RoR: Forum

Robert Malcom, who I respect, wrote:

Further - sorry, but the language of the day was Aramaic - and as for the Hebrew, the earliest had no vowels, so much mis-interpretation was gendered by those who had the language.. More to the point, the best translation is the Lamsa one, which works from the Orthodox version - not the GREEK one, which is what English versions are translated from...

First: the language of the days of Moses was not Aramaic.

Second: Hebrew still has no vowels.

Third: your intended "explanation" for "much mis-interpretation" is wrong: the trasmission of Written and Oral Torah includes that pronuntiation is handed down orally, from teacher to student.

the best translation [of the Written Torah] he Lamsa one

Fourth: according to whom?

Joel Català

(Edited by Joel Català on 6/09, 11:52am)

Post 21

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:49am

Joel,
Without a more substantial knowledge about freemason's believes and practices, reading out a few lines in Wikipedia does not construct as a real understanding of the topic.

I've seen way too many incidents where people jump into a debate on a topic about which their only knowledge comes from Wikipedia. No, this will not do.

Post 22

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:55am

Without a more substantial knowledge about freemason's believes and practices, reading out a few lines in Wikipedia does not construct as a real understanding of the topic.

Agreed, Hong. If you re-read my posts on freemasonry, you will see that my comments are far from conclusive.

Joel Català

Post 23

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 1:29pm

He sounds like a sectarian ignoramus.

Woah!! Hey right back at ya buddy. If you'd like to hurl insults at me, I prefer you drop the pretentiousness and just call me an ass raping monkey. I think it has a little more oomph than sectarian ignoramus don't you think?

Let's reply Mr. Armaos rants one by one [his words, on grey background; mine, on white background].

Mr. Armaos wrote:

Ah yes, but bullshit nonetheless correct?

"Correct bullshit" it's still bullshit.

Um, ok I'm at a loss for words here. I don't know what you mean.

As far as being disrespectful, I'm sorry if you feel disrespected.

To me, Mr. Armaos words are harmless.

I'm glad you think that now Joel since I would agree my words are harmless. Yet before you clearly thought something I said was disrespectful. So obviously you thought there was some harm I inflicted upon you.

I'm only interested in speaking the truth.

I am interested in learning about the truth, and then talking about it.

Yes very good Joel. You reiterated my words to say the same thing. Now what?

If the truth is disrespectful to you, then that's your problem, not mine.

The truth can't be disrespectful. The truth can't have human character traits.

Oh really Joel? Thank you so much for pointing that out to me. I tried to reason with the truth and all this time I thought the truth was a human being. [/sarcasm] Joel you are the King of Stating the obvious. I know the truth does not have human character traits, which is why if you feel disrespected when I speak the truth, that would be your problem not mine. And as I said before, it would be irrational to feel disrespected if you hear the truth, but how you want to feel is your prerogative. Perhaps I misspoke and I should've said "If hearing the truth is disrespectful to you, then that's your problem not mine", but hey since we're nitpicking here, I guess I concede I misspoke. But I think you knew what I meant and I therefore suspect you're just being disingenuous.

Your prerogative what you want to believe, no matter how irrational that may be.

Baseless accusation. Bad arguing method.

If only it were true. Since I was not giving an argument in that sentence but did so in previous statements, that is that final statement was my conclusion reached from prior assumptions, I'd hardly call that baseless. It's easy to pick out one sentence and ignore the rest of my post, and come to the conclusion I made a baseless accusation.

You know you made the claim I'm using a mistranslation of the Bible. You are aware of the concept "burden of proof" aren't you? If you make a claim why don't you try proving it instead of asking me to do the work for you?

I give you another chance. You may learn, in example, how Christianity horned Moses [From wikipedia]:
<>
"This story has led to one longstanding [Christian] tradition that Moses grew horns. This is derived from a mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase "karnu panav" קרנו פניו. The root קרן may be read as either "horn" or "ray", as in "ray of light". "Panav" פניו translates as "his face". If interpreted correctly those two words form an expression which means that he was enlightened, and many rabbinical studies explain that the knowledge that was revealed to him made his face metaphorically shine with enlightenment, and not that it suddenly sported a pair of horns. The Septuagint properly translates the Hebrew word קרן as δεδοξασται, 'was glorified', but Jerome translated it as cornuta, 'horned', and it was the latter image that became the more popular. This tradition survived from the first centuries AD well into the Renaissance. Many artists, including Michelangelo in a famed sculpture, depicted Moses with horns."

What does any of that have to do with the verses concerning slavery, rape, and murder? So they got an image of Moses wrong, so therefore that means what exactly?

You do speak Hebrew right?

Basically, wrong. Only a few words.

I know a few words too but I have no further insight into the Bible, so it seems we're in the same boat?

Well, I guess we both are on planet Earth.

Stating the obvious. Thank you.

So how do you know it was mistranslated?

You may check the example I gave you. I know there are many more.

The example has nothing to do with the verses I posted originally. So far we have an image of Moses that was translated incorrectly. But I'm finding it hard to believe that means I should throw out the verses that deal with murder, slavery and rape. How do you mistranslate that? What was mistranslated, and what wasn't mistranslated? If you can't answer that, or if it takes more than a lifetime to figure that out, of what use is the Bible to me? Where does that leave us with the validity of the Bible? How do we come to the conclusion human freedom is the central concept of the Bible if so much of it's true meaning is not known to me or you? If you are going to pick and choose which verses to throw out of the Bible, I would expect that this be done rationally, with some kind of objective standards. If you claim the verses I gave were mistranslations, that they didn't mean to advocate slavery, rape, or murder, then tell me the true translation. If you can't, but feel I should not accept those translations as accurate translations, then I'm not going to accept the rest of the Bible has any validity to it. So please tell me, why would you accept the Bible as a valid text?

So since there can never be an accurate translation, my original claim I can come up with any kind of bullshit still stands then.

I said that "I doubt it will ever be one." That's not a conclusive "never." First, learn to read.

If you doubt it will ever be done, then why on Earth would you accept human freedom as a central concept to the Bible? By what means did you reach the conclusion of your doubt? Which a doubt, if it's a reasonable one, would have to be a conclusive statement. Learn how to reason and then I'll learn how to read. Do we have a deal?

That's not a train of logic, but a meaningless rant.

You know, I could say the same thing about a lot of your posts as well. But what value would we get out of that?

If there are no objective standards to use with interpreting the validity of the Bible, then how do we know it is valid?

I never said that.

Well you could've fooled me into thinking that. With the fact neither of us speak Hebrew, we don't know which verses are mistranslated, and we shouldn't take the words to their literal meaning, yet you some how were able to come to the conclusion a central concept of the Bible is human freedom, sure seems awfully subjective and arbitrary to me.

-Mr. Armaos

Post 24

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 3:35pm

John asks of Mr. Catala:

What was mistranslated, and what wasn't mistranslated? If you can't answer that, or if it takes more than a lifetime to figure that out, of what use is the Bible to me? Where does that leave us with the validity of the Bible? How do we come to the conclusion human freedom is the central concept of the Bible if so much of it's true meaning is not known to me or you?

Even though Mr. Catala doesn't like me to, I'm going to try to answer this question. The answer is: because his rabbi told him so. His rabbi has studied, along with others, for a lifetime, trying to understand the Bible and to translate it in such a way that it fits within the doctrine being espoused by his particular religion. Other religions will translate it slightly differently, of course, to fit with their doctrines.

For example, you listed the following quote:

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

Well, this can't mean what we think it means, because our god is a loving, forgiving god. So, it must be mistranslated. Or, wait: it must have been taken out of context. Yeah, that's the ticket!

John: your argument was exactly right, which is why Mr. Catala is being insulting to you and, in my opinion, being intentionally obtuse. He does this when he doesn't have a good argument, which is most of the time.

Thanks for your posts,
Glenn

Post 25

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 8:00pm

I'm trying to figure out why Joel C. would defend something even he claims no one can understand. Talk about a bad argument style.

Post 26

Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 12:48am

John, great replies to Joel. You're case against him is a slam dunk. Human freedom is a central Biblical concept! Yeah, right! If you believe that, I know some Nigerians who'd like to do business with you. What's written in the Bible reminds me very much of what goes on in the Middle East today. Stoning people to death for relatively minor transgressions. So, I'm inclined to believe that the verses you quoted are accurate.

Joel, in all seriousness, you've got to admit that it sounds a little disingenuous for you to claim initially that human freedom is a central Biblical concept, and then when John points out numerous Biblical verses that contradict that claim, to reply that the translations are all wrong, even though you don't know what the right translations are. If you don't know what the right translations are, then how can you say that human freedom is a central Biblical concept?

Do you really expect people to take you seriously when you argue this way?

- Bill

Post 27

Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 1:38am

Joel wrote,

Founding America, the Pioneers acted according to their ideals, which included freedom because human freedom is a central Biblical concept. That some Christian and Atheist groups misunderstood this fact does not change the main premise.

Thomas Jefferson, author the The Declaration of Independence was not a Christian nor a member of any other religion, a fact attested to in his letter to John Adams in 1820, in which he wrote: "When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart."

See also The Godless Constitution by Isaac Kramnick, and R. Laurence Moore (1996), in which the authors point out that the absence of any mention of God in the American Constitution was a conscious action on the framer's part, intended to prevent the bloody religious wars and persecutions that existed in Europe. They also refute the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation.

If you have the stomach for Ann Coulter's latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, in which she argues that it is only the rejection of God that makes modern liberalism possible, you will want to follow it with Kramnick and Moore's The Godless Constitution in order to reclaim your sanity! ;-)

- Bill

Post 28

Monday, June 12, 2006 - 7:38am