RE: Ecclesiastes 9:5
July 31, 2023 at 3:35 pm
(This post was last modified: July 31, 2023 at 5:01 pm by Bucky Ball.)
The Hebrew priests and other writers who edited /authored / redacted the Hebrew texts used all sorts of metaphors and all the other literary devices commonly used in ancient Near Eastern literature.
The only way to understand the texts is to understand the cultures, Archaic Hebrew, whether the ideas actually came across in the Greek translations, and part of that is understanding that in no way are the texts to be taken "literally", necessarily. Historic prose is only a small part of the texts.
The idea that one could understand the texts by literally translating Latin to English, and "prove" something by that, is nonsense, and a fools errand. It's committing the very same historical errors Fundamentalists commit all the time. They used idioms, metaphors, allegory, simile, figures of speech, and many other literary devices which the readers / hearers would recognize, and we would not, and they were commonplace. They used prose, poetry, parallelisms, amplifications, HYPERBOLE, idioms, personifications, and parables. For example all through the Book of Isaiah the 3 authors call "Israel" THE "suffering servant", as Israel had come through the Exile experience. It's a metaphor.
The only way to understand the texts is to understand the cultures, Archaic Hebrew, whether the ideas actually came across in the Greek translations, and part of that is understanding that in no way are the texts to be taken "literally", necessarily. Historic prose is only a small part of the texts.
The idea that one could understand the texts by literally translating Latin to English, and "prove" something by that, is nonsense, and a fools errand. It's committing the very same historical errors Fundamentalists commit all the time. They used idioms, metaphors, allegory, simile, figures of speech, and many other literary devices which the readers / hearers would recognize, and we would not, and they were commonplace. They used prose, poetry, parallelisms, amplifications, HYPERBOLE, idioms, personifications, and parables. For example all through the Book of Isaiah the 3 authors call "Israel" THE "suffering servant", as Israel had come through the Exile experience. It's a metaphor.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell 
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
