by FireNBandits 29 Replies latest watchtower bible
What I find interesting is that the chronologies of the septuagint and the masoretic are different giving different dates for the creation of man and the flood etc but the WTS chose the masoretic for its chronology without ever saying that the Septuagint doesn't agree yet it was used by the early church as its major reference.
I wasn't aware that the early church accepted the deuterocanonicals as genuine.
What I find interesting is that the chronologies of the septuagint and the masoretic are different giving different dates for the creation of man and the flood etc but the WTS chose the masoretic for its chronology without ever saying that the Septuagint doesn't agree yet it was used by the early church as its major reference.
The LXX version of the geneologies and chronography, in fact, is at least twice used in the NT. First, Luke 3:36 makes "Cainan" the father of Shelah and the son of Arphaxad and this reflects the duplication of the (antediluvian) "Cainan" in Genesis 11:12-13 LXX. Second, Paul in Galatians 3:17 refers to a period of 430 years that intervened between Abraham's covenant and the giving of the Law to Moses, and this reflects the LXX rendering of Exodus 12:40 as opposed to the MT version. The Society utilizes the latter as a chronological datum, but rejects a genealogical link for "Cainan" in their chronology.
Hi Country Girl! You're right. I'm wasting space with this drivel. We all are. I have a great idea! Why don't YOU stop posting...you know, set an example...and the rest of us will follow suit. Someday. Like when we're finally DEAD!
Seriously, though, I'm just having fun, same as you are.
Hugs n stuff,
Martin
We all spend and have spent time, times & half a time looking through letters, copies of letters & interpretations of letters.
Isn't this much like 2000 years into the future, taking a few of a person's emails from today and then studying all contextual info and linguistics to understand what they meant?
At least with emails, we could get a reasonably accurate copy of the original.
At our very best, just how accurate can we possibly be with ancient texts & dead languages?
Whoa! Terry! You wrote stuff. You said:
I think we need to take a step back.
(Oh man, me too. For me, about thirty years would be way kewl. I liked my early twenties. Maybe you're talking about time travel! I wanna go back and hit Hitler on the head with a floogelhorn when he's about twelve and see if it alters the time line. N stuff. You know?)
You cannot have Greek words without Greek thoughts, ideas, concepts and, ultimately, Greek RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
("When in Rome do as the Romans do, but when in Greece DO IT GREEK STYLE! Oh BABY you know what I like! 'Chantilly lace, a pretty face, a pony tail hangin down....')
As the Rabbi down the street said to me one day, "All translations are LIES."
(The rabbi down the street says to ME "You goyiim should all be commited! You're MESHUGGENAH!")
The Septuagint came along at a time when Greek ideas swarmed over Judaism and bowled it on its collective arse.
(Collective arse...hmmm...is that another allusion to Greek style? Ya gotta axe yourself dis question bro...why did GODAMIGHTY [sweet BABY Jesus!] bring about this collective arse-bowling? Hmm. Arse-Bowling For Dollars! I think we have a weiner on our hands!)
This had happened once before when Judiasm was swallowed up by Babylon and spit back out again with a garbled theology.
(Jesus dude..collective arses..Greek style..swallowing and spitting..you need ot GET YOUR BRAIN OUT OF THE GUTTER and into a nunnery. Those chicks are HORNY! Ugly, but HORNY! Are you SURE that this wasn't "God working all things together for the good of them that love him." ? [Romans somewhere...eight?] )
By the time Alexander the Great had conquered all the known world the Jewish religion had been masticated and sewn back together bionically.(Masticating! RIGHT OUT IN PUBLIC! HAVE YOU NO SHAME SIR? NO DECENCY? I'll bet your sister is a THESPIAN and you are yourself a HOMOSAPIEN! "Bionic Jews." I like it. I think it should star Will Smiff. )
Greek language, ideas, religion and PHILOSOPHY overwhelmed what was left.
(Overwhelmed...ummm...oh yeah...overwhelm me baby...yeah...omigod)
The NT is steeped in a Judaism possessed by the demon of Greco-Roman philosophy, religion and reasoning.
(Aw nuts dude, now you're using words like 'steeped." That's for tea and other old bat stuff. I do like Greco-Roman wrestling. Especially with gals! Oh, and since when did "religion" and "reason" become related in any way? )
You don't just translate the Hebrew words into Greek words. You filter old-fashioned (read: failed) ideas into a vibrant and superior mode of thinking.
(I think I'm catching your drift. Dude, go a little easier on the beans and radishes. )
Jesus would not have been viewed as a god-man without the Greek ethos.
(GREEKS have an ETHOS? Man, will the peeps at my wifes Grek Orthodox church be SURPRISED! Thye've been calling it their *CENSORED* for, like, milennia. N stuff.)
Go back and take a good hard look at Jesus' conversations with the Pharisees.
("Good hard." Once again your mind is in the GUTTER, EXACTLY where God put it! I'll have you know I have an actual stone-recording of some of Jesus' conversations with the Pharisees. I'll send some to you for just 999.99 plus postage and handling.)
If you cannot see SOCRATES, then, you are missing the whole point.
(I'm lost..forlorn..woe is me...So-crates is dead n stuff and I can't see him! Wait! I'll have a SEANCE! Those are always way kewl! I'll invite over some chicks and...nah, my wife would never stand for it. Or sit for it. Though she might lay for it. Barking for it is out of the question though. What the hell were we talking about?)
Hi Greendawn. Yup. The entire Christian Church...east and west...accepted the deuterocanonicals right up until the protest-ant deformation. Then the deformers decided the church needed to follow the Jews both in their canon and in their text-type. I reject both. Here is an excellent synopsis of the case for inclusion of the deuterocanonicals:
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/deuteros.htm
Or here:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/DEUTEROS.HTM
Or here:
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0009sbs.asp
Lastly:
http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/cloud.html
Each of these sites does repeat iformation in the others, BUT each one also has some info the others don't. As for me and my household, we shall serve nachos. -Martin the Magnificent of the Eminently Humble Class.
Leo! Thanks! Much appreciated young lady. I can get away with calling you "young lady" cuz I'm probaby as old as your parents. -Saint Martin of the Intermediate Class
Amnesty, it comes down to "whatever floats your boat." Stamp collecting isn't my thing and I'm too old to thump melon, so I do this stuff. It keeps me from eating *BLEEP* and barking at the Moon. -Martin of the *BLEEPING "BLEEPERS* Class
My goal was not to shoot down anyone's belief system or hobby,
but I (like many here) studied and sincerely believed this stuff.
Once I started questioning WT, then the dominoes would not stop falling.
By the way: What is 'too old to thump melon'? I like that phrase!
Hi Leo
I read about half of the blogs. So far, the posts are about translation, not about textual criticism. Nor the issue of MT versus LXX, though as I read the remainder of the blogs it may become such a discussion. I'm open--just a tad mind you--that perhaps a personal "God" actually "had a hand" in arranging the historical circumstances that led to the Jewish translation and use of the LXX, as well as the adoption of the LXX by Jesus, the apostles, the other NT writers, and the early Church. That is what exercises my mind on this issue. If a personal God exists, then this selection of the LXX is the result of the activity of that personal God as it "works all things together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
All of the various historical circumstances that altered Judaism would be included in the Divine activity, in order to being about "the fullness of times" for the advent of the Anointed one.
Quickly, here is an example wherein I think the LXX preserves a much earlier text-type than any now extant, including the Dead Sea Scrolls:
In the English Standard Version of Exodus 4:25-26 we read:
"Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" So he let him alone. It was then that she said, "A bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision."
This is a very odd verse, wouldn't you agree? In the LXX it's made a bit clearer. Not clear mind you, but clearer.
"And Zipporah, taking a small sharp stone, circumcised the foreskin of her son. And she fell at his feet and said, 'Stopped is the blood of the circumcision of my male child.' And the angel went forth from him, for she said, 'Stopped is the blood of the circumcision of my male child.' "
Obviously something is still missing, but this is not nearly as bizarre a reading as the MT. The MT at this point is an insult to me on a very visceral--as well as intellectual--level. "It's creepy" as my wife put it. -Martin
