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Post by Tiger on May 14, 2009 20:44:39 GMT -5
I'd noticed their entry on Kings verse before and thought it was a little silly. The author was pretty obviously rounding. (If it had said pi = 4, that would be another story.)
So it's a decent resource, as long as you think critically and double check each verse's context. I'll keep that in mind.
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Post by skyfire on May 14, 2009 21:24:26 GMT -5
So it's a decent resource, as long as you think critically and double check each verse's context. I'll keep that in mind. Just to be safe, tho, you might also need to double-check the historical context, both at the time something was written and how something was translated over the years. Quite a bit gets lost that way too. It's like how Jesus was quite the political subversive and was a bit of a trash-talker, yet time and translation have dulled most of his words. For example, the "go the extra mile" bit refers to a Roman law in which a soldier could require any non-Citizen to carry part of their gear for the distance of one single mile*; if the person carried the gear beyond that distance, however, the soldier risked getting in trouble with his superiors. Thus, Jesus was advocating civil disobedience in that verse. *This shows up again when a peasant is ordered by a soldier to carry the crossbar of Jesus' cross since at that time Jesus is too exhausted to carry it further. Anyone to be crucified was to carry part of the cross with them on the trek to the place of execution, as doing so would exhaust them. Owing to how crucifixion killed people, exhausting them was actually an act of mercy as they died quicker.
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Post by Tiger on May 14, 2009 23:01:11 GMT -5
So it's a decent resource, as long as you think critically and double check each verse's context. I'll keep that in mind. Just to be safe, tho, you might also need to double-check the historical context, both at the time something was written and how something was translated over the years. Quite a bit gets lost that way too. It's like how Jesus was quite the political subversive and was a bit of a trash-talker, yet time and translation have dulled most of his words. For example, the "go the extra mile" bit refers to a Roman law in which a soldier could require any non-Citizen to carry part of their gear for the distance of one single mile*; if the person carried the gear beyond that distance, however, the soldier risked getting in trouble with his superiors. Thus, Jesus was advocating civil disobedience in that verse. *This shows up again when a peasant is ordered by a soldier to carry the crossbar of Jesus' cross since at that time Jesus is too exhausted to carry it further. Anyone to be crucified was to carry part of the cross with them on the trek to the place of execution, as doing so would exhaust them. Owing to how crucifixion killed people, exhausting them was actually an act of mercy as they died quicker. My Bible was actually pretty cool in that it had little blurbs in the side explaining things like that.
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