No it's not. It's a condescending and pedantic dismissal and is thoroughly undeserved. The original content creator did a serviceable, if imperfect, job of distilling a difficult question for a lay audience. McClellan's "smack down" was undignified and shameful.
@@hjk7833 But his was wrong and talking nonsense or do want to cry because your feelings got hurt? That content creator was talking crap to push his agenda. That behaviour is disgusting.
@@TheNeverbornThey do exist. I am in full time congregational ministry and encourage curiosity and critical thinking. I also encourage church members to use their voices to offer disagreement/dissent. However, I lament, this is not common.
I’ll always love the verse in 1 John: “if you know a brother has need and close off your intestines to him, how is God’s love in you?” I’ll vote for a literal reading every time because they’re hilarious 😂
My childhood pastor spoke from the pulpit often about the extant manuscripts. He presented their existence, especially the Dead Sea scrolls, as if they were 1) the original autographs & 2) plentiful enough in totality that we can "know" we had the authentic "Word of God as transmitted by God Himself" in our (Protestant) KJV Bible. It came as a complete shock to me after I became an adult to find out otherwise. In my mind, I pictured entire ancient scrolls. When I first realized how many manuscripts were merely fragments, I was rattled. I'm 69, & it's only within the past ten years that I've discovered that we do not have any truly original writings, & that the variations among the manuscripts can be quite distinct. I'm amazed at what my fundamentalist pastors & teachers taught us in order to keep their dogma about the nature of the Bible intact.
Although my area of expertise is middle French not Biblical Greek/Hebrew, this is a good explanation of the complexities of translation period, especially from archaic language into modern.
Yes that is true. Trying to speak a different language than your mother tongue is an experience in this process . You are trying to speak words from say French that are approximate to English.
As much as I enjoy the sense of Schadenfreude every time Dan -dunks on- attempts to educate that young man, it’s depressing that he is so resistant to learning ANYTHING. Has he even finished high school yet? 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
You have identified my gripe with religion in general and the evangelical community in particular. Smugly wrong and insisting everyone live as they do or be damned.
His youth is a good excuse for his misplaced confidence in his weak understanding of biblical scholarship. Many who are much older than him are guilty of spouting similarly ignorant arguments. Many young people wake up to their own ignorance and educate themselves, far more often than older people. This creator will hopefully find humility, educate himself more deeply, and perhaps even become a good biblical scholar someday.
I love the mic drop at the end. I think biblical scholarship is really underrated, Dan does an excellent job in communicating this to a wider audience.
Short answer: No. Long answer: No, and you should also not trust anyone telling you that you should trust the Bible while they themselves haven't learned any of the original languages the Bible was written in it and familiarized themselves with the culture of the era, because they are less serious about their love of the Bible and their God than I was about my love of Dragonball Z back in high school.
Also just... history. If they are not familiar enough with verified archaeology and historical reconstructions to recognise that the Bible accounts regularly differ from the evidence and seems to contain a lot of identity-construction mythology, then they are not sufficiently informed to comment on the reliability of the Bible's content.
The question is problematic. “Is the Bible trustworthy?” The Bible, as Dr. M likes to say doesn’t hold characteristics except that which the reader or readers give to it (i.e. authority). The Bible should be read critically even within faith claims/convictions (I say this as a practicing Christian). Its trustworthiness or untrustworthiness is something that is brought to the text of the Bible and not “found” within the text. Contradictions of various details represents the Bible’s composite nature and something we should take seriously, but represent different scribal communities at different times reflecting their own theological, cosmological convictions, and life concerns that were different than those writing prior to that time and then different to those writing after them. We have the benefit of a set and codified textual tradition wherein we can recognize and wrestle with these. It has no bearing on whether the text itself is “trustworthy,” which is not an applicable question to an ancient collection of texts. These same questions are not applied outside of scholarly communities to other ancient texts because they do not have the same place within our socio-cultural milieu (visibly anyway). The cultural standing of the Bible in the West has led to these kinds of questions, but they miss the mark.
@@user-kv1po2dm5j Agreed, even still. As far as translation is concerned, I think my claims still stand. Even if we approach the text with suspicion or to deconstruct it, we will have to trust someone, somewhere along the way. The Bible is not the result of a single person, but has always been a community endeavor that requires trust in those and our own communities. No matter our approach. Even applied to the question of bible translation “can we trust translations of the Bible”, the question still misses the mark in my opinion.
@@BrentJohnson-ki7jy I agree with your position on the question “is the Bible trustworthy?” ". What we hope for future interpretations is that the secularization of societies will make it possible to go beyond the particular and let's say ideological or dogmatic attitude that certain societies/groups show when faced with so-called "sacred" texts. A Sanskritist friend encounters a similar (not identical) problem with Hindu and Buddhist texts. I may be a naive optimist but I believe that future negotiations with these texts will result in more tolerance and acceptance of otherness. I wrote in one go and realize that my response should have been shorter.😄
I thought by now, this boy would have been chastened by his gaffes, flubs, and goofs! Oh no! His sensibilities tell him he's doing just fine! This type of persistence towards error is a serious signal.
I believe they have had similar problems with The Necronomicon. And BOY, if you get the wrong translation of a passage from THAT book, all KINDS of trouble can materialize! And don't EVEN get me started on shoggoths......
See?! With only three comments, we already demonstrate that there are two completely different schools of thought: the cosmic horror, versus the splat monster.
That same creator has repeatedly demonstrated his defenses of his interpretations of the Bible. Asserting facts not in evidence is common on that channel and his intended audience just goes with it. Most of those people won't listen to Dr. McClellan, or any other scholar who uses facts that don't support their dogma.
@@beowulfschmidt6031 No. It's the other way around: *Most people like you and others of Dan's amen choir who want to listen to him, or any other "biblical scholars" like Bart do so because their heavily biased talking points (presented as facts) support their dogma.*
I wish that I had had access to someone like Dan when I was in my 20's. They might have been around but I only had my own echo chamber. There was so much assumption in my world that the scholars were all in agreement because univocality must mean that they could only all come to the same conclusions. I also now recognize just how inadequate the training (if any, in some cases) was for so many of the people that I looked to for an understanding of the bible and by extension how it applied to my life and how I should live it.
Again, this is why we need to seek having a personal testimony (actual personal spiritual experiences with God) and then seek knowledge and wisdom of how to share and decern it, and not making assumptions about even your own experiences. I appreciate an honest look at the scriptures, thankyou Dan, very wise.
@@yohei72 It's the best they've got, let them have it. At least they know they might be wrong (unless they think they can't be because they experienced pure love).
Oh my, Dan having to debunk trash AI … When I was little, they used to joke that artificial intelligence was no substitute for real stupidity, but they've nailed it.
The question is: Can it be trusted for WHAT? Life advice? Existence of the Divine? Literary studies? Cultural studies? Historical studies? Trust for WHAT? I have to ask this because the answer varies.
That kid is a product of his environment. He is following in the footsteps of such arrogant pricks as Winger, WL Craig, and that Australian guy who accosts college kids.
I don’t know, this kid can at least later on claim to have been young when he made the videos. You have older guys like the guys off of IP and VOR that are flat out trying to sound highly informed but end up sounding like Terrance Howard and Graham Hancock!!
I try not to let his snotty deliver color my judgement of his intellectual failure. Despite this, I find myself trying to hand him a kleenex through the screen so he can wipe his nose.
I would love for you to make a video explaining in depth your slogan of data over Dogma. I think I agree with the premise, but i wonder what the implications are and how far you are willing to take them. And as part of that, what role does tradition play? I ask this because according to orthodox and catholic views, the bible, as well as the church are authoritative. I think your great at pointing out the flaws of protestant thinking because of the dogma of sola scriptura. But how do you navigate the idea of church authority and tradition? I appreciate your work Dan, and i feel that knowing your thoughts on this would help me appreciate your work even more. Thanks Dan!
As someone who watches anime, both subbed and dubbed, I can _definitively_ say translators don't always do the best job as they sometimes put their own spin on the source instead of trying to convey the gist or meaning of the original.
Great point! What comes to mind is Brock in Pokemon. In the original Japanese show, he’s eating sushi. But in the 4Kids dub, he’s eating jelly-filled donuts. Why? Because the 4Kids interpreters felt jelly-filled donuts resonated more with their target audience than sushi. So sometimes dub translators choose is this “dynamic equivalence” which can actually have drastic implications on the integrity of the characters, plot lines, and other factors integral to the story.
You would expect an immortal, omnipresent, all-powerful, all-knowing and totally benevolent diety to be an ever so slightly better communicator. And why would it need ghost writers, translators and nutcakes in pulpits and on street corners to explain stuff in greater detail and clarity?
The more I learn about how many different scriptures of the same scriptures that are different from each other, and how it seems none of them are from the period of any actual eye witnesses, the more I'm convinced that there is absolutely no way we will ever know the truth until we die and "if" we end up standing in front of the Creator, then and only then will we know. How far off am I for thinking this? I was raised that all of this was from eye witnesses of people that walked with Jesus. Then I learn that they are unsigned, no real way of knowing who wrote what, and even that most was written at least 150+ years after his death.
@@yohei72 I can look at Quran's like the Birmingham Quran and read it. So your lies do not affect me. Alhamdulillah for Islam and original Arabic language. I highly recommend subscribing to ancient and rare book collectors to realize how wrong you truly are. I can read all of the qurans that they post up. You can't say that about almost any Bible. On top of that every rare book collector knows how unbelievably corrected the Bible is. Every scholar knows this. Every theologian with a degree knows this. I highly recommend getting an interest in one of those three things.
This is slightly off-topic, but when listening to Dr. McClellan in this video, I was focusing more his discussion of the problems of translation per se, rather than just Bible translation. Translation is an immensely difficult skill, very complicated, and decisions have to be made all the time on all manner of problems, not just those Dr. M pointed out here. For an excellent and entertaining book about the art and practice of translation, read David Bellos, "Is That a Fish In Your Ear?" (Bellos is not a Bible translator - he generally translates novels from French and Russian into English.) (Hopefully, you get the reference to the babel fish from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in Bellos' title.)
Hearing directly from God is far more important than trusting the Bible, and any direct revelation commands trump the words of the Bible if they are in conflict with one another.
@@EatHoneyBeeHappy Forget Jesus. Anything--be it god, political party, country, friend, lover, the other voices in your head, anything--that asks you to kill your children is not worthy of worship. That you can't see that is terrifying.
If Jesus wants my kids dead, then he can kill them himself. If he's truly God, then he doesn't need me or any human to do anything for him. In fact, he could just spare me, my partner and kids, by not giving me kids in the first place Oh wait, I forgot - your book of Revelation portrays Jesus as a vergeful, murderous god. So then he would probably love nothing more than to see me snuff the light out of my kids, for his sake. This has to be the sickest comment I've read yet. Smh... .
Thanks for your clarifying functional vs formal translation. I went to college at an evangelical seminary for three years and i'm lretty sure it was never explsined to me that way. It is possible that i just read "word for word vs meaning for meaning" into whatever explanation i was giving since it was something i engaged with a lot as a language interpreter, but either way i'm glad to be corrected. I dont know if you ever answer questions from the comments, but could you clarify the source on your reading of theopneustos? After a quick glance online i've only found a couple pages talking about it, which makes me, and I would expect it to show up a bit more if it was the consensus view. Obviously it doesnt always work that way but I'm just curious where it comes from and how prevalent it is/among who
Dan, much in the same way we have to be vigilant and responsible in our own research and study using search engines, do you think AI can be helpful to a non-academic individual in learning about and understanding biblical/religion scholarship?
@@tnypxl If you're really careful with how you construct questions, LLMs like ChatGPT (I refuse to use the AI term) can be tremendously helpful. LLMs also have no idea what truth is and can just throw together random stuff that sounds legitimate. The best format I've come across for study is something like: PROMPT: Give the views from scholars on formal equivalence verses dynamic equivalence. Write two paragraphs. Each paragraph should give quotes from notable scholars. Return the information in the following format: Position: Formal Equivalnce / Dynamic equivalence Scholarly Support: Names of scholars View: Paragraph detailing the view of these scholars. Supporting Quote 1: Supporting Quote 2: Supporting Quote 3:
If I understand correctly, the difference between formal and dynamic is where the cultural lens of the reader is applied. Formal requires the reader to understand the cultural context of the writer and mentally translate the text into the reader's culture. These translation strive to be cultural neutral with respect to the reader. The acerbic curmudgeon within me points out that it might be better to teach the reader the original language and culture and then tell the reader to read the original text for herself! Dynamic tries to apply the cultural lens during the translation process. But this renders a text that must not outlive the culture for which it was translated.
Leaving translation aside, there are several different versions of the Bible because there a several different lists of books that make up the Bible or canons.
Dan was pretty generous with the translation from translation issue. But we know that even the NRSVUE has its words because of the KJV, because the Volgate because the oldest greek, which if Papias is to be believed wasn't the original Hebrew of Matthew, which appears to have some direct citations of the greek translation of Isaiah 7. So Hebrew->greek->hebrew->greek->latin->early modern english->late modern english. I wouldn't trust a food menu or instruction manual that underwent all that.
"Greet one another with a holy kiss"? Isn't a former head of the Spanish Football Association currently on trial for trying to "greet" the the World Cup winning Spanish Women's football Captain with a kiss, that she didn't want?
Kiss on the mouth between men 😳 was the rule in the old USSR. I remember watching it on tv when I was a kid. I didn’t know that the tradition went as back as early Christianity.
@@lysanamcmillan7972 According to the Bible, it still could've been considered holy. Remember that, in those days, a woman's prior consent, or even desire, wasn't considered necessary. BTW, religious believers feel the need to retrofit modern morality and ethics into ancient texts. That's because their notion of God is in many ways light-years from that of the ancient Hebrews.
And one reason why the printers of the Protestant Bible decided to get away from the Greek Old Testament, erroneously called the Septuagint (LXX) was because it had so many irreconcilable variants. This is because the Greek collection of books were not systematically translated but spuriously translated between the 3rd century and the time of Origen without much regard for fidelity. Moreover the oldest Hebrew Tanack we have outside of the incomplete collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Aleppo codex written in the 10th century. William Propp who did an all sources translation of Exodus with an in depth discussion of the variants prefers the Masoretic text over other texts the overwhelming majority of time for non-theological reasons. We can imagine that a 10th CE reproduction is better and the much older LXX makes us ponder how bad the Greek translations were. Theology plays a role in the growth of textual variants of the text. While the Jewish Orthodoxy (specifically Masorites) that punctuated the MT were effected by anti Semetic polemics, they have tended to preserve better the text. Whereas Christian’s who maintained the LXX were frequently looking for proof text in the Old Testament and this affected their ability to faithfully translate the meaning of the text.
How significant are the differences, if one rejects the ideas of divine inspiration and univocality? Is it like the bible edition that accidentally left “not” out of a commandment, or are the differences more an academic discussion versus something that affects the everyday bible student?
Can the Bible be trusted.....you did a fine job discussing the intricacies of what is available for interpretation however being uneducated myself , Can the Bible be trusted please answer the question ?
If not mistaken Wallace has that same assumption - that the original must be preserved in the extant variations. But even if that were true how do you KNOW what the original was among those variations? So no we don't have nor do we know what the original was! Also, anyone remember the sources for the 3 day return of the soul to the body doctrine?
The Dunning-Kruger effect is strong with this one. 🤣 This apologetic content creator gives truth to the oft-misunderstood saying that a little knowledge - ie, ignorance - is a dangerous thing.
I dont like to talk about "the bible", because we have many. Jews dont believe in the Nt. There were much more than 4 gospels and in different languages. And what does "trust" even mean? That it comes from God? No. That it was written by the traditional authors ? No. The bibles arent even univocal. We have to judge each book on its own and it seems to me that the 6 or 7 letters out of 13 of Paul are the only books/letters written by the traditional author out of 66 to over 90 books in all of the bibles. But the problem is, Paul as a person is not reliable or trustworthy.
But the Church Fathers believed he was at the time. Inspiration being questioned in scripture is a post modern problem, as most of these issues were settled during various Church Councils over the centuries. That's how the Bible ended up canonized to begin with.
@@gabbygood6813Who says Jesus trusted Paul? Oh wait - Paul said it. The same Paul who argued with the actual apostles - and brother! - of Jesus. The same Paul who hardly if ever actually quoted the teachings of Jesus, and whose own teachings contradicted Jesus'. The same Paul whose companions disagreed with and stopped traveling with him. Yeah, thats proof enough for me that Jesus trusted Paul. 🙄 Smh...
Doesn't this again demonstrate another weakness of AI? Bible Translation involves many, many choices be made by Human Translators. While AI might make faster decisions, how many of its decisions will be as considered as those of a conscientious Human?
The apologist's attitude is based (beyond the propagation of his dogmas) on a common point that I find among many English speakers in many fields. The belief that written and spoken language is an individual act and not a social act. This leads to the belief that language, words, writings exist by themselves outside of any production and social interaction. In short, an essentialization of language.
I am not sure trust will be best because it seems to involve intention as if the biblical writers are expecting an audience of the far future. The "trust" just comes from modern day people, while being raised by the interpreted doctrine of the more recent authorities like the Catholic church or Protestant church, the rest is just projections to align the literature with modern understanding of the world. So, what is to trust? It's like trusting the Epic of Gilgamesh (Poetry like Palms) with The Code of Hammurabi (ancient Babylonian laws) following the traditions of being raised in a near east culture around them along with related literature, convincing myself that they apply to a modern day setting. Even if the ancient writers try to be universal, the never account for cultural shifts. An example, is the Bible pro-racism and believes black people are cursed by God because of the Mark of Canan or Curse on the Canaanite because of Ham or since while are mentioned in the Bible but never spoke of the curse of having dark skin, the racist narrative is just a mere projection? Sure, there is xenophobia, but is race a merit as in one race better than others. The closest is the Hebrews being God's chosen people but are white supremacists Hebrews, which, ironically, to the minimum, a handful of them will detest because it involves the association with Jews. While white Supremacists are antisemitic, why does God value them as a master race but has the Hebrews (Jewish people) as his chosen. Christianity is still no excuse because salvation is given to the Jews first, then the Gentiles Romans 1:16.
After watching the very language I have spoken since my first word change drastically over my life time I can confidently say that all sides of this argument are guessing. The difference is some Christians just ask God about it and listen to what he has to say on the topic. So my recommendation for Christians is to ask God. My recommendation for non-Christians is to ask God about it, and everything else for that matter.
To be fair, 15 year olds never have anything important to say. It is possible for them to be correct on an issue, but they find themselves there merely by chance.
If you were explaining functional/dynamic equivalence in about 10 seconds to someone that knew absolutely nothing about translations, how would you go about it?
I wouldn’t waste the ten seconds. If the target audience won’t listen to the few minutes a decent explanation takes it means they have no interest in the topic to begin with.
@@pansepot1490 not asking if anyone thinks it's a good idea. Dan's objection wasn't that he needed to take more time to explain, it was that he was clearly uneducated on the topic. I'm wondering what someone well educated would come up with given the same constraints OP was under.
Dan: Don't harass this content creator. Also Dan: Watch me insult this guy by pedantically nit-picking his content apart and then slamming him as an idiotic nit-wit who is peddling misinformation.
I am far more likely to accept the words of someone like Dan McClellan than most Christian apologists out there on social media. I personally think many of them don't have the knowledge required to speak on these topics, but are more about gaining views, subs, and likes from those they have duped into thinking them "an authority". Now the kid in this video that McClellan critiqued is just parroting bad theology, and appears to just be reading someone else's words. Biblical Scholarship is good to watch.
