PHI 214 class

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by James S Saint on October 12, 2009 at 4:42pm

No.

We live in a time of pure 100% deception and self interest. This isn't the time to be "correcting" anything at all.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by david thurman on October 12, 2009 at 4:59pm

depends if you want the text to be accurate, or inspiration. If it's left in, then the text can been seen in light of it's historical context, and allowed to be a book of inspiration. If it informs us, like a manual, then why not change it to be accurate but then that is not allowing us to see the changes in us over a long period of time and it doesn't then allow for teaching of those changes over a period of time. Of Course the Feminine is accurate and it's just as accurate to say she as it is to say he in reference to the word God. Personally I say mother rules the roost and Father is second fiddle, and I think this is what Jesus was saying as well, in his statement "the least in the kingdom of God is the Greatest" The masculine always bows a knee to that truth. The divine Masculine is the analytical, the Divine feminine is Love our emotive statae, Logic dictates, that Love trancends logic, it is an undefinable by logic and this is an infinite diminshing characteristic which make Mother a great than Father, by her lesser than nature. Hell he just makes this house, she makes it a home for life..

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Beth Davies-Stofka on October 12, 2009 at 6:50pm

Laili, what a great question! It has some real significance to this project. I'll give you a practical response.

The Bible is in the public domain, meaning no one owns it, or put another way, we all own it. In addition, there are zillions of paraphrased versions for sale -- okay, zillions is definitely an exaggeration, but you know what I mean! The King James Version is a paraphrase, of course, and millions of readers are deeply attached to it. I have a copy of that. The New Oxford Annotated Bible is a very strict scholarly translation, and I have a copy of that, too, and use it heavily. But the language isn't pretty and doesn't flow. The New Interpreter's Bible is a fat, 14-volume set that has two different scholarly translations side-by-side, along with commentary, annotations, and reflections. That could be the peak of scholarly translation into English. I also have that, and use it heavily.

Then I have a lovely paraphrase, a beautiful work which seeks to harmonize scholarly accuracy with accessibility and theological interpretation -- the very popular Jerusalem Bible. I read that for its beauty. Then there are lots of interpretive takes on the Bible, like Stephen Mitchell's Genesis, The Wolverton Bible, the Children's Illustrated Bible, and R. Crumb's just-published Illustrated Genesis. I have all these too! I am a total Bible geek, obviously.

The range of choices is just huge, and since the Bible is in the public domain, nothing stops anyone from publishing their own paraphrase, illustration, novelization, translation, etc.

So I suppose to my mind, the "open source" answer to your question is that the Bible is a book that belongs to all of us, and we can do anything we want with it. There is no reason to acquiesce to the authority or preferred choices of others. We should feel free to redefine God!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by James S Saint on October 13, 2009 at 2:05am

Let me get this straight..

Based on the speculation that all of those evil men 6000 years ago and since created stories of God to suit their fancy, you are now going to rewrite their stories to suit your fancy?

The thing seems to be that we can speculate that maybe they were guilty. But with you, we don't need to speculate at all. We know that you are guilty. You choose to use the Bible for psychological purposes in persuading people to think as you want them to think and your justification for this is that you have been told that men for the past 6000 years have been doing that.

But then why steal someone else's book and change it around? Since we certainly know far more about those people than they did, why not just write your own book from scratch? Why are you stealing their story? Surely you could invent a much better one if you started from scratch.

Let me guess, they just stole the story from someone before them? Therefore you stealing it now is justified and okay?

You choose to be guilty because someone told you that men were guilty. -- Suggestion -- Look at who it is that has been telling you that.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by david thurman on October 15, 2009 at 3:09pm

I like it but maybe the better way is to write our own story and then see how it matches over time, actually I think that's what we are always doing regardless of what we think we are doing, we are always rewriting our story over time.

Beth Davies-Stofka said:

Laili, what a great question! It has some real significance to this project. I'll give you a practical response.

The Bible is in the public domain, meaning no one owns it, or put another way, we all own it. In addition, there are zillions of paraphrased versions for sale -- okay, zillions is definitely an exaggeration, but you know what I mean! The King James Version is a paraphrase, of course, and millions of readers are deeply attached to it. I have a copy of that. The New Oxford Annotated Bible is a very strict scholarly translation, and I have a copy of that, too, and use it heavily. But the language isn't pretty and doesn't flow. The New Interpreter's Bible is a fat, 14-volume set that has two different scholarly translations side-by-side, along with commentary, annotations, and reflections. That could be the peak of scholarly translation into English. I also have that, and use it heavily.

Then I have a lovely paraphrase, a beautiful work which seeks to harmonize scholarly accuracy with accessibility and theological interpretation -- the very popular Jerusalem Bible. I read that for its beauty. Then there are lots of interpretive takes on the Bible, like Stephen Mitchell's Genesis, The Wolverton Bible, the Children's Illustrated Bible, and R. Crumb's just-published Illustrated Genesis. I have all these too! I am a total Bible geek, obviously.

The range of choices is just huge, and since the Bible is in the public domain, nothing stops anyone from publishing their own paraphrase, illustration, novelization, translation, etc.

So I suppose to my mind, the "open source" answer to your question is that the Bible is a book that belongs to all of us, and we can do anything we want with it. There is no reason to acquiesce to the authority or preferred choices of others. We should feel free to redefine God!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by PH214 Youstbi Djuanvat on October 17, 2009 at 1:57am

Personally, I don't mind. Like our professor Beth said, the bible is a public domain. Christians do not own it. Talking critically and negatively to my own. It would be extremely hard, Christian leaders have unchallenged influential power in both state and society. Look at Gay marriage laws in many states, see how powerful Christian community is? We can't challenge them. It is ok to change the bible translation to decrease the patriarchy element and embrace both female and male, but I don't think it'd ever happen.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by PH214 Youstbi Djuanvat on October 17, 2009 at 2:02am

Oh and Laili,

Even a christian speak up to his/her own church to reform something (for example:the bible to embrace more on female). He/she has a big chance of being excommunicated from the church, the severity of the punishment depends on the church's denomination. I am one of the example. The more conservative church like Baptist would literally kick you out from the church, tear down all your authority inside the church, or shun you. Generally churches don't like those who have thoughts against their teaching. Many young liberal christians fear to speak up their mind in front of conservative christian elders.

Youstbi

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by david thurman on October 18, 2009 at 12:34pm

Changing the Text is a dated feminist view going back to the 60's. That view is basically defunct and really is simply a projection of perceptions that is no different that what feminism was battling against. Post Feminism post modernist theology I think by and large is walking away from the Masculine/Feminine Battle and attempting to find a balance. So changing the text is simply not correct. We evolve over time, this is clear. The text is written and needs to be taken in historical context as such. It's our view 2,000 years ago, and to change that so that isn't clear is simply to lose the value of seeing evolution over time. We know that sexism exists, the text can be read in sexist ways. Does changing the text eliminate sexism? I don't think so, sexism is not caused by the text, it's justified by how the text is read. Genesis can be read in two ways. One way is that Man is over woman because of sin. So Man over woman is correct because we exist in a sinful state. The other view is that because of Grace we are no longer in Sin and thus Man over woman is to not walk in Grace. So a Dominate male over female view reading of the text is actually a sinful and I might add anti God, anti Christ way to read it. I might add this is exactly the way the Dipshit at mars hill church in Seattle reads it, he's a moron but hey, he's a guy, with other guys agreeing..:D Changing the text doesn't fix this problem at all and I might add it only confuses the issue.


PH214 Youstbi Djuanvat said:

Personally, I don't mind. Like our professor Beth said, the bible is a public domain. Christians do not own it. Talking critically and negatively to my own. It would be extremely hard, Christian leaders have unchallenged influential power in both state and society. Look at Gay marriage laws in many states, see how powerful Christian community is? We can't challenge them. It is ok to change the bible translation to decrease the patriarchy element and embrace both female and male, but I don't think it'd ever happen.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by gneognostic on October 18, 2009 at 12:50pm

"They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?"

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

-Thomas 22

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by PH214 Youstbi Djuanvat on October 19, 2009 at 1:45am

Dear David,

Yes, what I meant is that bible should shows God as not male and female, but as one equally, genderless. I didn't mean to delete the masculine part and only emphasizes the female part. I just disagree with the idea of God as a male, but I'd disagree too if feminists claim God is a female.


gneognostic said:

"They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

-Thomas 22

Thomas? The book of Thomas is not included in the bible isn't it?

Youstbi

▶ Reply to This