Ah, Boazy.

When you began this thread I treated it with the contempt that I still think it deserves.

Let's get this straight: you're a Christian missionary who went through the requisite Bible College initiation, during which you were introduced to various subjects, including 'Hermeneutics For Dummies' and undoubtedly "Missiology", via which you were exposed to at least one interesting if outmoded anthropological esay (which you repeatedly 'misinterpret', by the way).

My introduction of 'Asdiwal' to this discussion was a deliberate invitation for you to display any actual knowledge you might have about textual analysis and anthropology. Unfortunately but predictably you actually don't seem to have any beyond what you learnt at Bible College all those years ago.

Just so you know, most anthropologists interpret the Asdiwal story as a kind of latter-day Creation myth, the narrative of which reconciles the contradiction of patrilateral cross-cousin marriage rules with matrilineal access to territory - at a time when the Tsimshian were moving moving into new territory due to encroachment on their land by European invaders.

I'm not trying to be a smartarse, rather I'm trying to elucidate what Romany meant when she said you're out of your depth on this subject. Further, your dismissal of Tsimshian myth as "animist" is a very strong clue as to how you so completely and utterly misinterpreted even the first few paragraphs of its rendition.

Absolutely no offence intended. Sweet Heaven Forfend!

Another backflip, Boaz.

This time with double twist and a pike.

It's positively breathtaking.

>>I have no idea how you look at the Greek manuscripts and decide "There is no concensus".. that statement itself must be explained.
No concensus on...WHAT? That every word should be identical?<<

Not every word, Boaz.

We were only - sorry, you were only - talking about one word.

>>I've tried to bring folks to a chunk of text and asked THEM to determine initially what this is saying in the objective sense, such as "The beginning" .. now.. we could ask here "why THE beginning, rather than "a" beginning?<<

So I then went to the trouble of finding out that some translations say a beginning, some say the beginning, and some just say beginning.

American Standard Version
1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Darby's English Translation
1:1 Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God;

Young's Literal Translation
1:1 A beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.

We could indeed ask why, Boaz, but as I said before, we would just be at the back of a long queue of people who had already addressed the issue and come to their own subjective conclusions.

According to you, this thread is all about (and I quote you verbatim)

>>I'm simply arguing that words, sentences etc.. all have a context and fundamental objective meaning<<

But, Boaz, they don't.

It is 100% crystal clear that the very verse you happened to choose completely at random without any bias or prejudice, cannot possibly have a "fundamental objective meaning" in its translated form.

Can we at least agree on this?

Or are you going to pretend that somehow you were right all along, and I'm just a muddled-up ignoramus?

Sorry, not ignoramus. Duffer.

Hmm. Having hailed from New Zealand, I am aware that the native Kiwi eats roots, shoots and leaves.

Or did I mean it eats, roots, shoots and leaves?

OLY :) man..I can see that you and I would be exhausted if we ever met... discussing from 'Generation' to 'Revolution' and all related texts eh :) I can't touch that stuff in this thread mate.. too far off topic.
The Rib? (along with the talking snake) probably the closest things in 'sound' to myths. We can tackle that one another time.

CJ :) you are really out of your depth brudder .. (doncha luv that too?)

You gave me the 'educated' explanation of the myth based on 2 things.

1/ LIBRARIES of external information.
2/ The FULL account.

I just wonder if any of these bright sparks thought of the obvious 'ASK THEM' what it means:).

In my case, I brought to the myth the most 'obvious' based on a knowledge of animism and an assumption based on the limited information I was provided with. I would not DREAM of trying to make a difinitive interpretation of that little slice without truckloads of additional facts.

I mean..its like me telling you this anecdote:

"I once was picked up by a tribal person in a car, and I asked his name. he almost choked with shock"

and expecting you to know why?

Of course you couldn't know that it went back to the slaving and head hunting days when raiders would ask 'what's ur name' to children they had caught as they were trying to identify those of high class to take as slaves.

But.. on the provided facts you might venture a "Oh..its not acceptable in there culture to ask names directly" and while you would be right, you would not know why.

Getting tired of treading water there mate ? :)

(see..I make these kinda snide comments to keep your interest...pretty skilful eh)

VANILLA...that 'itch' should be red hot by now.. I think you need to scratch it :)

Periclesssss.... I know you love these pedantic technical arguments, so I'll play along

upscope :)

Now.. I'm going to do a triple back somersault along with the pike and twist already mentioned.

Ok.. the text I offered, was the english..not the greek. So, the idea was to look at the text in english, as translated in one version.
There is no 'bomb' in this which will erupt if people get a different idea about the meaning.

While there is no definite article "ho" (the) before 'arche' (beginning) it is implied by context "as it is written/according to the prophets".

Let's piece it together.

"Beginning" + ["as IT is written" or "According to the prophets"]

Is highly suggestive of 'The' before 'beginning'.

In John 1:1 "en arche en ho logos"

"In (the-implied)beginning..was THE (ho) Logos" There is no definite article with 'arche' yet it is translated as 'the' beginning. Hmmm I wonder why?

Matthew 19:4 'ap archeis' where "AP"= preposition meaning 'from'.. archeis 'Beginning'

We would hardly translate 'from beginning'.. when the meaning of the greek is (in english) from 'the' beginning.

The only place you find 'a' beginning is in Youngs LITERAL translation, where the meaning of the Greek is not taken into account.
i.e.. if there is no definite article..he translates 'a' (but Greek does not HAVE a word for 'a' :) Context..context..context.

BUT.. that all aside, this isn't about Greek, but English.

I'm on about fellow enquirers seeing what is in front of their eyes.

It so happens that 'the beginning of' is what is before their eyes. This is connected with 'according to/as it is written in' Isaiah/the prophets'

And for crying out loud.. .. this isn't a doctoral examination.. all the bloke is saying is

"The Gospel of Christ (Son of God) begins in the prophets and was fulfilled in John who said a lot about repentance, forgiveness and baptism" (which for the moment remain undefined)

Now..does anyone have an argument with that 'interpretation'?

aah.. the topic is most refreshing when we revisit it.

Boaz, you can bluster all you like, but you cannot escape the facts here.

You yourself introduced into the discussion the potential difference between "a" and "the", hoping - I presume - to add some faux legitimacy to your objective assessment project.

But in doing so, you managed to highlight a very critical point.

You were attempting to draw conclusions from text that was itself dependent upon two important influences. One, the translation, and two, the original from which it had been translated.

And you should know better than anybody, Boaz, that the words "Son of God" do not appear in some of the codices.

>>all the bloke is saying is "The Gospel of Christ (Son of God) begins in the prophets and was fulfilled in John who said a lot about repentance, forgiveness and baptism" (which for the moment remain undefined) Now..does anyone have an argument with that 'interpretation'?<<

So the answer has to be a resounding yes, I have a problem with that.

My immediate question to you now is this, Boaz. Is this phrase "Son of God" important to the objective understanding of the text, or not?

If so, how do you account for its absence in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Koridethi? Surely, a scribe is not likely to omit such a significant phrase, if it existed in the source he was using?

Far more likely that some enterprising fellow, thinking to reinforce the work of religious propaganda, would add this phrase in the belief that he was helping things along?

Or someone added it in the margin as a note, with a question mark ("could this possibly refer to...?), and it simply became incorporated further down the track?

You do understand the reasons I am asking these questions, don't you Boaz?

It is to point out to you that what you see in front of you is already extremely subjective, and cannot therefore in a zillion years be ascribed any objective meaning.

And hey, guess what?

The same applies to your attempts to tell us all what you think the Qur'an means.

Objectively speaking, of course.