Posted on 01/02/2007 8:27:12 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
The late Stephen Jay Gould at Harvard used to describe religion and science as occupying “non-overlapping magisterial authority,” or what he called NOMA. That is, science and religion occupied different “domains,” or areas of life, in which each held “the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution.”
There were many problems with Gould’s approach, but at least a lack of respect for religion and religious people wasn’t one of them. Not so with some of today’s scientists.
The New York Times reported on a conference recently held in Costa Mesa, California, that turned into the secular materialist equivalent of a revival meeting.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg told attendees that “the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief.” According to Weinberg, “anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.”
Another Nobel laureate, chemist Sir Harold Kroto, suggested that the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion be given to Richard Dawkins for his new book The God Delusion.
Continuing the theme, Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute called for teaching “our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty.”
In case you were in doubt about which worldview would inform this “catechesis,” she then added: “It is already so much more glorious and awesome—and even comforting—than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”
Attempts at a Gould-like détente between religion and science didn’t sit well with this crowd. A presentation by Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden on how to make evolution more acceptable to Christians was disrupted by Dawkins himself who called it “bad poetry.”
After a while, the rancor and stridency got to be too much for some of the attendees. One scientist called it a “den of vipers” where the only debate is “should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?”
Another, physicist Lawrence Krauss, chided them, saying “science does not make it impossible to believe in God . . . [and] we should recognize that fact . . . and stop being so pompous about it.”
Fat chance. What’s behind all of this animosity? It is a worldview known as “scientism,” the belief that there is no supernatural, only a material world. And it will not countenance any rivals. It is a “jealous god.”
As Weinberg’s comments illustrate, it regards any other belief system other than scientism as irrational and the enemy of progress. Given the chance, as in the former Soviet Union, it wants to eliminate its rivals. It is no respecter of pluralism.
But this really exposes the difference between the worldviews of these scientists and Christians. We welcome science; it’s the healthy exploration of God’s world. The greatest scientists in history have been Christians who believe science was possible only in a world that was orderly and created by God. We don’t rule out any natural phenomenon.
The naturalists, on the other hand, rule out even science that tends to show intelligence, because that might lead to a God. Now, who is narrow-minded?
Elsie,
Is the NAB (the most recent Catholic translation into English) a legitimate translation of the Bible for me to use in discussions with you?
Is the proper basis for a translation of the Old Testament the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew Masoretic Text?
This is one of those "I'm dumber from having read this thread", threads.
Mr. Silverback,
Is the NAB (the most recent Catholic translation into English) a legitimate translation of the Bible for me to use in discussions with you?
Is the proper basis for a translation of the Old Testament the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew Masoretic Text?
Is there a particular translation of the Bible which you think is the "right" one?
Is the NAB (the most recent Catholic translation into English) a legitimate translation of the Bible for me to use in discussions with you?
Is the proper basis for a translation of the Old Testament the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew Masoretic Text?
(Is a word missing here?)
Is there a particular translation of the Bible which you think is the "right" one?
"Is the proper basis for a translation of the Old Testament the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew Masoretic Text?
(Is a word missing here?)"
No, it says what I meant, but I will be clearer (translating my own gibberish, as it were): Which underlying text of the Old Testament do you consider to have greater authority, the Greek Septuagint, or the Hebrew Masoretic Text?
This is important, because the Catholic bibles, the NIV and most other modern translations use a combination of the Septuagint and the Masoretic text, but the King James Version uses just the Masoretic Text, and the 1611 King James Version uses only one specific version of the Masoretic Text.
Which underlying text you use changes some parts of the Bible, adding some lines, deleting some lines, etc.
This doesn't both ME, because I don't think these additions and subtractions are substantive, but there are those who are "EVERY WORD literalists", and for them it is absolutely necessary to specify SPECIFIC manuscripts and specific source documents. Because no two translations weight these the same, what "EVERY WORD" specificity comes down to is accepting one translation only, the one that uses the RIGHT source documents and the RIGHT emphases on translations.
The King James Only movement focuses on this issue.
Since your lengthy excerpts focus on specific words found in the NIV translation, I am concerned that if I use a different translation than the NIV, we will start clashing over what the Bible SAYS, and I'd prefer to avouid that by agreeing to a common translation before starting in on the parsing.
My own approach is to usually lay several different translations one alongside the other and start comparing. I don't find the differences to be substantive, generally, but there ARE differences in practically every sentence.
That is precisely the sort of translational debate I seek to avoid by agreeing on A text.
I'd say the oldest texts available would be the best: closer to the source(s) (which have long decayed away, I would imagine.)
My choice of NIV is merely because it is the one I am more familar with. (however, the KJV from my childhood is, in many places, seared into my memory cells. ;^)
My own approach is to usually lay several different translations one alongside the other and start comparing. I don't find the differences to be substantive, generally, but there ARE differences in practically every sentence.
This is fine with me, as I feel that most ANY of the various translations and paraphrses are able to illustrate GOD's Truth and get a people right with their Maker.
Ok, good.
However, then it becomes more problematic to argue really fine textual points, things that hang on commas (which do not exist in ancient Hebrew OR Greek) and the like.
Recall up the thread here (there is a parallel thread out there on the Septuagint where the debate has been hot and furious, and I am trying to keep the two straight in my mind, so forgive me if I go on a tangent that seems unrelated to what has come before), I was challenged, quite forcefully, by someone (who has not responded to my queries since, so I will let him be and not name him by name and therefore be obliged to ping him, etc.) about my concern over conflicts in the Bible text.
His assertion was that there are none, only the illusion of conflict. I said that was not true, and spoke of a comparison of the order of creation in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as being CLEARLY in conflict, which they are (to wit: Genesis one has birds being made on the fifth day, explicitly, and men on the sixth, but Genesis 2 has birds being made AFTER man, as a companion of man). This is no mere confusion in reading comprehension. I am a pretty successful lawyer. I know how to read English very carefulyl and precisely. I don't get tripped up easily in reading comprehension.
I've read those few sentences over and over again, and the conflict is CLEAR. They are mutually exclusive. Either birds were created BEFORE man, per Genesis 1, or birds were created AFTER man, per Genesis 2.
Now, I draw a lesson from this obvious, flaming, really clearly egregious conflict that appears right at the start of the Bible - God inspired this all, so this conflict is MEANT by God to be there. Why? I suspect that it is so that even without modern science, even the most ancient person applying simple logic would know that given such an irreconcilable conflict, God did not intend for this part to be taken literally as science and anthropogly. God is signalling that we are not talking about how the rest of the animals were really made here, but that the focus is on man.
In other words, God - by putting that obvious confluusion right there at the start - is allowing us to go look at evolution and nature for ourselves and sisn't binfding us spiritually on that subject. Otherwise we have an irreconcilable contradiction.
Genesis 2
This is making me insane.
Which translation are you using that has injected the pluperfect "had" into Genesis 2:19.
The KJV does not do it.
The NAB does not do it.
The Jewish Publication Society Hebrew-English TaNaKh does not do it.
The translation you use does it.
And it VASTLY changes the meaning, and the possible divine intent, of the passage.
We simply cannot discuss Scripture AT ALL until we have settled what, SPECIFICALLY Scripture is.
According to Protestantism, Scripture is the Inerrant, Infallible Inspired Word of God, and Scripture ALONE is the basis of all authority in the Christian religion.
Fine.
For the purposes of discussion, I will concede that point and come onto the page with you there: if it's not in Scripture, it's some OTHER tradition, and it doesn't count.
We can only talk about Scripture.
But then we immediately collide in our first effort to do so, because BAM! You quite "Scripture" that has a word inserted into it which does not appear in any of the "Scripture" in English which I read, and which completely changes the meaning of the text.
It will not do to argue from some extra-Scriptural logic. Either Scripture has that "Had" in it, which means one thing, or it doesn't, which means something different, OR it might or might not, depending on how one CHOOSES to read it, which means yet a third thing. Note that the second two positions allow the conflict in Scripture to be taken as a lesson from God that He does NOT intend for the Scriptural account of the particulars of Creation, and he PUT the conflict in there to dissuade people from doing PRECISELY what Creationists do, which is assert a literalism that GOD DID NOT INTEND when He inspired this particular Scripture.
Inserting that "HAD" in there may be directly overthrowing God's whole POINT in NOT having it there.
It matters a GREAT DEAL whether that one extra word "had" is in the Scripture or is not.
Both translations CANNOT be right (although both could be wrong).
Either the KJV and the Jewish JPS TaNaKh translation correctly render the literal meaning of the language of Genesis 2:19, or whatever you used correctly renders the language of Genesis 2:19, and the OTHER translations are, thereby, wrong, misleading, and NOT Scripture.
Indeed, if we can't read ANY English translation as Scripture, but have to constantly scurry back to some Hebrew or Greek text and have experts in those languages tell us what it says, then the whole idea of a man being able to read Scripture for himself is completely overthrown! All that a man can do is read something full of errors which will teach him the WRONG thing about Scripture. Either that "had" is in there, and those who read KJV and TaNaKh JPS and NAB, et al, are MISLED by reading false text, OR that "had" is NOT in the Scriptures, and has been added to them to make logical what God intended to leave as conflicting specifically to teach a different lesson. By adding a word to the translation of the Bible you are using, the translators may have made the readers comfortable by resolving a tension, but took them right out of the actual Inerrant Word of God by adding to it something pernicious,.
We cannot argue about the "had". There is no point. There is something much bigger here. WHAT IS SCRIPTURE?
Is ANY English text "Scripture"? Is ANY English text the "Inerrant, Infallible, Inspired Word of God?"
WHich text are you using?
Is IT inspired and inerrant but the KJV and the other translations in error?
Why?
I don't it could be classified as that: where did you get the stuff in quotes? Do ALL protestants says that?
I'm using a CD-rom that I picked up at a grocery store kiosk about 6 years ago.
Here is the info I found on it:
Genesis 21. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12. And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
My problem is that you're acting as if this has to do with Protestant vs. Catholic. Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but it has to do with you having a cavalier (and unjustified) attitude toward the validity of scripture, and with you advancing beliefs other than Catholic Doctrine. For example, sin came into the world through Eve? Open your catechism and look at 404. Find me a place in the catechism where it talks about Jesus correcting the errors in the Law. Either you are saying Catholic doctrine is something it isn't, or you are saying you're a Catholic who knows better than Catholic doctrine. I'm also still trying to figure out how you know what Jesus said and did if the Bible's so unreliable.
In short, I and these others are standing up for the doctrines all Christians share, and you are treating it as uncivil infighting. Sure, I'm willing to discuss these matters civilly (just as I have been) but I'm not willing to cheer as my fellows have and act as if you've stilled the storm of intermural conflict. Unity is great, but the unity has to be around the teachings of Christ, not around vague good feelings and a wish to bring in non-believers.
Sorry if that stuff leaves a mark, but I wouldn't have felt I was being honest if I didn't say it. Proceed if you still wish to.
"17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
You say that it still looks like past tense.
Sure.
But let's not be obtuse here.
The whole thing is all taking place in the past. Creation was long ago. Genesis 2 describes creation.
Without getting into the Hebrew "vav" (which may mean "and" or it many mean "then", among other things), one thing is plain from the English: those "And's" at the beginning of each subsequent sentence are very clearly progressives.
The "caused" and "slept" of line 21 are also in the past tense. So, did those things happen before the animals were shown to be unsuitable companions.
Clearly not. Clearly the "And..." construction indicates that each thing followed in succession.
Read it again, starting at 17.
At 17, God is finishing up telling Adam what not to eat.
At 18, the "and" moves on to the next topic, in which God said that man should not be alone. This isn't related to the prohibition on eating of the fruit. It's about man being alone.
But at 19, the forming of the beasts IS related back to 18, the lonliness of man. This is not a laundry list of unrelated events. We know this because, proceeding on to 20, it doesn't work out: the animals prove unsatisfactory.
If this were anything other than Genesis, you would read that text and say: Ok, so Joe did a bunch of stuff, and then he got worried about his little boy being alone. So he made him some toys. But the boy didn't like the toys. so then he made him an extra-special toy.
You're obviously a smart guy. I just don't believe that you don't see that 19 follows sequentially from 18. God sees Adam's alone, says it's not good and so makes animals for him. And guess what! If all that was talked about were the furry mammals of the land, it would be fine, because mammals and man all are made on the 6th day in Genesis 1. The problem is that the author included the birds here too. And not just SOME birds (if it just said "birds" or "some birds" then we could read Genesis 1's creation of the birds on the fifth day as not being THESE PARTICULAR birds, made for Adam). But no, it says EVERY bird. So ALL of those birds that Genesis 1 says were made on the fifth day, BEFORE the creation of man, Genesis 2:19 says were made by God AFTER man was made, indeed FOR man, so that man wouldn't be alone.
The story goes on and it keeps using those "Ands" to make the sequence. Clearly line 20 is AFTER the bringing of the animals to Adam. He names them, but it doesn't do the trick. SO the next part of the story unfolds, the making of Eve. And the text uses "And" every single time to indicate the progressive thing, from one thing to the next.
It's a sequence, and you know it's a sequence. You're resisting it because it sets up an irreconcilable conflict with Genesis 1's account of the birds being made before man. Here, the birds are made AFTER man, and for man.
The Jews themselves, in their traditions, don't fuss or fret about this. They have not considered Genesis to be literal history for centuries, maybe ever. Neither have Catholics. St. Augustine, writing back circa 400 AD, warned against the damage to Christian evangelization that insisting on a too-literal interpretation of Genesis does.
The Catholic Church accepts evolution. Granted, the form of evolution is intelligent design and not purely random evolution, but the point is that the literal text of Genesis is not held to be literally true in every detail, with a literal 6 day creation period, etc.
There are other problems with the Genesis text too. For example, the water in the midst of which God makes heaven and earth never goes away. God makes the earth out of a bubble in the water. He puts the stars in the firmament, the domed bubble he puts above the earth. The firmament below the earth forms the hard land once he drains the water out of it and pools it, but there's earth, in a bubble of water, with stars in the firmament, and the water above it, and below it. Indeed, when God floods the world, he opens the gates of heaven, and the water comes right through from beyond the firmament, which is to say from beyond the stars and the sun.
Further, the water IS STILL OUT THERE. God doesn't change the nature of the universe after the flood. He just says that he won't open those floodgates of the firmament again. So, just to be clear, Genesis literally says that the world is a bubble in the water, with water above and water below, that the flood let the water in - from BEYOND the sun and stars (which are in the firmament, but the firmament is BELOW the water above) - and that water IS STILL THERE. God doesn't change the world after the Flood, just promises he won't destroy it again like that.
So, where's all that water out there, eh?
Genesis simply doesn't work as science.
The suggestion that "let there be light!" is the Big Bang certainly doesn't work: the whole universe of Genesis is filled with water BEFORE the creation of light, and never stops being filled with water. The earth's a bubble in the water under a dome (maybe that's why the sky is blue?). So, WATER predated the Big Bang?
No.
Genesis doesn't allow for the Big Bang. There is water everywhere while the earth and everthing else is void except for the abyss.
That's just from a few lines of Genesis. What Genesis really is, is the creation myth of the Hebrews. It contains elements of the Creation myths of surrounding civilizations, or the common creation myths of the peoples of the region. There is a cultural memory of great floods, and indeed there WAS a terrible worldwide flood that inundated all of the coastal areas of the world at the end of the last ice age, and it was indeed the sea itself that rose up. That fits with the idea of the floodgates opening underneath. Mankind everywhere remembers those calamities, which is why all littoral people have a flood legend. It happened, but Mt. Everest was never covered with water. There ain't enough water to do it.
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 conflict, because they are two separate traditions, and the Jews loved them both and kept them both, and didn't CARE about the discrepancies, because they didn't take them as arguments AGAINST some competing science. It is very similar to the 400 years in Egypt versus 430 years in Egypt described of the Jewish people in different parts of the Exodus story. So, which was it? The ancient Jews didn't care, just as modern Jews don't. The point is that it was a long time. That's what Jews get out of it. Many Christians too, including Catholics.
But if you've got to take every word of the Bible literally, you end up with these terrible conundra, these conflicts. What the NIV did in the Gen 2:19 to try and resolve an alarming conflict is, I think, shameful. It is shameful because there's no pluperfect in the Hebrew. The Jews don't translate it that way, and I tracked down some Hebrew scholars and asked that specific question. The KJV is actually a good literal translation (although "bereshit", the first word, is probably better rendered "at the time when..." as opposed to "In the Beginning"). The Genesis 2 story,according to the King James, Jewish, and NAB translations, and according to the Hebrew scholars I spoke with, is written progressively. There's no "had" in there to make the creation of the birds antecedent. It WOULD be accurate to replace those "And's" with "Then's", because it's a progressive text, and the vav's have the strength of "then" as well as "and". But there is no way to get a "had" in there.
So, why did the translators of the NIV do that? We can only speculate, but it isn't because the Hebrew even colorably said that. Consider who the NIV translators were: evangelical Christians, translating for an evangelical audience. Many, many evangelicals are literalists and 6-day Creationists. And right there in Genesis 2:19 in the KJV and all of the other translations, the literal translations, there is just this terrible problem of the creation of the birds. Once you see it, it is obvious.
That problem can be "fixed" by adding a "had", because THEN the birds were already made, and God just moved them there...and the terrible conflict right at the heart of the creation story goes away.
But it's not an honest move. There is no had in the Hebrew.
The had appears IN ORDER TO get to an acceptable result. Now, it is true that I don't believe in 6-day Creationism, but what I believe or not is not the point. If I take my evangelical brethren at their own word and JUST rely on the Bible text, I end up with a conflicting creation story that let's me see in that very fact God's intention to tell a story, but NOT the particular story of the actual, scientific order of creation. That dull edge, that conflict, allows for full evolutionary science without blaspheming the Bible. After all, God wasn't careful about making the text airtight, so evidently that wasn't what He was driving at (the other alternative would be to say that one of the texts is WRONG).
But the NIV scholars chucked a had in there to make that tension go away...tension that IS THERE. Now, maybe that's a translation mistake. Or maybe it' a very aggressive position. But it's a darned funny place for a mistake to just "pop up", right where it HAS to in order to make the two pieces of Genesis not conflict.
Clearly I think it was purposeful, not an error, and clearly I think that it is a dishonest move.
Anyway, there you have it.
We needn't fight about this anymore if you don't want to.
I have to prepare a response to another poster, below, and haven't the strength to do it tonight.
So, may the peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and your family tonight, and into tomorrow.
Peace.
Oh, then you are ready to admit that Madalyn Murray O'Hair was trying to force all Americans to become atheists when she brought her school prayer case? Claiming that a sticker in a textbook is the same as trying to establish a theocracy makes about as much sense. Heck, claiming that Dover indicates a wish for theocracy is like claiming a guy is a proven anti-Semite because you set him up with a Jewish girl and he never called her for a second date.
What's especially funny is you're claiming theocracy using a case where elected people took an action--an action that did not force a single act of worship, give any power to any religion, or stop a single act of scientific research or teaching--and were thrown out of office at the first opportunity. Like I said, we can all speculate what kind of country we'll have if OJ Simpson becomes President, but it's better to live in the real world.
So here's the bottom line: We are discussing an article about atheists who say that scientists should make it their top priority to stamp out religion. You counter by saying Christians will establish theocracy and ban certain lines of scientific inquiry. You offer as evidence stickers in a book and a non-political statement of faith. And you also will not answer whether you agree with Dawkins' call for scientists to work on eliminating religion.
Are you planning on presenting some evidence to support your paranoid assetions? Are you planning on answering the question: Do you agree scientists should work on eliminating religion or not?
If you say so, but I doubt that others see them that way.
In my dresser I have socks,
and t-shirts,
and shorts,
and ties,
and pants.
Which ones are in the top drawer?
I see no mighty 'conflict' in the text. As far as complaining about how others have 'translated' things, that's why, I suppose, we DO have so many differing outputs using the same input.
Our own language that we use daily, changes, so I would guess that is the MAIN reason that a new attempt is made to bring the old into a useable form for the new kids on the block.
Turning on the morning news, biased as it is, I have heard numerous ideas about what George said last night, and we all speak the SAME language!
Speaking of language; spend a few moments in a high school hallway and see if you can understand what our kids are saying ;^)
You're right; this isn't worth fussing over.
Some folk see the glass half full - others half empty, but each would gulp in down if they were thristy.
Let's resolve to give that Water to those who need it.
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