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This page exists so that you can talk to us about topics related to the blog but not to any particular post. Presumably there are some things we haven’t thought of, but you might use this page to:
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The Jawbone Of an Ass 
Hey, fantastic new layout! Looks great!
Eric, shoot me an email, man. wes (at) wesdraws (dot) com
Later this year I will attend a conference the theme of which has been selected to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the 1611 KJV. I read your essay on ‘Translations’ and somewhere else I recall you mentioning (and I do not wish to misquote you here) a preference for the KJV.
Have you written anything on the origins and/or usefulness of this particular translation?
The only thing I seem to have said about the KJV is that it really screwed up the translation of the word for “sea monster” by mixing it up with the word for “jackal”. That’s more or less my impression of the KJV: modern English speakers need to learn a new dialect to read it, it’s not as well translated as some modern works, and it doesn’t use the manuscripts we now have available. However, the KJV is the grandfather of a lot of translations out there. For some it directly inspired them (like the NKJV). In others frustration with the KJV seems to have inspired a new take – like many paraphrase translations. For this it does deserve credit, but I personally tend to read the ESV.
As far as the origins go, the KJV was actually written in part as an alternative to (and to suppress) the translations my ancestors were putting out.
If you would, please elaborate on:
‘The manuscripts we now have available’ and
‘My ancestors’
The KJV was translated off of the Textus Receptus, which isn’t a bad text but it also isn’t anything like the wealth of manuscripts we’ve discovered since. Being able to check what a number of texts have written is always useful.
My ancestors were Separatists. Their translations of the Bible included marginal notes that King James didn’t like. He commissioned a translation that was friendlier to his rule.
I’m not sure if this is the correct area of the blog to leave this at but I’m interested in starting a discussion of sorts. I myself am an atheist (but grew up catholic) and to me, it only makes sense that there is no god. It’s almost unbelievable that with all the information we have on the internet now, people would still choose to believe in a god of any kind. You (Eric) seem like a very well spoken and bright guy, I’m just curious why any education person, such as yourself, would believe in a higher power?
Well, there’s a bit of a cognitive disconnect here. You say, “with all the information we have on the internet now”. I’m afraid I don’t see why that relates to the question. Why would having more information make one less likely to believe in God? You appear to actually be presupposing that God does not exist and that more access to information would reveal this.
Now, I can see two routes through this. One (very likely) is that you and I can both say “God” or “gods” and yet have very different ideas of what this term means and what a belief in this being or beings would mean to one’s life. If, for instance, your idea of a god would be basically as a magical fill-in-the-gaps being then sure, more information would deal a death-blow to such a creature. I don’t believe in a magical fill-in-the-gaps being.
The other route is perhaps related. The way our society deals with information is tightly connected to the rise of empiricism. Now, as a scientist I have no issue with the scientific method, of course. However, the rise of empiricism well outside of science has had some weird effects. Have you seen the commercial where one of the statements is that love is a chemical? I hear that sort of thing a lot but it’s crap. Love isn’t a chemical. Love is a feeling. Now, that feeling may be chemical in origin but it does not reduce to the chemical (really, a large set of chemicals combined with electrical impulses, directed at the correct set of neurons). The reason that this sort of statement makes sense to us is that a chemical is tangible and our fascination with empiricism has caused us to believe that tangible things, or at least neatly measurable things, are more real.
Now, this tends to rule out divine beings of any sort. But it also rules out truth, beauty, good, evil, and a whole host of other abstracts. Weirdly, some of these things are far more directly present to us than the tangible “real” things. You can kick a trashcan and you can’t kick beauty but beauty is a quality that is discernible to you in a way that trashcan isn’t. Everyone senses beauty (although not in the same exact manner) but you have to be trained to sense trashcans – someone has to identify a set of stimuli to you as a trashcan. So I tend to reject the premise that the tangible and easily-measurable are the only things that are real.
So I’ll probably need you to clarify the problem a bit.
Hi Eric,
I discovered this website through the relevant forum and read the entry on structural evil. I am still processing that but am looking forward to reading more now that I have found this blog . I have added my email address as I would like to read your entries. I never became a forum member at relevant(mainly because I’m not sure how much I could contribute to the discussions there). I learned a lot through that discussion board and am hoping there is a replacement forum that will be utilized. If possible, could you please let me know how I might follow(and maybe even participate in) future discussions?
Thank you and God Bless,
Scott
I’m certainly glad that you enjoy the blog posts. Right now we update every Monday so you should see a new post in four days if the subscription widget is working (it has yet to notify me that there’s a new subscriber which it generally does when someone signs up). I’ve also emailed you about the forums.
I also came here as a result of activity on the relevant forum, very interesting stuff. I will read more another day but for now i am subscribing. peace
I’m having a hard time making the “view” on your article large enough to see and when I print it the type is quite small. Too bad because this work looks important.
I don’t believe I’ve changed any settings related to printing on the blog. I will look around (I notice that the article doesn’t automatically fill the screen) but I suspect trying to print at above 100% zoom will also solve that issue.