Well stated and continues your original point.. That of course is a huge debate with theologians . Now not speaking ancient Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Armaic, I can only imagine the challenge of trying to translate ancient languages into a modern context and not change the meaning. I only know when you translate back and forth in the above languages and add Arabic, there is a great deal of chance something gets mistranslated because of the lack of equivalency in words.
When you read the Old Testament the commenyary by Rabbiahs is as important to understand as the actual words and even they are of no help. In theory one sentence in the Old Testament could have an infinite number of meanings and thus the Talmud was created as a code of argument to keep the arguments flowing as to what those possible meanings could be. No sentence is meant to be read literally. That surface level is only where you start.
It's a common misconception for Christians to read the Old Testament and stop at the first literal level because they do so when reading say the Gospels. Now I am no scholar, but I have witnessed some incredible debates between Christians on some of the Gospels and what they mean. All I can tell you is I enjoy when people debate the possible meanings and never stop at just one. I would be fascinated to be able to travel a hundred years or so and see the next translation of the Bible. I find reading the KJ version a lot of work. Its like reading Shakespeare but me personally I don't see the newer easy to understand versions of having changed the Old Testament. I defer to Christians on the New Testament.
Mr. Hacker I read the Bible like I do Aesop's fables. I see them as allegories created to provide examples in stories to help people otherwise understand difficult concepts.
" the mistake in listening to Jewish people debate is taking it too seriously.. remember we created Marxism, Groucho, Gummo, Harpo.."
Rue 555
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