Interpretation of Texts (General)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, September 18, 2010, 21:57 (4991 days ago) @ dhw

BALANCE_MAINTAINED (under Ain't Nature wonderful): Interpretation of the bible is indeed tricky. I generally start with a few basic premises:
> A) The Bible does not contradict nature or accurate scientific knowledge.
> B) The Bible does not contradict itself.
> C) There are key words in the Bible that are clear indicators of figurative language when it is not otherwise stated. [...]
> 
> I'm starting a new thread with this, because I think we should leave "Ain't nature wonderful" to examples of wonderful nature.
> 
> To approach a text with such basic premises is already a problem in itself, and I wonder why you need them. ... and thirdly once the text is published, the fluid nature of language takes it out of the author's control. 
> 
> All of this is self-evident when it comes to ancient texts like the Bible and the Koran, which is why colleges have been set up in order to interpret them. Just to make matters more complicated, these books are only known to most of us in translation, a translator is no less subjective a reader than any other, he is generally unlikely to be totally bilingual, no two translations are ever alike, and there is no one in authority to say which one is authentic. 
> -Especially in the case of the bible, we have many issues pertaining to translation. (I hope balance reads this.)-I present exhibit A:-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_primacy-I've watched this movement grow in Western civilization over the last ten years; and it makes some very stunning literary insights that would have resulted in altering the course of history. -First and foremost, Matthew 27:46 would be very different. "Eloi Eloi llama sabachtani" was translated as "why have you forsaken me." Considering that this caused deep problems for early Christianity, the dogma of "The Passion of the Christ" was concocted to deal with God, asking why God was forsaking him. -The word "sabachtani" is an aramaic word, and it is a semitic language that has more in common with Arabic than with Hebrew. This is key... because both of these languages are written with vowels. So the word that represents what we inherited as "sabachtani" can be translated into many different words. One of these words is "spared." -Inherited version:
"Oh God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Aramaic version: 
"Oh God, my God, why have you spared me?" -While not completely solving the riddle of "God appealing to God," I think we can all agree that the Aramaic translation of spared makes more sense. -Aramaic primacy maintains that the native language of the apostles, Jesus, and others was aramaic, and that the translation from Aramaic texts to Greek texts can account for discrepancies such as this. This one just happens to be the most earth-shattering mistranslations in the history of religious texts. -I own a formal analysis provided to me by one of the scholars purporting aramaic primacy.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"