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@roger,

A number of the OT stories speak of cosmic disasters in recent prehistoric times.

Physical events have physical causes. Isaiah 30:26 which midrashic sources connect to the mention of the seven days of intense light prior to the flood (Gen. 7:4 - 7:10) indicates that the OT is describing something similar to a nova condition in our system at that time. The one thing which would do that without frying the system to cinders (as would a main sequence star like our sun going nova) would be a dwarf star flare event, which would probably have involved one or other of Jupiter/Saturn.

https://cosmos-magazine.imgix.net/file/spina/photo/10786/190617_reddwarf_1.jpg?fit=clip&w=835

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@RABEL222,

What he is lying about in the present moment was the point.

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Fox News seeks, above all, to educate it's audience.

Quote:

Diamond & Silk: Beto O'Rourke "talks about tearing down walls, yet he live in a house supported by walls."

All the best people.

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@oralloy,

The Syriac Orthodox Church is the most ancient Christian church in the world.
Their liturgy still is (in most parts) in Syriac. The New Testament books of this Bible are estimated to have been translated from Greek to Syriac between the late 1st century to the early 3rd century AD.
(We've got several larger parishes - and a Patriarchal-Vicariate - around here where I live, the church members being mainly of Turkish ancestry. Some friends are church members.)

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@roger,

roger wrote:

Why Greek texts, though?

"The group of Jews that we would call the very first Christians" and "the group of Jews that were ancestors of what we call Judaism today" wrote their Old Testament books slightly differently.

"The group of Jews that we would call the very first Christians" wrote the Old Testament in a way that favored a Christian interpretation of the stories. And they wrote their books in Greek.

"The group of Jews that were ancestors of what we call Judaism today" wrote the Old Testament* in a way that impeded a Christian interpretation of the stories. And they wrote their books in Hebrew and Aramaic.

Neither version is the original text of the Old Testament books. That no longer exists (or has not yet been discovered if it does exist).

I simply favor the idea of a Christian Old Testament being based on pro-Christian texts rather than on texts impede a Christian interpretation.

I suspect that the reason why Orthodox Christians use the Greek originals is not because they share my translation philosophy. I suspect that the reason is simply because Greece is such a strong center of the Orthodox faith. But it works out that they produce what I consider the best Christian versions of the Old Testament.

* I realize that Jews don't call it the Old Testament. I just wanted to be consistent in my use of terms so it would be clear what I am referring to.

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@oralloy,

This doesn't make much sense. The 'old testament' is not one book, it's a collection of books written over the centuries by different people. It's not like there once was an 'original version' of the whole collection kept in a library somewhere.

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I watched a Harry Potter movie last night. I have to say that those wands have some really good apps.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

It's not like there once was an 'original version' of the whole collection kept in a library somewhere.

How about the official copies in the Second Temple circa 500 BC?

Or better yet, how about the official scrolls in the First Temple before it was destroyed?

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@oralloy,

You don’t believe official documents released in 2019.

Why would you believe “official” documents 2500 years ago?

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@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

You don’t believe official documents released in 2019.

I don't what???

maporsche wrote:

Why would you believe “official” documents 2500 years ago?

It is reasonable to treat an official authoritative document as an official authoritative document.

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As usual, Oralloy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. "Christian" scripture is in a form of Greek, Koine Greek, which was spread in what we call the middle east as a result of the Greco-Macedonian conquest in the fourth century BCE. Therefore, the educated people of the Levant and northern Africa spoke and wrote that language. The oldest copies of the so-called scripture of christianity were therefore written in that language. The oldest copies we have of that scripture date from no earlier than 325 CE. Additionally, the accepted canon of the so-called new testament were those texts selected by Origen of Alexandria. Orthodox and Roman and Byzantine Catholic exegesis and theology are based on the canon of Origen. To suggest that this is somehow genuine or foundational is naïve, to say the least.

Perversions of christianity have always been crucial to power politics in Europe, and by extension, in the Americas. The current lunacy among American fundamentalists and charismatics to the effect that Plump is the chosen of god is a perfect example of the perversion and deliberate employment of religious fanaticism for the ends of political power seekers. Those who employ such narratives have never been anything other than self-serving exploiters of the credulity of religious fanatics.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

As usual, Oralloy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

You're bluffing. I call your bluff. You can't point out a single thing that I am wrong about.

Setanta wrote:

"Christian" scripture is in a form of Greek, Koine Greek, which was spread in what we call the middle east as a result of the Greco-Macedonian conquest in the fourth century BCE. Therefore, the educated people of the Levant and northern Africa spoke and wrote that language. The oldest copies of the so-called scripture of christianity were therefore written in that language.

As I said, the very first Christians wrote their books in Greek.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

"The group of Jews that were ancestors of what we call Judaism today" wrote the Old Testament* in a way that impeded a Christian interpretation of the stories. And they wrote their books in Hebrew and Aramaic.

This is a false statement. Judaism is a religious confession, and those who adhere to that religious confession are not necessarily the descendants of any particular group of the ancient Jews of Palestine, nor of North Africa.

Quote:

I suspect that the reason why Orthodox Christians use the Greek originals is not because they share my translation philosophy. I suspect that the reason is simply because Greece is such a strong center of the Orthodox faith. But it works out that they produce what I consider the best Christian versions of the Old Testament.

Once again, the early texts of "christianity" were written in Koine Greek, and that had nothing to do with the spread of Orthodox christianity. The historical tradition, and a dubious one it is, is that Saul of Tarsus, the putative "Saint" Paul, introduced christianity in Greece in 49 CE. Without addressing the questionable nature of historical claims about the so-called scriptures of christianity, that shoots in the ass the claims about the antiquity of the so-called gospel of John having been written by a companion of the putative Jesus Christ. Furthermore, there was not even a concept of a separate Orthodox church until the "Great Schism" in the eleventh century of the common era.

As is so commonly the case with blithely ignorant people, you exhibit a great confidence in your "knowledge," all while demonstrating how very little you actually know about the subjects upon which you choose to pontificate.

Tell us again about your high IQ, that one always cracks me up.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

oralloy wrote:
"The group of Jews that were ancestors of what we call Judaism today" wrote the Old Testament* in a way that impeded a Christian interpretation of the stories. And they wrote their books in Hebrew and Aramaic.
This is a false statement. Judaism is a religious confession, and those who adhere to that religious confession are not necessarily the descendants of any particular group of the ancient Jews of Palestine, nor of North Africa.

"The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought in the Holy Land during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees

Setanta wrote:

Once again, the early texts of "christianity" were written in Koine Greek,

Exactly as I said.

Setanta wrote:

As is so commonly the case with blithely ignorant people, you exhibit a great confidence in your "knowledge," all while demonstrating how very little you actually know about the subjects upon which you choose to pontificate.

More bluffing. You still cannot point out a single thing that I am wrong about.

Setanta wrote:

Tell us again about your high IQ, that one always cracks me up.

My IQ is 170. What's yours?

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https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/27858635_458601234555147_6108763904780521856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-2.xx&oh=0072ea3a118e86e4f3b553f3c73676dc&oe=5CDB7A6A

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@oralloy,

First, "official copies" are not "the original", by definition.

Second, most of theses books are believe by modern scholars to date from the exodus to Babylon and the subsequent second temple period. That would be why Genesis is close to Summerian myths, for instance. It's unclear if any of it was codified already during the first temple era. During that period they might have been memorized instead, as the Iliad is believed to have been originally.

E.g. the psalms are attributed to David but they were in fact authored over several centuries as individual poems, then ultimately put together in an anthology. Some of them might have been written down as individual poems/songs a long time ago. Archeolgists have found cuneiform tablets recording what looks like the original pagan version of Psalm 29 from before Judaism, with the Hebrew version just changing "Baal" to "Elohim" or "Yhwh".

So, the original version of part of the Jewish Bible is most probably pagan: Canaanite and Summerian.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

First, "official copies" are not "the original", by definition.

Perhaps. But they carry the authority of being canon.

Originals that predate official canon would be of interest too of course.

Olivier5 wrote:

Second, most of theses books are believe by modern scholars to date from the exodus to Babylon and the subsequent second temple period. That would be why Genesis is close to Summerian myths, for instance.

Thus my comment:
"How about the official copies in the Second Temple circa 500 BC?"

Olivier5 wrote:

It's unclear if any of it was codified already during the first temple era. During that period they might have been memorized instead, as the Iliad is believed to have been originally.

Memorized or written, it would still be canon, and source material for what came after.

Olivier5 wrote:

E.g. the psalms are attributed to David but they were in fact authored over several centuries as individual poems, then ultimately put together in an anthology. Some of them might have been written down as individual poems/songs a long time ago. Archeolgists have found cuneiform tablets recording what looks like the original pagan version of Psalm 29 from before Judaism, with the Hebrew version just changing "Baal" to "Elohim" or "Yhwh".
So, the original version of part of the Jewish Bible is most probably pagan: Canaanite and Summerian.

Since the Israelites were Iron Age descendants of Bronze Age Canaanites, that stands to reason.

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One thing to notice..... The OT is basically a family album of sorts, written by descendants of Adam and Noah. It doesn't mention other ancient historical sources and, in particular, it treats leftover Cro Magnon descendant groups (the people Cain was worried might kill him when, supposedly, he, Adam, and Eve were the only three humans on the planet, Cain's wife etc. etc.) as non people, you have to infer their existence from context.

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@oralloy,

The Jewish canon dates from after the fall of the second temple. It's very recent, therefore, post JC. Before that, the corpus of texts that would ultimately become the Jewish bible evolved progressively, starting from pagan texts adapted to Judaism, and got enriched through various rewriting, additions, and expansions of earlier texts over the ages. Isaiah for instance is believed to be from 2 or 3 differents authors spread out in time. So this corpus was not "fixed" until relatively recently.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

Interesting ideas from you and Gunga. Why Greek texts, though?

The learned and cosmopolitan language spoken in North Africa and the Levant was Greek for some time after Alexander the Great's conquest of the region. There was a need to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The authoritative Greek translation, the Septuagint, began being written in the mid-third century BCE, with the translation of the Torah, its first five books. The translation of the rest of the texts was completed in the second century BCE. Quotes of the Hebrew Bible in the Pauline Epistles are directly from the Septuagint.

Portions of various English translations of the Bible are based on the Septuagint.

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