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	Archive through September 07, 2024	25		11/15 12:28pm

"Would you believe that the translations from Ancient Hebrew to Ancient Greek to Old English to Modern English kinda warped the meanings of some of the terms in the Old Testament?"

Not a langage expert, but I would guess in effect, your trying to 'crack a code' and have very little to go on.

It's like Seduko - you can often randonly through numbers into it.... and sometimes you get very close to a full answer.

Those initial assumptions might seem right if you complete 95% of the puzzle - but you will never now that it's wrong unless you get to see the full and original answer.

So the question is - as the 'original sources' (like the Dead Sea Scrolls) are still visible - could a new Interpration be done, which uses different Languages to try to get the original meaing more clearer**

** - Yes - I can see another can of worms would be opened - so probably a project for just Academics for debate purposes!!

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 05:29 pm: Edit

@Paul:

A bit oversimplified.

There are two issues here, which should not be conflated. The first is translation. The second is exegesis (interpretation).

Translation is easier. With a *very* few exceptions (like, specific words) ancient Hebrew is well understood, academically speaking. The same is true of ancient Greek and ancient Latin.

The biblical texts have ancient sources that are at or near (or reasonably near) the original texts in these three languages. Thus, questions of translation of the books of the Bible are generally on the finer nuances of meaning which can depend on context (on both the surrounding words and the historical context in which the words were written).

However, it is NOT the case that biblical translators are trying to "crack a code," as you put it. Newly discovered ancient documents, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, may contain texts which arguably could inform the interpretation of existing text - but bear in mind that the Dead Sea Scrolls are not necessarily original documents (which you assumed).

The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. (Wikipedia, which I believe is accurate in this statement).

Also per the same article:

---

Quote:

Owing to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups:

About 40% are copies of texts from Hebrew scriptures.
Approximately another 30% are texts from the Second Temple period that ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc.
The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular sect or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.[14]

---

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, September 10, 2024 - 02:30 am: Edit

Ted

Thanks.

Sounds like a good Doctorate Paper for my son to do!

(He got to do Latin at School and loves 'Classics' (I hadn't come across it before - it's a subjject available in the UK which is a blend of History, Phillosophy, Religion (to some degree) and 'Myths')

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, September 10, 2024 - 07:51 am: Edit

"Aramaic" is the proper original language. IIRC Hebrew is an offshoot from Aramaic, much like the relationship between Italian & Latin.

I tease my Romanian friends that Romanian is just "Italian with a funny accent, Da?"

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, November 15, 2024 - 12:28 pm: Edit

A data analysis of the "Kevin Bacon" problem.

https://www.statsignificant.com/p/quantifying-the-kevin-bacon-game?r=u6fl&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, November 15, 2024 - 12:40 pm: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, November 15, 2024 - 05:00 pm: Edit

Betelgeuse is officially pronounced as Beatle Juice but I know people from there and it should be pronounced Bee-TELL-Geeze.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 05, 2025 - 12:11 am: Edit

NEW SPECIES OF WHALE
I stumbled upon a story I found interesting.
Blue whales and their closest relatives Fin whales separated 8.5 million years ago. And yet each species has about 4% of the DNA of the other, indicating that interbreeding has been happening now and then, here or there, for thousands of years.
Biologists once heard a whale with a unique call, which was identified as WHALE-52. This guy (or gal?) has been around for decades, heard many times but never seen.
Scientists now think that good ole 52 may be a hybrid bluefin whale, and that the unique sounds we have heard may be more than one individual which may explain why his migratory patterns don't add up.
Decreasing whale populations from hunting (now illegal but it does happen) and climate change may have forced lonely blues and fins to "love the one you're with". I guess love does conquer all.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 05, 2025 - 12:37 am: Edit

Back in September (when I was in rehab and not on line) there was a discussion of new interpretations of ancient scrolls, specifically, books of the bible. Ted Fay made many excellent points with which I don't disagree. There were a LOT of old scrolls back then and we have a random sample of them now. Just because you find a scroll dated earlier than one we consider original doesn't mean the older one was valid in a religious sense. There were a lot of branches of faith and some of that apocryphal stuff is really out there. Some of it is heretical, meaning that a bunch of bishops at some point decided the ones we're using today are right and the ones found in Nag Hamadi and just ... not a valid interpretation. There is a fascinating scroll about a false god named Yaldabaoth that I came across and read several articles about; despite YouTube videos that say it "disproves" the entire concept of Judeao-Christian-Islamic thought, it is regarded as the equivalent of science fiction, i.e., made up baloney.

Etymology is a study of how words change and documents evolve. I find it fascinating and have read several books on it. The expressions "God of Creation" and "God of Abraham" that you rarely hear any more come from a time when there was a slice of the faith that thought those were two different guys. That branch has not entirely died out even today.

A good example of this in a non-biblical context is the 2nd Amendment. It defines "a well regulated militia" which today's interpretation of "regulated" means "controlled by higher authority" whereas in 1790 it meant "well trained for combat operations" i.e., trained to be regular soldiers. And that's is less than 250 years ago.

By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Monday, April 07, 2025 - 10:18 pm: Edit

Saw a pretty cool event in my evening sky tonight. It appeared to be a Starlink Constellation going overhead from a Vandenburg launch earlier.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 09, 2025 - 05:27 pm: Edit

DIRE WOLVES had been successfully restored from extinction by some kind of cloning process. Can anyone say "Diradoodle"? I thought you could. How about "Dirahuahua"? Too far? Pekedire?

Woolly mammoths are next. I'd pay to go to a zoo that had those.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 08:11 am: Edit

Dire Border Collies. For those herds of sheep that just refuse to behave...

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 09:40 am: Edit

There are some serious questions as to whether or not the researches really achieved what is beining reported in the popular media. More likely they created some sort of part-dire wolf hybrid.

By Tom Lusco (Tlusco) on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 10:08 am: Edit

Grey wolves with a fair bit of gene editing to get those dire wolf characteristics. No other dire wolves around to raise them though, so behaviorally they will be challenged to be anything other than a big grey wolf.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Indeed, they are grey wolves with 15 genes edited to be sort of like dire wolf genes. Remember that wolves and dire wolves aren't even in the same genus. They are less related than wolves and coyotes.

Dire Wolf Aenocyon dirus
Grey Wolf Canis lupus
Dog Canis familiaris
Coyote Canis latrans
Fox Vulpes
Jackal Lupulella

To be fair, what is a genus, a species, and a sub-species is not a hard and fast rule. There are some sub-species that are more distant that two genus in other branches of the family tree. Anyone looking at Thor and Odin would think they are spectacular house cats but they are Felis Bengalensis, not Felis Lybicus. That said, all of the small cats (asian, saharan, lybia, domesticus, servals, lynxes, and ocelots will interbreed quite easily. Wolves and coyotes have been proven to interbreed; most of the local Texas panhandle coyotes have some wolf genes from a traveling male who came through here in 1968-1972. He was quite famous and all of the local game wardens knew about him and could track his travels for several years.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, April 23, 2025 - 10:01 am: Edit

SVC - Well it read as a good Headline in the News!!

(especially for Game of Throne Fans).

It didn't take long fo the truth to come out and deubunk the research.


On a similar vein, I was watching a Documentary about Jurassic World Rebirth - they seem to have succesfully cloned Dinosaurs. And even after the Dinosaurs had trashed a Theme Park and an Island or Two, by escaping, they thought going back to the original Island made sense - the idiots!


(P.S. Yes, I know it's a film and it was just the trailer I watched, but it sounds much better that way!!!!)

On a sensible comment - do we really want to bring back Dire Wolves (or Dinosaurs) - I am sure Farmers would not want even stronger animals they then needed to fend off their herds?

(Although not aggresive towards Humans, I know where Sea Eagles got re-introduced into Scotland - Lambs were being picked up by them... and they at least can fly away if threatened - if a mother Dire Wolf was guarding her young pups though....?)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 23, 2025 - 11:19 am: Edit

Wooly mamoths, those we could use in circuses.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, April 24, 2025 - 07:54 am: Edit

And the giant ground sloths...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 24, 2025 - 09:54 am: Edit

We don’t need more congressmen!

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, April 24, 2025 - 11:10 am: Edit

Dodos?

Passenger Pigeons?

Stellars Sea Cows?

How would a return of Neanderthals impact the NFL?

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, April 25, 2025 - 11:22 am: Edit

IIRC there are Passenger Pigeons bodies available for sampling.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 25, 2025 - 06:46 pm: Edit

I know there are at least a dozen stuffed and mounted dodo birds. I don’t think they can be used.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, April 25, 2025 - 07:07 pm: Edit

Depends on if you could get them to run the right direction.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 25, 2025 - 07:59 pm: Edit

Dodos were not stupid, but mean. They're the biggest pigeons and nest on the ground. If you walk up to their nest, they aren't stupid enough to stand there, they will fight, they just don't understand that a baseball bat makes the fight rather one-sided. Dodos were not particularly fat in the wild. In captive zoos they were overfed and became obese.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, April 26, 2025 - 11:24 am: Edit

According to wiki; "1,532 passenger pigeon specimens" are known.