Any Christians with Aspergers?

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A non-issue. Current KJV and NKJV versions are quite faithful to the original Greek and Hebrew documents they are based on. Some tried to claim that modern Bibles are so far off they can't be trusted, but scholars have found that the claim really is not so. Not that every translation is trustworthy....the more people try to make the Bible "easier" to read, the more potential there is for someone to muddy the waters. The commandments prohibiting all killing (which they do not) is a perfect example of such oversimplification creating confusion. It's also why nobody should take a single passage and claim it is a truth unto itself without taking time to study the entire Bible.

Not a "non-issue": I speak also German and I can tell you that even with the best translation form one language into the other one something is missing - it just can't be avoided. And we are talking here about to very close related languages.

When it comes to antique texts, than an intimate knowledge of the language is unavoidable for any really serious lecture. This is especially true for texts, like the New Testament, of which different variations of the original scripture are around.

If you think that is the most important message of the creator of the universe, you should logically spend some years in learning Antique Greek, including a good knowledge of the variations of this language in this time and the political and social structures of this time.

That's a hard way of doing it. The critical point that many Christians fall short is not a lack of knowledge of archaic languages, but a lack of understanding of the history and cultures where the texts were written. When you understand more about the culture of the time a text is written in, then even the English translation makes a lot more sense. There are plenty of scholarly works out there that accomplish this so that every person does not need to become an expert in ancient languages to understand what is written in the Bible.

Again, scholars who have investigated the issue can attest that the modern English translations are very faithful to the original texts and not filled with "translation errors" as many opponents claimed for years.

You know what the context is?

A bunch of bronze age people with very limited knowledge trying to make sense of the world

There.

I do not like to refer to the Old Testament, my knowledge of Pre-Alexandrian history of this region is very limited, but I claim to have some knowledge regarding the time of the New Testament and the ideas which were discussed at this time within the better educated parts of the society.

If you read the non-Christian authors of this time, you will be astonished how backwards and uneducated, the authors of the new testament were. Those text were certainly not written for the intellectual elite of this time. The Stoics, the Epicureans, and others were in their analysis much more advanced - they asked the question deeper and did not give the simple answer the New Testament provides, but an answer you had to give yourself by your judgement.



We are not talking about Tacitus or Ulpianus, but about the alleged ultimate text. Any interpretation within the translation would have, according to Christian faith, horrible consequences for your after live. When you take your believe in the bible for face value, you will need to try avoid any mistake in interpreting this text, because otherwise you would risk to burn in hell forever.



Even the "orignal text" is not clear. There are different groups of the Greek original, which must be based on Greek verbal translation of the what had been said in Aramaic. So if you take your faith seriously, you should start to study scientific accurate editions of the variations of those texts.

Depends on your theory of law. Given that the tax law has been considered legal by most judges for an extended period of time, and along with that, most people, I find the grounds for this interpretation of law to be weak, as for all intents and purposes, this is a law. This likely goes back more to your interpretation of Romans 13 than mine of the Constitution though.

To go back to the article you cited:


The founding fathers are not Church fathers, nor are they all necessarily upstanding Christians. John Adams was a Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson was a Deist if not close to one. Their understanding is mostly derived from the Enlightenment not the Bible necessarily, and there are a lot of tendencies in their writings that seem to reflect a non-standard Christianity, even in George Washington who spoke in more generic theological language in many cases rather than in more specific Christian references.

To go further, most of the reasoning cited by these figures is not derived from the Bible.

To get to the Bible claims, yes, those are somewhat valid, as Romans 13 as absolute obedience has been rejected for a long period of time. However, to get to the last part, here's what I see:



Point 1 does not seem true, after all, the Roman government that Paul was under, was a pagan government that was actively oppressing Christians, so this point does not make sense within the context. Romans 13 rather seems to claim that God put in place all governments, something that God can do with evil as seen with Job 1-2, and with evil governments as seen with Pharoah (Exodus 9:16-17), the Assyrians (Isaiah 10:5-7,12), and Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 25:8-12).

Point 4 has no grounding in Romans 13, at all. Why? It says governing authorities, it does not say anything about a personal interpretation of the laws at stake. In fact, these laws can be unjust in implementation as admitted with the tax rules of Biblical times (Matt 17:25-27), but still be necessary to obey. Because of that, and no mentioning of proper laws vs improper laws, and to invoke the Constitution above common law seems problematic, as common law is at the foundation of American law, and common law has already accepted the validity of the IRS in as much as punishments for ignoring tax law are generally meted. Because of this, I'd have to say that there is no foundation for saying that the Constitution is above common law, that Romans 13 depends upon a fidelity to a personal interpretation of the law vs the public interpretation of law that has already occurred on this issue, or even that Romans 13 has anything to do with the actual laws so much as the workings of the governing powers. Heck, the nature of a governing authority is that these authorities exist before the law, rather than after, so Romans 13 seems to expect obedience to something pre-legal. Particularly given how governments get power. Is there a moment when they become divinely instituted? No, but rather they are just groupings of thugs that later become important enough to be generally respected, which fits into the motif of respecting them as well, particularly given that the Bible tells people to respect the weaknesses of those around them, which is a theme in Romans 14, and obviously the respecting of government laws, even questionable laws, is one that most people will have issue with, so one must respect those laws for the sake of those around them.

6. There is nothing stating in the Bible that only the Constitution matters, as I already pointed out. And even if there were, there is nothing about private interpretations of the Constitution, or the promotion of the constitution over common law.


In short, the historical founding you have is weak, for the founders were inspired by the Enlightenment and were not necessarily the best Christians or even theologians for that matter. The Biblical foundation isn't even there, but rather asserted as being there because the Bible doesn't reference anything about how US law is to be construed. I don't see much practical foundation either, I mean, not paying taxes can screw you over, it looks bad to other people and so on, and that isn't what Christianity is about.


I don't see how your distinction is really meaningful. It seems to me that while common law (or tertiary law) can be considered somewhat contingent, it is as valid to uphold as the Constitution, if not more so by an individual actor within society. Particularly given that this "tertiary law" includes the public interpretation of the Constitution, which is more important than the literal Constitution in some ways.

Not only that, but if laws are ultimately instituted by the government, a pre-legal institution, then why must it's rules necessarily even be consistent if the ultimate interpretation of these rules can be made consistent? Not only that, but your own interpretation of laws isn't even the only interpretation, as the philosophies of legal pragmatism, and legal positivism argue that laws are made by courts and governments respectively, not just "out there" in some legal space, that upholds to all of the rigidities that you believe in. Heck, I would actually reject your interpretation of laws, as I do not see them as just government creations, but rather emergent from the relevant society, and ultimately contingent upon the beliefs of the relevant society.(and not in an official institutional manner either)

There is not really a specific methodology in the Constitution, all there is is a statement that the Constitution is the supreme law, but the issue is that methodologies are not laws in and of themselves, but rather modify the law.

In any case, I think the majority of experts on this matter will disagree with your interpretation on the nature of law, and certainly over the previously mentioned Constitutionality of the income tax.

None of the church fathers were as smart as Posidonius of Apmea (135 - 53 b.c.e). He was a polymath, probably as smart and as broad in his learning as Aristotle and mostly a Stoic. The Stoics were as close to monotheism as any of the pre-Christian Greeks and their teaching also had much in common with Judaism (probably a coincidence). Eventually all the ethical and moral wisdom boils down to some form of the Golden Rule.

ruveyn

I'm a Christian. Its hard to find good ones on here that's for sure.

Awesomely glorious, I have to agree. There are numerous errors in the KJV which have been resolved in the NIV/ESV.
Hi Shadowgirl, you're right. What church do you go to?

Yeah I'm also not really into KJV as well. The NIV, NLT, and The Message are the translations I'm into.


I go to this one www.brookwoodchurch.org


Good to meet another Christian on a place like this.

The issue here isn't the KJV, just the theological ediface placed atop of it. It would have been the same problem no matter what translation was used in this instance I think. The real issue here is that the theology is problematic. However, that is correct that the KJV has some problems, usually somewhat slight, and some of the issues are just that the document used has some inclusions that weren't in earlier documents, but I think those are generally slight and do not impact doctrine too seriously.

I have the Living Bible.

I wouldn't use anything other than the KJV!

That sounds like a good church.

How you can make such a statement without knowing and understanding the original texts?

You mean mosto's comment on the KJV? Well, there are certain verses that are outright removed between the KJV and later versions of scripture, and these verses are removed on the basis of not being considered authentic by scholars.

Beyond that, I am not sure what else can really be said too much. I mean, there are occasional verses where if you back to the original text, you can see how the words can seem questionably interpreted at times.