I am so tired of the whole “cool pope” thing with Francis. It’s 100% PR.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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    7 months ago

    What measurable effect has learning about the original translations of Biblical texts had on the world?

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      You’re asking how discoveries in the past few decades have impacted millennia old traditions? Your evaluation may be a bit premature.

      But as one example we’ve seen more progressive religious groups who learned ‘Lucifer’ was a mistranslation of Isaiah turn away from the Enochian interpretations of those passages and a distancing from the Milton-esque portrayal of sinister forces still present in things like American evangelical circles.

      Analyses like Idan Dershowitz’s of Leviticus’s homosexuality bans that reveal it as a later addition to earlier laws have been a source of solace to many religious folk who felt at odds with a presumed Mosaic law.

      Also – a rigorous understanding of the underlying history of the text and its circumstances relies on far more than just ‘translations.’

      And there too, the work is still ongoing.

      There’s going to be serious upsets in what people think they know about the Old Testament period and history in the next few decades given emerging research trends - but just like how in medicine it takes 17 years from research to broad awareness in practice, it’s going to take some time for discoveries in the past few years to snowball to broader awareness and perspective shifts.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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        7 months ago

        But as one example we’ve seen more progressive religious groups who learned ‘Lucifer’ was a mistranslation of Isaiah turn away from the Enochian interpretations of those passages and a distancing from the Milton-esque portrayal of sinister forces still present in things like American evangelical circles.

        Considering evangelicals and other Christian extremists are gaining power in many countries, I’m not sure that this is a good example.

        There’s going to be serious upsets in what people think they know about the Old Testament period and history in the next few decades given emerging research trends

        I’m not sure what ‘emerging research trends.’ If you mean trends of fewer people going to churches or identifying themselves as religious, that doesn’t mean they don’t believe whatever translation of the Old Testament they happen to believe is anything but history.

        but just like how in medicine it takes 17 years from research to broad awareness in practice, it’s going to take some time for discoveries in the past few years to snowball to broader awareness and perspective shifts.

        They were saying the same thing during the Enlightenment. They were wrong then too.

        • kromem@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I’m not sure what ‘emerging research trends.’ If you mean trends of fewer people going to churches or identifying themselves as religious

          No, more things like the increased number of Ashkenazi users of ancestry sites including ancient samples confused by their closest genetic match being 3,700 year old Minoan graves or Iron Age Anatolian samples in parallel to archeology finding increased prevalence of early Iron Age Aegean style pottery made with local clay in supposed Israelite ancestral sites or the discovery of previously unknown Anatolian trade lines around honey production and four horned altars.

          A lot of the ancient Greek and Roman historians of antiquity are going to be vindicated a bit for unanimous assertions that have been dismissed by modern perspectives heavily influenced by anchoring and survivorship biases from our sources.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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                7 months ago

                It sounds like irrational stuff if you’re tying how religious people are today and will be in the future to the genetic lineage of Ashkenazi Jews.

                • kromem@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  I’m not sure where you got that from, or why you keep being so hung up on “how religious people are today.”

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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                    7 months ago

                    Me:

                    What measurable effect has learning about the original translations of Biblical texts had on the world?

                    You:

                    There’s going to be serious upsets in what people think they know about the Old Testament period and history in the next few decades given emerging research trends

                    Me:

                    I’m not sure what ‘emerging research trends.’ If you mean trends of fewer people going to churches or identifying themselves as religious, that doesn’t mean they don’t believe whatever translation of the Old Testament they happen to believe is anything but history.

                    You:

                    Blah blah blah Ashkenazi Jews blah blah Minoans.

                    But I guess you answered my initial question. Learning about the original translations of Biblical texts have had no measurable effect on the world.