@bruisedreed: Those are good comics! So does your God endorse the passage that I cited? ;)

@LeeWoofenden Y'know, from a Trinitarian perspective, I don't see Matthew 22:41-46 as Jesus denying that the Messiah would be the son of David, but rather thoroughly stumping the Pharisees because they weren't expecting the Father ("the Lord") and the Son ("my lord") to be distinct.

And also, very interestingly, the Jewish English translation of Isaiah 9:5 words it in such a way that the Messiah is not said to be God, whereas pretty much all Christian English translations do.

@El'endiaStarman Thanks for your edits, but it's redundant to linkify Bible passages in which the passage is given in full in the answer itself. Following the link simply gives the same material that's already present, which is a waste of time for the reader.

@El'endiaStarman I think his meaning is pretty clear, even if the force of it required a mode of interpretation that apparently depended on ancient Jewish modes of interpreting those lines from Psalm 110. Further, Jesus never even acknowledged Mary as his mother. So the overall message is quite clear that Jesus did not recognize any earthly descent from David, and did not even confirm his earthly parentage at all.

@El'endiaStarman Right. I often consult Jewish translations on passages such as that because Christian ones commonly bend the meaning toward their fulfillment in the New Testament, whereas in their own context they didn't necessarily have that meaning. Even the one about "the virgin shall conceive . . ." in its original Hebrew context was simply about a young woman, not necessarily a virgin.

The Christian translations commonly obscure the fact that the New Testament reinterpreted many of the passages that are quoted as prophecies of Jesus Christ. I think it's better to understand that these are reinterpretations than to blithely think that these were obvious prophecies of Jesus.

@LeeWoofenden There's more functionality at the BibleGateway page though.

@El'endiaStarman What additional functionality would readers need?

@LeeWoofenden [shrug] Ability to see the full chapter, ability to change translations, ability to do side-by-side translations, see any footnotes and/or commentary that may be present, etc...

@El'endiaStarman Anyone who has the interest to do those sorts of thing will already know how to go to BibleGateway or one of the other sites and do it. Basically, I linkify all Bible passages not quoted in full so that readers can easily look them up, but don't linkify those that are, because the material is already present in the answer.

@LeeWoofenden People are lazy.

Also, it's just really convenient, I think.

@El'endiaStarman I agree, it is.

@Mr.Bultitude Providing links for verses that are already fully quoted in the answer is convenient? How?

> Ability to see the full chapter, ability to change translations, ability to do side-by-side translations, see any footnotes and/or commentary that may be present, etc...

Regardless, I don't see why this is such a big deal.

@Mr.Bultitude It's just sub-standard by my web editing standards. But if that's what you guys want, I won't change it back.

Hi everyone!

@LeeWoofenden Or the modern Jewish translation bends the words to avoid the Christian interpretation. For example, "young woman" and "virgin" were synonymous (all unmarried women were expected to be virgins and all older women were expected to be married), so it is not readily apparent what Isaiah had in mind. The Christian will tend to see virgin, while the Jew will tend to see young woman.

The ambiguity allowing the modern Jew to pick a different translation does not in any way mean ancient Jews necessarily saw it the same way. The charge that Christian translations bend the meaning is unwarrented.

@ThaddeusB All translations bend the meaning toward the understanding of the translator. That is simply unavoidable. It's best not to be naive about this, and to read translations--especially ones in areas such as religion, where belief is powerful--with open eyes.

@ThaddeusB Right. Each will interpret it according to the relevant doctrines and beliefs.

@TRiG Interesting conversation. Do you still feel the same way about:

> I've said before that I'd rather like to be Liberal Christian, but I can't convince myself it's true.

@LeeWoofenden I would say is "influenced by" rather than "bend" as it is usually not a conscious decision... The original post seemed to be saying the modern Jewish translation is more valid, which is what I was objecting to.

@JimG. I'm not a Catholic, nor am I an expert on Catholicism, so I can't properly answer the question, which asks for a Catholic viewpoint. However, in general, Christians tend to believe that much of the body of Old Testament law has been abrogated by the New Testament, or new covenant established by Jesus. So it's unlikely that any mainstream Christian denomination would consider the law articulated by that passage to be still in force today.

@JimG. On the more general issue of why the Old Testament, and the Bible generally, was written the way it was, you might be interested in this blog post of mine: How God Speaks in the Bible to Us Boneheads.

Short version: the literal meaning, or text, of the Bible is adapted to the cultures and mindsets in which it was written. It has a human side and a divine side. It's good to keep the two distinct in our minds, even if they're integrally and intimately connected to one another.

The Bible is a relationship between God and humanity. It thus has its divine side and its human side, both of which are essential to its accomplishing the job God has in mind for it to accomplish, which is the saving of human souls.

@ThaddeusB I wasn't saying Jewish translations are more valid. I was saying that they are more likely to interpret the text in its original context, rather than from the perspective of the (much later) New Testament and Christian theology. I'm not saying the Christian translations are wrong in any absolute sense. Just that they look at the OT through a particular filter of later spiritual events that hadn't happened yet at the time that the books of the OT were written.

@ThaddeusB Sometimes it is a conscious decision. For example, translating passages in the Old Testament that are quoted and/or commented on in the New so that the Old Testament passage is interpreted and translated in light of the New Testament commentary is a common, even accepted practice among many Christian Bible translators.

For an example of this, see the "debate" between Gesenius and Tregelles, the later editor and translator of his (German) Hebrew Lexicon into English at the entry for the very word we are considering: עַלְמָה as it appears in Isaiah 7:14. Here is the entry.

Gesenius states, basically, that עַלְמָה is the ordinary word for a young, marriageable woman, and does not necessarily mean a virgin as we think of that term. In his commentary at the end, Tregelles says, in effect, "He's wrong, and the New Testament settles it."

@LeeWoofenden "I was saying that they are more likely to interpret the text in its original context" and that is what I am objecting to. A modern Jew 2500+ years removed from the original writing is in no better position than a modern Christian to interpret the "original context". The two have different biases, but both are influenced by their modern interpretations. Just because a modern Jew sees things in a light different than a NT writer, does not mean a Jew in NT times would have.

And incidentally, there is another Hebrew word that more properly means "virgin" as we understand that today: בְּתוּלָה. Gesenius entry here.

@ThaddeusB I didn't say will intepret, but are more likely to interpret. I recognize that modern Jews also have a filter, and that it is not the same filter as the Jews (or Israelites) of the time in which the OT texts were written. Still, modern Jews remain in the Jewish tradition, which looks not only to the OT, but to over two thousand years of Jewish commentary on the OT, which establishes threads of interpretation distinct from Christian threads of interpretation.

I don't really want to debate "virgin" vs. "young woman" here, but the NT use of a word is a valid data point - those writers were much more familiar with the language as then used than anyone today can ever be. No, it should not be considered definitive, but it shouldn't be dismissed either.

The history of Jewish commentary, while certainly influenced by Christianity and to some extent reactionary against Christianity, also comes from a tradition that predates Christianity. So yes, even Jewish translations have to be read critically. But they offer a distinct view of the text that is less likely to be directly influenced by the New Testament, and more likely to look to the original context of the OT text.

@ThaddeusB I'm not particularly interested in debating "virgin" either. My point is that Christian translators and commentators commonly view the New Testament as the authoritative interpreter of the Old Testament, even when it comes to the proper translation of the words and phrases of the OT.

I happen to think that that's an error that obscures what the NT was doing with the OT text. The NT reinterprets the OT text in ways that were clearly not the intention of the original OT writers. That's not wrong. But it is a reality that we should not gloss over by re-translating the OT text as if it originally meant to say what the NT reinterprets it as saying.

@LeeWoofenden This is true, and is also a normal methodology of (pre-Christian) Judaism. The correct approach (IMO) is to handle these sorts of things on a case-by-case basis.

@ThaddeusB Yes. The sort of often fanciful interpretations made especially in the Gospel of Matthew were very common in Jewish commentary and interpretation of that time, and later. So the NT is not some sort of aberration in its own context for, in some cases, pulling OT verses completely out of their context and giving them entirely different meanings than they originally had. Such "surprising" commentary was very popular even in ancient Jewish society.

But we still have to recognize that this sort of commentary is not saying what the original text meant to say. It's giving whole new meanings to the original text. When we translate the OT text as if it originally meant to say what the NT is interpreting it as saying, we entirely miss what the NT is doing with the OT text.

Another example: Christian commentators argue endlessly about what Matthew 2:23 means when it says:

> There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."

There doesn't seem to be any such prophecy. But to me, the answer is very simple. This was a highly fanciful interpretation of Judges 13:4-5:

> "Now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, or to eat anything unclean, 5 for you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come on his head, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines."

Obviously Judges 13:4-5 had nothing to do with Nazareth, or with being a Nazorean. It was about (Samson) being a Nazirite, one consecrated to God by special purity vows. But the NT "borrows" the prophecy, which originally was about Samson, the ancient deliverer of Israel from the Philistines, and completely re-casts it as a prophecy of Jesus, the deliverer and savior of Israel (and the rest of humanity).

The reason so many Christian commentators are so loath to see this obvious connection is that it completely breaks the idea that the NT somehow tells us the "real" meaning of the OT text, such that we should translate the OT text in light of the NT interpretation of it. You simply can't translate the Hebrew word for "nazirite" in Judges 13:5 as "Nazorean." It would be totally wrong. But the NT makes that jump with ease, because it is reinterpreting the text, not translating it.

@Nathaniel From the current discussion in "New Answers to Old Questions":

The problem is, if you discourage denomination-specific answers in favor of overview answers, you're going to chase away most of your "experts," because few people are experts on any more than their own denomination's teachings.

Speaking for myself, if the site strictly limits answers to overviews unless the question is aimed at a specific denomination, I'm going to head off to less restrictive sites, because the message will be that my particular expertise is not welcome here.

Of course, some users here might think that would be a good thing. However, the aggregate effect will be to put the chill on potentially good answerers here who are experts in their own particular corner of Christian theology. And I do not think that would be a good thing for Christianity.SE.

I'm not "discouraging" anything: the "Pets go to heaven?" question should either overview, denomination, or biblical basis. I think that's pretty accepted on meta.

What we do with the question as it stands, since it's existed for a long time, is a somewhat difficult question. But if it were a new one, my understanding is that we'd push it into one of those three categories.

@Nathaniel The word "overview" doesn't even appear on that meta post. Where is it represented in the post?

@Nathaniel I don't see such a clear, three-type typology there. Is it actually articulated anywhere on Meta or in the site guidelines?

Probably #2. See also this.

There are of course other types of questions, which would not have to be put into one of those groups. But from what I've seen here, opinion-based questions end up getting pushed into one of these three.

@Nathaniel #2 doesn't seem to be about overview questions as that's usually understood. It's about the difference between SDA and Catholic/Protestant beliefs. Very much on the edge of the Venn diagram circle for "overview," but more central to the "denomination" circle.

As far as meta support for the "overview" type goes, it looks like the best I can do is that question on overviews. That, combined with we can't handle the truth, I see as support for making opinion-based questions one of those three types.

If you disagree that that's sufficient, perhaps a new meta post is in order

For clarity, I wouldn't say you can just slap the word "overview" into a truth question and fix it. Overview simply allows you to not make it as specific as you would otherwise need to. So instead of saying "what do Jehovah's Witnesses believe," you can say "what is an overview of non-trinitarian beliefs on this"

If you look at it that way, then an "overview" is a subset of the first category in We Can't Handle the Truth

This is my understanding of how we handle new questions.

But for these old truth questions, where answers already exist and editing is perhaps frowned upon (at least, I'm not brave enough to do it), I think the best approach is to close and not answer. If we do answer, I think answers that attempt to overview (or perhaps attempt to provide biblical basis for and against) are better than answers that merely provide one denomination's perspective.

For those who missed it, a bizarre rant:

txt.do/ajvm3

@Nathaniel I think there will be a fairly limited number of questions for which the "overview" category will really work. Mostly, I think it will be appropriate to smaller and more niche issues and questions, that have a somewhat limited number of well-articulated perspectives precisely because they are relatively niche issues.

For example, a question asking for an overview of Christian denominations that observe a Saturday Sabbath would be reasonably handleable (if that's a word), because there are few that do so. But an overview of how Christian denominations view salvation would have so vast a sweep of possible answers that it would be impossible to really provide an adequate overview.

Such a question would, instead, have to ask what the major branches or denominations of Christians teach about this--such as a presentation of the overall view of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodox Christianity. "Overview" without such qualifications just wouldn't work for these major questions of Christian faith and practice.

And it seems to me that those major issues are precisely the ones that the public most wants to know about. So if we push those big questions into "overview" answers, we're going to severely limit what we can practically hope to accomplish in answering those big questions.

I also resist the general homogenization of answers that takes place when overview answers are considered the best direction in which to push the big questions. Though some decry the sectarianism of Christianity (and of religion in general), one of its beauties is the great variety of viewpoints offered by the great variety of sects. The effect is that there's something for everyone who has any faith interest in religion at all.

To me, it would be a shame if this site took a stance that tended to damp down those individual, even idiosyncratic, responses based on what actual denominations of Christians believe, in favor of a more general and homogenized "overview" approach that can really only cover the biggest and most popular generalities of belief.

My ideal for the site would not be a push toward generalizing overview responses, but toward many responses from many different perspectives, giving people much distinctive material to consider and chew on.

@Nathaniel @LeeWoofenden I think the "overview" framework still allows for answers to give an in depth answer from a particular point of view, as long as they qualify the answer as such from the beginning.

@ThaddeusB I'm not sure @Nathaniel would agree with you.

@ThaddeusB This doesn't specifically deal with overview questions, but I'd extrapolate to say that if the questioner says overview, then anything other than an overview is not an answer to the question. But I've seen recent examples of this understanding not being followed, so I don't know that it is generally held.

Washington Post: Global sell-off turns to chaos in rocky day for financial markets

Bad day for the stock market today.

We'll see what happens in (about) three weeks.