The Sun Revolves Around The Earth: Scripture Cannot Lie

[The Liturgist]

we are talking about the first context - not "vowel points" in an agreed upon set of texts.

The diacritical marks, vowel points and cantillation marks, which were added by the Masoretes, and which indicate how the text is to be pronounced and chanted, we know have a distinct impact, and are not a part of the original text, which contains consonants only (like most Semitic forms of writing).

By the way, we have no certain knowledge who the Masoretes even were. Some link them to Seleucia-Cstesiphon and the Rabinnical community that produced the Babylonian Talmud. Others say they were Karaite Jews.

But what is more relevant to this conversation is that the Earth does revolve around the Sun as established by astronomical observations going back to Tycho Brahe, and centuries of further observation, and decades of space flight.

 

[The Liturgist]

That means if you don't like what it written your problem is with God - not the writer.

No one here has a problem with what St. Daniel wrote, although it must be stressed that Daniel is divinely written, but not divinely authored. When we factor in scribal errors and variant readings and manuscript traditions, there are errors, and also variant interpretations.

The Bible is not a science textbook.

 

[BobRyan]

No one here has a problem with what St. Daniel wrote

Glad to hear it.

, although it must be stressed that Daniel is divinely written, but not divinely authored. When we factor in scribal errors and variant readings and manuscript traditions, there are errors, and also variant interpretations.

No doubt we have some accurate translations but the autograph may have had some tiny variant and as the dead sea scrolls demonstrate the variations did not change the text.

The Bible is not a science textbook.

And yet we can still believe in the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ? Even though the Bible is not a science text book telling humans exactly how to do it? Yet it remains true history - historic fact? hmmm... "exactly"!

 

[BobRyan]

The diacritical marks, vowel points and cantillation marks, which were added by the Masoretes, and which indicate how the text is to be pronounced and chanted, we know have a distinct impact,

good thing we are not chanting

 

[BobRyan]

It really doesn’t matter what was preserved in the temple

It did for those who had a canon of scripture kept unchanged for over 300 years by the first century A.D. The OT text that all of us still have to this very day.

It is that "other stuff" that we question.

 

[The Liturgist]

good thing we are not chanting

Uh most Eastern Christians, and also the traditional Western Rite, including some Anglicans, retain the ancient practice of chanting Scripture, especially the Psalms, Canticles and Gospels. Indeed we do this at my missions. It does not adversely impact legibility. We do not use Masoretic cantillation marks, however.

The Jews, nonetheless, are right to chant and sing the Bible, and the fact that they do this and always have done so, and the fact the Early Church and also the Eastern Christians and historically, Western Christians, did this, is illuminating.

 

[The Liturgist]

It did for those who had a canon of scripture kept unchanged for over 300 years by the first century A.D. The OT text that all of us still have to this very day.

It is that "other stuff" that we question.

What business do we have questioning the scriptures used by Ethiopian Jews and Ethiopian Christians?

 

[The Liturgist]

No doubt we have some accurate translations but the autograph may have had some tiny variant and as the dead sea scrolls demonstrate the variations did not change the text.

On the contrary, frequently the Dead Sea Scrolls support Septuagint rather than Masoretic textual variants, and also include fragments of books like 1 Enoch.

 

[Jipsah]

And yet we can still believe in the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ?

Are you saying that believing in those miracles is equivalent to believing that the earth is flat? Seriously?

 

[Jipsah]

good thing we are not chanting

Who's not?

 

[BobRyan]

Are you saying that believing in those miracles is equivalent to believing that the earth is flat? Seriously?

Do you have a quote from me saying that if you believe in the virgin birth, incarnation of Christ - then you believe in a flat earth? seriously? you have that?? Frankly - I doubt it.

 

[BobRyan]

The Old Testament is one of those things where you can be assured that events are based in truth, but due to a lower level of literacy and basic understanding of science some events might be slightly misportrayed or misunderstood by those who were writing them. Many Christians do not take Genesis literally for instance, the events surely happened but we are not united on interpretation of these events.

God is a 100% accurate communicator. He knows how to tell the truth even when the writer does not fully understand what the message means. Daniel expressed this several times in his writing - where he is writing what God says to write even though he himself does not understand it fully.

(so for example) Instead of Daniel mashing and munging the message to turn it into something he would expect/understand - he gives it just the way God said to do it .. this is what all Bible writers did. (and in the case of Daniel he reports several times that he was not sure what the information meant yet he accurately transmits the message... even so.)

That means if you don't like what is written your problem is with God - not the writer.

BobRyan said:
No doubt we have some accurate translations but the autograph may have had some tiny variant and as the dead sea scrolls demonstrate the variations did not change the text.

On the contrary, frequently the Dead Sea Scrolls support Septuagint rather than Masoretic textual variants, and also include fragments of books like 1 Enoch.

Sadly for that post - my comment above was about the DSS proving that copyist errors over time do not change the meaning of the text.

The book of Enoch is not a 'variants' in the text of Genesis (for example) -- so that is a different topic.

 

[Yekcidmij]

As for the preceding parts, use Alexandrian exegesis and don’t read them literally, as 1 Enoch is an apocalypse, like the latter portion of Revelation, clearly not intended for a literal-historical exegesis

Couldn't the LDS claim the same sort of thing about the "Book of Abraham"? It's a book that clearly intends to communicate historical fact regarding the nature and translation of some ancient Egyptian papyri. But when Joseph Smith was supposedly translating this papyri from hieroglyphic to English, Egyptian/hieroglyphic interpretation was still new and so nobody could really prove him wrong until the methods derived from the Rosetta Stone were fully understood. Now we know that what purports to be the "Book of Abraham" was actually an ancient Egyptian funeral text from some time closer to the 1st century BC or so. Joseph Smith's "translation" had nothing to do with Abraham, Joseph, the God of Israel or anything historical or grammatical at all.

Why wouldn't the Book of Enoch be comparable? It purports to be a text which comes from God's revelation about the actual movements of celestial bodies in a perfectly symmetrical 364 day solar calendar. But we're now aware that the actual solar calendar is 365.24.. days and that this isn't due to the stars transgressing their appointed times and violating God's sacred order, but rather the laws of physics we observe were apparently God's ordering all along. Why couldn't the Mormons use the same methodology, set aside historical-grammatical methods (since the Book of Abraham is obviously neither) and conclude that the Book of Abraham is canonical anyway (this is exaclty what many of them do, btw)?

I also fully understand the nature of apocalytpic language and the use of lurid imagery to communicate truths, so I'm not objecting to the use of animals in the book (the Animal Apocalypse), etc.. It's just that the supposed revelation communicated by the Book of Enoch is itself incorrect. That sect was not the elect and did not discover, by way of apocalyptic visions, God's sacred ordering of times and seasons.

 

[linux.poet]

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