Slashdot Mirror

Unbelievable. I can't stand it when people talk about something they know nothing about and spread misinformation. The passage you are talking about is Exodus 21:22. I can't find this translation online, but my Bible says "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant worman causing her to miscarry ... [he] shall surely be fined ..." That's what you read and think, "Aha! Even their God doesn't value the life of a fetus." First, you don't understand Hebrew, so you don't know exactly what that passage is saying, and second, you can still figure it out from context if you would read a bit beyond what you want to hear. The very next verse says, "But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life..." Again, there is some lousy translation work here, but "further injury" refers to both mother and child (all the translations I have seen make it sound like it refers to just the mother).

Here is another version that will help you understand what miscarriage means in this context:

"If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the womans husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides. But if there is serious injury, then you will give a life for a life."

What this all means is that if the baby is born early but is still alive, then only a fine is paid. If the man kills the baby in the process of striking the mother, then his life is to be taken. Under "life for a life" this equates the unborn child's life with the fully-grown man's life.

Here are some translation notes from the Net Bible about these verses (emphasis mine):

This line has occasioned a good deal of discussion. It may indicate that the child was killed, as in a miscarriage; or it may mean that there was a premature birth. The latter view is taken here because of the way the whole section is written: (1) her children come out reflects a birth and not the loss of children, (2) there is no serious damage, and (3) payment is to be set for any remuneration. The word (ason) is translated serious damage. The word was taken in Mekilta to mean death. U. Cassuto says the point of the phrase is that neither the woman or the children that are born die (Exodus, 275). But see among the literature on this: M. G. Kline, Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus, JETS 20 (1977): 193-201; W. House, Miscarriage or Premature Birth: Additional Thoughts on Exodus 21:22-25, WTJ 41 (1978): 108-23; S. E. Loewenstamm, Exodus XXI 22-25, VT 27 (1977): 352-60.

If you want to have a good debate about it, I'm game, but please do not speak as you are the authority when you are just repeating something you once heard someone else say. The Bible taken out of context can say anything you want it to say. You can only understand it fully when you also understand the full context. Here's an example relating to the Qur'an. I have always heard growing up that Muslims are supposed to "kill all the infidels." As far as I know that is actually in the Qur'an, but I haven't looked it up as much as you haven't looked up Exodus 21:22. However, with a little bit of research, it lookes like the context of "kill all the infidels" relates to showing hostility towards Musl

King James version is one of the poorest examples of literature. Even though it went through nearly 100000 changes, it still contains contradictions. In fact, if you look for websites that talk about contradictions in the Bible, if you check the quotes, they all are from KJV if you check other translations that ARE NOT BASED ON KJV suddenly things don't seem contradictory. The process of writing KJV was iffy in the first place, find a few notes in greek, fill in the missing details from latin and make things up. Also this is word-for-word translation not phrase-for-phrase (that's why people like NIV).

read the rest
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=665

And to that Catholic dude: Catholic Church does not represent Christianity. Instead of teaching the bible they teach book of Catholicism which just so full of lies and contradictions.
No, the Bible doesn't mention concept of pregutory anywhere. The Bible is very clear that either you want to be with God or you do not want to be with God. You do not have any other choice.

Bible teaches you to love (first applied to God then to people), and ONE OF THE reasons you've been given the time on earth is to learn how to love.

Bible doesn't teach that salvation is in material things, WEARING A CROSS DOES NOT PROTECT YOU FROM ANYTHING. What protects you is your faith and obidience as taught in the Bible.

Doing good deeds also doesn't protect you from anything. Catholics think that doing good deads leads you to salvation. NO, wrong! Bible teaches you that you do good works WHILE (rather when ...) you are in salvation.

worshiping paintings/statues: Bible is clear not to worship graven image. Bible teaches that primary reason you are on earth is to worship God. You are not here to worship statues, but God. He wants all your attention, he's all for you. Thinking along the lines that oh, but God has lots of other things to take care of, why would he care about my problems. First of all, lets go back to the basics. God is infinite and he is at every point in time at the same time (or simpler way of saying he is not limited by our time). You are his child and he does care he wants your attention regardless how silly it may be in your mind.

Bible teaches that that Jesus is the ONLY mediator between people and God. So praying to a statue so that it will pray to God type of thinking is just rediculous!

Pope is not a representative of God on earth. Every Christian is. Pope may speak 100 times better than you, (he can construct 5 fallacies make comparison upon them to prove you wrong before you notice there was a change in topic), but that doesn't make him any more of a representative than you. It can be argued that they are not representatives of God at all since they are not Christian.

And another example John Paul I was a KGB agent, he was assasinated on behalf of Jahn Paul II who, you guessed it, was a CIA agent. (from unclassified KGB files) at the time John Paul II was a helper.

many other comments that you might consider but I have other people to help.
Please consider reading "Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. He explains concepts very clearly.

Best regards,
omi

The first paper a rather good read, and it has encouraged me to search out some good translations to read even though I'm agnostic at best.

Our government works? Do tell...

It sure as hell isn't the government I served to protect.

The government you served to protect is a figment of your imagination, and that's just the way the people in power like it.

Many of the people who vote believe that a translation (your opinion of quality may vary) of a roughly 2000 year-old book is the end all, be all for just about any purposes of judgement, experiences be irrelevent.

And if you don't believe me, just read this page: http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=693#P170_217 59

Fossils came from the catastrophic, world wide flood described in Genesis 7:17 through 7:24. (Reference) And if you study fossilization, I believe that you would find that the catastrophic answer makes more sense (I am not a Geologist or Palentologist, however.)

Two, ID is a broad and varied ideology. Some ID proponents do claim exactly what you claim.

I find it interesting that you can draw some fairly accurate parallels between Galileo and some modern day ID proponents. Science's foundation is the questioning of established ideas, not the dogmatic defense of them. C'mon, people, take your evolutionary blinders off for a moment, and examine the two theories critically, instead of spasmodically twitching whenever anyone mentions ID.

Not yet, but it might after the next major revision. From here:

The King James Bible has undergone three revisions since its inception in 1611, incorporating more than 100,000 changes.

I bet they could slip in something about life on Mars during the next revision.

I was so surprised when I read this for the first time---this story is so similar to a Korean legend of an honest forrester (timberer? well, he makes living out of cutting/gathering wood from mountains and selling it to the people on the plains) who dropped his axe in a deep lake by mistake, weeped next to the lake (because that was his only possession), at which time a lake divinity appeared and presented to him silver, golden, and iron axes in that order, and when the forrester honestly said that iron axe was his, the divinity gave him all three axes (well, the original stories is more eloquent and developed than this, but this is as much as i can do in one sentence).

I'm not sure whether the similarity is because this is such a common motif or because of some shared ancestry between Israelites and Koreans (or whatever Asian race modern Koreans descended from).

The Lost Axe Head (2 Kings 6:1-7)

Where did the dinosaurs fit in exactly?

Isaiah 27:1 Job 41

See, that just what I mean. In my parent post, I say how people interpret things how they want. I googled for the passage you suggested and got this. From that page:

There is a remarkable animal called a "leviathan," described in the direct words of God in the 41st chapter of Job.[snip]. In fact, there is no animal living today which fits the description. Therefore, it is an extinct animal, almost certainly a great marine reptile, still surviving in the oceans of Job's day

Now, WTF? I see what you are suggesting and I think my search was bang on in terms of what you were aluding to. However, you are missing the point; the Bible is NOT GODS WORDS. It is mans words (and if you are a believer) interpreting gods actions. The history of the bible is checkered; large sections were removed to produce each of the major revisions of the text, bits were added; e.g. during the King James Directors Cut edition. It has been translated through two or three DEAD languages. You cannot interpret it to that level! Take it in spirit and try to be a good person. Anything beyond that is pervered and kind of sad.

You have given me an example where the Bible talks of dragons (literally, it's the classic description) and people have taken this to mean:

Dragons existed based on description in Job -> no longer exist -> they are extinct -> so are dinosaurs -> bible is cool with fossils!!

That's not very good logic, is it, especially given that the original version of that edition of the bible (King James) was written at a time when dragons were quite in fashion with pop culture. They got written in; that's how translation works, these languages did not have literal equivalence and translation was more of a form of interpretation. Modern languages share roots in dead languages, e.g. Latin that make them easier to understand. It's kind of like translating Russian to Chinese when there aren't any living native speakers of the language left. I'd love to see some different readings of the original documents, but I can't be bothered looking it up to be honest. I did see a documentary on the subject of the origins of the modern Bible that cast doubts on the asserion that Mary was a virgin. Apparently the word used actually means "young girl". I mean, woa, the whole Immaculate Conception / "sex is dirty" thing might have been a typo!

Lawyers NEVER translate contracts between LIVE languages. There's a reason for that. It just don't work. People who believe that the Bible is 100% Gods Word scare me. They are really easy to lead as they don't critically analyse things that they are told. George W Bush is unfortunately one of them, and has said so himself... :-(

But then again:

sn Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. This passage has troubled many people, who have wondered whether or not they have committed this sin. Three things must be kept in mind: (1) the nature of the sin is to ascribe what is the obvious work of the Holy Spirit (e.g., releasing people from Satan's power) to Satan himself; (2) it is not simply a momentary doubt or sinful attitude, but is indeed a settled condition which opposes the Spirit's work, as typified by the religious leaders who opposed Jesus; and (3) a person who is concerned about it has probably never committed this sin, for those who commit it here (i.e., the religious leaders) are not in the least concerned about Jesus' warning.

From bible.org at the bottom of the page.

St. John's Gospel is universally acknowledged, both by scholarship and tradition, to be relatively late. So what? John was the youngest of the 12 Apostles, and he wrote it when it was a very old man. Good arguments have been made for its actual Johannine authorship.

The English verb "create" captures well the meaning of the Hebrew term in this context. The verb ar`B* (B*r*a) always describes the divine activity of fashioning something new, fresh, and perfect. The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing (see, for example, v. 27, where it refers to the creation of man); it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing (see Ps 51:10; Isa 43:15, 65:17).

So it's been tried before, and it was an unmitigated disaster. Now, if science can fix evil, that would be progress.

Exactly. Who are you to question why your god wants you to believe in evolution?

If God wanted me to believe in Evolutionism, He would have written it, wouldn't He?

(By the way, God is capitalized. Lowercase god means pagan and mythology gods, not the real God.)

Yea, it's even more ironic when they make you pay for singing Bible verses. Our Band has a song that uses Psalm 18:46, 'The Lord Liveth and blessed be my Rock and let the God of my Salvation be exhalted.' There are around 4 other songs that people have written using that verse, and we only sing it for exactly 38 seconds, thus not allowing us to get around the '30 second' rule. Since this is our first CD, we weren't sure how the copyright issues would work out, so we went ahead and gave credit to the most recent copyright holder for the song, even though our song is hardly similiar to that and only use that phrase for one small part of the song. Because we did that, we now have to pay the guy we gave credit to his copyright dues, which I think ammounts to $80 up front, plus a percentage of every CD sold, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, if you're looking for a free translation of the Bible, there's an 'open source' translation called the Net Bible. It's a nice translation, and I believe you're free to quote as much of it as you want.

We can also read The Bible if we believe in miracles.

Why? Joshua mentions the moon in his prayer asking for the sun to be stopped.

Joshua 10:12 The day the Lord delivered the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua prayed to the Lord before Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon! O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon!"

10:13 The sun stood still and the moon stood motionless while the nation took vengeance on its enemies. The event is recorded in the Scroll of the Upright One. The sun stood motionless in the middle of the sky and did not set for about a full day.

10:14 There has not been a day like it before or since. The Lord obeyed a man, for the Lord fought for Israel!

10:15 Then Joshua and all Israel returned to the camp at Gilgal.

Taken from the NET bible: (New English Translation) http://bible.org/cgi-bin/netbible.pl?header=on&boo k=jos&chapter=10

More than 35 according to this page.

And still they won't believe.

1. One is not to know something, but think one knows.
   
2. The other, more insidious, is not to know, and think that no one else can possibly know.
   

Fiction ?
Why dont you visit this link.Landover page for example, and then visit
NetBible.org then check out and tally all bible references on the landover page.
Try Numbers Chap 31 for starters .. especially verse 17. I dont see why I should take any of this seriously. But many people do take it seriously.. thats why the world continues to be so fucked up I guess. Whats worse is so many people on slashdot (arguably having a populace with higher average intellect) takes it seriously.
This is the first time I've been to the landover site ... and while it may be possible that they are around just to make money, it does not change the fact that the bible is nonsense.

Hmmm. Lemme think. Not a), eh? Ehhm, answer b)?

On a serious note: why is the number of people who bring this argument to the table so low? Why do all those 'christian' republicans not think of what the bible (Hosea (8:7) tells them? "They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind".

...is this book.

But don't worry, I shall be praying for you as well!

The New English Translation is a free translation of the Scriptures with extensive translator's and study notes. I couldn't bookmark it fast enough when I saw what a fantastic tool it is.

God forbid a child read a book about a kid who can make things float.

I don't think it was world-wide.
Neither do I, but the bible is pretty clear on the subject. And I don't think an omniscient god thinks of the world as the immediate surroundings of his main characters.

Yes he was.

Why would so many people believe something as preposterous as the world-wide flood actually happened about 5000 years ago or so if it wasn't in the bible?

For instance, the Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say concerning Hebrews:

Even in the first centuries commentators noticed the striking purity of language and elegance of Greek style that characterized the Epistle to the Hebrews (Clement of Alexandria in Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", VI, xiv, n.2-4; Origen, ibid., VI, xxv, n. 11-14). This observation is confirmed by later authorities. In fact the author of the Epistle shows great familiarity with the rules of the Greek literary language of his age. Of all the New Testament authors he has the best style.

If Hebrews was originally written in Hebrew, as you say, then the Greek style should be of little importance.

No mention is given to the original being written in Hebrew. Can you point me to your source?

For further information please check out this.
Sorry, don't know the exact reference.

"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things [end of the world, etc.] have happened." - Jesus, Luke 21:32, c. 2000 YEARS AGO

This is one of the hardest verses in the gospels to interpret. Various views exist for what generation means.

Some take it as meaning "race" and thus as an assurance that the Jewish race (nation) will not pass away. But it is very questionable that the Greek term geneav (genea) can have this meaning.

Two other options are possible:

Generation might mean "this type of generation" and refer to the generation of wicked humanity. Then the point is that humanity will not perish, because God will redeem it.

Or generation may refer to "the generation that sees the signs of the end" (vv. 25-26), who will also see the end itself. In other words, once the movement to the return of Christ starts, all the events connected with it happen very quickly, in rapid succession.

All of the above commentary was taken from Bible.org.

So I can take the KJV cut out all the bits I don't like, add in some interesting new commandments etc and no one can stop me.

Jefferson did that.

Anyway, there are a few modern translations which have (among others) the goal of avoiding copyright difficulties: the World English Bible (WEB) (which I prefer) and the New English Translation (NET), for example.

--

The originals are long out of copyright :-)

I'm not as sure of the situation with the Quran, but an individual translation of the Bible can be, (and many are) copyrighted. This is to prevent unscruplous people removing the bits they don't like, or adding bits, and passing the result off as the real thing :-)

The NET Bible has pretty lax usage restrictions, I think.

Gerv

It's not as bad as it could be because Rev 2:17 could be interpereted to mean peer-certified public-key cryptographic ID:

New English Translation Revelations 2:17:

The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give him some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on that stone will be written a new name that no one can understand except the one who receives it.'

The verse is one of the worst understood, and the footnotes suggest that the greek word translated as "white" here could mean "bright" as in glowing. Imagine a backlit PDA with your PK keyrings on it that you can use to recieve, sign, encrypt, and send irrefutable tamper-proof messages. Why, you could use that in lieu of the mark-of-the-beast at least within the network/trust-ring of the holy apocolyptic black-market (white market?).

"Dinosaurs?"

"Well, uhh. God put those there to test our faith."

I think you asked the wrong guy :) Take a look at Job 40:15 thru Job 41:34. Looks like a description of a couple of dinosaurs/dragons to me.

sklein

Then 'splain me this: how come the account of creation in Gen 1 has God creating the animals first, then man:
....
- BUT -
Gen 2 has the order reversed:
....

From the footnote on Genesis 2:19 in the NET Bible it looks like the original wording could have meant either. Context indicated the correct meaning.

sklein

His snorting throws out flashes of light, his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
Out of his mouth flames go,
sparks of fire shoot forth!
Smoke streams from his nostrils
as from a boiling pot over burning rushes.
His breath sets coals ablaze
and a flame darts from his mouth.

"Possibly the crocodile"? None that I've met, anyway.

Cheers,
sklein
--
sklein@mint.net
http://members.mint.net/sklein/

Fooling myself?

Please tell me what was god's message in each of the following excerpts:

II Kings 6:24-33
Judges 19: 1-30
Deuteronomy 22: 28-29
Deuteronomy 28: 53-57
I Samuel 15: 1-3

It will be a wonderful day indeed if every school child can read and understand all of the bible before they are in 5th grade. Why waste time on silly science books and literature that doesn't teach morality as the bible does? Truly the bible is the source of all human morality and lays out a code of ethics by example that is unimpeachable.

You would be surprised how few Christians read their bible, especially fundamentalists ones who all swear that it is the focus of their empty lives. You would also be surprised how many atheists do read the bible, and how many people are atheists because as good Christians they started to read the bible.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I'd like to think that we've progressed in morality a tiny bit in the last 5,000 years. Call me crazy, but I think I can invent a moral standard that easily is superior than that filthy, disgusting, contemptable book of myth. If god did write the bible, he can cram his little book of myth up his asshole and fuck himself because he's an immoral vacuous little tyrant which may be infinitely more powerful than I am, but devoid of any humanity or morality. I'd rather burn in hell for 10 eternities then spend one second paying homage to that creature. If this fuck runs Heaven it's not going to make any difference if I end up in Hell.

So, you're surprised that I'm surprised that anybody could possibly claim they base their life on the bible, of all books. I think I'd rather base mine on the movie Caligula, it's nowhere as shocking or depraved.

To each his own, though.

Fooling myself?

Please tell me what was god's message in each of the following excerpts:

II Kings 6:24-33
Judges 19: 1-30
Deuteronomy 22: 28-29
Deuteronomy 28: 53-57
I Samuel 15: 1-3

It will be a wonderful day indeed if every school child can read and understand all of the bible before they are in 5th grade. Why waste time on silly science books and literature that doesn't teach morality as the bible does? Truly the bible is the source of all human morality and lays out a code of ethics by example that is unimpeachable.

You would be surprised how few Christians read their bible, especially fundamentalists ones who all swear that it is the focus of their empty lives. You would also be surprised how many atheists do read the bible, and how many people are atheists because as good Christians they started to read the bible.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I'd like to think that we've progressed in morality a tiny bit in the last 5,000 years. Call me crazy, but I think I can invent a moral standard that easily is superior than that filthy, disgusting, contemptable book of myth. If god did write the bible, he can cram his little book of myth up his asshole and fuck himself because he's an immoral vacuous little tyrant which may be infinitely more powerful than I am, but devoid of any humanity or morality. I'd rather burn in hell for 10 eternities then spend one second paying homage to that creature. If this fuck runs Heaven it's not going to make any difference if I end up in Hell.

So, you're surprised that I'm surprised that anybody could possibly claim they base their life on the bible, of all books. I think I'd rather base mine on the movie Caligula, it's nowhere as shocking or depraved.

To each his own, though.

Fooling myself?

Please tell me what was god's message in each of the following excerpts:

II Kings 6:24-33
Judges 19: 1-30
Deuteronomy 22: 28-29
Deuteronomy 28: 53-57
I Samuel 15: 1-3

It will be a wonderful day indeed if every school child can read and understand all of the bible before they are in 5th grade. Why waste time on silly science books and literature that doesn't teach morality as the bible does? Truly the bible is the source of all human morality and lays out a code of ethics by example that is unimpeachable.

You would be surprised how few Christians read their bible, especially fundamentalists ones who all swear that it is the focus of their empty lives. You would also be surprised how many atheists do read the bible, and how many people are atheists because as good Christians they started to read the bible.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I'd like to think that we've progressed in morality a tiny bit in the last 5,000 years. Call me crazy, but I think I can invent a moral standard that easily is superior than that filthy, disgusting, contemptable book of myth. If god did write the bible, he can cram his little book of myth up his asshole and fuck himself because he's an immoral vacuous little tyrant which may be infinitely more powerful than I am, but devoid of any humanity or morality. I'd rather burn in hell for 10 eternities then spend one second paying homage to that creature. If this fuck runs Heaven it's not going to make any difference if I end up in Hell.

So, you're surprised that I'm surprised that anybody could possibly claim they base their life on the bible, of all books. I think I'd rather base mine on the movie Caligula, it's nowhere as shocking or depraved.

To each his own, though.

Fooling myself?

Please tell me what was god's message in each of the following excerpts:

II Kings 6:24-33
Judges 19: 1-30
Deuteronomy 22: 28-29
Deuteronomy 28: 53-57
I Samuel 15: 1-3

It will be a wonderful day indeed if every school child can read and understand all of the bible before they are in 5th grade. Why waste time on silly science books and literature that doesn't teach morality as the bible does? Truly the bible is the source of all human morality and lays out a code of ethics by example that is unimpeachable.

You would be surprised how few Christians read their bible, especially fundamentalists ones who all swear that it is the focus of their empty lives. You would also be surprised how many atheists do read the bible, and how many people are atheists because as good Christians they started to read the bible.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I'd like to think that we've progressed in morality a tiny bit in the last 5,000 years. Call me crazy, but I think I can invent a moral standard that easily is superior than that filthy, disgusting, contemptable book of myth. If god did write the bible, he can cram his little book of myth up his asshole and fuck himself because he's an immoral vacuous little tyrant which may be infinitely more powerful than I am, but devoid of any humanity or morality. I'd rather burn in hell for 10 eternities then spend one second paying homage to that creature. If this fuck runs Heaven it's not going to make any difference if I end up in Hell.

So, you're surprised that I'm surprised that anybody could possibly claim they base their life on the bible, of all books. I think I'd rather base mine on the movie Caligula, it's nowhere as shocking or depraved.

To each his own, though.

Fooling myself?

Please tell me what was god's message in each of the following excerpts:

II Kings 6:24-33
Judges 19: 1-30
Deuteronomy 22: 28-29
Deuteronomy 28: 53-57
I Samuel 15: 1-3

It will be a wonderful day indeed if every school child can read and understand all of the bible before they are in 5th grade. Why waste time on silly science books and literature that doesn't teach morality as the bible does? Truly the bible is the source of all human morality and lays out a code of ethics by example that is unimpeachable.

You would be surprised how few Christians read their bible, especially fundamentalists ones who all swear that it is the focus of their empty lives. You would also be surprised how many atheists do read the bible, and how many people are atheists because as good Christians they started to read the bible.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I'd like to think that we've progressed in morality a tiny bit in the last 5,000 years. Call me crazy, but I think I can invent a moral standard that easily is superior than that filthy, disgusting, contemptable book of myth. If god did write the bible, he can cram his little book of myth up his asshole and fuck himself because he's an immoral vacuous little tyrant which may be infinitely more powerful than I am, but devoid of any humanity or morality. I'd rather burn in hell for 10 eternities then spend one second paying homage to that creature. If this fuck runs Heaven it's not going to make any difference if I end up in Hell.

So, you're surprised that I'm surprised that anybody could possibly claim they base their life on the bible, of all books. I think I'd rather base mine on the movie Caligula, it's nowhere as shocking or depraved.

To each his own, though.