More christian-baiting, except this time by a church!

"Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow".

ah, god-bothering. I thought you were talking about my old neighbour
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/news/janehill.shtml

Screamer, was she?

like a lobster in boiling water

I do hope she doesn't have to present a serious story next time I see her on the news!

"Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph," she told the New Zealand Herald. "Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful."

Completely mis-read the poster then?

I thought Mary was just supposed to be a virgin when Jesus was born, not that she never got it up the chuff after God had done his thing?

I do wish people thought harder before becoming out-raged. 😐

Other breaking news from New Zealand, I presume unrelated but not so sure?

Interestingly, the idea that the alleged mother of the alleged Jesus was a virgin is due to a mistake in transferring from the Hebrew, which used the descriptive "Young woman". The less than competent scribe put this into Greek as "Virgin".

So the entire foundation of the Catholic Faith and a major supporting girder in all the other Xtian variations is down to a translation error.

Whoops. 😈

Ahhh it's not the first time with the bible and the mis-translation from Aramaic – Greek – Latin – English.

Acksherly I think you'll find the mistake was in the original Hebrew, but God took the opportunity to nudge the scribe's elbow and put it right.

That's undoubtedly what happened.

Oh yes.

I do wish people thought harder

That would be difficult as they follow religion after all.

elliptic – Member

Acksherly I think you'll find the mistake was in the original Hebrew,

http://accurapid.com/journal/18review.htm

Interestingly, the idea that the alleged mother of the alleged Jesus was a virgin is due to a mistake in transferring from the Hebrew, which used the descriptive "Young woman". The less than competent scribe put this into Greek as "Virgin".

So the entire foundation of the Catholic Faith and a major supporting girder in all the other Xtian variations is down to a translation error.

So you're an historian of manuscript transmission and paleographer, are you Mr Woppit?

What a load of hogwash you speak.

LOL at the tit & run teenager

It's like they say about biking, "look where you want to go" 😀

What a load of hogwash you speak.

In what way? Presumably you clicked on my last reference?

Please enlighten me so I can escape the cleansing of porkers….

He's got a point, it's a collection of stories compiled, revised, edited, translated, copied and "interpreted" by hundreds of different people (mostly unknown to history and each other) over the last thousand years.

It's quite likely that a fair amount of it has been 'lost in translation'…

And (back to the OP) it was a rubbish poster anyway, the brown paint all over it improved it.

Saxonrider? You still there? I'm quite happy to admit I'm wrong – just present the evidence…

Assuming you have any…

I've just come back.

I spend my life looking at late-classical texts and manuscripts, and the fact is that your little syllogism:

The less than competent scribe put this into Greek as "Virgin". So the entire foundation of the Catholic Faith and a major supporting girder in all the other Xtian variations is down to a translation error.

makes it appear as if interpretive errors (of anything) are down to 'a guy' 'making an error'. It simply doesn't work that way.

Whatever you, or anyone on here, has invested in deriding religious tradition, making it sound like these institutions (whichever one we are talking about) grew out of some individual's cynicism or some malevolent collective is to grossly simplify the way history and human movements work. It hurts my head to read the kind of drivel I sometimes see on here, in the same way it must hurt a medic's head to read silly medical opinions, or a lawyer to read someone's ill-informed legal assumptions.

If you want me to be more specific, take a class from me.

Interestingly[/u], the idea that the alleged mother of the alleged Jesus was a virgin is due to a mistake in transferring from the Hebrew, which used the descriptive "Young woman".

Well, that bit's wrong.

I think you'll find it's all a fairy story.

Whatever you, or anyone on here, has invested in deriding religious tradition

Ah, so that's your real complaint.

So let me get this straight. The Hebrew text described the alleged Mary as a "Young Woman" and the translation into Greek described her as a "Virgin" after which we are led to believe that a virgin gave birth to a human (improbable to the max), rather than a young girl giving birth to a human (happens everyday).

I'm sure it's very complicated and all, but that seems like a fairly clear precis to me, Professor.

Goan – Premier Member

I think you'll find it's all a fairy story.

Quite. 8)