Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 11:55 am Some Buddhists, apparently, consider the Panchen Lama an incarnation of Amitabha Buddha.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:06 pm As mentioned before, it is possible that someone else posting or reading here is Buddhist.
We two can agree that you do not speak for all Buddhists.
PS
I previously began a thread on Translation, saying, more or less, that no translation is above question.
By that, I did not mean that some translations, for some purposes, may or may not be considered, by some, better than others.
And, as noted before, some religious persons and practices are more welcoming to translations, or a given translation, than others. I think.

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 11:14 am

John T wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 10:07 am Please remind me of what you actually believe and please provide citations to support it.

For examples: How many different sources were used to compile Genesis?
What century did they first get put into written form?

Do you agree with the atheists/mythicists on this forum that just like Jesus, Moses did not exist?

For the record, I believe both were indeed historical figures and religion has nothing to do with it. Buddha, not so much.

1. It is possible to be an atheist without being a mythicist. Tim O'Neill is an anti-mythicist atheist.

2. Some Buddhas, we can all agree in this forum, I think, are not historical figures, such as Amitabha Buddha, whose career is said to have begun before the Earth came into existence and to be occurring presently on the world Sukhavati (which is not Earth). As for the historicity of Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism in our planet and our period of time, a good introduction to determining which texts and traditions should be used, if any, to determine whether he was historical is "The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts", by Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali, which can be read here: https://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/201 ... ticity.pdf

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 1:26 pm

Russell Gmirkin wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 1:01 pm You should be aware of the apparently universal practice of translation, in which one person (oftentimes the author) reads the original while the scribe or secretary writes down the translation. That’s how it happened in the ancient world, according to contemporary research (see van der Lowe 2008). The Aramaisms and Egyptianisms in the LXX (Pentateuch) point to the amanuensis or scribe as likely of Egyptian Jewish heritage (Joosten 2010). So any conclusions regarding the language skills of the translator would apply primarily to the amanuensis, not the author / reader.

With all due respect, would this process not make the secretary/scribe the translator, or should the reference to "one person (oftentimes the author) reads the original" refer to a translator/reader reading and translating a text while a scribe writes down only the translation?

That having been said, my own readings about translations (from Indian languages into Middle Chinese) in the book "Bodhisattvas Of The Forest And The Formation Of The Mahayana: A Study And Translation Of The Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra", by Daniel Boucher confirms that translation was a multifaceted process, with reader/oral translator and scribe often not co-ordinating their efforts as well as modern translators would regard as appropriate. In the Chinese context, the scribe may not have known the original language, and one famous translator into Chinese, Kumarajiva, was illiterate in Chinese!

As a personal note, in highschool, my disabilities meant that I dictated my translation from Latin texts to a scribe who knew no Latin - and I had to constantly correct her misinterpretations of my translations.

Russell Gmirkin wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 1:01 pm involves a misunderstanding of what was referred to as the Septuagint, probably on your part.

To clarify your theory. do you think that this involved a misinterpretation in which the Septuagint was assumed to be the Pentateuch, or another misunderstanding?

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:09 pm

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:33 am I was asked for an example. I gave an example.

A single example of a translation's error, however, can reveal much more systemic problems in terms of the translator or scribe's understanding of the original language than what you or Gmirkin have given. For example, the scribe into Chinese from Sanskrit of the Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra [Taishō Tripiṭaka 18:848], as noted by the translator of the Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra into English from Chinese Rolf W. Giebel (in "The Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra", Numata Center for Buddhist Research and Translation, 2005 on page 279), apparently confused the Sanskrit word bala ("strength") with the Sanskrit word bāla ("male child") in a passage which is an extended analogy about a seed in which the Sanskrit word bala ("strength") makes more sense.

John T wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 3:57 pm I think, therefore I'm mistaken.
I think that I understand, therefore I understand nothing.

Is that how it works in the world of Buddha mythicists?

While I'm at it, didn't Alexander the Great conquer the territory of Buddha?

If so then, isn't everything about Buddha actually a spin-off of Plato Timaeus?

rgprice wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 4:46 am If we accept the basic elements of Gmirkin's thesis, that the Torah was composed around 270 BCE, then we must consider the possibility that the works of Enoch already existed in some form prior to the writing of the Torah. At the very least we must consider that the works of Enoch record Semitic narratives that pre-date the Torah, even if they were not written in the form of the works we now identify as the Books of Enoch.

Historically, the works of Enoch have always been considered an elaboration on the Torah, but what if this is backwards, and in fact the Torah is a revision of Enoch?!

rgprice wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 7:45 am Well I would say that since posting this I've thought about it more and I don't think that Genesis 6:1-12 predates Enoch, for the reasons that you described in your latest book. I think it is pretty clear that the "sons of God" in 6:2 are meant to be terrestrial gods. But Enoch makes them heavenly angels. It would seem to me that the heavenly angels was an interpretation of "sons of God" that incorrectly identified these figures as heavenly.