[.eXe]

(Original post by Good bloke)
You are missing the point. The best translation is the one that gives the same meaning as the original language. Picking and choosing between translations is only valid for people who understand what the original means.

Actually I am not missing any point because you have yet to make one. You are arguing translations with me. Go learn Hebrew and translate the dead sea scrolls for yourself to see exactly what the translation was. If you don't want to agree with me that the translation I have posted is a more explanatory one, that's fine with me.

But don't come here and try to get me to justify WHY the translations are different or WHY one of them is a little more contextual than the other.

You think you've made a point? All you've done is argue specifics about why one translation doesn't have one thing that the other does. As i have said over and over again, one is meant to provide better understanding of the verse.

This is 2000 year old writing we are talking about, not an Ayn Rand essay. If you're expecting context, explanation and footnotes in every verse so that you can understand it to your satisfaction, I suggest you stop reading holy books. They aren't meant to be exhaustive and provide explanation for every single person. To be frank, many contemporary books don't even do that.

There's a reason Shakespeare takes a while to fully grasp or Catcher in the Rye makes people arrive at different conclusions.

You seem to have never read a book or done literary analysis because your arguments are very banal. And you thought you were making a point

[Good bloke]

(Original post by .eXe)
But don't come here and try to get me to justify WHY the translations are different or WHY one of them is a little more contextual than the other.

Why not? Unless you know the original language you have no basis on which to make that claim at all. Do you know the original language?

All you've done is argue specifics about why one translation doesn't have one thing that the other does. As i have said over and over again, one is meant to provide better understanding of the verse.

Er, no. I have simply made the point that, without knowledge and understanding of the original, one is not qualified to comment on which is the better translation. Providing a supposed better context is irrelevant, and damaging if it isn't justified by what the original says.

[tazarooni89]

(Original post by Nacho King)
Genesis 6:3

Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

Many Christians interpret this as God putting a limit on human age up to 120 years old.

However Jeanne Louise Calment lived to 122 years, 164 days from 21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

If they interpret it that way, then how do they interpret/account for the fact that according to the Bible, Noah is supposed to have lived for something like 900 years?

[.eXe]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Why not? Unless you know the original language you have no basis on which to make that claim at all. Do you know the original language?

NO I don't know hebrew or aramaic or whatever the language was for that specific verse. However, the bible wasn't translated by a single man in a basement somewhere, where the chance of an error or bias would have been high. The bible has been independently translated at different time priods by numerous authorities.

In fact according to wiki: The Bible continues to be the most translated book in the world. The following numbers are approximations. As of 2005, at least one book of the Bible has been translated into 2,400 of the 6,900 languages listed by SIL, including 680 languages in Africa, followed by 590 in Asia, 420 in Oceania, 420 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 210 in Europe, and 75 in North America. The United Bible Societies are presently assisting in over 600 Bible translation projects. The Bible is available in whole or in part to some 98 percent of the world's population in a language in which they are fluent.

I hope you will not take a childish approach and say that wiki is not citable.

So to say that the only way to believe something is if you personally have been involved in the translation process is gibberish. If that is your argument, you sound more ridiculous than I first thought.

Er, no. I have simply made the point that, without knowledge and understanding of the original, one is not qualified to comment on which is the better translation. Providing a supposed better context is irrelevant, and damaging if it isn't justified by what the original says.

Lol so I guess that IS your argument. I stand corrected Oh man, grasping now are we. I guess you shouldn't trust Galileo's writings either because you didn't personally translate them yourself

This conversation has been a large waste of my time. Thanks.

[floridadad55]

(Original post by Nacho King)
Genesis 6:3

Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

Many Christians interpret this as God putting a limit on human age up to 120 years old.

However Jeanne Louise Calment lived to 122 years, 164 days from 21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

Maybe God changed his mind in about 1995

[Photox]

It's wrong? I would have thought that this was obvious.

[Photox]

(Original post by Nacho King)
What does that matter? If you are saying that the Bible is not relevant to us today, then why is God not releasing Bible version 2?

Well he is, there are men and women Christian and non-Christian all over the world proclaiming to be speaking Gods word and showing humanity the light, but they are all labelled insane or even blasphemous, you want Bible versions 2, 3, 45 etc, go into any insane asylum and write what they say down, hopefully this will allow you to reflect on the relevance and intent of bible version 1.

[Nacho King]

(Original post by Photox)
Well he is, there are men and women Christian and non-Christian all over the world proclaiming to be speaking Gods word and showing humanity the light, but they are all labelled insane or even blasphemous, you want Bible versions 2, 3, 45 etc, go into any insane asylum and write what they say down, hopefully this will allow you to reflect on the relevance and intent of bible version 1.

These people are lying, and this can be seen by the fact that God seems to give totally different messages to the people who claim they have been spoken to by god. They use the God as an excuse to further their ideologies or to gain fortune or fame.

Mathew 7:15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by Design_Me_A_Tom)
Is that not an excuse by Christians to avoid the craziness of the OT?

I'm atheist, so of course I think the NT is incorrect in any case, making the incorrectness of the OT even more incorrect. If you see what I mean. I think that most people that read the whole OT need to justify it like I did in my post, because it's pretty sick most of the time, or they deconvert. But academics are pretty unified on the idea that the OT isn't what Christianity is based on, after all, it wasn't founded until Jesus supposedly preached. The OT is the Jewish text, really.