Believer: Thanks for your considered and well written response. Despite our back and forth here, I think you're a clever guy, and more open minded than you think. You bring up an interesting point about God speaking to us through our conscience, and I think it’s very valid. Since I am not someone who puts a great deal of stock in the bible, it is mostly my own conscience that guides my interpretation of what God is. I recognise that our consciences tell us different things sometimes. Your conscience seems to have a lot to say about your sexual behaviour. My conscience mostly acts up when I have harsh words for others, when I judge others, when I am arrogant or spiteful, and most especially my conscience acts up when I lie. Nothing makes me feel guiltier than lying. I also get occasional pangs of conscience regarding lustful thoughts or behaviour. It could very well be God speaking to me. Or not. Our conscience varies to an extent because of the environment we are raised in, our family’s ethics and ideas and the cultural mores of the societies we are raised in. I was raised by a latin Catholic mother, world famous suppliers of self-conscious guilt. Maybe that has shaped my conscience. I can definitely sense in your interpretations of God a heavy dose of American heartland Puritanism, featuring lots of arbitrary rules and sexual taboo and giving rather short shrift to loving thy neighbour, judging not lest ye be judged, and doing unto others. I don’t know whether this comes from your own personal background or perhaps that of your pastor or the leader of your sect. Be careful not to focus so much on the trees that you lose sight of the forest. I do believe in God and I do believe that He communicates with us in His own way. I believe our conscience does play a part in that. I also believe that each of us sees God as we want to see him, and project a lot of our own ego, pride, fear, guilt, insecurities, etc. onto Him.

Believer, on another thread having to do with respecting other paths, I mentioned how bitterness can creep in when we get locked into what may be mistaken assumptions. I thought perhaps you were ignoring this post of mine (quoted below), but I decided to not make that assumption. I know that at times, when I have been very busy, I have just looked at the last page of a thread, rather than catching up on all the posts since I last read. For that reason, I quote myself below. Not necessary for you to answer if you'd rather not, but I wanted to increase the likelihood that you have read my post:

Lordslady, the joke is hilarious.

Reminds me (in a different way) of a "song" that I sing in karaoke: "God's Own Drunk," by Jimmy Buffet.

True.

Wait.. I agree with Believer? There's a hot place that's going to get very cold tonight!

Any translation of any document will alter its meaning somewhat. Sometimes by a large factor. For instance, in the original writings, Mary was not a virgin. She was said to be a young woman. The Church made her a virgin. I'm pretty sure all English translations of the bible will refer to her as a virgin.

So... I propose we no longer reference translated text, and refer only to the original Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, etc. writings. Of course this means we all need to learn those languages. Maybe there's an "Aramaic for Dummies" book on the market.

The point is.. ALL translations have this issue.

[quote]Originally posted by Capt. Haddock: [b] Your conscience seems to have a lot to say about your sexual behavior. My conscience mostly acts up when I have harsh words for others, when I judge others, when I am arrogant or spiteful, and most especially my conscience acts up when I lie. Nothing makes me feel guiltier than lying. I also get occasional pangs of conscience regarding lustful thoughts or behavior. It could very well be God speaking to me. Or not. Our conscience varies to an extent because of the environment we are raised in, our family’s ethics and ideas and the cultural mores of the societies we are raised in. I was raised by a latin Catholic mother, world famous suppliers of self-conscious guilt. Maybe that has shaped my conscience. [/b][/quote]Captn I feel a lot of what we feel as moral or immoral is taught to us as children. As I stated I was raised in a loving Christian home, but to be honest my parents allowed me to make up my own mind about God. For instance, even though we attended mostly protestant churches, I attended a Catholic school most of my life. Up until recently my siblings and I would answer Catholic when asked what religion we were. My parents never really harped on me about sexuality, or sin. They were open and honest with me and told me what was sin in God’s eyes, but never forced me to do anything. I too understand latin guilt as I’m of Puerto Rican decent, but it was never really pushed on me by my parents and more the result of aunts and uncles. [quote]Originally posted by Capt. Haddock: [b]I can definitely sense in your interpretations of God a heavy dose of American heartland Puritanism, featuring lots of arbitrary rules and sexual taboo and giving rather short shrift to loving thy neighbour, judging not lest ye be judged, and doing unto others. I don’t know whether this comes from your own personal background or perhaps that of your pastor or the leader of your sect. Be careful not to focus so much on the trees that you lose sight of the forest. I do believe in God and I do believe that He communicates with us in His own way. I believe our conscience does play a part in that. I also believe that each of us sees God as we want to see him, and project a lot of our own ego, pride, fear, guilt, insecurities, etc. onto Him. [/b][/quote]I agree that we all do see God with our own blinders on. But my views are not so much the result of pastors or teachers, but of introspective thought. When I strayed I did so a happy 14 year old with loving caring parents who again allowed me to make mistakes and learn from them. When I came back to God I came back a broken mess because I had realized my faults and my sins, and began to see a pattern in my own life of how each of those sins would eventually come back to haunt me. The most wonderful feeling in the world was when I confessed those sins to God, and feeling that sense of “I know and? I still love you.” I disagree quite a bit with my pastor, my church and some of its members. I’m actually one of the more liberal minded people in the church. I do feel that unless someone comes to Christ realizing that they are a sinner, and that they are in need of a savior, then their conversion is based on the belief that they are at heart a good person. I feel that if this were true we really wouldn’t need Jesus because if we were fundamentally good people then we could achieve God’s standards on our own, and that’s not really the case. I still struggle with a lot of things. I am proud, I am arrogant, I do have a tendency to let my mouth lead before my brain, and those are the things that trigger my conscience like you with the lies, my conscience blazes when I say or write something I shouldn’t be saying. My problem, and the problem of society as a whole is that we silence our conscience and disobey it. That is where we get into trouble. If your conscience is speaking to you listen to it because behind it is God, and He so wants to guide you to Him.

I like the Message because it IS translated from the original languages (not translated from a translation), but Eugene Peterson DOES say it is a "reading Bible" and suggests cross-reference with other versions for studying. He makes the important point out that even though we are familiar with the high language of KJV, originally the Bible was written in the "language of the streets" -- shopkeepers, fishermen, etc. Not literary geniuses.

If you can get a parallel Bible and read how each version represents the same passage, that's really illuminating.

I like the NIV, but for some of the poetry, I like the KJV (really!) I love the way KJV refers to God's presence to Elijah as a "still small voice" -- that resonates to me SO much more than a "gentle whisper" in NIV.

I think we have to be careful about elevating one translation over another. Often later information (or translations) can be better due to better knowledge or closer wording to what was originally meant. We find this in science. Later discoveries shed light on earlier ones. But maybe an earlier translation can capture the essence of meaning better than a later one. And in a translation like The Message it is a contemporary language BUT it goes back to the original languages as the source. That seems pretty authentic to me. As in many things, we have to judge that for ourselves.

We humans can find lots of ways to split hairs. Maybe we don't have to split Biblical hairs this time around. Maybe what's important is that the Bible gets READ -- whatever version chosen -- and then people have the opportunity to make up their minds about it themselves.

Even with a multi-denominational team, and bringing in all extant manuscripts, there are still problems with words and phrases meaning different things to different groups of people.

Carl--I use: http://www.biblegateway.com/ It has 19 different versions of the Bible in English-including The Message-New and 21st century KJV, and the Wycliffe bible-plus a variety of other languages. Believer posted: [quote]Actually kateyes, the Bible does say who “they” were a few verses above, I just miscopied it. Paul was accusing humanity in general, Jews and Gentiles alike. Rom 1:18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves.* Rom 1:19 For the truth about God is known to them instinctively.* God has put this knowledge in their hearts. Rom 1:20 From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. [/quote]I surmise that "THEY" are believers who turned from God to graven images and idols. There are a few words in all the translations that bother me in these verses. This is NASB: [quote]24Therefore (AR)God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be (AS)dishonored among them. 25For they exchanged the truth of God for a (AT)lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, (AU)who is blessed forever. Amen. 26For this reason (AV)God gave them over to (AW)degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, [/quote]God gave them over to--if they had the free will to "exchange the truth of God for a Lie" did they not have the free will to give in to degrading passions on thier own. It says God gave them over to degrading passions--this could be interpreted to mean God made them act this way. :eek: I try to use the NLT because it is a bit more true to the original than the Message. The message is a great translation for easy reading because it’s a nice modern slang read. The problem is that it does take liberties with the translation, and in trying to make it more relevant to the youth it sometimes leaves a lot open to interpretation. Another good version is the NASB, which is more literal in the translation to the original [/QUOTE] I understand the differences in translations--I understand you preferring one over another. Since none of us can read any of this in the original language everything we read in the Bible (regardless of the version) is affected first by the interpretaions of the translator and then again by the interpretations of the reader. To me this pretty much means you could find verses in the Bible that would justify pretty much any belief or action. Lordslady--loved the joke--made me think of Paul telling the Apostles you cannot make the Gentiles follow Jesus by enforcing the Jewish laws. [quote]So... I propose we no longer reference translated text, and refer only to the original Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, etc. writings. Of course this means we all need to learn those languages. Maybe there's an "Aramaic for Dummies" book on the market. [/quote]I Googled and ask.com for this but no luck--one of us could make a mint if we knew Aramaic. LOL :D posted by Catlady: [quote]We humans can find lots of ways to split hairs. Maybe we don't have to split Biblical hairs this time around. Maybe what's important is that the Bible gets READ -- whatever version chosen -- and then people have the opportunity to make up their minds about it themselves. [/quote]Dare I say AMEN Catlady. I think we all tend to gravitate towards the version that fulfills our needs or perceptions. I like to use several versions--because I seem to see different points in each one--which allows me to draw my own conclusions.

[quote]Originally posted by Carl: [b] Believer, on another thread having to do with respecting other paths, I mentioned how bitterness can creep in when we get locked into what may be mistaken assumptions. I thought perhaps you were ignoring this post of mine (quoted below), but I decided to not make that assumption. I know that at times, when I have been very busy, I have just looked at the last page of a thread, rather than catching up on all the posts since I last read. For that reason, I quote myself below. Not necessary for you to answer if you'd rather not, but I wanted to increase the likelihood that you have read my post: [/b][/quote]Oh no Carl I wasn’t ignoring your post. There were so many replies to the post I put up and I really hadn’t sorted through them all yet. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I have a tendency to skip to the bottom and read from the last back. I know it’s backwards of me kind of like reading right to left. [quote]Originally posted by Carl: [b] Believer, first of all, I compliment you and applaud the tone of your post. That is appreciated. When you say that the Bible is truth, and that apart from it there is none, I agree that there is Truth in the Bible, but also elsewhere. [/b][/quote]First thanks for the compliment I appreciate it. It’s not too often I get a compliment around here I’m usually off in a corner licking my wounds. As for other truth I do agree to an extent. For instance there are truths that have been proven and are evident like the color of the sky, the basics of programming a computer, the earth revolves around the sun… We can see these truths and we study them and we know them to be true, but I feel God’s word is true on a different level. To me God’s word is true because it has been written in my heart. [quote]Originally posted by Carl: [b]Further, as regards picking and choosing, ALL of us disregard parts of the Bible - some because of recognizing or evaluating what the literary/religious intent of the particular passages were, and some because we feel that the cultural aspects they addressed no longer apply. [/b][/quote]I agree, that’s why it’s so important to look at who was the audience, and what was the culture of that audience. My dad gave me a really good example of a Spanish phrase that means absolutely nothing to anglos. “Pon le fuego a la lata” This phrase literally means “put fire to the can” but since I wasn’t raised in that time I have no clue what that means. My dad explained that in old times they used to cook in a can, and if something was taking too long they’d say “put some fire on the can” or rather “put some fire to it”. Now that phrase is commonly used to mean “hurry up” or “get to work” Again some things pertain to the person and time that they’re speaking to, but we can still learn something from them. For instance the law regarding marrying of a brother’s wife if said brother died. That law to us seems sick, but the reason for the law was to keep the family name and the land within the family. So if your brother died you married his wife raised his kids and his kids would inherit his land. While this is the case with a lot of the cultural laws like the one above there are several literal laws in the Bible that should be kept and are ignored because they don’t seem to fit in with today’s anything goes society. That to me is dangerous, because when we as followers of Christ, choose to change God’s view on something and supplant it with our own views, which are more lenient we give the impression that God too has condoned the sin. In my opinion this only loosens our own moral standard, and that of those around us. [quote]Originally posted by Carl: [b]Main thing I wanted to say, however, is that dialogue can be good. We can agree to disagree. And we understand better your desire that none of us go to the hell that you envision. I hope that you will get so much positive feedback from your above post that you will continue to moderate your words and tone - not to be untrue to yourself and to your Savior, but so that your words will be more fully heard/looked at.[/b][/quote]Once again I agree that we can disagree. And I promise to limit my bravado so that it not come across as strong, and may instead actually lead people to think rather than just react in anger. As for me compromising, I wouldn’t do that because it just wouldn’t be me.

By the way kateyes thanks for the link to Bible gateway. I've been using www.blueletterbible.org mainly because I can do intense searches on words or phrases, but I like the variety that Bible Gateway offers. I've also loaded ESword on my PDA and laptop, so now all I need is one of those all in one paper Bibles Catlady mentioned because I like to write notes and underline, and you really can't do that effectivly with digital stuff.