IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!

On 2007-08-06, CBFalconer wrote:
> laelahaellallah3.TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
>>
> ... snip ...
>>
>> Complete the preface you will find it in your book. So, I can ask
>> you: IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!!?
>
> A necessary preliminary question is: "Does any God exist?". There
> have been no valid answers in millenia.

Of course there have been; it's "No."

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author | <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: | My code in this post, if any,
A Problem-Solution Approach | is released under the
2005, Apress | GNU General Public Licence

On 2007-08-06, CBFalconer <cbfalconer.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:
> laelahaellallah3.TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
>>
> ... snip ...
>>
>> Complete the preface you will find it in your book. So, I can ask
>> you: IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!!?
>
> A necessary preliminary question is: "Does any God exist?". There
> have been no valid answers in millenia.

Of course the texts that you are referring to are actually
translations. For the originals you would need to learn Ancient Greek
for the New Testament (and the Septuagint) as well as Hebrew for the
Old Testament.

You could try Aramaic as well but the New Testament Aramaic is given
in Greek within the text, not sure about the Old Testament as I have
no Hebrew

Andrew

--
'Name him not!' said Gandalf, and for a moment
it seemed that a look of pain passed over his face,
and he sat silent, looking old as death.

laelahaellallah wrote:
> Complete the preface you will find it in your book. So, I can ask
> you: IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!!?

Have YOU been touched by His noodly appendage!!!???

CBFalconer wrote:
> A necessary preliminary question is: "Does any God exist?". There have
> been no valid answers in millenia.

Of course there have. It's just that answers are unpalatable to many.
--
John Hasler
john RemoveThis @dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

andrew wrote:
> On 2007-08-06, CBFalconer <cbfalconer RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
>> laelahaellallah3 RemoveThis @gmail.com wrote:
>> ... snip ...
>>> Complete the preface you will find it in your book. So, I can ask
>>> you: IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!!?
>> A necessary preliminary question is: "Does any God exist?". There
>> have been no valid answers in millenia.
>
> Of course the texts that you are referring to are actually
> translations. For the originals you would need to learn Ancient Greek
> for the New Testament

No, you would need to learn Biblical Greek which is a little newer than
Classical Greek. My mother learned Classical Greek in college and could not
read copies of recently discovered New Testament texts. She had to take two
years off to study Biblical Greek to do that. She found all the existing
translations inadequate, though some were better than others.

And what does "originals" really mean? Jesus, for example, knew how to read
and probably write, Hebrew, since he passed his tests for that by age 13,
IIRC. But he did not seem to have written anything. He spoke mainly Aramaic,
but unless more recent scholarship has revealed new stuff, none of the New
Testament texts were written in Aramaic, but in Greek. And the Greek of the
book of Mark, the earliest of the four "canonical" ones, was such poor
Greek, that they put Matthew first. And those names were more of dedications
to diciples, not the names of the authors. So for practical purposes, there
were no originals. They were written no sooner than about 70 years after the
death of Jesus.

> (and the Septuagint) as well as Hebrew for the
> Old Testament.

Which Hebrew? It changed considerably during the writing of what the
Christians call the Old Testament. The writers of Genesis could not have
known each other. The first part is much more recent than the rest. Whoever
wrote that could not have understood the Hebrew of the rest of it.

There were probably three authors of Isaiah.
>
> You could try Aramaic as well but the New Testament Aramaic is given
> in Greek within the text, not sure about the Old Testament as I have
> no Hebrew
>
> Andrew
>


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On 2007-08-06, Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8 RemoveThis @verizon.net> wrote:
> andrew wrote:

[...]

>> Of course the texts that you are referring to are actually
>> translations. For the originals you would need to learn Ancient Greek
>> for the New Testament
>
> No, you would need to learn Biblical Greek which is a little newer than
> Classical Greek. My mother learned Classical Greek in college and could not
> read copies of recently discovered New Testament texts. She had to take two
> years off to study Biblical Greek to do that. She found all the existing
> translations inadequate, though some were better than others.

I feel that I am in a dangerous position disagreeing with both your
mother _and_ yourself on this subject And so my aplogies:

I myself am a student of Ancient Greek and I have read predominantly
'Classical' Greek, if by that is meant the Greek of the golden age:
Attic Greek. Having said that I have also read the much older Greek of
Homer. But specific to this thread, which of course is becoming wildly
off topic, I have also read some bibilical Greek: the book of Matthew
from the NT and the story of Joseph (Genesis) from the Septuagint.

Biblical Greek has of course its own constructions but it is marked
predominantly by a 'simplification' of vocabulary, grammar and syntax.
I suspect that your mother would have been easily ably to understand
the Greek but may have taken a few years of study to fully appreciate
the changes that had occured to make the language the way it appeared.
This was certainly my experience when I read Matthew straight after
having Euripides Medea

Andrew


--
'Name him not!' said Gandalf, and for a moment
it seemed that a look of pain passed over his face,
and he sat silent, looking old as death.

On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:19:38 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

> On 2007-08-06, CBFalconer wrote:
>> laelahaellallah3.TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>> ... snip ...
>>>
>>> Complete the preface you will find it in your book. So, I can ask you:
>>> IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!!?
>>
>> A necessary preliminary question is: "Does any God exist?". There have
>> been no valid answers in millenia.
>
> Of course there have been; it's "No."

Agreed, like John Hasler, in this thread, put it:
"
Of course there have. It's just that answers are unpalatable to many.
"

though, just with a slight mistake:-)
s/ answers are / the answer is /

mmm, maybe was he thinking about another possible answer?
certainly that one:
Q: "Does any God exist?".
A: "To know, please press 'any' key"

loki harfagr wrote:

> mmm, maybe was he thinking about another possible answer?
> certainly that one:
> Q: "Does any God exist?".
> A: "To know, please press 'any' key"

When we were quibbling about this in an extra-credit philosophy class in
high school about 50 years ago, most of us were satisfied with the following:

There is at most one god.

What does an an agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac do?
He stays up all night wondering if there is a dog.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
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/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
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On 08/06/2007 11:57 PM, loki harfagr wrote:
> On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:19:38 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>
>> On 2007-08-06, CBFalconer wrote:
>>> laelahaellallah3.TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
>>> ... snip ...
>>>> Complete the preface you will find it in your book. So, I can ask you:
>>>> IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORDS!!!!?
>>> A necessary preliminary question is: "Does any God exist?". There have
>>> been no valid answers in millenia.
>> Of course there have been; it's "No."
>
> Agreed, like John Hasler, in this thread, put it:
> "
> Of course there have. It's just that answers are unpalatable to many.
> "
>
> though, just with a slight mistake:-)
> s/ answers are / the answer is /
>
> mmm, maybe was he thinking about another possible answer?
> certainly that one:
> Q: "Does any God exist?".
> A: "To know, please press 'any' key"

Hum, in ruby:

[bsd@cto ~]$ iruby
iruby(main):001:0> create = God.new
*NameError: uninitialized constant God*
from (iruby):1
iruby(main):002:0>

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