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Topic:
What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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nancyallen
Registered:
Nov '07
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Date Posted:
5/7 4:59pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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I think I understand what you're saying, something like how 'Though Shalt Not Kill' might be rewritten as 'You are not to commit murder.' I can point to three reasons why there may be a need to translate texts. One is to clear up the confusion of killing, if we sin by killing livestock for food. The second would be that the original texts are written in Hebrew, I'm not sure if you've ever used Babelfish but a literal translation from one language to another does not make sense. This can be because of different meanings for words, a word for word translation might read something like 'Though are shalt not to kill' and so rewording it would make it easier to read and understand. And third, there is the idea that part of the bible is parables. It is thought by some that Jesus was either speaking that we are spiritually cutting out our eyes or cutting off our hands, or turning the other cheek, as opposed to physically committing these acts, or that he is using exaggeration to get his point across. Revelations would be another example, there may not be a great beast that devours the land into darkness, it might be a parable for...what? War? Plague? Some natural or man made disaster that does in a sense clense the world? I'm not sure if I am anywhere near accurate about this but the point is maybe some of the Hebrew texts were rewritten so that we could put things into context or better envision what the authors were saying.
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ObiWan506
Title: JC Head Admin
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
5/7 8:00pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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Ah okay. I understand that the Bible is pretty old so people question it. No problem. I can help answer your question and I hope you take the right idea and research it for yourself and do not just listen to me or any one else. I don't pretend to know everything. Find out yourself. I can recommend you books.
There are about 5,000 Greek manuscripts, in which about 80% have little or no variation. There is also thousands of Latin, Syriac and other language manuscripts that align very closely with the Greek ones. The Bible wasn't written by one person and then copied by one person, and then copied by one person, etc. Transcripts were made in a room with many, many scholars, all copying the same text over and over. They were matched and approved. It wasn't like, "Hey Richard, copy this book on those fancy new scrolls and hand it over when you're done. Thanks". It was a heavy process. To say "nobody even knows what the original words of the authors were" is a position of only the most radical "scholars" using outdated 19th century presupposition and techniques. There are many archeological confirmation in the Bible. Of the variations that are found in the manuscripts, none are about major doctrine. The majority of variations are easy to spot. They are spelling errors, repeated words, other grammatical errors, etc. As for the King James, it's absolutely false that it is "one of the worst, most unreliable manuscripts available to scholars today."
The books I recommend are Alands' The Text of the New Testament and Bruce Metzger's The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Two great scholars of this field.
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DarthDogbert
Registered:
Sep '04
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Date Posted:
5/7 9:23pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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AnakinsGirl
We also had a short discussion about this not too long ago in this thread. Check it out here.
PM me a link to some of those examples. I'd be interested to take a look at what you've got.
Also, while we're trading links, it's the same link I posted in the previous discussion, but it has some good info in it. LINK
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SoloKnight
Registered:
Feb '03
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Date Posted:
5/9 1:07am
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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AnakinsGirl posted:
Just to jump in here, in the middle of your discussion, I have a question for Christians around here. Do you know what version (translation) of the Bible you read? Do you have any knowledge or understanding of how the New Testament came to be what it is today? Do you understand the translation process? Do these factors even matter to you?
Merely our of curiosity...
I've been following the conversation for a little while and figure I'll jump in here as a religious studies major. Personally, I tend to read the NIV because that's what my pastor preaches out of and I like my text to match up with what he reads in church. If I'm actually writing a paper or studying certain passages in the Bible, then I use the New Revised Standard Version. That's the one that all my professors recommend as the most accurate English translation.
I'll get back to your question regarding canon. I want to find my notes before I make any claims. I do remember that there are something like three traditional reasons that the church tends to use for why certain books were chosen, and then three reasons scholars tend to believe certain books were chosen but I can't remember what they are off the top of my head.
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ObiWan506
Title: JC Head Admin
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
5/9 7:30am
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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I believe it's mostly because the Apostles approved the books in the Bible. Some books were written after the Apostles and even though they may be 100% right, the Apostles couldn't approve them so they weren't considered "canon".
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TrulyGhent
Registered:
Jun '07
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Date Posted:
5/18 11:52am
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
- Date Edited:
5/18 11:55am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
TrulyGhent
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ObiWan506 posted:
I believe it's mostly because the Apostles approved the books in the Bible. Some books were written after the Apostles and even though they may be 100% right, the Apostles couldn't approve them so they weren't considered "canon".
 Couldn't approve them? "I'm so confused." 
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nancyallen
Registered:
Nov '07
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Date Posted:
5/18 3:48pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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Censorship issues perhaps? They didn't want a full uncut account of events that had happened because it would scare off followers? Imagine Ninevah, 300 style.
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Even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for God is with me.
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Jabba-wocky
Registered:
May '03
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Date Posted:
5/19 11:14am
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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TrulyGhent posted:
ObiWan506 posted:
I believe it's mostly because the Apostles approved the books in the Bible. Some books were written after the Apostles and even though they may be 100% right, the Apostles couldn't approve them so they weren't considered "canon".
Couldn't approve them? "I'm so confused."
Couldn't because they were, dead, he means. Thus the after the Apostles. If they weren't alive, they couldn't give the seal of approval. But yeah, I think the general point to make about non-canonical books is that failure to include them does not imply that they are necessarily wrong (though that's quite wrong), but to suggest that they cannot be certified as correct.
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TrulyGhent
Registered:
Jun '07
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Date Posted:
5/19 6:04pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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 "written after the Apostles"
 Thanks.
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darth_frared
Registered:
Jun '05
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Date Posted:
5/20 8:00am
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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AnakinsGirl posted:
I just think it is interesting that people read the New Testament as being the word of God, but nobody even knows what the original words of the authors were. The King James translation of the bible is based off of one of the worst, most unreliable manuscripts available to scholars today. And yet, people still read it as a legitimate source.
Making translations that are in modern English can completely alter the original meaning of some passages. And yet, people take it as inherent truth. Why read something and live by it if one doesn't even know HOW that particular translation came about? How can we know what the word of God is if we don't even have the original manuscripts? What biblical scholars have today are copies of copies of copies of the original manuscripts. Many scribes, especially once Christianity had grown large enough and professional were available to make copies of manuscripts, often altered words (intentionally or unintentionally) that, in some cases (though not all) severely misinterpret what the original author was trying to say. I have plenty of examples if anyone is interested.
I know I'm just jumping into this discussion here, but it really boggles my mind that people read the New Testament and don't even know the history of the text. How did these particular texts come to be chosen to be in the New Testament? Who were the people that organized and decided on such matters? What were their motivations? WHEN did this occur?
Most Christians I talk to find this irrelevant or blasphemous.
i don't think it's blasphemous but not terribly relevant either...
i love reading the king james bible and i'm not having any of the others, truly, because it is full of lived and breathed-in words that seem to reflect the times better than the cleaned-up stuff you're getting these days. song of songs just isn't the same when sanitized.
i'm not particularly aware of the translation process, only that the text hsas gone through an impossible number of mutations and that way it doesn't seem to matter all that much.
if you speak to scholars of ancient languages you'll find that the idea of authorship is fairly modern and that we didn't use to be so hung up about copyright and plagiarism. the bible as a collection of stories came out of an oral tradition of remodelling stories endlessly, so the idea of pinning it down to a definite set of texts is pretty silly from the getgo, actually.
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ObiWan506
Title: JC Head Admin
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
5/20 8:13pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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Personally, I feel the Bible is a source of God's Word that puts in a position to actually to have a relationship with God. It catapults us to that position to be in a place of a deep, personal relationship. One that no written text can preserve. So who cares? I grow stronger everyday in my own relationship and I think we can all witness to that. That's the great part.
And yeah, I meant because the Apostles were dead. Or to better put it, "they were no longer earthly bound". 
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TrulyGhent
Registered:
Jun '07
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Date Posted:
5/21 4:50pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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Okay, now that we've got that straightened out.
ObiWan506 posted:
I believe it's mostly because the Apostles approved the books in the Bible. Some books were written after the Apostles and even though they may be 100% right, the Apostles couldn't approve them so they weren't considered "canon".
(Could You please edit this if you think it's argumentative?  )
That's why we have the Catholic Church with it's encyclicals, for we will always need guidance.
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ObiWan506
Title: JC Head Admin
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
5/27 8:35pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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We should seek that guidance from everyone. We - the church - need to keep each other accountable. Not to be "sin sniffers", but to have a mutual relationships with each other for encouragement and accountability. To help and point out sin and to expect the same in return.
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darthOB1
Registered:
Mar '00
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Date Posted:
5/27 9:30pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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Thats interesting.
However doesn't the Apostle Paul admonish us to clean out the congreegations by not having dealings with unrepentant wrong doers?
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nancyallen
Registered:
Nov '07
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Date Posted:
5/27 9:55pm
Subject:
RE: What is Christianity? How can we understand it better? What don't we understand?
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I believe the story goes that Paul shunned those who were unrepentant in their sin, however looking it up I came across something that's worth mentioning.
http://www.vsg.cape.com/~dougshow/archive1/messages/15.html
To be practical for a moment, let's ask what happens if Christians refuse to forgive until repentance is forthcoming? If all Christians lived by that standard many vicious cycles of hatred and violence would never see an end. The Hatfields and McCoy's of our world would never stop feuding.
It is my belief if we are going to be setting a moral standard that rather than be going on witch hunts even within our religious community, to say nothing of outside it, we should strive to be better. Certainly we may fail, time and time again we may fail, but if we can prove our worth by leading by example then I think others will follow. That's not to say that we are not to act on the wrong thing, rather that we shouldn't be trying to find trouble as though we were going to use any dirt we might find to try and bring someone down.
A listing of what religion comic book characters are. Yes, US Agent's protestant, so is Preacher, Spiderman, Captain America, Cyclops, Steel, Roadblock and Dazzler. Robin, War Machine, Jubilee and White Queen are Christian as well.
http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.html
Have a look and see what religion your faves are.
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Even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for God is with me.
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