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04/21/2008

Young Christian encourages what should be obvious

by Jeremy Hooper

200804211523-1A young University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student by the name of Erin Becker has written a short piece wherein she discusses a point that many Christians twice her age could benefit from hearing. Erin's argument? That the handful of Biblical condemnations that are casually accepted as "anti-gay" by modern Christians are actually far more complex and far more open for interpretation than how they are commonly presented.

Check out Erin's reasoned words over at Newsweek/WaPo's Faithbook series:

Tar Heel Testament -- Bible Meanings Lost in Translation [Faithbook via Newsweek/WaPo]

It's unclear if those who choose to pull anti-gay condemnations from Leviticus and Romans 1 will take anything away from this call for reasoned analysis and contextual considerations. Sadly, however, we imagine that "the nation's young people are succumbing under the weight of the gay agenda" is the takeaway that many of them will glean from it.

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Your thoughts

Erin makes an excellent point. For all of the people that claim the bible is the truly inspired Word of God, very few people take the time to learn the language in which it is written: Greek and Hebrew.

Her point, and it is well-taken, is that languages very rarely translate easily and exactly from one language to another. Unfortunately, the english words for many concepts in the bible do not fit well. A Jewish friend who spoke Hebrew often said the word abomination is a very poor translation of the original Hebrew. She said it was closer to a "ritual impurity" which the Jews took seriously but from which someone could be cleaned.

So if you are going to accept a literal translation of the bible, then exceedingly great care must be taken to make sure that you fully understand the words written and what they mean and this is something most fundamentalists don't do.

Posted by: Ed | Apr 21, 2008 4:36:55 PM

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