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From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Jesus, N'tzarim, and Yirmiyahu Ben David (pt 2)
Message-ID: <1004@ulysses.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 16:00:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulysses.1004
Posted: Mon Oct  1 16:00:27 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Oct-84 05:40:52 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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There are two additional points worth raising on the questions of
textual accuracy and translation.  First, ideological editing can take
place at a level far higher than that of textual changes.  The most
obvious example is the process of canonicalization -- who decided what
early writings should be considered part of the "Bible".

One case in point is the so-called "gnostic gospels" -- a collection of
early writings unearthed in 1947, but which was little-known for
several years for various reasons.  (See Elaine Pagel's book, "The
Gnostic Gospels"; the remainder of this paragraph is a very poor
summary of her conclusions.)  Some of the works found correspond quite
well to other Biblical texts of the time; others, though, are totally
new works that present a very different view of some of Jesus's
teachings.  Pagel's claim is that these works were omitted from the
canon because their proponents lost out in a power struggle with the
surviving church hierarchy.  Among the significant differences are
gnosticism, the status of women, and the role of Mary Magdalene.  It's
easy to claim, of course, that these views are not Christian -- but
that's begging the question, since the whole point is that these works
may present as accurate a picture of Jesus as do the accepted works.
(You're also welcome to claim that Pagel doesn't know what she's
talking about; however, she's a professional in this business (a
professor of religion, I believe), and I doubt very much if anyone on
this newsgroup is qualified to debate her on her specialty.  One need
not go so far afield to find works that some groups accept as canonical
and others don't, of course; consider the Apocrypha.  There are many
other Bible-like works that have survived.)

A second point is that some of the errors of translation and
interpretation are fundamental indeed.  The best-known cases from the
Tanach (the Old Testament) are the famous passage from Isaiah about a
child being born to either a young woman or a virgin, and the passage
about "until Shiloh come".  Both are held (by Christians) to refer to
the Messiah in general, and to Jesus in particular.  I posted a long
article several months ago on Shiloh; the gist of it was taken from
Hertz's commentary in the Soncino Bible.  I can summarize it all by
saying that the meaning is very unclear, the King James translation of
it is dubious at best, and no one can be certain what it means
(there is even some Jewish support for the view that it is messianic,
though not necessarily in the sense accepted by Christians).  These are
major doctrinal points, not grammatical niceties.