Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 21:37:56 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: George Reid <george.reid1@ntlworld.com> Cc: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net>, <dave@jetcafe.org>, <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020905211353.W92353-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <20020906013554.A42842@FreeBSD.org>
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On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, George Reid wrote:
> However, the word "hell" occurs 53 times in the King James Bible (31 of
> these are in the Old Testament). These are a series of mistranslations
> which happened to suit the doctrine that the early Church wished to teach
> for its own purposes (indeed, as the above suited my own purposes) of
> "saving souls" (which, one would assume, is synonymous with "making
> money"). This was achieved by simply bludgeoning the ignorant population
> into acceptance based on the works of many educated but ultimately corrupt
> scholars. The myth of 'hell' is perpetuated through the ignorance of
> modern Christians (very few of whom read Greek and/or Hebrew) who are
> unwilling to accept the plain fact that it simply does not exist in the
> Bible.
George,
Let me give you a few reasons why I find your claims unconvincing.
1) I am not easily taken with conspiracy theories. It would
take some awfully extraordinary evidence to convince me of
your claims about "the early Church", as if it were a
monolithic entity as you seem to think.
2) The litany of passages you offered as personally objectionable
to you indicate that you are hardly an unbiased interpreter.
Why you would poison your own well like that before making your
controversial claims, one can only speculate.
3) While being familiar with Greek and Hebrew is certainly a
prerequisite to successfully arguing your case, "I know Greek
and Hebrew, so there!" is hardly a compelling argument. I
don't buy it.
4) You are going to have to offer some *extremely* compelling
evidence that *your* interpretation of the passages in
question is the correct interpretation over against the
great diversity of scholars, all of whom are not even
Christians, who have translated the original Hebrew and
Greek into many different languages. We have numerous
English translations, not all of which even come from the
same manuscript traditions, yet they all agree on the
passages you claim are in error.
5) If you think you have a case, please present your arguments,
instead of making grandiose assertions with little to back
it up besides your claim to know Hebrew and Greek. If that
is the case, present your arguments so that they can be
scrutinized. You'll have to excuse me for not just taking
your word for it.
Good day, sir.
Neal
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