Are this forum’s anachronistic arguments against the Bible meant sincerely or just as casual mockery?
ByI keep seeing a particular kind of criticism toward the Bible on this forum and I can’t always tell if the argument is unknowingly anachronistic or is simply an effort to add some humor to the mockery. (English is a second language for me but I’ve spent most of my years in the States and the UK and so I’m usually comfortable with it. But some of the more subtle humors and Internet dialects/expressions can escape my full comprehension.) I’m referring to criticisms like “The Bible refers to bats as birds” and “The Bible says that a whale is a large fish.”
So do those who post such claims understand the anachronisms inherent in such arguments? Or is it simply an example of cultural arrogance (in thinking that other cultures, especially ancient ones, are/were inferior and must view nature according to modern classifications)? Or is it just casual mockery? [I'm not trying to insult native-born Americans by perhaps inferring that everyone in the USA assumes that all other cultures are inferior or that ancient cultures are ignorant when compared to American culture. Nor am I trying to apply a generalization to citizens of all English-speaking nations. However, I will certainly claim that cultural arrogance is not uncommon cultures all over the world, even among the very educated. And I get the impression that it is not uncommon on this forum.]
I’m not always positive but I’m confident that I’ve read some unambiguous examples of each extreme that I’ve summarized above. But it is also true that I sometimes assume statements posted in English-language forums are literal ones until a native speaker assures me that a statement is tongue-in-cheek. So which is it? Do those who complain that “bats aren’t birds” really think that that is a valid or convincing criticism of the Bible?
Thank you.
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TECHIKILIY: Know what? Could you please explain? (Is this a case of the subtle kind humor to which I was referring?…..in that you are pretending to miss the anachronism in order to be funny? A colleague of mine calls this “straight-faced humor” or “silent sarchasm” and that the the joke is on the person who “falls for it” and assumes that the speaker is being serious. Even after many years spent in English-speaking countries, I get caught in this “trap” a lot. I seem to be the one person in the group who is taken in by what I’m fooled into thinking is a literal and sincere statement.)
I’m confused by some of your answers. Words/terms (including the name of categories) are just that: words/sounds associated with an idea. Obviously, in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, “winged creature” is expressed by a particular single word that gets translated into English as BIRD because that is a convenient rough equivalent. [I hope everyone on this forum understands linguistics enough to know that translation is not like mathematics where A equals B and B equals C so A equals C. In language translation, A may mean B but also more than B.....and may be a subset of C. So a word in Hebrew that represents "creatures with wings that fly and breathe airs into lungs" [therefore birds & bats are included in the word but not butterflies] gets translated by the most convenient semi-equivalent in English: BIRDS. Many cultures–including modern ones–classify birds & bats together as winged animals in their word for such a class of animals. WHO SAYS THEY MUST FOLLOW LINNAEUS?
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DOPETHRONE: Are you being facetious when you write:
“Bats are not birds. There’s no getting around that fact.”
Bats are not birds according to LINNAEUS TAXONOMY and the English language — but how can you apply that categorization to another language? In Ancient Hebrew and in MANY languages today birds and bats are grouped TOGETHER in one LINQUISTIC UNIT [called a lexeme, a word] — which is why I’m tending to use the term “winged animal” within this discussion. SURELY YOU UNDERSTAND THAT LANGUAGES DO NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO REFLECT SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATIONS! After all, do you consider an English speaker who clearly declares, “The sun rose and revealed a beautiful day today.” to be stuck in the science of Ptolemy???? (Would you call such a person scientifically ignorant?) Why does a language have to use the categories/terms/vocabulary of science?? PLENTY of cultures use language vocabulary that group WHALES and DOLPHINS with FISH. What’s wrong with that???
So I’m trying to figure out if several of you are “pulling my leg” & telling me that you ACTUALLY BELIEVE that every language in the world (to meet your demands that YOUR classification system must be used to establish the SEMANTIC DOMAINS of individual languages & RULES OF TRANSLATION!????
If you speak/read more than one language (especially those of different language families and especially non-Indo-European), you SURELY KNOW THAT SEMANTIC DOMAINS OF LANGUAGES ARE NOT DETERMINED BY SCIENCE!!! They are established by the language/culture!
If you some of you are seriously re-inforcing the “legitimacy” of the “bats are birds” argument, you are guilty of the very ANACHRONISM IGNORANCE I was talking about!
And that is why I think you are pulling my leg. (Such an argument would be as silly as those who have written on this forum that “Homosexuality couldn’t have been discussed in the Bible because the word wasn’t coined yet!”)
1 more time: Linnaeus (a Christian)=recent concept!
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I guess I should thank you all because your misunderstanding of basic language principles as well as the taxonomy of Linnaeus (a Bible-believing Christian by the way) probably explains everything I was asking about. It sounds like many of you assume that the semantic domains of a word in the source language is 100% equivalent to a word in a target language! Please! Learn a second language — especially one without a shared evolution (e.g. German and English have a fairly recent common source, to over-simplify it). DO NOT ASSUME THAT JUST BECAUSE SOME AFRICAN HUNTER WHO HEADS OUT LOOKING FOR WINGED-PREY (e.g. bats and birds) THAT THAT MEANS HE IS SCIENTIFICALLY WRONG! The fact that modern taxonomy happens to “agree” with English vocabulary and puts bats with mammals and birds with birds does NOT mean English of an English culture is “right” and the African hunter is “wrong” because of vocabulary distinctions.
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If anyone still doesn’t understand, here’s another example of the English language being “wrong”….and it is a example I saw in the gardening forum:
“Poison-ivy” is a common term in the USA for a plant to which most Americans are strongly allergic. However, it is NOT a true ivy — if you ask a scientist. Botanists will tell you that only members of the Hedera genus are TRUE IVIES! And the English Ivy is the only true ivy native to the USA. So, does that mean that Americans who refer to “Poison-Ivy” are WRONG? Are they “errant”??? (For that matter, some Americans and significant percentages of some non-USA people groups are not at all sensitive to Poison-Ivy. So they would say the plant isn’t even poisonous. Does that make them right and users the term wrong???)
Clearly, several of you are arguing that something is an “error” in the Bible that would get you laughed at in a university classroom dealing with ancient texts. Taxonomy is NOT the only schema, people!
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12 Comments
September 14th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
many times it is mocking.
September 14th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
I’m not very often sincere, and my mockery is almost always casual.
September 14th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
oh it’s meant to open your eyes
your religion lies to you
EDIT:
don’t listen to fireball…she’s an extremist
September 15th, 2010 at 12:30 am
if god actually inspired the book he’s know better
September 15th, 2010 at 12:55 am
I hate it when america is seen as this. Makes me feel like i’m being accused of the being the bad guy.
September 15th, 2010 at 1:39 am
as a reply to the claim that the bible contains accurate scientific knowledge, I think those arguments work pretty well. I think perhaps we agree though, the knowledge is that of an ancient culture… it’s not ‘ahead of its time’.
September 15th, 2010 at 1:55 am
most people on this forum mock regularly. some of us don’t and get snickered at for our serious turn of mind
September 15th, 2010 at 2:06 am
I say my doubts because I want to make sure people who come here with doubts know there are others who don’t believe in the illogical as well.
But a serious debate with with an illogical person, who believes in an illogical thing, is pointless.
So why not have some fun?
September 15th, 2010 at 2:42 am
Your point about cultural ignorance is well made. Much of the interpretation problem with the Bible comes from judging what is written by the standards of today. The “large fish” (original concept) turned into a whale of a story (sorry for the pun, but I couldn’t resist) as a result of over-simplification and an attempt on the part of teachers to put the story into understandable terms. Unfortunately, many people look to their religious teachers and take what they say as the “gospel truth”, ignoring the reality in the scriptures.
The bats are birds concept is again, in my opinion, one of interpretation of other people’s interpretations (over simplifications). In that regard, the criticism is justified, but those defending their religious honor and pride never bother to check why the criticism exists. They presume an arrogance to _know_ that their point of view is the only valid one (even if it is erroneous).
But…
Not all criticism is honest, which is why those being criticized for their interpretation are often so defensive. Some is an attack built upon misinformation that has been created to sew the seeds of confusion. With respect to the Bible (or, as the case may be, particular Bible passages), often the criticism ignores the setting, judging matters only upon 21st century standards. Their arguments are often only intended to sway (seduce) people to their way of thinking.
Not that I blame them, either. The religiously faithful often use the same techniques to seduce people to their way of thinking, too.
Edit Add: I consider it unfortunate that religious teachers continue to express interpretations that are less than accurate, which is why the criticism exists. if they would learn, it would lessen the honest criticism of their misinformation and make the mockery that does exist all the more apparent.
September 15th, 2010 at 2:42 am
I would like to say the mockery is casual, but given the amount of it, one might posit the creators of it are dead serious.
Oh, they’ll brush it off as satire or what have you, but the percentage of contributions that are basically hostile to the faith casts a bit of doubt on their replies being simply “all in good fun”.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:15 am
Bats are not birds. There’s no getting around that fact.
That’s only one verse, of course, there are far more flaws to be found.
I’m not confident, but I’m positive that there are those who think that a large vocabulary can make up for faulty arguments.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:27 am
The point is that if the bible is literally the word of god, the bible should be 100% accurate. Otherwise god, the all-knowing creator of the universe, is a liar.