is not as perfect as they think (because of the mistranslations) and as such is not the direct word of God (because it went through severe mistranslations). See, I am helping to prove a point. It also helps to prove that the Bible is not trustable. If the Bible was so mistranslated as to contain direct contradictions, it is not trustable at all (as it is).
I don't think it's a matter of the Bible being untrustworthy, as much as it's just basically irrelevant for the time period. The concept of God is basically beyond relativity, so contradictions don't really matter.
Want to hear my experiences with the Bible and Bible translation and what not? You folks might be quite surprised to hear this. I hope you find it at the least entertaining, since I certainly have for the last few months. Basically, there is this controversy amongst us Christians regarding Bible translation, and there is a group of believers, mostly people called "Independent Fundamental Baptists" (and more specifically King James Onlyists) who believe that the King James Version of the Bible that was released in 1611 is the FINAL AUTHORITY for a person's life. Jack Chick is part of this group that believes this. They call any other translation of the Bible "satanic" and a "perversion". I am not kidding you at all. If someone asks, I will provide links, and if someone is handy with google, they might even find me sloppily trying to debate some of them on some forums. (I was really doing that to see how they would react btw, and I actually did get threatened to get banned because I linked to some websites that disagreed with their point of view). As a believer, it gets anywhere from frustrating to outright ridiculous how bad this claim is. (The King James Bible released in 1611 will be from here on out be referred to the AV because these fundamentalists believe that it is the Authorized Version, and by that they mean that King James Authorized it, and thus it is the Final version of the Bible, and thus the FINAL AUTHORITY. Btw, the FINAL AUTHORITY is not Jesus, or God, or the Godhead, but the actual King James Bible that was released in 1611, at least according to these people). It is an arrogant claim, because it basically says that English is a superior language from God's point of view. These fundamentalists support their reasoning by quoting Psalm 12:6-7 and saying that the AV is the seventh English Bible, therefore it is perfect and preserved. It really is absurd, because it assumes that the person writing Psalm 12:6-7 is referring to a translation made over 1500 years after the cross. The scary thing about this is that these people REALLY believe this. Forget the fact that the AV was not the seventh English Bible released (but they ignore any historical facts because this history is not in the Bible, and they take the Bible literally, but they can't really, since it is impossible, after all, to take "Thou shalt not kill" without considering context would ultimately produce a contradiction, since we kill even plants to eat. Now, if we understand the context and meaning, then we understand that this is referring to murder.) Please forgive me for posting this like this on this forum, but I really need a place to vent, and this seems to be the best. Overall these fundamentalists are frustrating because they quote the Bible liberally towards or against anyone that they encounter. An idea is only authority over them if it agrees with the Bible, and by agree I mean really agrees with their point of view of the Bible. They claim to take the Bible literally 100% of the time (which is impossible btw, especially for the true believer, since Jesus did speak in parables often, and because there are parts which are metaphorical). Now, one of the more popular versions of the Bible is one called the New International Version, and this is what really interests me. At this time, I believe that the New International Version (NIV from here on out) is the best selling version of the Bible. Are the fundamentalists happy that people are interested in reading the Bible? No, they are upset with the NIV and calling it a "perversion" and "satanic". If you want to see this for yourself, simply go to google, type in words like Bible, AV, and NIV together and you might very well hit some of these websites I am talking about. I read frustration here with Bible quoters, and I want to step in and say that I agree, these Bible quoters are frustrating because they do not seem to actually understand what they are quoting, and they get in the way of those of us who want to follow through with the Bible's primary command (which is love btw). These people get most of the doctrine right, but through their actions they prove that being a believer is more than getting doctrine right.
Interesting post, Kirandio, and thanks for the history lesson. :) I prefer the KJV myself, as I like the antiquated feel of the English, but I would never go as far as to say it's the only proper version. I have a Bible someone gave me at my dialysis clinic that I believe is NIV, and it's fine. People like Jack Chick have an unfortunate paranoia stemming from the idea that what they believe is the truth and it can never be wrong. There's no real cure for this, sadly enough, and we all pay the price.
Hehe, I've run into these people before. Yes, the KJV "feels" very good because the literary quality is so high, but since then we've had 400 years to improve and discover more sources. In their defense, though, it is very unsettling to have a religion so old it borders on oral tradition, so it can be easier to just pick something and irrationally go with it. Having done a good bit of research on different Bible translations, the problem is not as bad as it seems; maybe 95% of the 2000-page book is quite solid and uncontroversial, including many of the most important bits. And because there's so much attention focused on it, when you get to an actually vague passage (like about gay marriage) there are plenty of alternative opinions waiting for you to look them up. Plus, obviously if you're God writing a sacred text, you'll ensure it has the necessary information for your followers. Even if the Bible's provenance were a lot sketchier (like, say, the Book of Mormon) it still makes sense for believers to have a level of confidence in the book.
So the passage that God made Adam and Eve at the same time, and the passage that God made Adam first and Eve subsequently from his rib... those are only contradictory because of a mistranslation? Which word was it that meant "rib", "first", "second", and "dust" all at the same time?
We don't need to take the first part of the Bible as literally as the rest of the Bible. It is poetry. Also, the translation can somewhat change the meaning a little. For example, the Hebrew name for 'Adam' also means man and the name for 'Eve' means mother. Maybe what it is actually saying is that god made men and mothers? But it doesn't matter, the meaning and main point is still the same. God created the earth and people.
But instead of just saying "God created the earth and people.", we have to make up a stupid story about trees and snakes to go with it just to confuse people and cause unnecessary discussions. Also, the story doesn't have to be accurate in anyway; for example, the order in which the elements of the world are created doesn't have to represent reality (or so I have heard). Telling us what really happened instead of silly metaphors is out of question, because God is evil and doesn't want us to know the truth. As a consequence, religions which are entirely made of myths (Greek Mythology, Norse Mythology, etc.) are stupid because there is barely anything on them that is not metaphorical. Even the gods are metaphorical (that is why each god represents something). The greeks didn't actually believe in Greek Mythology. That was just poetry. Instead, they were just misunderstood christians. And they were also communists. In fact, we all know that the christian God is a metaphor too. The point of Genesis is that "The earth and people were created, somehow." Anything weird you find in the Bible? A metaphor! Any problem or thing you desagree with in my post? Don't bother replying. I was speaking metaphorically, obviously.
Yes, religions where everything is metaphorical are dumb. Fortunately, the Bible doesn't have this problem; in fact, most of its content is contained in long, dry lists. The first half of Genesis is specifically mentioned as metaphorical because in literary style, content, and position, it's much closer to the known metaphorical parts of the Bible (visions and prophecies) than the literal parts of the Bible (history, laws, proverbs).
Aren't visions and prophecies supposed to be true, only about the future? I must have missed something! Edit: Oh, right, I forgot about Revelation. Nevermind me.
Fact 1: Bible states there is a global flood. Fact 2: Geologically, there is no such evidence on earth. There have been floods all over at different times, as it was established more than a hundred years ago. These two facts make the obvious conclusion that the bible was either wrong, or god has lied to us through geological evidence, or that it was speaking of limited human understand in the scheme of things. Thus speaking with exaggeration and metaphor. Edit: Btw, I hope Esoto is doing this intentionally because it really is hilarious.
Really? Are you serious? Because I have a feeling that I didn't even about that question before you asked it. Your question doesn't even make sense in English, and adding translation makes this stuff 1000x more complicated. It's not grammatically incorrect to say that two twins are born at the same time. However, it's also physically impossible for there not to have been one born before the other. These are both perfectly fine sentences and there's no contradiction whatsoever. "Same time" is a relative term that only has meaning if you first declare the frame of time you're referring to. If I say the time is the year 1987... well then, yes, a whole year of things just happened at the same time. Deal with it.
I'm not sure the theory of relativity is relevant... it's a model for describing things that are extremely fast and extremely far apart... it's hard to use when talking about everyday objects, and it basically falls apart completely if you get down to an atomic scale. I think more relevant is Quantum Mechanics... which says that energy is quantized, which sort of ends up saying that all space and time exist only in discrete steps. Or, in other words... The universe is digital, baby!
Ah, very true, I was indeed talking about quantum mechanics. Now we just need to unite the two theories and then my question will be answered.
hai guyz. jumped in this thread pretty late lol but you all should look up "dark matter and "dark energy" to see just how vast this universe really is and how much we don't know yet.
No, don't do that... dark matter is about the most crock-iest of all crockpot theories that exists out there. Basically, some people did some calculations to determine the total amount of matter and energy in the universe, and they didn't match up correctly. So, whoever came up with dark matter assumed the math they did for matter must be wrong, and there must something else out there that we didn't count it... but we have no idea what it is or what it looks like. It turns out that if you instead assume the energy formula was wrong... it's really, really simple to come up with explanations that resolve the whole thing without any invisible stuff that we can't see. (My personal favorite of the theories I've heard: If gravity can act through higher dimensions of space than the standard three that are visible to humans, than we're basically counting all the gravitational forces twice.)
I've told my parents, and many of my relatives, that god is a sham. Many times. The response is usually the same and involves BS.
Unfortunately, the wikis don't appear to be overly well informed on the issue. But I will give credit to wikipedia, which has this quote: Buried way down at the bottom of this page, and unfortunately without any further discussion or references. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy I've read some really good articles on the topic, but all in print, and none recently, I'm not sure if they're available on the internet;;
i'd like to read more on it too, i only came across one good article, but i always like to get different views on these kinda subjects.
You think they are wrong, and maby they are wrong, but why won't you let them be wrong? I find it hard to belive in god myslef, but as all humans should, I can edmit that all kowledge is based on previous assumptions, and therefor it is better to be humble.