Tradition betrayed

[kishnevi]

I'm not sure i trust officially sanctioned publications. Last time i went to a library i skimmed through most contemporary translations, Christian and Jewish alike, and they were all pretty dreadful.

Right now i have the Oxford version of the original 1611 King James translation, the original Jerusalem Bible translation, the ongoing Everett Fox translation plus the Richard Lattimore's rendition of the New Testament from the original Greek.

The Jewish Publication Society is not an official organization; it's a publisher who specializes in the great works of Jewish learning and literature and ancillary works.     The key thing is that, unlike all the other translations you mention, this one is based on the Masoretic text and nothing else--in other words, it's the Jewish Bible, not the version modified and in some cases corrupted by Greek and Christian translation and transmission. And unlike all those others it was done totally from scratch.  In reading it, you would be reading as close as you could get in a modern European language to reading the Scriptures as, for example, Jesus and his contemporaries read them. 

If for whatever reason you don't like the new JPS translation, than I would suggest the old JPS translation which was published about 1910, or a beautifully printed volume by the Koren Press which uses a translation originally done by an American rabbi in the 19th century.  Both of these translations are based on the King James Version, but with the necessary corrections needed to make the translation conform to the Masoretic Text.

You can in fact find the old JPS translation online with the Hebrew text here:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm

BTW, wasn't the King James Version about as officially sanctioned as you could get at that date?
It isn't called the Authorized Version for nothing.

[Josquin des Prez]

The Jewish Publication Society is not an official organization; it's a publisher who specializes in the great works of Jewish learning and literature and ancillary works.     The key thing is that, unlike all the other translations you mention, this one is based on the Masoretic text and nothing else--in other words, it's the Jewish Bible, not the version modified and in some cases corrupted by Greek and Christian translation and transmission. And unlike all those others it was done totally from scratch.  In reading it, you would be reading as close as you could get in a modern European language to reading the Scriptures as, for example, Jesus and his contemporaries read them.

Well, yes, true. This is the reason i asked, i wanted a translation from a Jewish perspective, since all i have right now are Christian translations (except for Everett Fox and Richard Lattimore, who are working from a purely secular point of view).

If for whatever reason you don't like the new JPS translation, than I would suggest the old JPS translation which was published about 1910, or a beautifully printed volume by the Koren Press which uses a translation originally done by an American rabbi in the 19th century.  Both of these translations are based on the King James Version, but with the necessary corrections needed to make the translation conform to the Masoretic Text.

You can in fact find the old JPS translation online with the Hebrew text here:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm

Thanks, i'll check it out.

BTW, wasn't the King James Version about as officially sanctioned as you could get at that date?
It isn't called the Authorized Version for nothing.

Its not a question of who's sanctioning what. The point is that i can't get used to a translation that doesn't have a literary quality to it. The artist in me just won't accept compromises. The reason i didn't like those modern translations is that the language used was of the lowest, most banal type. It carried no poetic beauty, no transcendent quality to it, it almost felt condescending in a way. Now, i could expect something like that from a Christian publication, whom apparently seem to have no qualms in adopting the most absurd methods, no matter how degrading or vulgar, if it gets them new converts, but i was surprised by a similar approach in a Jewish text. As an elitist religion, Judaism should have no need to degrade itself in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and as a religion which does have a sacred language (Hebrew), one would think that any translation which didn't at least reflect the character of the original would be deemed to be offensive, if not profane, to say the least.

Thus, in the end, a good translation to me hinges on two elements. The literary ability of the translator, and the depth of his understanding of the eternal truths contained in the text. Those are internal qualities and cannot be "sanctioned" by an higher organization. This is why to me it makes no difference whether a publication is recognized officially by this or that denomination or organization. To wit, my favored translation of the Quaran is the one made by A.J. Arberry, which has no affiliation whatsoever to any Muslim organization.

[bwv 1080]

But its the 19th century that saw it under rationalistic, scientific terms. If you believe that the European races are superior and more evolved then, say, the negro races, then the only obvious conclusion is that humanity would be better off if Europeans were to replace the negro altogether. Darwin himself actually espoused such a view. He didn't of course advocate genocide, he merely pointed out that that would have been the natural course of things, eventually. Evolution, in essence.

To me, modern liberalism is nothing more then a secular, exoteric religion developed to mask the frightening truths uncovered by 19th century rationalism, so that people can still pretend to be free and progressive while brushing all those uncomfortable realities under the carpet.

That is such utter bullshit.  Yes there was a strong trend of "scientific" racism in the 19th century but it was a self-serving mythos developed to a) explain European economic and military leadership and b) justify slavery and colonialism.  Like the ether, it has since been debunked by modern science.  Today it is naive and rather stupid to look around today and simply attribute the achievements of Europe simply to skin color
The main issue is, as outlined by Jared Diamond, is that sub-saharan Africa, Australia and the Americas had severe disadvantages relative to Europe and Asia in regards to climate, available food crops, domesticable animals and ability to trade and communicate with other cultures.  You would really believe that in the few thousand years since the invention of agriculture or the 100,000 years since humans migrated out of Africa it is possible that those humans evolved into a superior species? 
Not to mention that Europeans were black until about 10,000 years ago - the adaptation for white skin, which allows greater absorption of sunlight into vitamin D - was not a genetic selection factor until the development of agriculture reduced the intake of vitamin D from meat

[Josquin des Prez]

Jared Diamond

You just defeated your own position. Jared Diamond is the anthropological equivalent to Richard Dawkins. Mediocrity and nothing but mediocrity. The modern imperative. Come back at me when you have an argument that is actually interesting on more then a banal and superficial level.

[Josquin des Prez]

Schuon on the meaning of race, the Perennial Traditionalist position on the subject:

"Caste takes precedence over race because spirit has priority over form; race is a form while caste is a spirit... It is not possible, however, to hold that race is something devoid of meaning apart from physical characteristics, for, if it is true that formal constraints have nothing absolute about them, forms must nonetheless have their own sufficient reason; if races are not castes, they must all the same correspond to human differences of another order, rather as differences of style may express equivalence in the spiritual order while also marking divergences of mode..."

"In order to understand the meaning of races, one must first of all realize that they are derived from fundamental aspects of humanity and not from something fortuitous in nature. If racism is something to be rejected, so is anti-racism which errs in the opposite direction by attributing racial difference to merely accidental causes and which seeks to reduce to nothing these differences by talking about inter-racial blood-groups, or in other words by mixing up things situated on different levels. Moreover, that the isolation of a race may have contributed to its elaboration certainly does not mean that this race can be explained in terms of its isolation alone, nor that the isolation was fortuitous and thus something which might not have happened..."

"A certain 'segregation' of white and black people would be neither ill-judged nor unjust if it were not unilateral, that is to say, if it were conceived in the interest of both races and without prejudice of superiority; for it is clear that to abolish 'segregation' altogether means increasingly the probability of racial mixtures and vowing one's own race, whether it be white or black, to a kind of disappearance..."

"Certain traits, which a white man tends to take for signs of inferiority, actually mark either a less mental—though not less spiritual—disposition than that of the average European or else a greater racial vitality. Here we must draw attention to the error of regarding prognathism, relatively low forehead or thick lips, as belonging to an obviously inferior type... As for the forehead, its height or cranial volume denotes—if it denotes anything, which depends on a variety of factors—by no means always an intellectual quality, but more often a capacity which is solely creative or even merely inventive, a capacity which may, by luciferian deviation, become a veritable hypertrophy of the mind—a specific propensity to 'thinking,' but not at all to 'knowledge...'"

"According to a common error there exists an Italian, a German and a Russian "type" and so forth; in reality, there is within each people a series of types, very divergent and of unequal importance, but all characteristic of that people; then there are types which can also be found among other peoples of the same race and, finally, one or more psychological types that are superimposed on these."

[Josquin des Prez]

"In one respect the metaphysical reason for races is that differences cannot be merely qualitative as in the case of castes; differences can and must also arise "horizontally," from the point of view simply of modes and not of essences. There cannot only be differences between light and darkness, there must also be differences in color.

If each caste is in some way to be found in the other castes, the same thing can be said of races, for the same reasons and apart from any question of racial admixtures. But besides castes and races there are also four temperaments, which Galen relates to the four sensible elements, and the astrological types, which are related to the planets of our system. All these types or possibilities are present in the human substance and form the individual determining him in many different ways: to know the aspects of man is one way of better knowing oneself."

"Races exist and we cannot ignore them... The modern movement towards uniformity, which causes the world to become smaller and smaller, seems able to attenuate racial differences, at any rate at the mental level and without speaking of ethnic mixtures. In this there is nothing surprising if one reflects that this standardizing civilization is at the opposite pole from any higher synthesis, based as it is solely on man's earthly needs; human animality provides in principle a rather facile ground for mutual understanding and favors the breaking down of traditional civilizations under auspices of a quantitative and spiritually inoperative 'culture.' But the fact of thus depending on what gives mankind a 'low level solidarity' presupposes the detaching of the masses, who are intellectually passive and unconscious, from the elites who legitimately represent them and in consequence also incarnate both the tradition, insofar as it is adapted to a given race, and the genius of that race in the most lofty sense."

"Let us take the opportunity to insert here, along side these considerations about races and not unconnected with them, some remarks on the opposition—true or false—between West and East. First of all, there is in both cases an inner opposition between the sacred patrimony and whatever actively or passively moves away from that patrimony; this shows that the distinction between East and West is not absolute, that there is a 'Western East' as there was—and perhaps still is in certain frameworks—an 'Eastern West,' as at Mount Athos or in some other relatively isolated phenomenon. In considering the East we must thus start by differentiating—if we are to avoid inextricable contradictions—between Orientals who owe nothing, or almost nothing, to the West and have every right and reason to resist it, and those who on the contrary owe, or imagine they owe, everything to it, but who also too readily spend their time in enumerating the colonialist crimes of Europe, as though Europeans were the only men to have conquered countries and exploited peoples. The blind haste with which westernized Orientals of every political color press on with the westernizing of the East proves beyond all question how thoroughly they themselves are convinced of the superiority of modern Western civilization, that very civilization which engendered colonialism as also the cult of machines and Marxism. Now there are few things so absurd as the anti-Westernism of those who are themselves westernized. A choice must be made: either that civilization is worthy of adoption, in which case Europeans are supermen to whom unbounded gratitude is owed, or else Europeans are malefactors deserving contempt and then they and their civilization fall together and there is no reason for imitating them. But in practice the West is being completely and whole-heartedly imitated even in the most pointless of its caprices; far from limiting themselves to modern armaments for purposes of legitimate defense or to an equipment of economic tools capable of meeting the situations created by an overpopulation that is itself partly due to the biological crimes of modern science, Eastern nations adopt the very soul of the antitraditional West to the point of seeking in the 'science of religions,' in psychoanalysis and even in surrealism the keys to the age-old wisdom of the East. In a word, they believe in the superiority of the West but reproach Westerners for having believed in it."

[71 dB]

Jared Diamond is the anthropological equivalent to Richard Dawkins. Mediocrity and nothing but mediocrity. The modern imperative.

Such a convenient way to discredit those who disagree with you: Just call them mediocre!

[kishnevi]

Its not a question of who's sanctioning what. The point is that i can't get used to a translation that doesn't have a literary quality to it. The artist in me just won't accept compromises. The reason i didn't like those modern translations is that the language used was of the lowest, most banal type. It carried no poetic beauty, no transcendent quality to it, it almost felt condescending in a way. Now, i could expect something like that from a Christian publication, whom apparently seem to have no qualms in adopting the most absurd methods, no matter how degrading or vulgar, if it gets them new converts, but i was surprised by a similar approach in a Jewish text. As an elitist religion, Judaism should have no need to degrade itself in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and as a religion which does have a sacred language (Hebrew), one would think that any translation which didn't at least reflect the character of the original would be deemed to be offensive, if not profane, to say the least.

There are some flawed assumptions there.  Judaism is not an elitist religion.  No religion that teaches that everyone should be earning their own living at a common trade or profession, even the teachers of sacred tradition, could be elitist .  Nor was the Bible written in a sacred language--meaning, a language that was not part and parcel of everyday life. Just like the New Testament was written mostly in the common form of Hellenistic Greek and not in the Attic-derived form favored by the literary elites, the Hebrew Scriptures were written in the everyday language of the Israelites; a translation that reflects that everyday character is faithful, and a translation that makes it seem otherwise is unfaithful.  If it doesn't sound profane, than it is not the Bible.

[Josquin des Prez]

Such a convenient way to discredit those who disagree with you: Just call them mediocre!

Likewise for you. Just call it discredited science!

Jared Diamond is of course as mediocre as you could get. One could almost classify his conclusions as childish.

[Josquin des Prez]

There are some flawed assumptions there.  Judaism is not an elitist religion. No religion that teaches that everyone should be earning their own living at a common trade or profession, even the teachers of sacred tradition, could be elitist.

Well, it isn't elitist from an esoteric point of view, but it is from an exoteric one.

Nor was the Bible written in a sacred language--meaning, a language that was not part and parcel of everyday life. Just like the New Testament was written mostly in the common form of Hellenistic Greek and not in the Attic-derived form favored by the literary elites, the Hebrew Scriptures were written in the everyday language of the Israelites; a translation that reflects that everyday character is faithful, and a translation that makes it seem otherwise is unfaithful.  If it doesn't sound profane, than it is not the Bible.

Maybe, may be not. The thing i'm not sure about is whether something could be as mediocre and as profane as modern translations are, and still be capable of delivering any particular profound message in the first place. The Tao that can be expressed, is not the real Tao. The Tao that can be named, is not the real Tao. Considering the limitations written language already has in communicating universal principles, i don't think there's anything to be gained by exacerbating that problem even further.

[Florestan]

the key to property rights is to understand that they are not so much a positive thing--I can keep what's mine no matter what--but instead a negative concept--I can not take something which is already someone else's. 

This is so vast a topic that it would be to completely highjack this thread were we to discuss it in depth. I will only say that (1) the principle of not taking something which already belongs to someone else is just, but only insofar as that someone else himself gained its property by obeying the same rule (which in the case of inheritance, for instance, cannot be presumed a priori); (2) property rights, in contrast to life and liberty rights, are not individual but social and (3) the whole concept of natural and inalienable rights is hopelessly confused and contradictory and it could be used to argue not only for the minimal state of the libertarians but also for the welfare state of the liberals (think of the right to life, for instance: if people need the police and the military to protect them against internal and external threats to their life, then how much more do they need a clean environment, medical insurance and medical treatment to protect them against dangers no less real, clear and present, such as microbes, viruses and sickness? actually, most people in the Western world today live their whole life without ever being victim of a life-threatening attack or of an aggression war, but all are subject to the life-threatening effects of pollution and epidemies - ergo, "to secure the right to life" a government must see to it that citizens have clean air to breathe, pure water to drink and universal healthcare, three things that are anatema to libertarians...).

The sort of crony capitalism that runs rampant in society, by which the elite try to enlarge their share, is not the sort of thing libertarianism thinks of as capitalism.  (Or, as Any Rand said, real capitalism and real free markets have never actually existed at any point in history, because government and political influence have always gotten in the way.)

Interestingly enough this (Ayn Rand's) is exactly the same type of response I get from communists when I criticize their doctrine: real communism has never actually existed, what we had was state capitalism or plain fascism, because (foreign) governments and (reactionary) political influence have always gotten in the way. But this means nothing else than elevating communism (or capitalism) to the status of an ideological fairy queen that nobody has ever seen and yet who is to solve all social and economical problems if only given a chance to tackle them.

I don't buy that in neither case. Both communism and capitalism have real historical incarnations which have been implemented in their name; their ideas have inspired a whole lot of social and economical policies; these in turn have yielded practical results which can neither obscure their kinship with the doctrine nor exonerate the doctrine from any responsibility in the shape things have taken.

Jewish law developed a thorough system based on the idea of small businessmen being the key to economic structure, and merely sought to channel and regulate it.

That is also the economical ideal of the Catholic social doctrine, better known as distributism

As the rabbis expressed it, if it was not for the evil influence (meaning the ego, or the desire to possess for oneself) houses would not be built and people would not be fed.

A Christian would agree with minor corrections. The desire to possess for oneself is not an evil as long as it limits itself to what is necessary for a man to live as becomes his station in life. Nor is the desire to possess what exceeds his needs (and those of his family, of course) evil by itself - a man can use his excedentary wealth in charitable actions or endowing museums, universities, laboratories or symphonic orchestras thus making use of his fortune for the common good ; it is only keeping this excedent for himself and amassing fortune for its own sake that is evil.

It's the New Testament that is more anti-capitalism.

I hope you'll grant it that people built houses and fed themselves long before capitalism was born. 

As to the genocide question--valid point.  Usual response in Jewish tradition is either "Well, it was a one time thing and it doesn't apply now, so we can skip over it"

I'll take this one over the other.

[71 dB]

Likewise for you. Just call it discredited science!

I just call it (whatever that is) what it is.

Jared Diamond is of course as mediocre as you could get. One could almost classify his conclusions as childish.

I haven't read anything by Jared Diamond so I don't know how childish he is. I have read "The God Delusion" by Dawkins and it's far from mediocre. Can you recommend a better book about people's delusional believe in God?

[Josquin des Prez]

I just call it (whatever that is) what it is.

Ok, explain to me how racialism is bad science, beyond the fact that it has to be.

[71 dB]

Ok, explain to me how racialism is bad science.

To be honest I didn't even know racialism is science. More like an ignorant approach to make up excuses.

[ibanezmonster]

Fickle and superficial girls are everywhere

Yep... 

[Josquin des Prez]

To be honest I didn't even know racialism is science. More like an ignorant approach to make up excuses.

Well, don't feel shy, go right ahead and prove it. Remember, science is your god, not mine. This should be right along your alley.

[Daidalos]

I haven't read anything by Jared Diamond so I don't know how childish he is. I have read "The God Delusion" by Dawkins and it's far from mediocre. Can you recommend a better book about people's delusional believe in God?

Now, I consider much of the criticism of Dawkins's book to be exaggerrated and silly, but I don't think you should be having this mindset from the onset. Don't look for a book to confirm the beliefs you already hold; if you really want to arrive at the truth, you should seek to challenge your preconceptions. Surely, if your beliefs are justified and consistent, they will hold up to scrutiny; if they don't, you should change your beliefs.

[71 dB]

Well, don't feel shy, go right ahead and prove it. Remember, science is your god, not mine. This should be right along your alley.

It's not my alley and I haven't said to be an expert of racialism. My studies in university included many things relevant to my field. Racialism was not included.

I speak about science as a method to study the world and also about understanding of why science is the best way to do that. Being an expert on a certain field is a whole different thing.

[Josquin des Prez]

It's not my alley and I haven't said to be an expert of racialism.

Enough of an expert to hold that it is not a real science though. Or so it seems.

[71 dB]

Now, I consider much of the criticism of Dawkins's book to be exaggerrated and silly.

Dawkins a bit more "aggressive" atheist than I am but I think for a reason. It is really alarming how religious people believe in religious crap (say Intelligent Design) without much criticism. Dawkins' writings may seem exaggerrated because people aren't used to such criticism of religion since religion enjoys a special protection (church taxes, blashemy has been/is illegal etc.). I agree with Dawkins that this special status must be removed as fast as possible.

Don't look for a book to confirm the beliefs you already hold;

Good point. I also read the book to check if I am missing some ideas but you have a point. I wish religious people would read Dawkins.

if you really want to arrive at the truth

Is that even possible? Which/Who's truth? Religious truth? Scientific truth? I have learned many people just don't believe proven scientific truth. So, truth is obviously what you can believe being true... 

you should seek to challenge your preconceptions. Surely, if your beliefs are justified and consistent, they will hold up to scrutiny; if they don't, you should change your beliefs.

JdP challenges me all the time in this thread. How am I doing?