Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ulysses.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!ulysses!smb 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 References: <941@phs.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 41 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.