In defense of Abrahamics, I must say that you have to know the Bible or other texts in order to critcise it.
I’ll criticise the Bible the day I learn ancient Koine and read the Bible in the original vulgar Koine. I’ll criticise the Talmud the day I read it in ancient Hebrew. And I’ll criticise the Koran the day I read it in the ancient Arabic.
H. L. Mencken did some of those things, however…
Beh, translations work. You don’t need to read Greek, just be careful of your translations and compare alternatives and manuscript types. I know the Bible a Hell of a lot better than 99% of Christians I’ve ever met. For that matter, I like the Bible more than they do. I just don’t believe it. It’s full of mythology, legends and bronze age barbarism. Just like the Illiad.
Translations work?
One scholar who speaks Koine clarified the “Love Thy Enemy” section. Enemy was a misleading word. Old Christians were okay serving as soldiers and killing Rome’s barbaric enemies without loving them. Enemies rather meant NEIGHBOURS, or neighbours with whom you have disputes. The cosmopolitan world of the Mediterannean had Greeks, Latins, Hebrews, Persians, and Arab tribals rubbing shoulders and getting into fights over small property disputes or cattle.
Entire passages thus end up confused or distorted this way.
The Greek of the Bible is fairly simple, so in that respect a translation does not change too much of the sense of the original. As Prateek notes, there can be certain terms that need elaboration, but a good translation may note this (this is even more likely to be present for the Bible). For a text like the Iliad, however, an English translation turns out to be a very different work.
The Illiad is written in rather archaic Greek, but I think people generally agree Lattimore’s translation is pretty accurate.
As for the Bible, absolutely. Get the Oxford Study Tanakh (Old Testament) and Lattimore’s New Testament. The Catholic Bible is also mostly good. Picking up something like Robert Price’s Pre-Nicene New Testament can also be helpful as it deconstructs the text and is a very nice translation of the Greek.
Yeah, Lattimore is accurate, but no translation can really capture the poetic sense of the Greek. Of course I don’t expect anyone who just wants to read the Iliad to learn Greek when they have a perfectly fine translation at hand.
Poetry and word play never quite translates right; however, I’ve never been much of a fan of that sort of thing. I wish someone would write a pure-prose version of the Illiad; ditto with Paradise Lost. I mean, it’s not like someone is singing it to me, all the weird lines and stuff just make it annoying to read.
Not sure here. Do you mean [in your last paragraph] that God causes the business cycle?
James,
So you prefer Tales From Shakespeare to the plays themselves?
There are prose translations of the Iliad. I have one by Martin Hammond. It does, of course, have an epic flavour.
Your posts are filled with ignorant dogmatism.
Roemer, please, don’t ‘help’ me.
Edit: Reread my original post and it came off as way more offensive/aggressive than I intended.
I don’t really see a point to your comment. It seems that you have set the stage for some joke, insight, etc. with the anecdote but don’t deliver the final punch line. I have reread it several times looking for the meaning/point but I am failing to find it. Also, you come off as a bit prejudice making the assumption that all people of similar backgrounds/religions/race/nationality are friends. I am definitely not friends with all of the people of my country/race/religion.
Also, I am not familiar with the context of your post but it seems that you are just making an appeal to authority as to why macroeconomics is a “lot of hogwash”. Your post doesn’t appear to actually address any of the underlying issues/reasons you believe this.
Companion to The Iliad helps a lot, it is meant to go with the Lattimore translation as well
Answer to Micah71381
o_O
the op confuses me.
Answer to Micah71381?
Answer to micah7138!
There are three classes of reasons I believe in God: 1) historical Jesus, 2) cosmological proof of God’s existence, and 3) people who don’t believe give bad reasons.
Ricky James Moore II, for example, does not have a rational concept of God. He thinks of God as if God was a finite being, like most atheists. God is an infinite being. An example of a finite being is ourselves. You exist and I exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are two different beings. We are finite beings. God is not like this.
We know an infinite being exists because a finite being needs a cause. If all beings needed a cause the universe would not be intelligible. QED
Just as Milton Friedman doesn’t know the proof of God’s existence, he doesn’t know the proof of the Austrian theory of the business cycle. It is not economics that Friedman has a neurotic reaction to. It is revelation. There are three classes of reasons I believe in God: 1) historical Jesus, 2) cosmological proof of God’s existence, and 3) people who don’t believe give bad reasons.
Ricky James Moore II, for example, does not have a rational concept of God. He thinks of God as if God was a finite being, like most atheists. God is an infinite being. An example of a finite being is ourselves. You exist and I exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are two different beings. We are finite beings. God is not like this.
We know an infinite being exists because a finite being needs a cause. If all beings needed a cause the universe would not be intelligible. QED
Just as Milton Friedman doesn’t know the proof of God’s existence, he doesn’t know the proof of the Austrian theory of the business cycle. It is not economics that Friedman has a neurotic reaction to. It is revelation.
Ricky James Moore II, for example, does not have a rational concept of God. He thinks of God as if God was a finite being, like most atheists. God is an infinite being. An example of a finite being is ourselves. You exist and I exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are two different beings. We are finite beings. God is not like this.
‘God’ is some incoherent nonsense the Jews made up when they began getting embaressed that JHWH was Hebrew Thor.
David Roemer says: