Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Yoko Ono Files Suit Against Expelled!

    More information at Freespace.

  • Good Sermon Science Comments

    Today I attended Pensacola’s First United Methodist Church where Dr. Wesley Wachob is pastor. He recently saw the movie Expelled!, and though he said he recommended people see it, he proceeded to dump pretty heavily on the movie’s content. He encouraged the church’s young people to become “brilliant scientists” and noted that there is no contradiction between good theology and good science, and that creationism is not science, no matter how you dress it up.

    Some of the wording may differ in the audio I’m linking, because he preaches three times, and the audio is not of the same service I attended (9:45 am), but I listened to sections, and it sounds like the goal was much the same.

    More pastors need to speak boldly like this to their congregations so that people will realize that creationism isn’t the only Christian option. It’s good when Christians who are scientists speak out; we need more theologians, and specifically more pastors to do so.

    You can find the audio on this page. Click on the little speaker by “The Unknown God.” (Update: Comments on science start at about 14:30.)

  • MyBibleVersion.com Progress Update

    I haven’t posted about the changes to MyBibleVersion.com for some time, so I thought I’d let you all know I’m still working on it. I don’t expect to roll it out until my site is moved to a new, upgraded physical server which should happen any day now. It’s been “any day now” for a few weeks, however, so don’t hold your breath.

    Here’s what I’ve decided to do:

    1. User registration.
      It won’t be required to use the site, but it will be necessary if you want to personalize it. See below.
    2. Some real help files.
      I think some people still leave because of complexity, so I want to include better explanations of how to use the site and also of the characteristics and how the numbers relate to reality.
    3. Customized data.
      Registered users will be able to create their own profile sets, then set the site to display their entries when they are using it. Other users can choose to use anyone’s profiles rather than mine if they so choose. Unregistered users will get my material in the same way as they do now.

      Users don’t have to use just the list of translations I include. You could include less versions, for example if you wanted to help people choose between the top ten versions, in your view. You can also add your own.

    4. Commenting.
      I will not roll this out initially, but I plan to add commenting capability, specific to each version profile and profile set. For example, if user “Fred” creates a profile of a version, you can comment on his work, or you can comment on mine or anyone else’s.
    5. Voting.
      I will add a function for registered users to vote on versions for a list of purposes. I haven’t decided on the details, except that there will be only one version list for this purpose, which I will create. Users can e-mail me to add versions. This is to avoid things like the Satanic Bible being added as happened on another service. Basically I’ll list things like “Pew Bible”, “Public Reading”, “Serious Study” and so forth, and users will be able to rank versions in terms of their usefulness for that purpose.

    Any suggestions are welcome. I’ll post here when I roll this stuff out.

  • Bill Moyers Interviews Dr. Jeremiah Wright

    I think we all draw boundary lines between those with whom we disagree, yet consider valid voices in our culture or community, and those whose views we think are so far off the map that conversation cannot continue. For many Americans, Dr. Jeremiah Wright has fallen into the second category.

    I would suggest, however, that in making such a determination one must consider context and intent. The context in which remarks are uttered can completely reverse their effect. Reported by a Jewish writer, “his blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25) reports on some words, and may express hostility by one group of Jews toward another. Repeated by a crowd of Christians in the middle ages, they became a frequent call to bloodshed.

    I commented previously that I believe that the preaching style was taken outside of the context of the African-American church. Others have noted, and I agree, that many of the comments (especially “God damn America”) were also taken somewhat out of context.

    There remains points on which I disagree, but that is really unimportant. Dr. Wright is a person who has accomplished much of value, and much of what he said is also valuable. In my view, Barack Obama went too far in distancing himself from the pastor who first brought him to Christ, baptized him, performed his wedding, and then baptized his children. I am disturbed that so many Christians seem to believe that is a relationship to be discarded. Dr. Wright was very gracious about it, speaking of the differences between pastoral and political roles.

    I commend Bill Moyers’ interview, which presents what seems to me a much more balanced view of the man, one which accords with my suspicions after tracking down the context of some of the snippets that have been posted.

    I would particularly commend the idea of “arguing with the text” that he mentions late in the second part. Biblical characters were willing to argue with God. If it seems to us that a text is demanding something improper, perhaps we should take a page from their book.

    (Hat tip to if i were a bell, i’d ring for the video link.)

  • Origin Models: An Abundance of Christian Views

    “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is an interesting philosophy in politics and war. Usually the amity between “enemies of enemies” lasts about as long as hostilities between those particular enemies. Wesley Elsberry has posted an excellent article on problems with the “two model” approach to the creation-evolution debate.

    To summarize, though you should go read his excellent post, anti-evolutionist strategy depends on the notion that if the theory of evolution falls, then creationism will be the only alternative. One response to this has always been to ask just which alternative theory would win, considering Hindu, Native American, and many, many other creation myths available. But if one simply considers the various Christian views that gather under the umbrella of intelligent design (ID), then the question would be which ID wins if evolution loses.

    The problem is that none of these approaches is actually a coherent theory, and to the extent that they approach having the elements of a theory, various of their bodily appendages are sticking out of the edges of the big tent. ID is at best an observation, or better a supposition, not a theory. That is, it explains nothing, but rather points out things that it alleges cannot be explained without proposing an alternative, that is if we take seriously the suggestion that the intelligent designer is not God.

    Partially under this big tent of ID, we find young earth creationists, old earth creationists, ruin and restoration creationists, and the occasional theistic-mostly-evolutionist. The problem is that each of these views would tend to produce very different results in the fossil record and in the behavior of living organisms.

    A few years back I reviewed the book What is Creation Science?, and noted that they tried to distinguish debates about the age of the earth, a global flood, and the idea of special creation, apparently to be understood in a vacuum. They wanted to argue them separately.

    But consider the common statement by creationists that new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, precisely as you would expect them to appear had they been specially created by God. Is the age of the earth and the question of a global flood irrelevant to this point? Hardly! This statement would generally match an old earth creation model, because in that model the age of the earth is accepted at about 4.5 billion years, and these species are supposed to have appeared over long periods of time. I’m not certain why God would want to create in that fashion, but that’s not my subject today.

    Because of the long periods of time available, creatures would have been fossilized, and if God created in the phased pattern suggested, then one would expect new species to appear and disappear abruptly. I’m ignoring the great difficulties with fossil preservation and discovery here. There will always be a first specimen of a particular species, and a last specimen of a particular species. The “abrupt” separation is a matter of classification, a binary choice that doesn’t mirror the actual history in detail, nor it is intended to. We would always assume there are many, many creatures who lived and died but weren’t fossilized or whose fossils have yet to be discovered.

    But the young earth creationist shouldn’t use this argument, because by his view all of life should have appeared abruptly in the fossil record, and then continue forward without disappearance, except for a few extinct species. How many species should become extinct in a matter of a mere 6 to 10 thousand years?

    I don’t know if there are young earth creationists who don’t believe in a global flood. Normally the two go together because they are derived from the same approach to interpreting Genesis 1-11. But if the young earth creationist believes in a global flood he shouldn’t believe in any substantial number of fossils at all. A mere period of less than 2,000 years from creation to the flood should produce very, very few fossils. They should all be the result of the global flood.

    So if our hypothetical young earther believes in a global flood, he shouldn’t be looking for any sign in the fossil record of the origin of species; that all happened in one week, so you wouldn’t have any of the intermediate states fossilized. One should then look for a different principle of sorting for fossils, as indeed various creationists have done. It is not my purpose to examine those views here except to point out that they are each different.

    Then there is the difference between old earth and young earth creationists over the entrance of sin into the world. Was human sin the cause of all physical death? I’m not going to go into detail, but again this would have an impact on the evidence that we would be likely to see.

    Thus even leaving out other religions, just Christianity can produce quite a number of alternative views. Which one is supposed to replace the theory of evolution as a model? Again, ID is deceptive by trying to pretend that these views have enough in common to belong under a single tent. It is also deceptive in suggesting that it actually proposes an alternative model. It really proposes that we have either the theory of evolution or, well, not!

    Even the fig leaf garment of one of the rather weak creation models is here removed, yet we are all supposed to believe that we are hearing a debate between two substantial theories. Actually all we are hearing is the proposal that we dump around a century and a half of scientific progress and refinement in favor of saying “I don’t know.”

    I’m rather interested in this specific point because Florida is working on a so-call academic freedom bill, which proponents claim has nothing to do with religion, or even with ID (see the Florida Citizens for Science blog. But what they can’t produce is the alternative scientific information they propose should be in the classroom, but which is not allowed there now. The only beneficiaries of their law would be ID or some one or other of the more specific creationisms that are available. We thus know from the start that their effort is deceptive.

    As one final note I believe this is also an indication that ID bears a closer resemblance to theology, where multiple alternative explanations for one thing can coexist and be bundled loosely, than to science, in which competing theories are constantly tested in the hopes of discarding those that don’t make it and keeping those that do. Theology studies something that is very hard to get into the lab by its very nature. ID seems to bear some resemblance to that.

  • Analyzing another KJV-Only Comment

    A person identifying himself as J B has added a comment to my video post Why I Hate the KJV. It contains so many examples of the misinformation and invalid reasoning presented by KJV-Only Advocates that I couldn’t resist commenting.

    I don’t know how you can say the KJV “communicated the scriptures wonderfully to the people of it’s time, over time that language has changed.”

    You know, for a moment I thought the comment might be from one of those folks who thinks I give the KJV too much credit. But it turns out that J B thinks that communicating effectively is not an attribute to be desired in a translation.

    First you don’t seem to know much about the KJV, at the time it was translated (the 17th century) the “people of it’s time” did not speak the English of the King James Bible, (often referred to as “Kings English.”)

    First, I want you to note that at this point J B seems to think knowledge is valuable, as he accuses me of lacking it. Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it later.

    Second, what is it with KJV-Only folks and “scare quotes”? Does J B imagine that there were no people at the time of the KJV translation?

    Third, I am well aware of the type of language used, but I tend to measure things a little more objectively. I don’t imagine how people would understand a particular dialect, I observe. The rate at which the KJV gained dominance indicates, I believe, that it communicated well.

    I am happy to note, however, a KJV-Only advocate actually admitting to archaic language in the KJV. Many of them try to pretend it is relatively close to modern English. But however archaic it was when the translation was made, it is more archaic now. If you place a high value on the failure to communicate, I suppose this is a good thing.

    Most language develops for the purpose of communication. There is a dialect of English, politician-speak, which is designed to employ words whilst preventing the readers or hearers from comprehending them, but that’s a special case.

    The KJV was translated into this already “archaic” form of English because it was the most perfect form of English, our language is not getting better over time it’s getting worse.

    This is rather interesting. What makes a language “perfect”? Would it not perhaps be communication? I have never seen the characteristics of a perfect language. Would a theoretically perfect language structure and vocabulary, but which was not used by anyone be perfect, whilst also being useless?

    And on what basis does one say that our language is getting worse? I know that language curmudgeons regularly complain about it, but I give that about as much credence as I do the complaints of people who use computers and the internet to wish they could go back to the “good old days.” Presumably they don’t want to die of the same diseases that people did back in the “good old days” or have the life expectancy of that time.

    That old language is of very little use to me in my daily life. The “perfect” English lacked any vocabulary with which to describe this computer at which I’m typing. It lacked terms for large numbers of items in my daily life.

    Perfect for what? Presumably perfect for people who think language exists in a vacuum and who don’t care what is done with it. Language is a tool. It’s quality or lack thereof depends on how well it accomplishes that task.

    Yet “the people of it’s time” didn’t seem to want a more modern “version” of the Bible, they were merely interested in a more perfect Bible.

    Well, actually the people of that time didn’t really have much to say about it. The king wanted a Bible to help unify the church. Various other people had quite a variety of ideas. And the Bible was not immediately accepted by those same people. Like many others, they did not find it easy to accept a new translation easily.

    Also the KJV is the most widely used Bible today even more so than it was when it was translated so I don’t quite understand how you can consider those in the 17th century “people of it’s time” and not the people of our time who use it more widely.

    Oh, so that’s the purpose of those scare quotes. The “people of its time” are those who were living at the time it was translated. I know you want to extend its time, but wishing doesn’t make it so.

    The time of the KJV has not passed, neither of those two groups then or now speak King James English, and both groups have the KJV so how it can be the Bible of their time and not the Bible of our time just doesn’t make sense.

    It makes sense to those who acknowledge facts. You can, of course, imagine it to be anything you want.

    The other thing that you mentioned is that you study the Bible in “it’s original languages” which I believe I can easily conclude as Greek and Hebrew.

    Well, those and Aramaic. Part of the Bible was written in Aramaic, and I read that too.

    A lot of people say that you really should learn Greek and Hebrew to understand the Bible more clearly.

    Those are smart people. Not everyone needs to know Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, but they are valuable. Those are the languages in which the prophets and apostles wrote.

    I don’t understand why I should study Greek and Hebrew when God has already preserved His Word in English, God had the foresight to know that the common World language would be English.

    A little earlier you were complaining that I know little about the KJV, though actually you are wrong on that point. But there you seemed to think knowledge was valuable. Here you seem to think knowledge is not valuable. Odd, isn’t it?

    You see, nobody could tell just how well God’s Word was preserved in the English of the KJV unless someone read the languages in which the Bible was originally written. The KJV translators used the manuscripts at hand, their language skills, and all the resources they had at hand, and they translated. Do you or any other KJV-Only advocate understand what that means? I doubt it. Translation is hard work. Translation always loses some aspect of the source. Even the best translation is not and never can be equivalent to the original.

    When you say that God has preserved his word in English through the KJV you are doing at least two extremely arrogant and stupid things:

    1. You cut yourself off from the Christian community. As a KJV-Only advocate who makes this claim you should no longer call yourself a Christian. I rarely say this, but Christianity has been built on many centuries of tradition. The Bible itself is the result of things that were passed down from the early church. You are free to grab hold of anything you want and call it God’s one true word, but this claim cuts you off from that community.
    2. You make the claim that the English speaking world is specially privileged by God. Even though I am appalled by the first point, I find this one even worse. You and I, who speak English, are not one bit better spiritually than the least tribesman who speaks an as yet unwritten language. God has no more desire to communicate his message to us than to him. The incredible arrogance of claiming that our language has set us above everyone is astounding. If a claim could be made for the privileging of any language it would be the one spoken by the prophets or apostles through whom God spoke.

    <blockquote.
    If I’m having a hard time understanding the English Bible wouldn’t it make more sense to study English?

    And suddenly you think understanding is important. Now get this: If studying it in an archaic form of English is better than studying it in Greek, then studying it in a modern, comprehensible form of English is better than studying it in archaic English.

    You need to decide which it is on these points. Are you interested in communication or in having the scriptures in an allegedly “perfect” language? Are you interested in knowledge or do you condemn it?

    The only thing learning Greek & Hebrew does is allow each individual to translate God’s Word the way he sees fit and not accept it as God intended.

    But God intended to present his word in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. At least I believe God does what he intended to do, and that’s what he did, so I assume he intended it.

    You, on the other hand, want to replace that with an English translation. What originally astonished me about KJV-Only advocates is the way they try to claim to truly respect God’s Word, and yet at the same time have no concern with the accuracy of translation. Whatever the KJV did is OK with them, no matter how wrong. That’s not respect.

    It’s more confusing to me to “purchase multiple English versions” because I do not “read the source languages,” especially now when the majority of modern translations have been continuously revised within the last 20 years.

    I’m sure you don’t want to be confused with facts, but the fact remains that no translation conveys everything in the source language. That’s why people keep trying.

    How would I know the version I’m currently using is going to be relevant to the next generation, I would be perpetually upgrading to the latest version.

    Actually you can be quite certain that at some time in the future any version you’re using will become dated and require revision. Language changes. When it changes enough, people no longer understand it as well as they should. Thus revision is needed.

    The people of 17th century England not only had the Bible in it’s “original languages” they also had “multiple English versions,” the whole reason they took on the task of translating the Bible, was so that English speaking people would have a “more exact Translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English tongue;” (quoted from the Epistle Dedicatory which was written by the translators themselves) so going out and buying “multiple English versions” is taking a step backwards not forwards.

    You should read “From the translators to the reader.” That gives many of their ideas of how to translate and also their comments on the resistance to new translations.

    Just because the English language has become more and more watered down over time doesn’t mean we should water down God’s Word to match it so that it will be more relevant to the world.

    First, you have yet to establish what a “perfect” language is and in what way English has been “watered down.” Second, it is not an issue of relevance, but of comprehension. We do not water down the scriptures by translating them, nor do we make them any more or less relevant. We make the relevance that is there understandable.

    The world rejects the Word of God because His Word is Holy and it convicts them of their sin. Changing His Word to be more relevant to the world allows the world to be comfortable in their sinful state and does not bring true repentance of sin.

    Which applies quite well to any well-done translation of the Bible.

    I will leave you with something I found on the the University of Virginia’s website while trying to look up a free online RSV bible.

    The Bible, Revised Standard Version
    We regret that we are unable to host the Revised Standard Version of the Bible on our website any longer. We were recently contacted by the National Council of Churches of Christ (http://www.ncccusa.org/), who own the copyright for the Revised Standard Version of the Bible in the USA. They have asked us to remove the text from our website, and we have complied with their request. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
    The King James Version of the Bible may still be accessed on our website at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/kjv.browse.html.

    The KJV was translated to be freely available to all men, while all other versions were created to be under the control of men. What right do we have to hinder others from freely accessing the Word God for our own greedy gains? Apparently a lot if you own the copyright.

    We follow with the standard complaint about copyrights. But the KJV was originally published under a license granted by the crown. That was as close to copyright as it got in those days. Modern translators are no different on this point. I see no reason why they should not be compensated for their work. Surely you can afford the cost of an electronic copy of the RSV.

    The arguments for the KJV-Only position never seem to change; they just get stated in different words.

  • James 5, Prayer, and Physical Healing

    Mark Olson has posted on James 5 and it’s relationship to healing. He notes that he “had been” in conversation with me on health care. I have been a bit too occupied with other matters, but I do intend to write some more in that conversation. Right now, I’m interested in his comments on James 5 and the instruction to call the elders of the church, anoint, and pray for someone who is sick.

    He says:

    From reading this, and the prayers attached to the rest of that section of the service, it seems fairly clear that based on the liturgical prayer and the attached reading above that he prayers and annointing of the sick first and foremost are intended to deal with the afflicted one’s relationship to the Lord. If one takes seriously, as one should if one is of the faithful, that salvation is assured … then this is the right attitude.

    Just so. I would note that there is a special point here in calling for the elders and then doing this together–the element of community. Too much of prayer for healing in the modern American church is a very individual thing with the primary point being to get the physical healing one desires. I have been asked whether calling for the elders of the church and having a kind of service of anointing would be “more effective” than some other form of prayer. What about finding someone who is claims and/or is identified as having the gift of healing?

    The problem here is that we identify the primary purpose of prayer, and in this case of a form of worship service or at least an act of worship, as getting something physical for ourselves. The perennial question is whether prayer “works.” Experiments are set up to determine the effects of prayer.

    I have no interest in those experiments, because they would rely on the idea that the primary purpose of prayer is to produce a particular result. If, as many Christians seem to believe, that is the actual purpose, then such scientific tests would be valid, and prayer would be a scientific process. We could measure the dosage, determine how many people need to pray for someone, and what sort of people. Do we get more points for a minister or priest? Do elders count for more than ordinary church members?

    But I think that misses the point of prayer. It’s not about getting stuff. It’s about communion with God. And God, as Mrs. Beaver noted of Aslan, is not a tame God. We Christians are often guilty of being pushed into a corner on this point. If we don’t claim any physical benefit from prayer, then we’re asked what good it is, and if we do, we’re making a testable claim for something that has not proven testable in the past. Personally I don’t worry about it. I pray because I want to commune with God. I pray with my community because I am a part of it and am called to be in communion with God and with one another. I don’t pray because I can get things and I don’t stop because I don’t.

    Through this conversation Mark has been making good theological points while I have been telling stories. I do have a couple of notes here. My father was the recipient of anointing when the elders were called. We were overseas and it was questionable whether he would live. The mission board wanted to send him home and my parents refused. Our doctor said he would never work again and would be dead in no more than 10 years. My parents called for the elders and they anointed him and prayed over him. I was very disappointed. I was 14 years old and expected something spectacular to happen. What did happen was that he returned to work two weeks later and lived another 35 years. Miracle? I have no idea. My guess is that he was on a mission from God, so to speak!

    In the case of our son, I have been repeatedly complimented on my “strength of faith” to continue believing through that experience. But the problem with that is that I had never expected Christianity to provide me and my family with immunity to cancer or to death from it.

    I would bring this back to my earlier post on the fear. Fear is the great problem. We can go with peace and joy, as befits those who are citizens of God’s eternal kingdom, or we can live in fear. The focus on the physical result of prayer keeps our focus on the wrong issue. Paul was uncertain whether to go and be with God or to stick around, but I feel under the surface that if it was just for him, he was ready to go (Philippians 1:19-26). But none of that sounds like fear!

  • Independence and Bible Study

    In working on YouTube recently, and particularly on this response to a KJV Only presentation, I’ve noticed that many people think that there is great virtue in independence when it comes to Bible study. Statements like “I didn’t depend on any scholars in coming to this view” or “I didn’t read any commentaries, just the Bible” or “I get everything direct from God” are quite common.

    Even the seemingly pious “show me from God’s Word!” can be a declaration of independence. It calls for someone to convince you to your satisfaction, that you’re wrong. Now I’m not saying that this is completely incorrect. You do, after all, have to make the decision in the final analysis. My question is whether, in doing that, you or I have followed the proper procedure and exercised the proper humility.

    You see, we are all dependent on someone when we turn to the Bible. Those who don’t know the source languages are dependent on translators. But even those who do know the languages are still dependent on lexicographers and grammarians for some of their knowledge. In addition, we are all dependent on various historians, archaeologists, commentators, paleographers, and so forth in getting necessary information about the text.

    This deals with the proper procedure. When I complete the study of the passage I should be able to answer “yes” comfortably to this question: Have you consulted good authorities on those things you do not know well yourself? It’s important to be honest about this, because we tend to like to “lean on our own understanding” after a certain amount of study. That’s dangerous! I don’t know how many times I have discovered errors in detail on something I should know when I check it against a good, authoritative source. Another pair of eyes will find even more errors.

    Then there is humility. By humility I do not mean that one gives up one’s own judgment and discernment. Rather, I mean that one is willing to learn from anyone, that one takes an open attitude, and that one seeks correction. You may have to reject some of it. Proper humility in this case is not cutting yourself off from correction, listening honestly, and giving full consideration to the possibility that you may be wrong. After you have done that, you make your decision.

    In practice none of us are independent. We should acknowledge that. But we should realize that such independence would not be a good thing, even if we could attain it.

  • Promising Series on TNIV, HCSB, and NAB

    I think Kevin Sam over at New Epistles has made an excellent choice in selecting these three translations to study as “intermediate” and he’s off to a good start explaining why he’s doing it.

    I note his apology for the term “intermediate,” but that is not such a bad choice of language. I rate translations on a scale of one to ten for formality and similarly for functionality (see examples at MyBibleVersion.com). It is important to realize that these translation types are not narrow pathways to follow, but rather more general principles.

    How one combines them in translation, for example choosing formal equivalence except for specific circumstances, can produce some interesting results. In the case of the NAB, for example, I gave a rating of 4 for functionality/idiomaticity and a 9 for formality. The TNIV is 3 and 8 in those two categories, while the HCSB is 2 and 9. This implies that the NAB is using paraphrasing and careful choice of English idioms in specific places, whilst generally following a formal equivalent line.

    My practice in producing these ratings is to use a list of verses which contain idiomatic expressions and also to test the translations of sample passages for how many words are strictly justified in a formal sense. In the case of the HCSB, I’m not certain the numbers are valid, because as I read more and more of it, it seems uneven in practice. I may write a bit more on that as I go forward. With a small number of sample passages, it could be possible to get an invalid reading.

    In any case, I await the remainder of this series with interest and will be comparing it with my own notes.

  • The Definition of Kind Needs Work

    There’s a new species of lizard.