Juli responded>>
"exercised" arguments or debaters? ;)
Exercised cows. The last step before slaughter for a doomed cow is a
crowded feedlot where they mull around--no aerobics--so that their muscles
gets fatty, which makes the meat tender. Conversely, cattle on the range
get more exercise and are leaner. This, and select observations from crowd
behavior of humans, leads one to postulate a bovine descent of man. (JUST
KIDDING!)
So, our discussion is lean--which makes it healthier--than much of the fatty
stuff that tastes so good and is so popular. At least in my opinion.
Someone else can pursue extending of the analogy to arguements or debaters.
(Which is ironic, as I set in my seat drinking coffee and eating a bagel,
and totally lacking exercise. I guess I see where I stand, er, sit, er,
weigh in).
The "milk-to-meat" scale tied into my next comment, which was>>>>
> I think it's safe to say that new believers--and many an old
believer--would break their teeth on what we are chewing here...
You know, there's many Twinkies out there, in the thought life of the
church. (i.e., on the milk-to-meat scale). These are the popular
discussions which are high in sugar & fat, and are empty calories that
displace more nutritous fare.
Prehaps our discussion is more like "beef jerky", tough & dried out, with a
lot of salt; not really nutrient dense and not directly pertaining to the
gospel core of salvation. In other words, you can lead an exemplary
Christian life without any regard to the topics we have been discussing.
However, these topics are important, especially for those people for whom
intellectual honesty is important, and who are scientifically literate, and
can see through semi-scientific rhetoric.
Prehaps I'm getting lost in metaphore ("milk-to-meat")......
I wrote>>>
> Sometimes translators merely mistranslate...
Julie responded,
> here's where the "red flags" pop up. Who's to judge? On what
basis? This is the tent flap where the camel's nose can push in. God tells
us to examine, reason together (with Him), exercise ourselves to
discern good from evil, etc. etc. etc. If "we" decide it was a
mistranslation, some educated teachers warn their students that we are
setting ourselves up as the authority. Mighty soft "soil" on which to build
our house' s foundation. But we certainly cannot accept every "wind of
doctrine" just because somebody else said so... enter 1 John 2:27.
Thanks for bringing that out. I didn't elaborate very far. Translators
don't deliberately mistranslate, but can't wait for all the evidence to come
in before making the judgement call between two alternatives. It may be
decades--or centuries--before it becomes clear that a decision was wrong.
I'd say "land" was a better translation in the Noah's flood account, but
even in English, "earth" is used as "land", so it's not a wrong translation,
it's just a bit misleading (since the dominant meaning in english seems to
be the planet earth).
Also, even if one makes the right translation, the language may change over
time (for instance, the King James version), or the words may have different
subjective meanings to different people. For instance, in some cultures it
is considered obvious that the original sin was sexual in nature. I still
don't understand how that can be obvious from Genesis, but I have a Western
analytic approach.
Grace & peace,
Dennis Sweitzer
sweitd01@imsint.com