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C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

reasonabletheology.org

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Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#131

Post by mback00 »

panarky wrote: post #119
sverige wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite Bible interpreters are all 19th century English, Scottish, and Irish writers. They all knew Greek and Hebrew, and some of them studied the ancient manuscripts themselves. Their writing is clear and cogent and their interpretations are still very much relevant. Sadly, I've little use for most contemporary writers on the same subjects. They just aren't up to the same standard.

If God wants to communicate with humanity through the Bible, why make it so difficult to understand the real message? Instead of requiring years of study of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek, why not just deliver the message in clear, modern, unambiguous language that the reader understands?

That’s the point actually of what Lewis is talking about - and it is a miracle that we have the translations that we do. It’s really not so difficult to understand the Bible — especially with modern translations like ESV, it’s today even easier to understand the ideas of the “common man’s Greek” and Hebrew/Arimaic that the Bible was written in. There is always room however for a scholar of ancient language to help others to understand nuance, figure of speech, or subtle cultural reference that may be difficult to translate directly... but the plain truth is that 99.9% of what you want to know is accessible today by the common reader. There is no excuse for not understanding the Bible - far from it... there is only the excuse that someone wants to ignore it.

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#132

Post by audiolion »

My friend who is an English Professor will not read books from an author who is not dead. Books need to stand the test of time, if they are still in circulation after the author dies, then there is something of worth there.

It was sometime in the middle ages where it became impossible to read every book in existence, consider now you get to read a fraction of a percent of all books in your lifetime.

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#134

Post by pmoriarty »

genghisjahn wrote: post #124
pmoriarty wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read Seneca if you liked Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. He's better than both, imo.

Just ordered the book. Er...a book. Letters from a stoic

My favorite is On the Shortness of Life.

You can read it free here:

https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pd...

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#135

Post by ziotom78 »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #18

I rather enjoyed this essay, not because I am into theology, but because I also see the value of old books. I think that I am a bit of a heretic (if I can use that word in a theology thread) because I strongly believe that there is advantage to be gained by reading old books of... science! It is often presumed that because we learn new things as time goes on, and old theories are discarded as new information comes to…

I fully agree! But, as somebody else said, it can be difficult to read old literature, as mathematical notation and terms are things that have evolved significantly in the last centuries.

There are two "new" references about "old" physics literature I particularly enjoyed: - "The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus," by O. Gingerich, about Copernicus' book "De revolutionibus."

- "A Student’s Guide Through the Great Physics Texts," by K. Kuehn (4 volumes). It presents many original papers by Newton, Galileo, Maxwell, etc., together with study questions and exercises.

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#137

Post by mjrpes »

NateEag wrote: post #121
smcameron wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely idiotic. Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? Um, lunatic, obviously. He dismisses atheism with a single sentence, and exhibits an astonishing level of ignorance. If you read it as a Christian, you might not notice the idiocy, but if you aren't a Christian, it's really really bad, so many assumptions, so many times something is glossed over as if "obviously so", when it's so not. Fucking terrible, and obviously so…

The irony of your "Um, lunatic, obviously," followed by loud complaints about things being "...glossed over as if 'obviously so', when it's so not" is hard to ignore. Regardless, I don't recall him dismissing atheism in a single sentence, but it has been years and it's quite possible I've just forgotten. What's the sentence?

I have the book and the argument is on pg. 33-34 in my edition:

1. There exists a moral law within ourselves that instructs us on what we "ought" to do.

2. There must be a "mind" behind this force, as "you can hardly imagine a bit of matter giving instructions".

I think Lewis would revise or abandon his argument if he lived in our age.

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#138

Post by laichzeit0 »

One of the most beautiful "old" books to read (especially if English is your native tongue) is John Locke - Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It's a beautiful piece of text, more so if you can get an old Oxford Claredon Press edition edited by Peter Nidditch.

I've read that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are also delightful to read in the original. Schopenhauer's writing style is so good, even when translated to English by Saunders.

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#139

Post by enriquto »

slededit wrote: post #77
enriquto wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Objects - which make verbs first class citizens (...) There's much to be said for and against "objects" from philosophical, scientific, technological and engineering standpoints. Personally, I agree with the great men that think that object orientation is bullshit (torvalds, stepanov, pike, ...). Still, whatever you think about the appropriateness of objects, they do not make verbs first class citizens, but nouns !

Its been a while since I've gotten into the theory here. But ultimately an object is a set of data and mutators upon that data. The Unix model does not link the two together - where for most hardware the two are inseparable. A sound card can only work on certain formats of data - it is more than mere bytes. It may have only limited processing ability (e.g. an EQ functionality or FM synthesizer). Ioctls are a hack aro…

> A sound card can only work on certain formats of data - it is more than mere bytes.

But you can keep this "data" that is only understandable by your sound card, and send it over the net, or compress it with gzip, or do whatever you want with it because, yes, it is merely bytes!

> You can use the UNIX APIs on a mac, but why would you want to?

because they are much more beautiful, and not a layered pile of unneeded abstractions.

Object orientation is to computer science what category theory is to mathematics. Yes, it is a very interesting intellectual exercise. Yes, it can be used to provide a foundation for everything. Yes, if you are using it daily in your work then you are either batshit crazy or severely misguided.

Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books

#140

Post by veddox »

panarky wrote: post #119
sverige wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite Bible interpreters are all 19th century English, Scottish, and Irish writers. They all knew Greek and Hebrew, and some of them studied the ancient manuscripts themselves. Their writing is clear and cogent and their interpretations are still very much relevant. Sadly, I've little use for most contemporary writers on the same subjects. They just aren't up to the same standard.

If God wants to communicate with humanity through the Bible, why make it so difficult to understand the real message? Instead of requiring years of study of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek, why not just deliver the message in clear, modern, unambiguous language that the reader understands?

The "real message" of the Bible is clear and plain to anyone who reads it (no matter the language). The biggest arguments in Christianity are often on issues that the biblical writers considered side topics, and thus only touched briefly - such as the form of worship services.
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