Re: the Bible, translation and gays

On Apr 13, 5:48=A0pm, hedr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
> rtdav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 writes:
> >You make the point that the bible was written to different cultures
> >with the obvious intent to cast some doubt on simply reading the bible
> >straight up... presumably we need to understand the culture it was
> >written to so that we avoid the error of just accepting what it says.
>
> But it was written to different cultures. That's a simple fact. The
> question is how that fact affects how we read it.
>
> There are at least three examples that as far as I know evangelicals
> agree with:
>
> 1. We do not bar employees of the Internal Revenue Service from
> being officers in churches, even though tax collectors are the
> standard NT example of sinners. Presumably this is because we
> think there are significant differences between Roman tax collectors
> and US ones.
>
> 2. We do not bar employees of banks, even though taking interest is
> condemned widely in the OT. Again, presumably there are enough
> differences in our economic system that interest is no longer
> necessarily abusive.
>
> 3. The Bible permits, and in some cases in the OT, encourages slavery.
> Everyone now believes that this is wrong.
>
> It may be that homo***uality doesn't fall into this category, but we
> can't solve that by pretending that we don't take the cultural context
> of acts into account.
>
> I realize that this is to some extent subjective. However there's no
> reason to think that the Bible can be properly applied without some
> degree of spiritual insight. If God had intended it to be a rulebook,
> he is perfectly capable of having created a lawbook rather than a
> mixture of narrative, poetry, letters, etc. But such an approach would
> violate the spirit of Jesus' teaching, and the letter of Paul's.
>
> I'm not taking a position on homo***uality here. It isn't immediately
> obvious to me that anything relevant has changed. But the question is
> certainly legitimate.

I'm not questioning that it was written to different cultures, of
course it was. And I agree with the basic premise that it is a
consideration that needs to be taken. I don't bother trying to cover
every angle of a subject in a post. My initial response actually did
include those points but I edited them out to simplify and keep things
as concise as possible. So for any that perhaps want to make this a
discussion primarily on whether or not cultural context should be
included in biblical interpretation, I agree, it should.

However, there was only a general mention of cultural context [with
one example] and an insinuation that perhaps the biblical
pronouncements on homo***uality should be considered irrelevant for
our culture today. There were no specifics on why it should be
considered such, just the mention of cultural context and the
insinuation. I do note that when shegeek wants to read the bible
straight up, such as in the promise mentioned, then there is no
discussion of cultural context. perhaps whosoever doesn't really mean
whosoever to our day and culture..... maybe that was only applicable
to the specific group it was written to....
I'm not really of course arguing such, but I mention it because if you
want to demonstrate some irrelevance of a clear biblical injunction,
then you need to provide more than an insinuation that it may be
irrelevant on cultural considerations. Why is it to be considered
irrelevant? What cultural settings make it so?

There is another area where I saw this happen alot. In my debates with
muslims years ago, there was a likewise insinuation about biblical
inerrancy. There are many variations through manuscripts. Muslims will
mention the amount of variations and then insinuate that we cannot
possibly know what the original versions said. They cannot however
prove by looking at the variations a specific chain of addition or
subtraction to the texts. There are just alot of copy errors over alot
of manuscripts. So they don't ever encourage actually looking at the
variation, it fits thier agenda more to NOT actually check the
variations which would prove thier point wrong. However the
insinuation from all these variations to a point of "not being able to
know what the text says" works well. Because there are actually alot
of variations. However research on the specifics will show that we can
actually be nearly certain of what the original texts said.

shegeek used the same technique in the second point. insinuating that
the original meaning is all but lost. I disagree.
If it can be shown that at one time the manuscripts had one text, but
later there were additions to it, then we can be start to consider it
more clearly. however with the mere insinuations, i'm not going to
take it very seriously. I do understand there are actually several
places: the pericope of the adultress and marks long ending, that do
not have a place in our earlier manuscripts. so those accordingly are
noted as such in most new translations. but in regards to the passages
on homo***uality.......

I believe shegeeks post to be very heavy on insinuation but lacking in
any convincing detail.