Not a true Christian: Debate Christianity and Religion's role in Politics

I mean, even if Luther did his best to accomplish the translations, he was sourcing it from Hebrew and Greek, which were most likely (specially the Greek) not the original texts. Also, his translations and understanding of the book were shaped by his 16th century Christian view, which was probably different from that of a 1st century Hebrew or Roman.

I read recently that a mathematics and physics book written by Arquimedes was found in the background of a prayer book from the Middle Ages. Talk about magically reappearing. Here is the article:

https://thewalters.org/news/lost-and-found-the-secrets-of-archimedes/

In 1999, the Walters Art Museum and a team of researchers began a project to read the erased texts of The Archimedes Palimpsest—the oldest surviving copy of works by the greatest mathematical genius of antiquity. Over 12 years, many techniques were employed by over 80 scientists and scholars in the fields of conservation, imaging and classical studies. The exhibition Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes will tell the story of The Archimedes Palimpsest’s journey and the discovery of new scientific, philosophical and political texts from the ancient world. This medieval manuscript demonstrates that Archimedes discovered the mathematics of infinity, mathematical physics and combinatorics—a branch of mathematics used in modern computing. This exhibition will be on view at the Walters from Oct. 16, 2011-Jan. 1, 2012.

Archimedes lived in the Greek city of Syracuse in the third century B.C. He was a brilliant mathematician, physicist, inventor, engineer and astronomer. In 10th-century Constantinople (present day Istanbul), an anonymous scribe copied the Archimedes treatise in the original Greek onto parchment. In the 13th century, a monk erased the Archimedes text, cut the pages along the center fold, rotated the leaves 90 degrees and folded them in half. The parchment was then recycled, together with the parchment of other books, to create a Greek Orthodox prayer book. This process is called palimpsesting; the result of the process is a palimpsest.

 

Be that as it may, the original claim was that the Bible today has been tainted by medieval scribes’ errors, rescissions, and additions. I’ve shown that claim isn’t true.

 

Is there a hip version of the bible? I'd be up for that!

 

1. I may have missed it, but I don't think that was exactly the claim. My reading was that even if it was a perfect translation (for starters, we've been saying that is not possible), the translation is influenced by the translator's view of the world, and the reading is also affected by the views of modern readers.

2. The selection of the books that make part of the official big book, also affect the narrative. I know that Luther included some apocryphal books in his works, but that doesn't mean that they were accepted as part of the Bible.

3. I don't think anyone here is pretending to have the final answer (or are they?), but some of us think that being an ancient text, full of stories that happened between 2 and 3 millenia ago (things have changed a little), its interpretations (because there are multiple) cannot/have not been universally accepted, hence any claim to have the final answer and how they apply to the modern world should be taken with a grain (or a pound) of salt.

 

Someone made it into an audio book

 

Did he also invent the arquibus?

 

Go to a service at Rock City Church.

Or don't, I hear they spike the grape juice.

 

It is such a cool story.

Archimedes was worried that what he was working on might be seen as a bit sacrosanct. He hid his work on this, which demonstrates just how close he was to unlocking the basics of integration and calculus, and only corresponded to a very select few he felt he could reveal a bit to, who also may have understood it.

 

I used to use Gillette Blue Blades!
♫
To look sharp, every time you shave
To feel sharp, and be on the ball
Just be sharp, use Gillette Blue Blades
For the slickest quickest shave of all

 

No.

Wycliffe's Bible was in the late 1300s written in Middle English. It was based on the Latin Vulgate, but it was translated into the English of the time.

Tyndale's Bible from 500 years ago was written in English.

 

Even I know about the Hussite bible which is 700 years old and written in Hungarian. Of course all books now matter what language they were written in were rather rare, elite items before the printing press.

 

We can also see how modern English translation have changed over time partly due to cultural events. I'm specifically thinking of Jude 7 and the term sarkos heteros used to talk about the men of Sodom trying to rape angels.

Early translations, such as Tyndale's, through the end of the 19th Century translated sarkos heteros as "strange flesh" or "other flesh" - which is a good approximation of the Greek, given it was talking about the men pursuing angels (a different "species", or "flesh" in New Testament use) for sex.

After the very public gay male sex scandals in the late 1800s in London, and then especially with Oscar Wilde, the 1903 Weymouth New Testament translation changed it to "unnatural vice" (Oscar Wilde was tried for "unnatural crimes"), with the RSV following similar wording (the RSV was also the first translation to use "homosexuals" for "arsenokoitai" in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1 - this was the first time all gays were explicitly condemned in the Bible.

With the 1950s, the Lavender Scare, and the 1960s Stonewall Riots and the start of the LGBT+ rights movement, the next major translation, the NIV in 1973, broadened the meaning of sarkos heteros to "perversion".

The little used God's Word translation in 1995, when gay civil unions and marriage became in the news, took it even further, translating it as "homosexual activities".

Thus, in 100 years modern translations went from sarkos heteros being "strange/other flesh" to "homosexual activities". If you think it is odd that heteros could mean "homosexual", you'll see why Bible translations are often more about the cultural norms of the translators than faithful renditions of the original languages in their cultural contexts.

I studied up on Jude 7 because of how my friends translated Jude 7 into Rapanui not too long ago - they translated it as condemning "men who live with men and women who live with women" (he noho te taŋata ki te taŋata 'ā, 'e te vi'e ki te vi'e 'ā). I confronted them on such a wildly errant translation and they basically said "what is done is done - a revised edition will not be forthcoming".

 

LOL! Back in the early '70s in elementary school there was this edition of the New Testament called something like "Good News for Modern Man," that attempted to present it in the hip, slang of the day. Things like, "There was this groovy cat named Lazarus..."

And of course, we found it hilarious.

 

I think we read this when I was in Middle School:



"To the right of God Father".

IIRC, it was written as if the New Testament happened in a small rural town in the Antioquia Region in Colombia, during the late XIX century, with all their particular idioms and accent.

 

@dapip yes it was the claim

 

Yeah I had just read that book but I was thinking that English version was later.

In any event it wasn’t a direct translation of the oldest texts; as you say, it was a translation of the Vulgate.

 

This might qualify based on the artist, but it’s surprisingly straightforward.

 

And no one cares
If there is a hell
I'll see you there

 

Damn, they got Eve's physique lookin' kinda good. Shape like that, she really didn't need to be pregnant twice. Who was born first, Abel or Cain?

 

The text is a translation by the great scholar of Biblical literature, Robert Alter.

The illustrations on the other hand are what makes it different.

 

Some samples of R. Crumb's Genesis. Ch. 19, just before things start to go bad at Sodom and Gomorroh:

t
The Flood:


And if you're wondering how he handled the begetting parts, AKA the genealogy, . . .



Seriously, it's great.

 

Based on that post, the Midle Ages Medling, was one of the elements of the claim, not the whole claim.