"as far as it is translated correctly" (questions on the Bible)

[clarkgoble]

20 minutes ago, MosiahFree said:

It could be that I’ve become jaded; conversations with vendors at SBL and other experiences in seeing how the sausage is produced left me feeling disillusioned. I had to smile though when you immediately brought up ‘The Jerusalem Bible’ because it is one of the few examples of a translation working directly from an ancient language and put into modern English (though in the Editor’s Foreword of my 66 edition does admit a few books were drafted from the French but then checked against the ancient text), the NIV is another example that is actually a direct translation.

I was really disappointed to learn that the revision committee of the New Revised Standard Version kept their editions of the Biblia Hebracia Stuttgartemsia and the USB’s Greek new Testament more as secondary and tertiary sources. My time spent at Hebrew Union left me with the distinct impression that the NRSV’s fidelity lies more with the Authorized Version than it does with the BHS.     

Oh, you won't get any objections from me that corners get cut and there's political aspects to it all. That's why I think a combination of translations and commentaries is the best way to deal with things. Particularly somewhat ambiguous texts or texts with multiple levels of meaning and/or form.

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Clearly there are some variations in the NT, and I believe this is what the BoM is talking about with perhaps some teachings or interpretations  being changed or lost as well. 

The Book of Mormon, or at least Nephi's account, emphasizes not lost texts but a difference between the text and the spoken word.  The idea in 1 Nephi 13 really seems to be that the fulness of the gospel was just in the oral tradition prior to being recorded. The book in say verse 24 isn't book in the sense of written records of the New Testament but the archetypal book in the apocalyptic tradition that is coming through the speech of the apostles. 

We of course know that there was a huge place for an oral tradition. Most scholars presume that Mark was originally an oral performance for instance. We also know there were oral traditions in the Jewish tradition, although most of what ends up in the Mishnah and Talmud are later oral traditions. However outside possibly Isaiah, it appears that most prophets were primarily oral oracles rather than written texts. Even the text of Isaiah is quite complex with much of it being post-exilic in its final form.

So I don't think the Book of Mormon is really talking about variations in the NT beyond perhaps minor ones in the epistles of Paul. Rather I think it's making a point about those crucial early decades from which we have no texts beyond Paul's epistles.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 12/10/2018 at 4:48 PM, cksalmon said:

.................................

Or, to phrase it another way, the church didn't establish the canon so much as recognize the apostolic authority inherent in what we collectively refer to as the New Testament scriptures. Yes, there is a nuanced discussion to be had; yes, there was a historical corporate reception process. 

I suspect my Roman Catholic friends here will disagree with that assessment, but, to be honest, I don't understand why LDS would. I have no doubt someone here will enlighten me. 🖖

I don't know any LDS members who give any thought to the origin of the biblical canon -- which exists in several different versions anyhow:  Hebrew Canon,, Roman Catholic Canon, Ethiopic Canon, Protestant Canon, all of which disagree as to canonical (authoritative) content.

If the origin of the modern Protestant Canon (commonly used among LDS) is a result of some past "corporate" decision, as you put it, then that is the same "corporate" body which apostatized from the true faith -- as defined by the LDS.  In other words, apostolic authority was in fact lost early in the process, and the corporate RC body which defines itself as the original and true church is neither Roman nor catholic (universal).

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, stemelbow said:

anything’s possible with god... all that is possible whether Jesus took upon him your sins or not.  Indeed he only would taken your sins upon him because god said so anyway.  Even if the atonement was real it’s really just god forgiving you.  

If we continue existing beyond this world then it doesn’t matter if Jesus first rose from the dead. We can all do the same whether Jesus showed his mug on earth agin or not.  

I disagree. The atonement is much more then forgiveness.

Not really, but I am convinced he was the first to rise and showed himself to many and that promises a certain kind of continuation of life.

[mfbukowski]

On 12/13/2018 at 10:07 AM, clarkgoble said:

I think the issue is how he heals people. But I agree that the two key issues are that God can heal us and those we've hurt and he can forgive us and lead us to forgive ourselves. How he does that in some ways is distant and secondary. However if God healing us is metaphoric, then that's a pretty big problem. Yet among some in more liberal traditions that's exactly what is metaphoric. 

I don't know if you want to engage me on this yet again but since what literally happened is impossible to know by any way that is confirmable rationally it is the belief that it happened literally that changes our life. For me the bottom line is that it doesn't matter if it is metaphorical or not. My life has been changed and I'm a happier and much better person for the belief itself.

And I take that same attitude and apply it even to science. 

If it works it works.

And of course that means in science that it produces predictable results.

Even if light is a wave or a particle. Some kind of metaphor works in each case.

[mfbukowski]

On 12/13/2018 at 10:07 AM, clarkgoble said:

I think the issue is how he heals people. But I agree that the two key issues are that God can heal us and those we've hurt and he can forgive us and lead us to forgive ourselves. How he does that in some ways is distant and secondary. However if God healing us is metaphoric, then that's a pretty big problem. Yet among some in more liberal traditions that's exactly what is metaphoric. 

I don't know if you want to engage me on this yet again but since what literally happened is impossible to know by any way that is confirmable rationally it is the belief that it happened literally that changes our life. For me the bottom line is that it doesn't matter if it is metaphorical or not. My life has been changed and I'm a happier and much better person for the belief itself.

And I take that same attitude and apply it even to science. 

If it works it works.

And of course that means in science that it produces predictable results.

Even if light is a wave or a particle. Some kind of metaphor works in each case.

It's just like Wittgenstein's rabbit/duck.

No way to know what it "really is" so we see it in the way it works to solve the problem at hand.  We "see as" the way we want as long as the sentence- not the object- is justifiable.  The "real object" is unknowable.

And that also goes with the correspondence theory of truth.

That's the whole ball of wax as I see it- and everything! 

So which is it?  A rabbit or a duck or both?  What does it matter- it is what you want it to be for your purpose

Just like the Rorty quote below

We like the gods in embryo we are take matter unorganized and create our worlds.  Some day maybe we will work on a larger scale. 

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

On 12/15/2018 at 11:14 AM, mfbukowski said:

I don't know if you want to engage me on this yet again but since what literally happened is impossible to know by any way that is confirmable rationally it is the belief that it happened literally that changes our life. For me the bottom line is that it doesn't matter if it is metaphorical or not. My life has been changed and I'm a happier and much better person for the belief itself.

I'd just disagree that it can't be confirmed rationally. Not sure what you're counting as rational mind you. But in terms of what I count as rationality I'd just disagree with the premise.

The problem with the "all that matters are the effects on me" is that it functions only by intentionally limiting inquiry so that one never tries to find out what happened. This is a pretty common criticism of William James on his views of religion - particularly the effects of drugs. If we know that the effect that makes a life changed and happier may well be an illusion due to the effects of say LSD, surely that changes how we view the original experience. Thus future potential experience that can let us know what happened in an event can significantly change that event. (I should note that according to psychological studies many of the effects of LSD persist regardless of whether you know it was purely chemical or not)

The ultimate question then is not whether an event makes us happier but what our ethical duty in inquiry is relative to that event. That is, should we believe a lie if we know it makes us happy? I'd say no. We should try to always find out the truth. (Here meaning by truth those beliefs which persist through continued inquiry)

Edited December 17, 2018 by clarkgoble

[cdowis]

Perhap already suggested, but "translated" in the same sense that Enoch was translated == from a lower, inferior condition to a more perfected one

Edited December 17, 2018 by cdowis

[Thinking]

When I was at BYU I had a religion class from Monte S. Nyman. I heard him say the following more than once.

Quote

We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God, as far as it is interpreted correctly.

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'd just disagree that it can't be confirmed rationally. Not sure what you're counting as rational mind you. But in terms of what I count as rationality I'd just disagree with the premise.

The problem with the "all that matters are the effects on me" is that it functions only by intentionally limiting inquiry so that one never tries to find out what happened. This is a pretty common criticism of William James on his views of religion - particularly the effects of drugs. If we know that the effect that makes a life changed and happier may well be an illusion due to the effects of say LSD, surely that changes how we view the original experience. Thus future potential experience that can let us know what happened in an event can significantly change that event. (I should note that according to psychological studies many of the effects of LSD persist regardless of whether you know it was purely chemical or not)

The ultimate question then is not whether an event makes us happier but what our ethical duty in inquiry is relative to that event. That is, should we believe a lie if we know it makes us happy? I'd say no. We should try to always find out the truth. (Here meaning by truth those beliefs which persist through continued inquiry)

Yes as usual I think we have a semantic problem.

For you does "rationality" include emotions? For me it does. I was simply trying to use a word that I thought would communicate with what I thought you thought.

The ethical duty portion I thought was included already by just saying that a particular belief makes one happy.

Obviously to me that includes having inquired about all the ramifications of that position and ending up still with result make me one happy. That is the bottom line.

That is kind of the objective of this board. One makes all possible inquiries into what is known about this particular faith but the bottom line is still does the belief make us happy. It is allegedly of course the plan of happiness. Does it work?

So for me that would include all that about believing a lie etc. I could not be happy doing that.

I have never seen any criticisms of James regarding intentionally limiting inquiry. Do you know where I could find that?

I apologize for being so grumpy in the  last month or so. I had a painful injury and I'm getting better. Between the meds and my usual natural grumpiness I was definitely over-the-top a few times.

 

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I apologize for being so grumpy in the  last month or so. I had a painful injury and I'm getting better. Between the meds and my usual natural grumpiness I was definitely over-the-top a few times.

Ditto. I was just recovering from the heart surgery and our new baby had to have double hip displasia surgery and has been in a full body cast since the end of August. Not a lot of sleep. So I'm working off a very sleep deprived state which in the past usually was bad news for commenting on forums.

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

For you does "rationality" include emotions? For me it does. I was simply trying to use a word that I thought would communicate with what I thought you thought.

I think emotions can be part of a rational process. But I don't consider emotions inherently rational depending upon the context. Put an other way I think emotions are habitual reactions for shortcuts in the brain. In that sense they're rational, but are often dealing with general cases not applicable in the case one is reasoning. So part of reasoning is analyzing an emotion and deciding how to interpret it. Emotion can't dominate reason. Often emotional reactions undermine reasoning.

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

The ethical duty portion I thought was included already by just saying that a particular belief makes one happy.

I don't think short term happiness is sufficient ethically - otherwise we should all just put ourselves in drug induced stupors. 

I think we have an ethical duty to accept truth rather than falsity where truth means those beliefs that persist through continued inquiry. Put an other way, I think it unethical to hide from experience. I take D&C 93:24-26 to make truth among the highest concerns ethically. Short term happiness simply isn't.

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I have never seen any criticisms of James regarding intentionally limiting inquiry. Do you know where I could find that?

Let me try and find something online when I have more time. That's obviously a more Peircean critique. Misak is a well known person making that argument. Particularly in some of her more recent books. Unfortunately I can't find any of her papers online. (Although her books are fantastic and I'd heartily recommend them - she's among my favorite contemporary philosophers) Here's a critique of one of her critiques. It's likely making your case more than mine, but I think you can see the critique there.

A good critique of the issue of drugs and religious experience can be found here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/

The main critique of James from Peirce was that James took the pragmatic maxim as a theory of truth rather than a theory of meaning. So he writes, "‘The true’, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving." 

However what I was getting at was more Peirce's critique of James in the 1898 lectures. He was somewhat oblique since James was clearly his friend and benefactor at a time when he'd mostly been excluded from academic circles. “Peirce’s ‘Paradoxical Irradiations’ and James’s The Will to Believe” by Richard Atkins is a good analysis of this in terms of the problem of inquiry. I tried to find an online version but since Atkins came out with a book that includes that as a chapter it's not available online anymore. This gets at the issue of emotion you raised earlier since that's in some way key to the dispute. (Although there it's characterized as sentiment)

Since the maxim is where they have a key difference it's there we can see the problem with inquiry. If the maxim is what truth means, then one has the truth when one has completed the analysis as per the maxim. With Peirce since the maxim is just about making ideas clear so that we can conduct the inquiry and analysis, it's just a first step. So James stops where Peirce begins. The expedient, per James, is for Peirce not the focus or end of inquiry.

An other way of putting this critique is that James looks to the individual for truth whereas Peirce looks to the broadest generality possible. To Peirce, James' approach to inquiry is still too nominalistic.

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Ditto. I was just recovering from the heart surgery and our new baby had to have double hip displasia surgery and has been in a full body cast since the end of August. Not a lot of sleep. So I'm working off a very sleep deprived state which in the past usually was bad news for commenting on forums.

I think emotions can be part of a rational process. But I don't consider emotions inherently rational depending upon the context. Put an other way I think emotions are habitual reactions for shortcuts in the brain. In that sense they're rational, but are often dealing with general cases not applicable in the case one is reasoning. So part of reasoning is analyzing an emotion and deciding how to interpret it. Emotion can't dominate reason. Often emotional reactions undermine reasoning.

I don't think short term happiness is sufficient ethically - otherwise we should all just put ourselves in drug induced stupors. 

I think we have an ethical duty to accept truth rather than falsity where truth means those beliefs that persist through continued inquiry. Put an other way, I think it unethical to hide from experience. I take D&C 93:24-26 to make truth among the highest concerns ethically. Short term happiness simply isn't.

Let me try and find something online when I have more time. That's obviously a more Peircean critique. Misak is a well known person making that argument. Particularly in some of her more recent books. Unfortunately I can't find any of her papers online. (Although her books are fantastic and I'd heartily recommend them - she's among my favorite contemporary philosophers) Here's a critique of one of her critiques. It's likely making your case more than mine, but I think you can see the critique there.

A good critique of the issue of drugs and religious experience can be found here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/

The main critique of James from Peirce was that James took the pragmatic maxim as a theory of truth rather than a theory of meaning. So he writes, "‘The true’, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving." 

However what I was getting at was more Peirce's critique of James in the 1898 lectures. He was somewhat oblique since James was clearly his friend and benefactor at a time when he'd mostly been excluded from academic circles. “Peirce’s ‘Paradoxical Irradiations’ and James’s The Will to Believe” by Richard Atkins is a good analysis of this in terms of the problem of inquiry. I tried to find an online version but since Atkins came out with a book that includes that as a chapter it's not available online anymore. This gets at the issue of emotion you raised earlier since that's in some way key to the dispute. (Although there it's characterized as sentiment)

Since the maxim is where they have a key difference it's there we can see the problem with inquiry. If the maxim is what truth means, then one has the truth when one has completed the analysis as per the maxim. With Peirce since the maxim is just about making ideas clear so that we can conduct the inquiry and analysis, it's just a first step. So James stops where Peirce begins. The expedient, per James, is for Peirce not the focus or end of inquiry.

An other way of putting this critique is that James looks to the individual for truth whereas Peirce looks to the broadest generality possible. To Peirce, James' approach to inquiry is still too nominalistic.

 

Thanks I shall ponderize..... 

 

[nuclearfuels]

On 11/16/2018 at 9:56 PM, Vance said:

Why do you accept a compilation of religious writings canonized by a Church you believe is apostate?

The Book of Mormon, PGP, D&C were sufficiently different than the Bible, without adding the books of the Maccabees.

THere's a scripture in D&C that advocates reading the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha with the caution that they too have been diluted over time:

Section 91

Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Kirtland, Ohio, March 9, 1833. The Prophet was at this time engaged in the translation of the Old Testament. Having come to that portion of the ancient writings called the Apocrypha, he inquired of the Lord and received this instruction.

1–3, The Apocrypha is mostly translated correctly but contains many interpolations by the hands of men that are not true; 4–6, It benefits those enlightened by the Spirit.

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the ^aApocrypha—There are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly;

2 There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are ^ainterpolations by the hands of men.

3 Verily, I say unto you, that it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be ^atranslated.

4 Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him ^aunderstand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth;

5 And whoso is enlightened by the ^aSpirit shall obtain benefit therefrom;

6 And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. Amen.

[Vance]

On 12/17/2018 at 7:57 PM, nuclearfuels said:

The Book of Mormon, PGP, D&C were sufficiently different than the Bible, without adding the books of the Maccabees.

THere's a scripture in D&C that advocates reading the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha with the caution that they too have been diluted over time:

Section 91

Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Kirtland, Ohio, March 9, 1833. The Prophet was at this time engaged in the translation of the Old Testament. Having come to that portion of the ancient writings called the Apocrypha, he inquired of the Lord and received this instruction.

1–3, The Apocrypha is mostly translated correctly but contains many interpolations by the hands of men that are not true; 4–6, It benefits those enlightened by the Spirit.

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the ^aApocrypha—There are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly;

2 There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are ^ainterpolations by the hands of men.

3 Verily, I say unto you, that it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be ^atranslated.

4 Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him ^aunderstand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth;

5 And whoso is enlightened by the ^aSpirit shall obtain benefit therefrom;

6 And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. Amen.

All ready known, but thanks anyway.  Why attribute a comment to me when it came from someone else?