Who wrote the Bible? (in two parts)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Powell's Books - Review-a-Day - Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman, reviewed by Doug Brown

Those who call the King James Version of the Bible the unerring word
of God have a slight problem. The New Testament of the KJV (as the
King James Version is usually referred) was translated into English
from a version of the Greek New Testament that had been collected
from twelfth-century copies by Erasmus. Where Erasmus couldn't find
Greek manuscripts, he translated to Greek from the Latin Vulgate
(which itself had been translated from Greek back in the fourth
century). Here the problem splits into two problems. First, Jesus
spoke Aramaic --- his actual words, never recorded, were only
rendered in Greek in the original gospels. Thus, the KJV consists of
Jesus' words twice refracted through the prism of translation.
Second, Erasmus's Greek New Testament was based on handwritten
copies of copies of copies of copies, etc., going back over a
millennium, and today is considered one of the poorer Greek New
Testaments. It is this second problem that Ehrman spends most time
on in Misquoting Jesus, a fascinating account of New Testament
textual criticism.

[snip]

[PrinceMyshkin]

[snip]
The main thrust of what Jesus said and
did is undoubtedly in there, but that's all we can be sure of. For
believer or atheist, I recommend Misquoting Jesus to anyone with an
interest in where this ancient anthology that has helped shape our
culture came from.

[Logos]

Oh where to start :idea:

This topic is not based on a specific religious text (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=392231&postcount=3), it's based on Erhman's book.
Rule #5--you have [had, now snipped] copy and pasted the entire article by Brown --Copyright © 1994-2007 Powells.com (http://www.powells.com/review/2007_07_14);
Unless you are, or even if you were Erhman, Brown, or owner of Powell's, you have not presented this as a discussion topic.
.
.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh where to start :idea:

This topic is not based on a specific religious text (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=392231&postcount=3), it's based on Erhman's book.
Rule #5--you have [had, now snipped] copy and pasted the entire article by Brown --Copyright © 1994-2007 Powells.com (http://www.powells.com/review/2007_07_14);
Unless you are, or even if you were Erhman, Brown, or owner of Powell's, you have not presented this as a discussion topic.
.
.

In which case PLEASE feel free to delete it, not that you need my permission, do you?

[MaryLupin]

is always an interesting portal into culture change and belief system variability.

Myshkin, correct me if I am wrong, but I assume you wish to discuss text value (the bible in particular and any religious text claiming truth authority in general) with respect to its variations because of a history of interpretation.

Let me give just one point of cultural interest from my own background: in Salish there is no word for wilderness. In English there are at least two (one positive and one negative) important connotations to that word. In English it is a concept that is used as catch-all phrase for what is non-human. The word carries the cultural belief that humans are not essentially of the world - they have some divine spark that comes from somewhere else. This is why the word can be used in a negative fashion...the dark wilderness, the wilds, the empty wilderness (all focus on the deep belief that there are two natures, one of fullness, light and good and one of emptiness, dark and bad).

If a person were to translate a speech from Salish and use the word "wilderness," the cultural connotations that we carry will get imposed on the speech. But that is probably not what was meant. I talked about this with a couple of Salish speakers once. At best, they said, one can say "ground that is easy for humans to live on" (what we might call Arcadia) and "ground that is hard for humans to live on" (what would get translated as wilderness). The problem is that they do not at all imply the same thing. In the Salish version the emphasis is on relationship, i.e. the ground is not bad and neither is the human, it just won't work out as a living arrangement. In the English version the emphasis is on judgment using human needs as the criteria for goodness.

As I am on my way to work, I cannot really start with early Judaic languages and the problem of translation...but here's a teaser.

The words used to describe what god does with respect to creating humankind carry gender weight. That is some words used are specific to the female, some are specific to maleness, some are singular (implying one god), some are plural (implying many gods), etc. English cannot do this. The solution was to call god "him" (good old patriarchy). More properly god should be called "it." What would that do to how the bible is read if instead of praying to "Him" we had be asked to pray to "It?"

[Logos]

In which case PLEASE feel free to delete it, not that you need my permission, do you?
No, but I snipped it.

Oh and Mary I meant to close the topic earlier but forgot :)