502
It was an oral history in one language, written down into another by low quality scribes, then translated a couple more times.
Which is why it's always hilarious people say they have to take any translation literally.
But you don't understand! This translation was divinely inspired! Every other one is an act of heresy and blasphemy!
Catholics go one step further. Both the translation and the tradition of interpreting the translation is divinely inspired. Protestants sometimes vaguely point to something like that but most realize that if they follow the logic train of sacred tradition they should be Catholic or Orthodox.
The book was produced by the tradition. If the tradition is junk, then why would the book not be junk too?
This is one thing that atheists often get wrong about Catholicism. Catholics don't believe sola scriptura, the Protestant principle that all Christian tradition is to be rooted in the text of the Bible. Thus, "Bible contradictions" and the like are not rebuttals to Catholic views the way they are to "fundamentalist" Protestant views.
I'm an atheist ex protestant, but I generally agree with that theological view. I think Protestantism is very inconsistent in that regard and most arguments amount to hand waving. In the end, though, all denominations pick and choose when councils had sufficient authority to be binding tradition. Unless they're gnostics or some other type of anti-pauIine Christian guess.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Evangelicals are all about that inspired, literal, complete, and inerrant word of God stuff. 99% of all evangelical churches have that as a mission statement on their website.
Unless they realize that each new interpretation is Divinely inspired. In which case the most recent one is the truest, Tradition is dead, and also the Divine changes Her mind a lot.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have an update process they call "progressive revelation" so that they can keep retconning their doomsday prophecies.
"This translation was divinely inspired."
"Oh, dope, so you're gonna sell all your stuff and give the money to the poor?"
"Okay, listen..."
It's a two-thousand-year-long multilingual game of Telephone. How much is it even possible is left from what was originally written? (And none of it contemporary to when it supposedly happened.)
Textual critics are fairly confident that a fair amount of the texts of the New Testament were reliably copied until we get to the first extant manuscripts, and for the stuff that is very obviously messed up, they have a decent set of analytical tools that help them retroject the likeliest original wording. Not perfect, but decent.
load more comments
(4 replies)
That's not how translation works though. The modern translations come directly from the original Greek and Aramaic.
The texts travelled all over the East and into Europe. So we can compare them. They were very clearly written in their time.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(7 replies)
Greek guy here.
Επιούσιος (e-pi-u-si-os) is a composite word (you can make an astronomical number of composite words in Greek if you want to express a new concept, such as tele-phone) and in this sentence it means that which will nourish us for the day. So daily is quite fitting here.
So it's more like "our day's worth of bread" than "the bread we eat every day"?
"I'd like my daily ration today". Sounds bitchy like that.
If the word was missing from the sentence, then it could be translated as "Give us today our bread and forgive our sins.....".
Instead, with the word added, it can be translated as "Give us today the bread we need for the day and forgive our sins..... ".
I guess the significance of the word is in not being greedy and asking from God only what you really need instead of what is "owed" to you?
Nourishing makes sense... Particularly in a context similar to edifying.
epiousion was greek for sliced
It means "pan-fried, with an egg in the middle", you dolt!
Hence the common phrase, best thing since epiousion bread. I thought it was obvious, I guess I'm the only one that drew the conclusion
And we've been comparing how good other things are to it ever since
I'm fluently bilingual in English and Spanish, and I grew up going to a Spanish speaking Presbyterian church. The kids in my high school taught me that "pan" (the spanish word for "bread") was slang for "pussy", so everytime my grandpa (the pastor) recited the Lord's prayer, I always had a huge smile on my face thinking about him asking God to give us our daily allowance of pussy.
That's hilarious. It makes sense for pan just to be a shortened 'panocha'.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I can't argue the classical Greek etymology, but the argument about redundancy flies in the face how I was taught the Lord's prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread" ~= "Give us our bread today as you do every day".
I always took it as sort of like the amount of bread you need every day being "daily bread" and getting it every day.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Now it occurs in a post on lemmy
And so shall it echo across the fediverse, amen
I have only this moment realised that the prayer is referencing the xtian communion giving of bread symbolism, and not just randomly demanding food as if the writer was hungry
Is it, though? Or is it saying "Give us our basic staple needs"? It would be useful if a theologian could chip in on the dates, but I suspect this prayer predates bready communion
From my brief and poorly remembered Christian education, there were at least 3 occasions where the Big J handed out food and drink, and made explicit connection between his god powers, and the catering. So the idea was there in some form from at least the writing of the gospels. But yeah, it would be good to hear from someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
If I remember correctly, there's a group of scholars that translate it as "appropriate."
Fun story! They came to that conclusion because they discovered a text which had what they believed was another very similar word ("epiousi") that, in context, meant "necessary" or "enough for now." That text was a shopping list.
Then the text got lost for a long time, and when they found it again, new eyes on it realized that they'd misread the word, so it was back to square one.
Some denominations, Eastern Orthodox in particular, do translate it as "our needed bread, give us today"
load more comments
(4 replies)
"How do you like your bread?"
"Appropriate"
load more comments
(1 replies)
Let me tell you, 10 year old me in catholic school really thought he was on to some comedy gold when he realized this day and daily was some confusing shit.
Nobody ever laughed. Turned out, I'm not really funny.
The daily translation also makes the term redundant, with "this day" already making clear the bread is for the current day
Yes, but it doesn't make it clear that it is something you receive every day. If I say "give us our pizza today" it doesn't imply that I have a daily pizza party (I don't, just a silly example).
Why don't you?
Cowardice, Fear, and Self-Loathing.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I think I'll stick to 'fresh' or 'sourdough' as alternatives from now on
Scribes generally do a good job of checking that they didn't make an error in transcription . It like likely that what we have is what was written down around ad40-ad90. (Years approximate). Things were written mostly by eyewitness or those who interviewed eye witnesses. The whole reads like it.
Of course things were translated to Greek, it is unlikely that the words were spoken in that language.
Things were written mostly by eyewitness or those who interviewed eye witnesses.
The scholarly consensus is that this is not the case. The earliest written Gospel (Mark) couldn't have been written any earlier than the occupation of the Temple during the First Jewish Revolt in 66-67, and all indications are that he was writing down traditions that came from his community and others, with no immediate connection to any "eyewitnesses."
(Source: I have a PhD in this stuff.)
If I remember right, the reason why Mark has scholarly consensus as being written before John is that Mark is least theologically developed, which only really makes sense as evidence for that if you're starting from the position that the theological bits are later additions. I remember Q and M as evidence for Mark before Matthew or Luke, but is there any evidence that Mark was written before John that doesn't start with the position that more-developed theology is a later addition?
Why am I being downvoted for asking someone with a PhD in this topic a question about their expertise?
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
502 points (100.0% liked)
Today I Learned
18071 readers
984 users here now
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS