Re: Museum accused of censoring Palestinian exhibition

> Just in the interest of accuracy, I wrote, "as far as I understand it (and I am
> far from an expert), [the NIV] has been "edited" ("corrupted") from the
> originals".  "Belief" is a considerably stronger word, and in particularly would
> require substantially more research, as elaborated below (e.g., I have stated
> earlier that I believe the Palestinians are descendants of the "Ten Lost
> Tribes", as I have done substantially more research on that question).

  Perhaps. Most likely, if it is the case at all, the Palestinians are
descendants of those in the Kingdom of Israel *plus* a variety of
others, since the "Samaritans" intermarried with (IIRC) Babylonians and
perhaps Assyrians -- maybe some others too, I dunno. At any rate, by the
time of Caesar Augustus, they were looked on as those of mixed ancestry
by the Jews.


> If you think about it, determining their credibility is actually quite - or
> rather, extremely - difficult.  There are too many political agendas and
> emotions involved to take anything at face value in these times.  The only way

  The problem is, there always are. It's been demonstrated that the KJV
was translated in a monarch friendly way.

> to make a credibility determination is to consult the original ancient language
> texts, but these are not available to me and even if they were I have no hope of
> understanding them :-/.  Indeed, since they represent a dead language it is my

  Not perfectly, but pretty well. I've started learning Koine Greek and
its fairly simple in structure. We know pretty much about the culture of
the times, so you can reconstruct cultural influences. Considering that
they can get a good grasp on stuff like Homer that's 800 or so years
earlier, this is really a piece of cake (relatively speaking). :-)

> I would also add another systemic problem with a contemporary translation: 
> Whenever someone "changes" / re-"translates" the "word of God", always ask
> yourself:  who benefits (not simply financially but in the far more important
> realm of ideology and belief)?  And surely upon close inspection you will find
> the invisible hands of these beneficiaries behind the changes.

  Most translations these days are translation by committee to help (at
least hopefully) with this. For the NIV, I can't recall for sure, but I
want to say around 40-50 organizations and denominations were
represented in the translation process). The process was done by the
International Bible Society, although Zondervan (now owned by
HarperColins... it wasn't at the time though) owns the publishing rights
to the translation.

  Now, if you don't trust the NIV (and you shouldn't trust any
translation to be 100% accurate), you ought to compare multiple good
translations. So, try the NSRV, the NIV, the WEB, the RSV, etc. I also
like the MKJV. For a modern Catholic Bible, try the New Jerusalem
Bible... it's pretty nice (and for fun, you get the added bonus of the
Apocrypha). 

  NIV does have a bias, no denying that. But it isn't enough to trouble
me -- I just wouldn't be dogmatic about using it (nor do I believe in
dogmatic preference for any translation for the same reasons). I like
the WEB since it is all volunteer based and has a 7-stage careful
translation process, although most of it comes from the American
Standard Version of 1911, so it doesn't benefit from the most recent
texts. 


> Let me make a note about so-called "scholars".  At least in the US, and probably
> in most of the world, money buys scholars - whoever funds a University post gets
> a puppet to parrot the funders' ideology.  Thus for example the big US
> "foundations" - such as the clearly misnamed Carnegie Endowment for
> International Peace, the Ford Foundation - have a vast influence over
> "respected" scholars even though they have their own political agendas and have
> no more knowledge over the fundamentals than anyone else does.  If the
> foundations put their money to it, all the current crop of "respected" scholars
> would be replaced with another crop having a different set of opinions in short
> order.

  Most of these trusts and foundations are rather hostile to
Christianity, so I doubt they would have been sponsoring the IBS.


> In particular, in addition to the questions above, I would very much appreciate
> your views on the alleged "humanization" of Jesus in the NIV, since this
> dovetails into another issue I am currently researching, namely, the One World
> Religion and the Noahidic Laws.

  Ah, perhaps we agree on something, you believe in the arrival
(eventually) of the One World Religion?

> KJV 1 Timothy 3:16 says "God was Manifest in the Flesh" but the NIV says "He
> appeared in a body".  Also compare Philippians 2:6 from NIV and KJV, which does
> a similar metamorphisis of Jesus from God incarnate to prophet.

  This is a tough call. Neither seem to change (necessarily) the
meaning, if He is understood to be Jesus, since we can connect this with
John 1:1 where we read that the "Word was Flesh" and the "Word was God"
(yes, that's KJV -- that's what's stuck in my head).

  NIV footnotes are very helpful. For 1 Timothy 3:16, it says:

  "Some manuscripts God"

  It seems to be missing some punctuation, but whatever the case, it
seems that there is a slight difference in some manuscripts. That's
where a lot of changes crop up. The KJV translators had access to less
material. We have older, better manuscripts now, and usually the oldest
known manuscript is preferred. If you're interested in the other
criteria, I'd be happy to explain or you can read about the scholarly
study method known as "Text Criticism."

  The real problem you might have here, IMO, is that this translation to
/appeared/ from /manifest/ is that there is the indication that Jesus
might not have really had a physical body but was spiritually present. A
lot of the non-orthodox (little "o," not referring to Eastern church)
sects and cults of Christianity allege this.

> Note, however, that the Noahide Laws do not truly constitute a "One World
> Religion" as they would be imposed only on non-Jews; Jews would be subject to
> other laws, namely, the Talmud itself (see e.g.
> http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/censorship_1.html#appendix_a).

  Not familar with "Noahide Laws," but you may find it interesting that
modern day Evangelical interpretation of the prophecy suggests that the
Jews will eventually make a deal with the One World Ruler (unbeknownst
to them, the Antichrist) to keep their practices while the rest of the
world merges into the One World Religion.

> in a state court house and a school student is not allowed a moment of silence
> for voluntary prayer at school, the US government - both the Congress and
> President - have for a number of years *honored* the supremacist totalitarian
> Noahide dictator wannabe Schneerson as part of "Education Day USA", and have
> told us that the Jewish supremacist Noahidic laws form the "ethical values and
> principles . . . upon which our great Nation was founded".[4]  EXCUSE ME?

  I don't know enough about the Rabbis to say anything about them, but I
agree with the last part as a generalization beyond Scneerson, etc.

> [4]  In addition these Noachide Laws have apparently infected Freemasonry who
> hold it up as some sort of "universal" standard of "morality".

  Freemasonry has a lot of peculiarities in it. Most Christian orthodoxy
watchers believe it incompatible with Christianity.

  -Tim
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy R. Butler       Universal Networks      www.uninet.info
==================== <[email protected]> ====================
| Christian Portal:      | Have you not learned great lessons |
|      www.faithtree.com | from those  who  braced themselves |
| GNU/Linux News:        | against  you   and   disputed  the |
|            www.ofb.biz | passage with you?   --Walt Whitman |

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQA/yoR/K37Cns9gJ0gRAi/VAJ46eOHZ4RZBBTDEE4dtK0hvsjhtKACdGmjF
Qdv0HpsvodIqh939HWF4+fg=
=sCzW
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----