Bearing sins

[ThomasDGW]

I fully realize that I am at a disadvantage when reading the Bible in a translation. But, as you said at the beginning, I can't help that now. Even if I were to learn all 8674 words in the Hebrew Bible,  that would be just the beginning. I learned Spanish quite well, I'm working on German with Duolingo, and spent several years teaching English to Spanish speakers, so I am familiar with the challenges of learning a language. At age 67, I will only contemplate improving a tiny bit in my rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew.

But, from my teaching experience, and quite a bit of translation experience (3 books and a bunch of reports and lessons), I do not accept your implication that reading a translation does not give a person the correct meaning. There are some challenges to correctly translate a few phrases, but they are not insurmountable. I have several Bible translations (including interlinear), lexicons and concordances to guide me, and I already referred to using the Hebrew concordance to get at the meaning by seeing all the contexts that it is used in. I notice that you didn't tell me that my understanding of "bearing sins" was wrong, on the contrary, you confirmed that I understood correctly. The disagreement was about to whom did this sin bearing apply and were the speakers really correct in saying that.

Now that we have internet, even more resources are available to catch any misunderstanding of what the text actually says, including the translations made by Jewish scholars for the benefit of the many Jews who don't speak Hebrew. So, when I say I read the text at face value, I am talking about an affirmed consensus of what the text says. If a commentator says that the text means such and such, I have found that it is often NOT because of what the text actually says (there is usually agreement on that), but because of a doctrinal predisposition to eliminate this idea or accept that idea.  Then, it becomes necessary to give further "explanations" for other passages that seem to say something different.  Hence, the mental whiplash I referred to. But that was not what really disturbed me. What moved me to a crisis was that different doctrinal traditions (within evangelical Christianity) gave different answers to important questions, and each tradition had their own set of interpretations of the same texts. Talk about confusion! It appears to me that Judaism is in a similar situation.

I think the best way to illustrate this is to take up one of the topics that were included in that list by Michoel Druzin you gave me thee link to: Isaiah 53:9, the burial of the servant, in a new thread.

[rosends]

I fully realize that I am at a disadvantage when reading the Bible in a translation. But, as you said at the beginning, I can't help that now. Even if I were to learn all 8674 words in the Hebrew Bible,  that would be just the beginning. I learned Spanish quite well, I'm working on German with Duolingo, and spent several years teaching English to Spanish speakers, so I am familiar with the challenges of learning a language. At age 67, I will only contemplate improving a tiny bit in my rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew.

But, from my teaching experience, and quite a bit of translation experience (3 books and a bunch of reports and lessons), I do not accept your implication that reading a translation does not give a person the correct meaning. There are some challenges to correctly translate a few phrases, but they are not insurmountable. I have several Bible translations (including interlinear), lexicons and concordances to guide me, and I already referred to using the Hebrew concordance to get at the meaning by seeing all the contexts that it is used in. I notice that you didn't tell me that my understanding of "bearing sins" was wrong, on the contrary, you confirmed that I understood correctly. The disagreement was about to whom did this sin bearing apply and were the speakers really correct in saying that.

Now that we have internet, even more resources are available to catch any misunderstanding of what the text actually says, including the translations made by Jewish scholars for the benefit of the many Jews who don't speak Hebrew. So, when I say I read the text at face value, I am talking about an affirmed consensus of what the text says. If a commentator says that the text means such and such, I have found that it is often NOT because of what the text actually says (there is usually agreement on that), but because of a doctrinal predisposition to eliminate this idea or accept that idea.  Then, it becomes necessary to give further "explanations" for other passages that seem to say something different.  Hence, the mental whiplash I referred to. But that was not what really disturbed me. What moved me to a crisis was that different doctrinal traditions (within evangelical Christianity) gave different answers to important questions, and each tradition had their own set of interpretations of the same texts. Talk about confusion! It appears to me that Judaism is in a similar situation.

I think the best way to illustrate this is to take up one of the topics that were included in that list by Michoel Druzin you gave me thee link to: Isaiah 53:9, the burial of the servant, in a new thread.

Using lexicons and such makes you subject to the agendas of those who made those lexicons. The same holds true for using translations, and comparing translations when you don't understand WHY they differ in their understandings will limit how much you can get from the words. Added to that is the idea that the biblical texts were specifically given within a theological construct, not in a vacuum, so understanding comes from within that construct. Reading from the outside and imposing external interpretive schemas or rules is doomed.

[ThomasDGW]

I fully realize that I am at a disadvantage when reading the Bible in a translation. But, as you said at the beginning, I can't help that now. Even if I were to learn all 8674 words in the Hebrew Bible,  that would be just the beginning. I learned Spanish quite well, I'm working on German with Duolingo, and spent several years teaching English to Spanish speakers, so I am familiar with the challenges of learning a language. At age 67, I will only contemplate improving a tiny bit in my rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew.

But, from my teaching experience, and quite a bit of translation experience (3 books and a bunch of reports and lessons), I do not accept your implication that reading a translation does not give a person the correct meaning. There are some challenges to correctly translate a few phrases, but they are not insurmountable. I have several Bible translations (including interlinear), lexicons and concordances to guide me, and I already referred to using the Hebrew concordance to get at the meaning by seeing all the contexts that it is used in. I notice that you didn't tell me that my understanding of "bearing sins" was wrong, on the contrary, you confirmed that I understood correctly. The disagreement was about to whom did this sin bearing apply and were the speakers really correct in saying that.

Now that we have internet, even more resources are available to catch any misunderstanding of what the text actually says, including the translations made by Jewish scholars for the benefit of the many Jews who don't speak Hebrew. So, when I say I read the text at face value, I am talking about an affirmed consensus of what the text says. If a commentator says that the text means such and such, I have found that it is often NOT because of what the text actually says (there is usually agreement on that), but because of a doctrinal predisposition to eliminate this idea or accept that idea.  Then, it becomes necessary to give further "explanations" for other passages that seem to say something different.  Hence, the mental whiplash I referred to. But that was not what really disturbed me. What moved me to a crisis was that different doctrinal traditions (within evangelical Christianity) gave different answers to important questions, and each tradition had their own set of interpretations of the same texts. Talk about confusion! It appears to me that Judaism is in a similar situation.

I think the best way to illustrate this is to take up one of the topics that were included in that list by Michoel Druzin you gave me thee link to: Isaiah 53:9, the burial of the servant, in a new thread.

Using lexicons and such makes you subject to the agendas of those who made those lexicons. The same holds true for using translations, and comparing translations when you don't understand WHY they differ in their understandings will limit how much you can get from the words. Added to that is the idea that the biblical texts were specifically given within a theological construct, not in a vacuum, so understanding comes from within that construct. Reading from the outside and imposing external interpretive schemas or rules is doomed.

You are absolutely right about lexicons. I figured that out long ago, and as a result, I constantly cross-check.

If you are right about me being doomed unless I follow the commentaries, then reading on my own should bring me to disharmony and constant questioning. Christian leaders told me the same thing, but when I started reading on my own, I started finding that other texts would say exactly what I was expecting from my reading of the previous. It still happens. I conclude something, and at times it is what I hear from Judaism about what a text means (especially when they are not trying to counter the NT or Jesus), and what they said it means was what I already figured out on my own.

I tried this out with a guy who has been attending church for about half his life of 53 years. Before he was a party animal and didn't read the Bible. Then he became a Christian and faithfully attended church since. But he is not a theologian. He was open to talk and learn and he kept asking me to explain a NT passage, like they do at church. I kept deflecting him back to, What does it say? Finally he got frustrated  and said, Well, it says such and such. Well, if that's what it means then that would mean that "ABC XYZ", and he said that in a tone that implied: It can't mean that, so come on and tell me what it means. Except, then it hit him like a brick that what he had just said it means was actually a well-known quote from Jesus!

And when I figured out, when I was about 25, that I could read the Bible and get coherent, intra-confirming, life-affirmed meaning, I started to get excited about reading the Bible. Well, I hope that this example I raised in Isaiah 53:9 will make it clear what I am saying.