Origins of the Bible

[moimeme]

Continuing...

 

I don't care how YOU interpret the bible, dyer - it's pretty obvious that if "there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman", IT DOESN'T TAKE SCOOBY DOO TO FIGURE OUT what the f*** they were talking about! I care even less about "modern innovations". It's there, in black on white, and I'm pretty sure the original texts give the same message.

 

Again, if you plan to discuss a piece of literature, you have to study it in its context and not just take one piece out of several thousand pages and pretend you can possibly understand it.

 

Did you read the link I posted to Dyer's discussion on abominations at all?

 

You need to undertstand that the Bible wasn't written on paper in English in 'black and white' as you put it. It's been pieced together from very old books written two thousand years ago in other languages. I'm not exactly sure how you, the person who insists on empirical proof, can say so easily that you're 'pretty sure the original texts give the same message' when you don't even get what that message is supposed to be and who it's geared to.

 

You also totally miss the irony that people who swear to live by the Bible still eat pork and shellfish and do everything else that Leviticus cautions against yet somehow justify their use of that one little passage out of thousands of pages. Human nature, unfortunately, being what it seems to often be, people bastardize the Bible to assist their prejudicial cases. It's not valid in any way, shape, or form but those who refuse to think for themselves continue to believe that the Bible is anti-gay. While they snarf down their shrimp cocktails

 

If you had ever taken a class in translation, you would find that there is no such thing as a universal meaning to any word or phrase, much less parables and tales from so long ago. If, in fact, there was universal meaning, there, obviously, would be no disagreement on what the Bible means or says - but there is.

 

So your quickfire reading of one phrase from Google cannot possibly qualify you as a Bible scholar. And your case, therefore, holds zero credibility.

[RowanRavyn]

::Raises hand::

 

How exactly would a man lie with another man the way he lies with a woman? I mean women have vagina's. I know, I got one. OOOO maybe it means if you do missionary with a woman you shouldn't do missionary with a guy?

[dyermaker]

I continued it in Private Messages, because by the time I get home from school, threads are locked.

 

I'm reposting it here, not to be argumentative or incendiary, but simply for academic purposes. There's a chance someone reading this doesn't understand the bible.

 

Let me explain what the book of Leviticus is, and I hope you're reading this with a somewhat open mind.

 

There were twelve tribes of Israel. One of those tribes was the tribe of Levi. If the Jews ever rebuild the temple, the descendants of Levi will be the priests again. The tribe of Levi had a book of laws governing ritual cleanliness.

 

Just as they didn't understand human sexuality (that people could be born homosexual), they didn't understand Germ Theory. When people got diseases from Pork or Shellfish, they assumed that it was because God considered these items unclean.

 

So they wrote down, in what's now Leviticus (Laws of Levi), that Priests are not to eat pork, because it's ritually unclean. They also wrote that priests are not to eat shellfish, beacuse it's ritually unclean.

 

Additionally, these priests were sexual ascetics. They didn't have sex for pleasure, they only had sex to further their lineage. They soon found out that a pregnant woman couldn't have children. They soon found out that a menstruating woman couldn't have children. They already knew two men couldn't have children. So sex for pleasure, in all three respects, were ritually unclean.

 

Notice how I said "ritually unclean" and not "abomination". This is because the King James translation of the Bible uses the word 'abomination' instead of 'ritually unclean', which is the original word written in the Bible. The word written was 'toehbah', which referred to ritual cleanliness, and had nothing to do with what we now consider the word 'abomination' to mean. Contrary to popular belief, committing an 'abomination' (read: violation of cleanliness laws) did not mean you were destined for hell, it just meant you had to be isolated until you cleansed yourself.

 

As for Paul condemning homosexuality, that's an entirely different story. Paul was the first leader of the Christian Church, there would be no Christianity without him. When he wrote letters condemning homosexuality, it wasn't because gays were living in peace along the countryside. It was because heterosexual men were participating in PAGAN FERTILITY RITUALS that included male sodomy. The entire condmenation of man-to-man sex was based on the fact that people were reverting to Pagan rituals, which stopped the advancement of Christianity.

[moimeme]

Thanks, Dyer I'm getting lazy and didn't want to dig up all the history. I figured you'd have it handy anyway

[RowanRavyn]

WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

 

Dyer,

 

Thank you so much for your post. I have posted similar things on the AOL boards during the gay marriage debate.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by moimeme

I'm getting lazy

So long as you get plenty of rest before attempting a translation of the most important document in human history, you wouldn't want future generations to completely misunderstand the original text.

[Papillon]

The pagan ritual thing..... do you have conclusive proof that that was Paul's motivation? Or is it simply an assumption, reasonable though it may be?

[moimeme]

If you're planning to live by Paul, then don't every buy your gf any gold jewellery, don't let her put her hair up, and she absolutely cannot be a teacher - Paul wrote those things, too, among others.

[dyermaker]

The pagan ritual thing..... do you have conclusive proof that that was Paul's motivation? Or is it simply an assumption, reasonable though it may be?

I wish I hadn't sold my textbook, all I have is notes.

 

I don't think there's such thing as conclusive evidence about someone's motivations though, that's inherently cicumstantial.

 

Context:

1. Pagan fertility rituals were unacceptable behavior for Christians

2. Pagan fertility rituals included practices of man-man relations, along with orgies, etc..

3. Paul wrote the letter to a confused group of Christians in Corinth--He was answering a letter written to him in the first place

4. Paul, devoting his life to the prosperity of the Christian Church, didn't want his Christians to be associating with Pagans.

5. Paul uses the Greek word 'malakos' to condemn the sexually immoral.

 

Morality in general, has always evolved as human knowledge increases.

 

It's not hard for me to understand why someone would think that a heterosexual man who leaves his wife and his faith to participate in orgies that include male to male sex is immoral.

 

It's extremely difficult for me to imagine the modern concept of homosexuality--which can be equal to heterosexuality in terms of monogamy, intimacy, and love--being condemned as immoral.

 

There was something destructive about Pagan fertility rituals, they dissolved the unity of the budding church and were detrimental to the commitment of marriage.

 

There was nothing destructive about homosexuality as we know it today, something Paul lacked the credentials to understand, and really had no reason to condemn. Parchment wasn't cheap.

 

So, no, no conclusive brain scans of Paul, but it's a bit more than an assumption. Throwing in a condmenation of homosexuals makes no sense in the context of a letter to the Corinthian Christians.

[Papillon]

Ah, but he specifically puts homosexuals in the same boat is philanderers, thieves, adulterers, etc... He does not talk about homoesxuality in the context of a pagan ritual - he simply talks about the person, same way as he talks about a thief and an adulterer.

 

From my point of view you're stretching things a little. But that's not to say your wrong, you might very well be right. I just think it's circumstantial (I hadn't even thought of it it that context until you mentioned "circumstantial")

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by Papillon

Ah, but he specifically puts homosexuals in the same boat is philanderers, thieves, adulterers, etc...

Please note that there are only one or two translations among many who use the word 'homosexual', most did a little more research before translating things.

[Papillon]

Can you please provide a direct translation, it should be interesting to see the difference?

[dyermaker]

Here's 1Cr 6:9, then I have to go to bed.

 

Greek : eido ou hoti adikos kleronomeo ou kleronomeo basileia theos

 

English : Know that the [violators of justice] won't inherit the kingdom of God.

 

=============

 

Greek : planao me planao

 

English : Don't be fooled

 

=======================

 

Greek : oute pornos oute eidololatres oute moichos oute malakos oute arsenokoites

 

Not [men who have sex before marriage] nor [Christians who participate in the heathen ceremonies] nor [people who commit adultery] nor [a male who submits his body to unnatural lewdness] nor [those that defile themselves]...

 

"oute" means "neither/nor".

 

Pornos was used for prostitute, but also meant a MAN (not a woman) who had sex before marriage, a fornicator. This was relevant to the Pagan fertility ceremony, as men participating already had wives.

 

Eidololatres means idolator, but--and I'm NOT making this up--it was used, as it is in this context, to describe a Christian taking part in heathen ceremonies.

 

According to Thayer's Lexicon:

 

"A Christian Participant in any way in the worship of a heathen"

 

That should be evidence enough, If Paul meant run of the mill idolators, he would have been more clear in the conjugation of eidolon, as he has in other of his writings.

 

It ends, in the next verse, with "shall not inherit the kingdom of God", same Greek as before.

[Papillon]

I've done some reading on this, and I must agree that the meaning is defnitely unclear. "Malakos" directly translated means "spineless", or "soft"...I guess you could tranliterate it to mean "effeminiate", but we're already stretching it.

 

Take a bow, Dyer!

[BlockHead]

moimeme

If you're planning to live by Paul, then don't every buy your gf any gold jewellery, don't let her put her hair up, and she absolutely cannot be a teacher - Paul wrote those things, too, among others.

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart D. Ehrman

p66

The way that most people understand the terms “Son of God” and “Son of Man” today is probably at odds with how they would have been understood by many Jews in the first century. In our way of thinking, a “son of God” would be a god (or God) and a “son of man” would be a man. Thus, “Son of God refers to Jesus’ divinity and “Son of Man” to his humanity. But this is just the opposite of what the terms meant for many first-century Jews, for whom “son of God” commonly referred to a human (e.g., King Solomon; cf. 2 Sam 7:14) and “son of man” to someone divine (cf. Dan 7:13-14).

In the New Testament Gospels, Jesus uses the term “son of man” in three different ways. On some occasions he uses it simply as a circumlocution for himself; that is, rather than referring directly to himself, Jesus sometimes speaks obliquely of “the son of man” (e.g., Matt 8:31). Finally, he occasionally uses the term with reference to a cosmic figure who is coming to bring the judgment of God at the end of time (Mark 8:38), a judgment that Mark’s Gospel expects to be imminent (9:1, 13:30). For Mark himself, of course, the passages that speaks of the coming Son of Man refer to Jesus, the one who is returning soon as the as the judge of the earth. As we will see later, scholars debate which, if any, of these three uses of the term can be ascribed to the historical Jesus

You never learn do you.

 

dyermaker

There was something destructive about Pagan fertility rituals, they dissolved the unity of the budding church and were detrimental to the commitment of marriage.

I don’t see how fertility rituals fits into Paul’s talk about lawsuits among each other, and the condemnation of prostitution.

 

I wonder what book you used?

dyermaker

something Paul lacked the credentials to understand

Looks like I will need to get certified by a bunch of know-it-alls.

Socrates and Plato were fools because they weren’t certified by an accredited university.

[dyermaker]

I don’t see how fertility rituals fits into Paul’s talk about lawsuits among each other, and the condemnation of prostitution.

Heh, this I don't doubt. You see what you want to.

Looks like I will need to get certified by a bunch of know-it-alls.

Socrates and Plato were fools because they weren’t certified by an accredited university.

The concept of homosexuality is a modern innovation. The connection between 'malakos' and 'homosexuality' is weak.

[RowanRavyn]

Originally posted by BlockHead

You never learn do you.

 

I don’t see how fertility rituals fits into Paul’s talk about lawsuits among each other, and the condemnation of prostitution.

 

 

The area was flooded with pagan temples. One of the ways to worship or know "god" was to have ritual sex with a temple prostitute. Men were having sex with each other not because it was geneticly encoded, but because it was a sacrifice to the gods. It was an act that was contrary to their nature. Straight men and women having sex with temple prostitutes of the same sex.

 

This had nothing to do with people that were in commited relationships.

 

The error was that it was a deviation from what Paul wanted to establish as "Acceptable" worship. He was struggling to establish ground rules in worship, and his rules were different from all else that was acceptable. It was simply a way to assert authority, and "order" and to differentiate from other religions and ways of worship. This had nothing to do with the private intimate lives of the Christians in the area.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by RowanRavyn

This had nothing to do with people that were in commited relationships.

It didn't?

 

The reason you had gay sex as part of a Pagan fertliity ritual was to be able to conceive a child. If you want to conceive a child, chances are you have a willing partner back home.

[moimeme]

You never learn do you.

 

Your post had nothing whatsoever to do with mine. At all. In the least.

 

And if by 'never learn' you mean never fall in line with your beliefs - well DUH! You got that right, bub!

[RowanRavyn]

Originally posted by dyermaker

 

It didn't?

 

The reason you had gay sex as part of a Pagan fertliity ritual was to be able to conceive a child. If you want to conceive a child, chances are you have a willing partner back home.

 

 

Ok, Dyer

 

I was agreeing with you, but I was also saying that homosexual couples living in the area were not the ones being targeted.

 

Do you have to argue with people who are agreeing with you?

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by RowanRavyn

Ok, Dyer

 

I was agreeing with you, but I was also saying that homosexual couples living in the area were not the ones being targeted.

 

Do you have to argue with people who are agreeing with you?

Oh brother.

 

I asked a question, because I didn't understand.