Topic of "angels having sex with human females".

DotNotInOz wrote:

DeavonReye wrote:They created a "fear base" in what they claimed god was commanding so that the people wouldn't question their authority.

We also don't know to what extent people other than the priests and scribes could read in biblical times. Written material was precious and not easily acquired. So, the learned could pretty much tell the uneducated whatever the former felt like passing off as truth.

I think it important not to forget that well into the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, nomadic and agricultural peoples often were not literate. My paternal grandparents had marginal educations. They both could read and write, but I recall my dad saying that he knew some people who couldn't write their own names when he was growing up in the 1920's. And this was in the central U.S.!

I think it quite likely as Gilly implies that those who taught the illiterate what scriptures said represented the content however they thought most advantageous to themselves, which is not to say that such practices were commonplace but occurred more often than we'd prefer to think, I bet.

Dot, your husband is Jewish isn't he? Do you mind asking him what he was taught about all the preceding generations of Jewish education? I always assumed they have had Hebrew schools ect... all the way back to the return from Babylon-I could be mistaken.

gillyflower wrote:As a side note, written English, prior to dictionaries and the emphasis on uniform spelling, was phonetic. In other words it wasn't meant to be read, it was meant to be spoken and heard, and spelling fluctuated by what people thought they heard or what they thought the word really was or even if they thought that another spelling would be clearer. (If you want examples, think about all the ways Kennedy, Canady, etc can be spelled.) That is one way "errors" or changes were introduced into manuscripts.

Is that really applicable to a system where scribes transmit the written word?

DotNotInOz wrote:What I think really fascinating is that we've no idea really who all the people were who wrote the various segments of the Christian NT.

Most biblical scholars think on the basis of structural and other linguistic similarities that several of the Pauline books were written by the same person who's generally believed to be the Saul who became known as Paul after his conversion.

As far as I know, however, we don't know exactly who this person was and aren't certain that he did in fact write the NT books attributed to him, so much presumably biographical information comes from tradition arising from legends spun off the biblical accounts.

One very intriguing theory I read in a book on gnosticism speculated that the NT writings, especially the letters and Acts might well be mystery school composition exercises. It was commonplace for students in the philosophy and religious schools of the time to write their ideas as if they were a hero figure or other notable person even to affixing that person's name as author. Imitating the "letters of" is sometimes used in composition classes today.

I've long thought that there might be something to that idea as many of the NT books as are unattributed except by tradition. It amuses me no end to consider that the literalists might be taking as God's law the composition exercise of some long-dead student.

why? are you saying God can't inspire composition exercises?

DotNotInOz wrote:

gillyflower wrote:As a side note, written English, prior to dictionaries and the emphasis on uniform spelling, was phonetic. In other words it wasn't meant to be read, it was meant to be spoken and heard, and spelling fluctuated by what people thought they heard or what they thought the word really was or even if they thought that another spelling would be clearer. (If you want examples, think about all the ways Kennedy, Canady, etc can be spelled.) That is one way "errors" or changes were introduced into manuscripts.

Quite so, Gilly.

In fact, spelling was only somewhat standardized by the time of the American Declaration of Independence. Books were still quite expensive up until more mechanized printers became common in the 19th century, and thus, dictionaries weren't commonly available before then. As a result, spelling was rather freeform until public schools and widespread availability of dictionaries and grammars could begin to produce more spelling uniformity.

but Hebrew spelling has been standardized since at the very least-the Masoretic texts (and from the uniformity and agreement with the DSS long before that)

Davelaw wrote:

gillyflower wrote:As a side note, written English, prior to dictionaries and the emphasis on uniform spelling, was phonetic. In other words it wasn't meant to be read, it was meant to be spoken and heard, and spelling fluctuated by what people thought they heard or what they thought the word really was or even if they thought that another spelling would be clearer. (If you want examples, think about all the ways Kennedy, Canady, etc can be spelled.) That is one way "errors" or changes were introduced into manuscripts.

Is that really applicable to a system where scribes transmit the written word?

Not precisely. However, it's well known that numerous mistakes were made by scribes who copied and recopied the manuscripts in order to produce multiple texts. Some were obvious "typos" and probably unintentional. Others are believed to have been deliberate attempts to skew doctrinal interpretations.

Before that, authors of such texts oftentimes dictated their thoughts to a scribe or secretary who didn't necessarily transcribe every word precisely as said but rather may well have put what was said into readable form.

The simple fact is that these teachings were written down so long ago that we honestly don't know precisely whose ideas they were, how much the original ideas may have been altered by the recorder, and so forth.

Take, for instance, the sources for the "biography" of Paul. Every bit of what we know about him is derived from clues in the biblical accounts presumed to have been written by him, and of the seven books generally agreed to have been written by the one individual we call Paul, scholars still often disagree that the six pretty solidly established as the work of one person were actually written by that particular person. We have not one single fact from an outside source testifying to an event in his life and can't even solidly establish that he wrote what is attributed to him.

Davelaw wrote:
but Hebrew spelling has been standardized since at the very least-the Masoretic texts (and from the uniformity and agreement with the DSS long before that)

Not as much as you appear to believe, Dave.

Hebrew doesn't use vowels, for one thing, and there aren't any definite indications where sentences end in most ancient texts. Scholars discern by what is being said and what point seems the logical "end-thought" to determine where to place a period in modern translations.

Then, there's the problem for Christians that their translations of what comprises the Old Testament are frequently somewhat different than the present-day Jewish ones.

Lay a Tanakh and a good modern translation side-by-side and begin with Genesis. The differences are remarkable in some places.

Davelaw wrote:
Dot, your husband is Jewish isn't he? Do you mind asking him what he was taught about all the preceding generations of Jewish education? I always assumed they have had Hebrew schools ect... all the way back to the return from Babylon-I could be mistaken.

Yes, he is Jewish. I'll ask him.

I do know that he's said that there's no continuity between pre-Christian Judaism and that of the current era. I think he said that after the destruction of the Temple, Judaism became really scattered and fragmentary for some time.

Modern Judaism, at least that practiced in the U.S., is a reconstruction of what was gleaned from writings and traditions preserved by various groups.

Their scriptures are derived from many of the same ancient manuscripts as the Christian OT, if I recall correctly.

Davelaw wrote:
why? are you saying God can't inspire composition exercises?

Not only do I not believe that God did any such thing but I strongly suspect that "God inspired the writers" was concocted to divert attention from the fact that we don't know exactly who wrote ANY of the NT. The names attributed to these books are simply names handed down over the centuries as the presumed authors of the books.

We don't know if any of them were actual people with that name, nor do we know anything about them other than the clues and fragmentary details given in the biblical accounts.

It's pretty frightening, seems to me, that the words are taken so seriously under the circumstances.

Just talked to hubby on his last break, and I was correct that he said there's only slight continuity between present-day Judaism and that of antiquity.

He said that the Kabbalists can trace their teachings back in a pretty direct line to ancient times, but that's not the case for more than bits of the other teachings.

As I said previously and he agreed, modern Judaism is a reconstruction.

DotNotInOz wrote:It's pretty frightening, seems to me, that the words are taken so seriously under the circumstances.

Dot, . . . . fewer words have been so true as these. It really IS frightening to think how these documents have changed the world as we know it, and their beginnings are not even known.

I started this thead about the "angels having sex with earth women", but this is far more important.

Even The Dead Sea Scrolls aren't all that old in terms of manuscripts compared with how far back the biblical accounts presumably extend.

The various sources I've consulted say that the DSS are believed by means of carbon dating and other clues to date from about 200 BCE to 100 CE.

In short, those are quite late manuscripts as the biblical chronology goes, assuming that we've dated them at all accurately.

The Nag Hammadi texts are 1st century CE at the earliest, if I recall correctly.

And both of these collections of texts are the earliest manuscripts we have, not by any means originals.

As a quick side track, . . . what IS the oldest manuscript, regardless of religious affiliation? In other words, other religions, . . . .or even non-religious writings that were original, or as close as possible?

Davelaw wrote:

DotNotInOz wrote:

gillyflower wrote:As a side note, written English, prior to dictionaries and the emphasis on uniform spelling, was phonetic. In other words it wasn't meant to be read, it was meant to be spoken and heard, and spelling fluctuated by what people thought they heard or what they thought the word really was or even if they thought that another spelling would be clearer. (If you want examples, think about all the ways Kennedy, Canady, etc can be spelled.) That is one way "errors" or changes were introduced into manuscripts.

Quite so, Gilly.

In fact, spelling was only somewhat standardized by the time of the American Declaration of Independence. Books were still quite expensive up until more mechanized printers became common in the 19th century, and thus, dictionaries weren't commonly available before then. As a result, spelling was rather freeform until public schools and widespread availability of dictionaries and grammars could begin to produce more spelling uniformity.

but Hebrew spelling has been standardized since at the very least-the Masoretic texts (and from the uniformity and agreement with the DSS long before that)

It was but when they translated it into Latin, Jerome didn't understand a number of words at that time. So it could have been faithfully scribed and yet the original meanings were lost. I believe there is a translation of an early bible online that shows the "corrections" that it went through. Then there was the translations into English that were bent for political reasons, yes? And then new translations purporting to be closer to what whoever might have wrote that bit might have meant in that other person's opinion. And if that gets confusing, yes it is. And the best part is that there is absolutely no proof that Yahweh said any of it.

I think it is highly dangerous that people so blindly idolize a book just because "authority" claims it as "the words of god".

DeavonReye wrote:I think it is highly dangerous that people so blindly idolize a book just because "authority" claims it as "the words of god".

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think I take some offense at this. Let me explain:

The Bible has great meaning to me; its reminaed a source of comfort for decades. But I would be highly insulted to be viewed as either "blind" or an "idolater" as I am neither. Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, Barth, Luther, Erasmus, Melanchthon, TS Eliot, Tolkien and other folks I greatly admire don't really fit into the 'blind' or 'idolater' categories either... yet each cared greatly for the Bible; some even risked their lives over it.

As for understanding how the history of the English Bible, accurate and succinct data can be found here:

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/ I think it's very interesting; some here might enjoy the read.

I found it was rather biased but interesting. I don't think that they can prove the the tablets were the first written word of Yahweh or that they ever existed, for example.

Caring deeply for a bible - or would it be more accurate to say that you care deeply for the myths that are written down in it? There are many people in the world who care deeply about the myths of their family, country, culture or religion and, indeed, take great comfort from those myths. I tell people who are in the library to investigate whether or not their family myths happened that what really matters is that the myths pass on values that are important to the family. I feel that it is more important to see the lesson within the myths clearly rather than defend whether it actually happened.

Sakhaiva wrote:

DeavonReye wrote:I think it is highly dangerous that people so blindly idolize a book just because "authority" claims it as "the words of god".

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think I take some offense at this. Let me explain:

The Bible has great meaning to me; its reminaed a source of comfort for decades.

I certainly don't doubt that these are true for you as they have been for many others. However, I propose that this is the case in large measure due to your having been carefully taught to think of the Bible in specific ways.

But I would be highly insulted to be viewed as either "blind" or an "idolater" as I am neither.

Perhaps not. However, I suggest that like most fervent Christians, you have accepted what you've been told about the Bible, most notably that it is the Word of God recorded by humans inspired by God to do so. You have no evidence outside of the book itself and what you've been taught about it that these texts are what they are claimed to be.

Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, Barth, Luther, Erasmus, Melanchthon, TS Eliot, Tolkien and other folks I greatly admire don't really fit into the 'blind' or 'idolater' categories either... yet each cared greatly for the Bible; some even risked their lives over it.

Which proves what about the Bible's origins or authenticity as God's ideas and directives? None of these men named lived in an era at all close to the time of Jesus, much less to that BCE. That they firmly believed the Bible to be of great value says only that they felt much as you do.

I agree with Gilly that the site on English Bible history to which you referred us is somewhat biased. Furthermore, like most such, it is highly speculative. Note, for example, that its chronology begins with "the belief" by biblical scholars that the first written portion of the Bible was the Ten Commandments in 1400 BCE. They have no idea really when the Ten Commandments (whichever set you prefer, there's more than one) were written, much less given by God to Moses. What's their source for this belief? The Bible.

As for understanding how the history of the English Bible, accurate and succinct data can be found here:

Yes, well, that's accurate only insofar as one accepts all the "probably's" and "believed to be's" set forth by scholars who analyze these texts and compare them with what little is known about conditions and events in that part of the world ages ago. In short, the vast majority of their knowledge is guesswork and speculation largely from clues in the Bible itself.

The bottom line is that no one knows the origins of these texts, nor does anyone know what the authors thereof had in mind when they wrote. We more than likely never will, they were written down so very long ago.

gillyflower wrote:I feel that it is more important to see the lesson within the myths clearly rather than defend whether it actually happened.

I agree completely that Christians would do better to regard the Bible's accounts in this fashion.

For example, balancing scientific knowledge about geology and evolution against the biblical account of creation need not mean that one trumps the other. We know that the Earth and life upon it did not appear in six days. What the creation story seeks to impress upon us is the might of God, that He is powerful enough to have created everything we see in so little time and that we ought to be transfixed with wonder and awe at such magnificence.

Jews don't see their scriptures as emanating directly from God's mouth but rather as expressions of people's efforts to understand how they ought to regard and relate to God. Their hallowed writings from the scriptures to the commentaries thereon set forth how various people thought God wants us to behave but are not direct communications from God as Christians tend to view them.

Sakhaiva, I certainly didn't mean any disrespect to you. There are some good words found in the bible. Some beautiful texts for sure. But there are things that people take to be literal and they use them to treat humanity with contempt. . . . . from dictating politcal views all the way down to causing people to view themselves as "deserving of everlasting punishment". I find it absurd based on the facts this thread has been focusing on.

Again, I hope that you can find this to not be a personal attack. I certainly do not place every person who claims christianity in the same group.

DeavonReye wrote:Again, I hope that you can find this to not be a personal attack. I certainly do not place every person who claims christianity in the same group.

Nor do I.

I'm not sure why you would find what's been said here offensive, Sakhaiva. It is a debate board after all.

Certainly I mean nothing personal and am only refuting views about the Bible which I find cannot be supported by anything but tradition and the desire to believe them to be true.

As with any such, our opinions are like bellybuttons--they're all a bit different, and everyone's got one which is not to imply that one is necessarily better than another.

I didn't mean to be offensive. I'm sorry, Sak.

There are many Christians who aren't literalists. I think my own problems with literalists comes from all those anthropology classes I took and from reading books. There was a lot of "can you believe these primitive people really believe this stuff?" Maybe not from the anthropologists themselves, but it was there in the first contacts, the way the colonizing folk immediately tried to change that. To me, I couldn't see that much difference between one set of religious myths and another. Why was believing that one god created the universe in 6 days superior to believing a set of gods created the universe?

gillyflower wrote:I didn't mean to be offensive. I'm sorry, Sak.

There are many Christians who aren't literalists. I think my own problems with literalists comes from all those anthropology classes I took and from reading books. There was a lot of "can you believe these primitive people really believe this stuff?" Maybe not from the anthropologists themselves, but it was there in the first contacts, the way the colonizing folk immediately tried to change that. To me, I couldn't see that much difference between one set of religious myths and another. Why was believing that one god created the universe in 6 days superior to believing a set of gods created the universe?

One of the things that really gets me is how much smarter the ancients expected their audiences to be. Allegories, or religious stories of the mythic past, have been used by ancient peoples since long before the written word to teach important lessons, both moral cautionary tales and practical ones. Everyone understood these myths to be stories of instruction, not literal truths. Jesus and Socrates fell heirs to this tradition from their own cultural backgrounds and told stories to teach lessons with the understanding that their audience, being of similar background, would take the lesson from the story and not treat it as literal, historical, truth.

Now we have literal wars fought over differences in these allegories. Real killing over what amounts to fiction used by the wise to instruct the innocent on how not to act the fool. The irony of it is as bitter as a bayonette driven through the tongue.

As a poet of reasonable success, and a scholar of reasonable training, allow me to assure you that neither idiom nor poetry translates well. Dealing with the translation of a translation of a translation from a culture whose baseline assumptions were neither shared nor known by either the reader today, nor the translators of the past, is like reading a message translated from English by one computer program, autotranslated into Mandarin, then Russian, then German, and then back to English by different computer programs. If you are really, really patient, you might get the jist or broad strokes outline of the message, but the bulk of it will be nearly incomprehensible or outright confusing. Arguing over the interpretation of the product strikes me as pretty foolish.

its the perceived tone or the undertone

that Sak and I find somewhat offensive

-now, now dear little deluded Christian
you can find real meaning in your myths-just don't think they are real tm

An incredible word you gave, John.

It can go along with my thoughts on "why there isn't only ONE denomination in the world", if the bible was divinely inspired. I have also thought for a while that most of the biblical stores WERE alegory and never meant as literal, but somehow over the centuries, their meanings got twisted into literal events, . . . and "morals of the story" vague enough that various different meanings could be drawn from them. . . . . and wars tend to be caused by those who are unable to see another's interpretation as valid, . . . . .or those who are unable to admit when they may be wrong. Now, that doesn't happen much today. Most christians are good people who have a lot of care for their fellow man, and tend to be good upstanding members of society. If they can refrain from "threats of me in an eternal hell", I will have no problems being around them.

Davelaw wrote:its the perceived tone or the undertone

that Sak and I find somewhat offensive

-now, now dear little deluded Christian
you can find real meaning in your myths-just don't think they are real tm

Dave, there is always something that we all can take offense from. Really, you don't think my myths are real either. The Christian community is actually very dismissive of my beliefs. They don't even bother to try to refute them, they just dismiss their actual existence. All the while demanding air time for theirs.

I don't lump all individual Christians in the same basket. It is more of a specific type of person, whether they be Christian, or Buddhist (we ran into one of those recently on bnet) or whatever. It is the person who thinks that they need to spread what they consider to be the truth.

all