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Seven books I keep close because I love them

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Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#181

Post by Amezarak »

Yizahi wrote: post #134
dev_dan_2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it is, you know, divine. I am playing devils advocate here: Even if it were not divine because atheists happen to be right on that one... even then, the authors and the intended audience of the bible considered it divine - with pretty much the same outcomes when it comes to hermeneutics. That is why I think that both 1) atheists rejecting to do (at least temporary) suspension of disbelief even for the sake…

I suspect that majority of atheists would be fine with either literal reading of Bible (any other religious text) or with metaphorical and in-context reading of such text, whatever better suits the fancy of religious folks. Now the problem atheists have is the selective arbitrary literal or metaphorical passages of the same single book. Are passages about killing infidels and the other xenophobic garbage is a histori…

> Are passages about killing infidels and the other xenophobic garbage is a historical metaphorical and nuanced stuff which must be interpreted very different nowadays? Fine. But then all the other things should be also interpreted heavily - like there is no need to saran-wrap women because "the intention" or "the author's meaning" was about simply protecting them from the desert sand a-la medieval hiking handbook. There is no need to avoid specific animal meat in the age of refrigerators. And so on it goes.

I always find this mindset peculiarly baffling. From a secular perspective, we've understood since at least the 1800s that "morality" is simply the pro-social instincts that we've developed as a social species of apes, and that they are historically contingent on a million different factors for any particular group of humans, such that the exact manifestation of "morality" differs widely from culture to culture and over time. Yet comments like this invariably accept Christian moral realism as a given (and granted, it's obviously a large genealogical contributor to Western social norms today) but then sever its grounding from God and place it in...their personal feelings about right and wrong. So God using the Israelites/Babylonians/Romans/etc as his instrument of divine justice is evil "xenophobic garbage"...because divine justice is real (xenophobia is objectively evil) but the God described in religious texts actually has nothing to do with it, and actually its wrong because....uh...we say so and we're the final and ultimate arbiters of right and wrong I guess? Us, specifically, that is.

It really seems like this is the genealogical origin of the idea of "progress" you see throughout these comments as well - people are "better" now, because you can clearly see over time a large subset of people developing social norms closer and closer to our own! And unlike theirs, ours are objectively right and true, or at least closer to it. This is certainly a historically unusual view, which may have typically been rather provincial and close-minded, but which certainly did general not have this universalist, and dare I say, colonialist bent, that all must agree.

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#182

Post by dev_dan_2 »

agaj-nimm wrote: post #132
dev_dan_2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> descriptions of genealogy That in itself would still make a lot of sense to me though; as far as I know, property and power was mainly transfered through the lines of first born males (so a patriarchy, in the literal sense). If that, social status and so on hinges on who your father, grandfather etc. was, then I think it makes sense for geneology trees to be something important enough to write down, especially in l…

That's a bit of an oversimplification. I understand the historical value of genealogy but don't assume all past societies were uniformly practicing some form of entail and primogeniture. There is no definitive reading of scripture, there is no definitive version of any of the texts, and I enjoy finding new aspects of their history and interpretation. Realizing that some of the texts that read as genealogy might have…

Nono, I was refering specifically to the culture and time period in which the old testament was composed, not other cultures or time periods - those were clearly patriarchical, it would be a mistake to dismiss that when interpreting the old testament. Considering the culture in which a written artifact was composed is one of the main pilars that hermeneutics relies on (but obviously not the only one)

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#183

Post by jhbadger »

frollogaston wrote: post #106
ntdef wrote: post #69

The New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible is by far the worst translation on almost any metric you can think of, except maybe understanding how evangelical Christians read the Bible in the 90s and 2000s. The NIV has so many inexcusable translations that reinforce a theological worldview that matched the conversation on atonement and justification that was happening in the 90s and 2000s. There's a g…

I've only ever read KJV and haven't heard of the others. Is the downside that KJV is 1600s English? That particular line: KJV: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. NRSV: For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. NIV: For I know that…

Also there are things that are just bad translations even for the era -- the KJV mentions unicorns 9 times, often in weird comparisons like "the strength of a unicorn" -- whatever the Hebrew original meant (many scholars think it was referring to wild cattle known as aurochs), it certainly didn't mean a unicorn out of Western mythology.

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#184

Post by keane »

dougb5 wrote: post #53
cryzinger wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never owned a copy of Roget's, and now I'm curious/tempted to get one, but my go-to digital word picking assistant has always been OneLook Thesaurus: https://www.onelook.com/thesaurus/

Hey, I'm the developer of OneLook. I'm so glad to see it here! The concept clusters on the site are directly inspired by Roget's work. Like the author, I see a thesaurus less as a synonym dictionary and more as what the word literally means, a storehouse of treasure. I'm in the midst of a long-overdue data refresh across OneLook right now, so I'd be curious to hear your feedback once it's done.

Twenty years ago, OneLook Reverse was how I took college papers from a B to an A through intimidating the TAs with absurdly specific yet exactly fitting three dollar words. That they thought I knew the field led to great friendships (and jobs) with some of them. I owe you big time and thank you!

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#185

Post by paxcoder »

KPGv2 wrote: post #150
frollogaston wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only ever read KJV and haven't heard of the others. Is the downside that KJV is 1600s English? That particular line: KJV: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. NRSV: For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. NIV: For I know that…

The NIV has as a stated goal to preserve the "infallibility" of the Bible, which means their translation opts for internal consistency over accuracy. I personally think it's the least trustworthy translation, a product specifically of the American evangelical movement in the Boomer heyday. The generation that really hates. The one that supercharged the anti-abortion movement as a direct response to the Supreme Court…

[dead]

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#186

Post by agaj-nimm »

dev_dan_2 wrote: post #182
agaj-nimm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. I understand the historical value of genealogy but don't assume all past societies were uniformly practicing some form of entail and primogeniture. There is no definitive reading of scripture, there is no definitive version of any of the texts, and I enjoy finding new aspects of their history and interpretation. Realizing that some of the texts that read as genealogy might have…

Nono, I was refering specifically to the culture and time period in which the old testament was composed, not other cultures or time periods - those were clearly patriarchical, it would be a mistake to dismiss that when interpreting the old testament. Considering the culture in which a written artifact was composed is one of the main pilars that hermeneutics relies on (but obviously not the only one)

Let's start with "time period in which the old testament was composed"

When was that exactly? I believe the oldest extant versions are from around 300 AD. We have a rough idea of when certain books might have been written, but that is open to debate, and strong arguments have been made that put the origin of certain parts of these books centuries apart. Even the composition of a 'canonical' version of these books collections is not really clear before a certain point that is several centuries removed from the time in which we think they might have been originally written.

Different books or even different parts of a book (even what constitutes a 'book' in the old or new testament is not well defined for any given time period before a certain point from when we have some evidence of a certain standardization at a certain place - which doesn't even mean all traditions everywhere using these books follow that same standard from that point onward) might have been written at times centuries apart and might have originated in different cultures.

My point is, sweeping statements about customs and practices of specific societies as they were between one and three millennia ago is very hard to make. Even something like "the people who wrote this book clearly practiced primogeniture" is packed with lots of assumptions. And if we could know that a certain part of some scripture was from a definite time period and originally written in a certain language... who wrote it? Where? What was the legal system there?

Take another example, a period and people we have a lot of data about: in XVII century England, for example, primogeniture and entail were standard... for the elite. Not for the middle class. You see what I'm getting at?

Put simply, what I meant with my previous comment was: we have literally no idea if the people who wrote these supposed genealogies in Exodus were in fact practicing these inheritance legal forms you mentioned.

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#187

Post by mjsweet »

ntdef wrote: post #69

The New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible is by far the worst translation on almost any metric you can think of, except maybe understanding how evangelical Christians read the Bible in the 90s and 2000s. The NIV has so many inexcusable translations that reinforce a theological worldview that matched the conversation on atonement and justification that was happening in the 90s and 2000s. There's a g…

I swapped from the NIV to the NLT many years ago. My father’s uncle, J.A. Thompson, was a translator for the NLT and worked on Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes. I really appreciate the way it flows too and it is my daily reading Bible. My wife and I read through the “Daily Bible” by F Lagard Smith (NIV). Now there is an NLT version in paperback. I would love a bonded version, however. Recommended for daily reading in chronological order so you can feel the arc of the story.

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#188

Post by derangedHorse »

cvoss wrote: post #35

> knowing full well that [Delilah] will betray [Samson] It is not clear from the text that Samson is aware of the presence of Philistines the first three times. We are told they are lying in ambush in an inner chamber. We are not told that they make themselves known, attempt to subdue Samson, or interact with him in any way. Instead, we are told that Delilah announces their imminent presence, with no follow-through.…

I'd like to caution against extending stories with too much of one's interpretation/imagination and insisting the extended version proves author intent of the original.

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#189

Post by derangedHorse »

Amezarak wrote: post #181
Yizahi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that majority of atheists would be fine with either literal reading of Bible (any other religious text) or with metaphorical and in-context reading of such text, whatever better suits the fancy of religious folks. Now the problem atheists have is the selective arbitrary literal or metaphorical passages of the same single book. Are passages about killing infidels and the other xenophobic garbage is a histori…

> Are passages about killing infidels and the other xenophobic garbage is a historical metaphorical and nuanced stuff which must be interpreted very different nowadays? Fine. But then all the other things should be also interpreted heavily - like there is no need to saran-wrap women because "the intention" or "the author's meaning" was about simply protecting them from the desert sand a-la medieval hiking handbook. T…

The existence and acknowledgement of moral relativism does not preclude moral chastisement.

Re: Seven books I keep close because I love them

#190

Post by mangodrunk »

slowin wrote: post #160
mangodrunk wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you live in a majority indigenous area? Would that be appropriate if you are not indigenous? I say this because I do think many are too critical of Christian countries without ever experiencing another country. They don’t know how good they have it.

I think you’re confusing geospatial happenstance with religion. No, I don’t like living in a culture that believes a guy came back from the dead. Especially when it’s enriched via colonization. I don’t “have it good”, I literally live in an intellectual wasteland. Have you ever been to the US? I’ve been to many countries and Christian culture is one of my least favorites. What makes you think I’m not indigenous? I ne…

Supposed intellectual wasteland is far better than an actual wasteland. If you live in the US, you most likely have it far better than most everyone else on earth. Immigrants know this much better than Americans who take their freedoms and comfortable life for granted. They are a hard working people and have earned their current privileges.
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