WordWolf

Me too!

I wasn't 100% sure, and I wasn't 100% sure you'd accept that form of answer.

That's it. Jim Nabors starred in the spoof of "Kung Fu" - "Young Fool." The first 2 quotes were from that. The 2nd set of quotes involved a returning character, Pvt Arthur Newberry. He became a war hero when he swallowed a live hand grenade and saved his platoon, but it hollowed him out. We saw him once as a Buckingham Palace guard and when they named a ship after him. Of course, you recognized Carol singing her theme song which happened sometimes.

I've never seen the movie, but would have gotten it from "I'll have what she's having!" since that line is well-known even among people who never saw the movie.

"He hates but one man: the man who stole his shoes." "That's because there is no air in the windmills of your mind." "He swallowed a live hand grenade. He has no internal organs." "What's your favorite ice cream flavor?" "Buffalo Ripple." "I'm so glad we've had this time together..." *sung*

That's it.

Your lights are on but you're not home."

It's not "The Destroyer", by the Kinks. But I keep confusing that with "ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT" by the Kinks.

[It looked to me like you were...going somewhere with your posts, somewhere specific and antagonistic. Since then, you've taken it down several notches, and it's obvious you're not going there. (At least not now, and "now" is all I have to go by. so, it's all good.) ]

Digiorno? No, George is probably right.

....and NOW I can finally hear the song in my head.

[In case it's not clear, Raf and I are very different people. (We've been mistaken for each other, on and off, for much of our adult lives, but we don't even live in the same country, and we disagree on some pretty fundamental things.) So, no, I wasn't using the word "original" in the manner he mentioned. (I just posted my explanation a minute ago.) I doubt he had the time to follow back and read over the post where I was going into this. "the Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition for "original" (that from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made)" [Merriam-Webster's definition matches what I explained a post ago.] "So the term "original" can now apply to all existing manuscripts regardless of when they were written, by whom they were written, where they were found, or how different they might be from one another. And can now include copies of copies of copies. And this has become the acceptable norm among some people in the field of biblical study. Serious question here - is this what is meant by utilizing critical thinking and analysis skills? If so, I just don't get it." [Since we can all now see clearly that none of this was the case in any post, I'm confident we can call off the witch hunt now. There was just a misunderstanding.]

"Am I missing something here? What "original" do you and Hampson think exists?" [Actually, we're using the word "original" in a much more simple manner than that. If we were discussing pfal, someone might speak of what was actually in the Orange Book or class as being "in the original", as opposed to what was later said about pfal. (One poster seemed obsessed with the differences at times.) Another poster might react angrily, because pfal was, in general, plagiarized and cobbled together from the works of other writers (Leonard, Stiles, Bullinger, Kenyon...), so using the word "original" in reference to pfal could result in that response. In the case of Hampson and myself, I think I can speak with confidence that it is generally accepted that, when we look at modern English Bibles, regardless of the version, that virtually all of them are taken from the Greek texts, as opposed to the Latin, the Syriac, and so on. Whenever I did a "word study" or wanted to know what was said "in the original", I went back a step. I pulled out a Greek-English Interlinear of the Stephens Text or the Nestle Text, and followed along in the Greek. I found that many problems with an English version were simply because the critical Greek Text was clear, but the English version did something that added a difficulty. So, it was an error in translation from Greek to English. So, when I'm addressing the translation into English of a modern Bible, I can compare the English version in my hand to the Greek Text from which it was translated, and refer to the Greek Text as "the original", since it was from this that the version was translated. It doesn't mean that the Stephens Text or the Nestle Text was the original text of all the writings, since obviously they proceeded from other texts- but of the translation in my hand, it was the original. I've also had a chance to read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in Spanish. I've mentioned I prefer to read it in the original. Nobody supposed I meant I had a copy of Orwell's first print run of the book. Like any word in any language, the word "original" can be used in different contexts and still be accurate- within that context. If we weren't discussing the Bible, this wouldn't even be questioned.]

I agree that the general topic Jesus was expounding on was about being "born again", which is to say being born "of the spirit", which is second because we were all born in the usual manner much earlier, and this would be the second one. The following verses make that clear. Other verses address it. The entire previous discussion was on that one verse, and what Nicodemus took away from it. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on it. I see Nicodemus as having listened with the common "selective hearing", having heard Jesus say a man had to be born (at his age) to see the kingdom of God. and Nicodemus objected to a man who is old being born, and how he couldn't repeat his first birth and leave the womb. I see Jesus as trying to impart some new, important information at the time, and Nicodemus seizing on the wrong thing. As for what "anothen" should be, having examined all the occurrences of the word, I'm convinced it should be rendered "from above" and that's it. I think that's the most sensible, consistent translation. So, we should probably agree to disagree there as well.

I wasn't primarily objecting to the tone. I was objecting to that sort of question being in this thread. I'll agree to participate in threads where we're playing nicer. You're certainly welcome to post those threads, especially in the Atheism forum. However, I'll be exercising my right to refrain from participating. I felt the tone matched the question, and I objected to both- but more to the question showing up in this particular thread. I don't mind "discussing" in "discussion" threads. I draw the line at shouting matches in contention threads. They rarely change any minds, and people just get heated. (At least, that's my current position.)

"The most concerning and obvious question in all of this is: Why did an all-knowing, all-wise and all-powerful divine being,...." [I was under the impression that this wasn't going to be one of those threads. If this is going to be one of those threads, I'll just see myself out. I came to discuss content and translation, not engage in an angry shouting match that won't convince anyone of anything and will only waste time. If this thread is going to change into one of those threads now that I am in it, I'm not sticking around.]

The camel/rope thing. Lamsa had it as "rope" in his Bible. The Aramaic Interlinear twi put out had it as "rope." Naturally, one can show suspicion on both sources, as it's possible both were, ah, compromised. But I compared the words side by side in my college library. They had a copy of the book "The Aramaic Origin of the Four Gospels." I eyeballed both words carefully and could not find a difference between the two. Most people can simply conclude that it was hyperbole and get the meaning, and, either way, it is still hyperbole. Neither a rope nor a camel can fit in the eye of a needle, and with man, this is impossible. That was the point regardless, although I prefer having a correct translation either way.

Regarding the translation of "anothen". As per your link, there are exactly 13 occurrences of "anothen" in the Greek New Testament. If I take as a given that only one meaning (one general one or one specific one) should be used for translation, then it's not fair to translate them selectively as different concepts. It can't be both "from above" in some places and "anew" in other places. The concepts are different. ("Again" and "anew" are the same thing, more or less, but they're not the same as "from above" no matter WHAT Thayer said.) Naturally, it's possible for both translations to be WRONG and contradict, but only one of them could be correct. A look down all 13 usages shows that more than 1/2 of them can't possibly be "again" or "anew" and have to be "from above" if they're either definition. In one case, it may be a bit of a stretch, and 12 usages can easily be "from above." I did my own work, long ago, (1989), and concluded "anothen" was "from above." Looking at your link, I conclude I was right when I concluded that, and Thayer made an error.

Hm. How about "FORBIDDEN PLANET"?

[WordWolf in boldface and brackets] "Concerning your reference to wolves above, you did not suggest in this case that the word should go untranslated but that it should just be translated “jackal.” For example: Genesis 49:27, ““Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf jackal: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.” " [The point I was making there is that MIStranslating something is serious business. So, putting a word there because we absolutely have to put a word there can cause a big problem for someone. So, when choosing what to do when translating, it's a lot harder than it looks.] "Concerning “anothen,” leaving it out would make the verse read as follows: John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Two problems with this is that it’s stating the obvious and also Jesus does go on to describe being born two ways – born of the flesh and born of the spirit. I don't see the big problem with this Greek word. Any disagreement with “anothen” seems to be whether it means anew or again. “Anew” implies something made new usually as an improvement over the old while “again” implies something happening a second (or more) time. Nicodemus obviously took “anothen” to mean born “again” as shown in his reply about entering the womb a “second time.” Since this was not what Jesus meant, he explains to Nicodemus the two kinds of births – to be born of the flesh and born of the spirit. The spirit would fit with “anothen” meaning “anew” as it is an improvement over being born of the flesh. " [A) You missed the previous discussion, sorry. What I proved was translating it with a placeholder word that meant nothing didn't change the verse itself because Nicodemus was responding to a man being born when he was old- a MAN being born, not a baby. BTW, the discussion of the Greek word was not with "anew" vs "again", which are largely synonymous in this context. A quick check with a concordance would show that the word "anothen" in all its usages/consistently supports rendering the word "FROM ABOVE" and not "again". So, did Nicodemus understand the word "anothen" or its Aramaic equivalent to be "again/anew" or "from above"? For the sake of that account, it actually didn't matter which he was told because he jumped on the meaning of the rest of the sentence, and he could have been told either or neither and he wasn't listening. In that instance, I didn't leave the word out- I left it untranslated or even unintelligible, and the meaning was retained. Humans often pick and choose what they hear in a sentence, skip something else, and react. Often, that means they skipped the important part, and often will later say they were never told the rest of the sentence. Looking at the account, it seems to me Nicodemus did exactly that. Humans are largely the same here and now and in Nicodemus' time. If you want to get into this account more, we probably should open another thread.] -------------------------------------------- "Am I missing something here? What "original" do you and Hampson think exists? The Greek word “kunarion,” meaning “a small dog,” is used only 4 times in the NT, and they are all found in the account of the Canaanite woman in Matthew and Mark. Now the other Greek word for dog, kuon, meaning a dog that is universally despised in the East, is clearly used that way 5 times in the NT. One of those usages is in Matthew 7:6 which is something like what Jesus said to the woman. It is, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Similar ideas but 2 different Greek word used for “dogs.” I'm interested in why this is. " [I've been spending the last decade or so with the subject "translating between 2 languages" being something I can't avoid. (I don't live in an English-speaking country, which means I'm either studying the other language, dealing with things not from here, or dealing with translations, in nearly every case.) I've seen a number of people work hard to translate between 2 modern languages with some common roots, and sometimes they conclude that something can't be translated across to English or from English! Some things are idiosyncratic to a language, to a culture, to a dialect of a language. For those who doubt this, there's a song that runs almost 9 minutes long, in Spanish. Sometimes subtitles are available in English. "Que dificil es hablar en Español", or "Oh, how hard it is to speak Spanish!" The song is written by native Spanish speakers. The song is written from the perspective of a US citizen who tries to study Spanish, who studies one dialect of Spanish from one country, then discovers he has to learn Spanish all over again if he visits a different Spanish-speaking country. Expressions that are clear and innocent in one dialect become insults in another, and he's chased out of a greengrocer when he tries to ask about the fruit they carry. Some words are innocent in one dialect, and in another, will get you in trouble. Some words mean different things in different countries, sometimes MANY of them. (The word "chucho" has so many different localized meanings that he was able to construct a sentence using all of them, and the sentence was impenetrable without a word-for-word breakdown.) All of that is about differences between dialects of CONTEMPORARY SPANISH, spoken right now in different countries, often neighboring countries. Why did I bring this up? For the benefit of anyone who missed the point, I'll spell it out. Translation work can be very difficult. Even simple prepositions can be a problem, and radically change a sentence with one wrong preposition. Going from one dialect used RIGHT NOW in a language to the same language used RIGHT NOW in a neighboring country with a different dialect can be very difficult. Going back and forth between English and Spanish can be very tricky. I've heard of one tourist who tried to ask directions and offended the local because they missed a connotation that was missing from their language. (In English, "you" is one word, singular or plural, regardless of who "you" is/are. In Spanish, there are at least THREE words for "you" that are used. One is for the plural of either singular. The other 2 usages are singular, referring to one person. But be careful which one you use. If you use "usted", you're being formal. It's good for business meetings and for strangers. If you use "tú", you´re being casual. It's good for friends and people you're trying to consider friends (i.e. in a bar, meeting someone.) There's a word in Spanish that doesn't have ANY direct English translation that relates to this- "tutear". That means to use the informal "tú" with someone when you should have used "usted." People can easily be offended if they hear you do that- although most will cut a tourist slack if they realize the tourist just has trouble trying to use the language. I made a joke once, here. I asked someone if I could greet their dog. They agreed. I squatted down, petted the dog, and talked softly to the dog- to indicate by tone how I was friendly. I referred to the dog using "tú". When I stood up, somewhat tongue in cheek and smirking, I apologized to the dog owner for "tuteando" the dog. After all, I'd just met his dog, and there I was, using the familiar when addressing him. He (the dog owner) accepted my apology, also smirking. The dog didn't care either way. Still, being polite rarely hurts, and it was funny at the time. It appears to me that Hampson has actually put in the work. You know, like vpw claimed to have done sometimes, but in Hampson's case, for real. So, the man spent some time formally studying Koine Greek. I'm fairly confident neither you or I formally studied Koine Greek. I know enough to get by if I use a concordance, interlinear and lexicon, but that's not the same as formal study. He seems to be making a point that, in Koine Greek, there's a big difference between using "kuon" and "kunarion" in a sentence. I've seen enough MIStranslating between English and Spanish to believe it's true. He said the difference is in the CONNOTATION of "kunarion." It doesn't have the same connotations as "dogs" would in modern English. I'm well aware that translating between modern English and modern Spanish has problems of exactly that type, where nearly synonymous words mean different things. I got into a whole discussion years ago discussing the differences between the words for "grandmother" in English and in Spanish. They may not matter at all to you, but if you were being referred to as "grandmother" in both languages, you'd want to know that the "correct" word was used in each language. (A native Spanish speaker settled on "Abuelita" for Spanish, and "Grandma" in English. "Abuelita" literally is a diminutive of "abuela", grandmother, but has a CONNOTATION of more familiarity than "abuela." I also had to try to articulate the difference between "grandma" and "granny" to a non-English speaker, which took 2 people to explain, since the denotation is the same but the connotations are not, not exactly.) So, in Spanish, making a diminutive of a word doesn't always connote a diminutive of something, a different meaning can be conveyed. Hampson said the same thing happens when switching from "kuon" (an insult) to "kunarion." Based on my misadventures in Spanish, I'm ready to believe that. (In one localization, a singular word that's a strong insult stops becoming an insult when used in a plural diminutive and applied to a swarm of children fleeing school at the end of the school day.) I'm aware that, in Japanese, there's a word that normally translates to "idiot" and doesn't mean that when, say, a girl uses it when addressing a boy she's dating- the context making it clear she doesn't mean the same thing. If I knew all sorts of languages, I'm sure I could cite many more examples across the spectrum. So, if a word, translated directly, denotes the same thing literally but the CONNOTATION is completely different, what do you do? From what I've seen, experts don't translate it directly. In some cases, they go around translating it quite a distance. That's just Spanish to English. Hampson was saying that the same thing can happen in Koine Greek, and I'm prepared to believe him. Then the question becomes, what DO we do in this instance? Facing several options, none of which are optimal, he picked the one that was least problematic. I followed him through his steps, and I think he was reasonable. It might have been done in exactly the same way if it was a problematic words in Spanish being translated to English- or vice versa. ]

Disagree. I'm only speaking for myself here, but I think the real problems with understanding stem from 2 things. The smaller problem is expecting the Bible to be a textbook written for a modern audience. We, here and now, would prefer that, but it would have been impenetrable for centuries. (Different styles benefit different people and work better for different times and different mindsets.) The larger problem really is having preconceived notions about what it is SUPPOSED to say, and cherry-picking to try to support that rather than read the whole thing to find out what it actually says. That's actual work, and requires one to double-check one's denomination. (Then again, I was already starting to do that while in twi before the splits happened, and I wasn't in terribly long.) If you're taught, say, there's Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Limbo, then if you even open your Bible, you're likely to just look for something that might look like it supports precisely that position, rather than making the effort to get the whole picture from the Bible. A tertiary problem is awful translations- but a lot of those stem from a translator with the larger problem. I've found that reading an interlinear often corrects those pretty easily and painlessly.

Um, how about that "Lost in Space" movie, with one of the Matt's from "Friends" in the cast?

"You might have misunderstood me. I was only speaking of Hampson ignoring the problem - not you." Right, but since he's not here, and we're the ones discussing, and I brought it up, I thought it was incumbent upon me to address whatever your concern was. "The "elephant in the room" is that the word "dog" is in the Greek text for Matthew 15:26-27, and Hampson's solution to ignore them or have translations delete them from the bible seems to be promoting willful ignorance (IOW - burying one's head in the sand)." OK, I can address that. "...Hampson's solution to ignore them or have translations delete them from the bible seems to be promoting willful ignorance (IOW - burying one's head in the sand). Do you think this is a good enough way to deal with these scriptures?" The first thing I agree with is that rushing to an answer doesn't do this justice. So, a flat "yes" or "no" here is no good. (Have I stopped beating my wife?) In general, and as a guiding principle, I tend to think the primary goal of translation is to correctly translate, which sounds redundant, but actually is not, since that's what we're discussing. I tend to think a translator should not leave things untranslated. I'm also well aware that incorrect translations are problems. If you read any English version I'm aware of, you'll find the word "wolves" used in a negative way, as something feared. I object to the incorrect translations. The animal in question was the JACKAL, which was native to Palestine and the Middle East (the wolf was not.) It's as unfair to render it "wolf" as it is to render it "jaguar"- knowing that they're native to the Americas and nowhere else. What does it matter? It mattered to the real wolves. People in Europe hunted them down, partly because they were falsely correlated with evil workings. (Partly for other reasons also.) I'm also aware that sometimes a problematic word is best left untranslated- if you want to understand what was going on. We previously discussed once the usage of the word that is, in the Greek, "anothen." Jesus told Nicodemus that unless a man be born anothen, he couldn't see the kingdom of God. Much wrangling has been made of what the Aramaic did or didn't say, of what this word means here, but ultimately, this word was not critical to understanding Nicodemus' reaction to Jesus. Nicodemus heard Jesus, and asked how a man could be born when he's old? Nicodemus didn't pay any attention to the word "anothen" there, just on the (adult) man being born despite already being an adult. In that case, a lot of arguing about something that didn't matter could be skipped by not translating "anothen" there because it was non-critical to understanding the account. Do I prefer leaving anything untranslated? No, but I'm aware that sometimes, we have limited options, and I'd prefer to pick the least-objectionable option out of those available, if I must pick at all. So, do I think that leaving a word untranslated is allowable at all, and an option at least some of the time? Yes, because I've seen it work before. The example I just gave is sufficient for me. The next question would be- do I think this particular situation can only be served by leaving a word untranslated? That's a much more specific question, and one that can be addressed more specifically. Hampson made his case that there was no clear English word or phrase that could translate this word, retaining the original meaning while not injecting an additional meaning into it due to connotations in English. I think he made a sufficient case. As in the example I gave, the account is fully coherent without it, and makes sense. If it's included, the only "benefits" are to add something problematic that wasn't there to begin with, and the additional "benefit" of 100% completion of translating everything. I find that a goal more worth achieving in video games than in translations, where the answers are not always so clear. Was there an incident? Yes. But keeping in a poorly-translated word means we lose what happened while everyone fixates on the meaning that was never there to begin with. --------------------------------------- I'm aware of a different incident where a translation COULD be corrected, but the wrong word means people fixate on something that doesn't exist. "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." I wish I had a dollar for every time someone taught about the IMAGINARY gate entering Jerusalem called "the eye of the needle". When passing through this IMAGINARY gate, imaginary merchants would need to remove the imaginary trading goods from their imaginary camels, then get the camels to scoot through this tiny gate, then reload them. No city would put up with such a restriction for one moment longer than it needed to. ("We've been clearing the rubble from that earthquake. The only way to get in now is very narrow. We won't have that widened for another day or so.") Residents of Jerusalem weren't idiots. Any entrance like that would discourage trade and slow down trade. (Find me one Jew in any country in any century who is in favor of hindering business deals.) So, people fixate on this thing about a camel passing through the eye of a needle. But it's an incorrect translation. In Aramaic, the word for "camel" and the word for "rope" are effectively homonyms. (I examined the words side by side, and could not see any difference in their spellings.) So, passing a ROPE through the eye of a needle. The entire sentence was about something physically impossible, and is much easier to picture with rope. If it was a single thread, it could pass. As a rope, it was the right shape, but far too large to pass. Mind you, if we had no way of knowing this, if one were actually vague about what was passing through the eye of a needle, one would still get the same meaning- something clearly impossible. There are people who say that it meant "camel" but the meaning of the sentence was something literally impossible. So, despite an incorrect translation, they get to the point anyway. ----------------------------------------------- I disagree with the characterization of Hampson as either "promoting willful ignorance" or "burying one's head in the sand." He's heading off a manufactured controversy that wasn't in the original, and staying focused on what the passage was actually about. I find that the opposite of "willful ignorance". I suppose, if my whole reason for caring about this passage was in using the incorrect translation to make a point the original never made, all to make it look like the original had a problem it never had, then this approach might indeed look like "burying one's head in the sand." It certainly would take all the fun out of complaining about and criticizing the passage over what it never said in the original. Myself, I blame the translators more than anyone else.

CORRECT.

I feel your pain. I get that sometimes.