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Posted

Hey Dwayner, thanks for all the work putting that last post together. I was obviously shooting from the hip on the Aramaic part....my memory isn't as good as it once was when I dealt with the subject on a semi-regular basis.

 

But as long as you're in a talkative mood and you have the resources at your fingertips I'll pose another question.

 

It's my (uninformed) impression that the oldest known translations of the Hebrew scriptures are the Dead Sea scrolls, which date back to the 3rd century BCE at the earliest. Given the much greater antiquity of the original writings, how confident is the scholarly world that 'we' have a good representation of the original works? Have older sources been found since the DS scrolls?

 

Re translation: I whole-heartedly agree with you about the subtle (and oftentimes significant) nuances that are lost in translation. I've had the opportunity to translate German to English on numerous occasions....Heiddeger and Kant are hardly the same men in the two languages...and have been amazed when looking at various interlinear translations of both the 'Old' and 'New' testaments.

 

I understand that a (maybe one of several) renaissance of Hebrew as a living language happened in Andalusia (southern Spain when it was ruled by Muslims for those cc.com'ers wading thru this thread) somewhere in the 11th or 12th century. Hebrew poetry from this time period was a significant development if memory serves me correctly. Again, since you obviously have the resorces at your fingertips Dwayner, I'd be interested in hearing your impressions of that renaissance.

 

But my.....all that was so long ago....too much sin, vice, hypoxia, single malt, and cc.com have erased so much of that previous life......

 

 

Posted
Dwayner said:

"In the beginning, God created ..." From Hebrew, it can also be translated as "When God began to create...", which has quite some interesting implications regarding the nature of God, time and existence. What is "in the beginning"? The beginning of what? On the other hand, "when God began to create..." suggests a different notion of time depth.

 

The time scale of the universe is very long compared to that for human life. It was therefore not surprising that until recently, the universe was thought to be essentially static, and unchanging in time. On the other hand, it must have been obvious, that society is evolving in culture and technology. This indicates that the present phase of human history can not have been going for more than a few thousand years. Otherwise, we would be more advanced than we are. It was therefore natural to believe that the human race, and maybe the whole universe, had a beginning in the fairly recent past. However, many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. They preferred to believe that the universe, and the human race, had existed forever. Their explanation for human progress was that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set back the human race to a primitive state.

 

This argument about whether or not the universe had a beginning, persisted into the 19th and 20th centuries. It was conducted mainly on the basis of theology and philosophy, with little consideration of observational evidence. This may have been reasonable, given the notoriously unreliable character of cosmological observations, until fairly recently. The cosmologist, Sir Arthur Eddington, once said, 'Don't worry if your theory doesn't agree with the observations, because they are probably wrong.' But if your theory disagrees with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it is in bad trouble. In fact, the theory that the universe has existed forever is in serious difficulty with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law, states that disorder always increases with time. Like the argument about human progress, it indicates that there must have been a beginning. Otherwise, the universe would be in a state of complete disorder by now, and everything would be at the same temperature. In an infinite and everlasting universe, every line of sight would end on the surface of a star. This would mean that the night sky would have been as bright as the surface of the Sun. The only way of avoiding this problem would be if, for some reason, the stars did not shine before a certain time.

 

In a universe that was essentially static, there would not have been any dynamical reason, why the stars should have suddenly turned on, at some time. Any such "lighting up time" would have to be imposed by an intervention from outside the universe. The situation was different, however, when it was realised that the universe is not static, but expanding. Galaxies are moving steadily apart from each other. This means that they were closer together in the past. One can plot the separation of two galaxies, as a function of time. If there were no acceleration due to gravity, the graph would be a straight line. It would go down to zero separation, about twenty billion years ago. One would expect gravity, to cause the galaxies to accelerate towards each other. This will mean that the graph of the separation of two galaxies will bend downwards, below the straight line. So the time of zero separation, would have been less than twenty billion years ago.

 

hawk2.jpg

Posted
Dwayner said:

 

The term "Pentateuch" is Greek and refers to the first five books of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. What has this got to do with climbing?

 

About a mile or so below Crag Camp, on the north side of Mount Adams in the White Mountains of New Hampshire there used to be a trail intersection marked with a sign in what I believe was Greek text. It was the junction of 5 trails, and the spot was called "Pentateuch."

 

Did you put up the sign, Dr. Dwayner?

Posted

Occasionally my sworn and eternal enemy (Dwayner) posts point out something of value. This one actually helps understand the nature of the political debates on CC.com. Clearly people have many assumptions and beliefs about what the basic tenants are of the major religions of our culture. What I find amazing is that Dwayner can cow everyone and seem like a bloody genius by spewing forth some facts that would be known to most anyone taking a general survey course in the Old Testament - after the first lecture. Perhaps he has taught such a course. In that sense he is right when he states that there is a high level of "ignorance" in the spray. I would suggest that the same level of ignorance exists in the political spectrum of spray as well. The nature of the commentary is virtually identical. Of course I have never let ignorance get in the way of a good time!

Posted
AlpineK said:

I'm not antisemetic; I'm anti Dwayner

 

What have I done to Alpine K/Feck.......

- I've met him at Pub Club a few times but really don't know the guy;

- Me 'n pope rode with him in a truck to Index to check out some rumored chicken bolts but it was raining so we drank beers in a car.

I have no idea what that boy's problem is.....maybe he hates everything I post here....on the other hand....

maybe it's his own desperate cry to be my pal!!

 

And then's there's my old sparring partner, Mr. Puget, with whom I thought I called it quits last year:

 

"my sworn and eternal enemy (Dwayner)"

 

Sorry to deflate your fantasy, Sparky, but you don't even make the list.

 

Such drama on a climbing discussion board!

 

photo_lido.jpg

 

- Dwayner rolleyes.gif

Posted
Peter_Puget said:

Occasionally my sworn and eternal enemy (Dwayner) posts point out something of value. This one actually helps understand the nature of the political debates on CC.com. Clearly people have many assumptions and beliefs about what the basic tenants are of the major religions of our culture. What I find amazing is that Dwayner can cow everyone and seem like a bloody genius by spewing forth some facts that would be known to most anyone taking a general survey course in the Old Testament - after the first lecture. Perhaps he has taught such a course. In that sense he is right when he states that there is a high level of "ignorance" in the spray. I would suggest that the same level of ignorance exists in the political spectrum of spray as well. The nature of the commentary is virtually identical. Of course I have never let ignorance get in the way of a good time!

 

Just as a bit of helpful information, and not, of course, to criticize, demean, excoriate, etc., but it's "tenets", not "tenants", the latter being persons who rent space in a building.

 

Helpfully yours,

Dr. Flash Amazing

Posted
Dwayner said:

What have I done to Alpine K/Feck.......

- I've met him at Pub Club a few times but really don't know the guy;

- Me 'n pope rode with him in a truck to Index to check out some rumored chicken bolts but it was raining so we drank beers in a car.

 

Maybe he's mad since you made him ride in the bed of the truck? hahaha.gif

Posted

Alpine K.....Petey Puget....

 

Remember back in the good old days....5th grade.......when the three of us were best of friends. (Here we are at Petey's 11th birthday party after we drank that can of beer we found along side the road.):

 

P1010054-drunks.jpg

 

And then we all went to the same community college together and said we'd be best friends forever? Remember our graduation party? We were so full of joy and hope! Just look at it beaming out from our young faces:

 

Drunks.jpg

 

And now......what has happened to US!!!!!

Posted (edited)
Dwayner said:

 

And now......what has happened to US!!!!!

 

Religion and politics can (and have!) ruined the best of many relationships.....

 

edit: Oh yeah...in the spirit of DFA, I think there should have been a comma amongst all those !!!!! exclamation marks.

Edited by Thinker
Posted

Dwayner

I do remember those days. Thanks for not showing "those" pictures. You know the after party pictures. I didn't realize I was giving you a hard time in my earlier post. So I thought those good times were back. One of us must be from venus the other mars and the third.....

 

Dr. Phil were are you!

Posted

Dr Don

 

My assignment for you is to reread all of my posts. After you've done that please write a short paper on my motives. Please contrast what I've said with reallity and show the link.

 

500 words hand written and due by noon tomorrow. bigdrink.gif

Posted
Dr_Flash_Amazing said:

You're hardcore, AK! You're not going to make him do it in cursive are you? And in pen?! eek.gif

 

all assignments must be handed in in pen, cause OBVIOUSLY if the student cannot cut and paste they will not even THINK of plagiarizing if they have to write out their plagiarism by hand! rolleyes.gif

Posted
AlpineK said:

Dr Don

 

My assignment for you is to reread all of my posts. After you've done that please write a short paper on my motives. Please contrast what I've said with reallity and show the link.

 

500 words hand written and due by noon tomorrow. bigdrink.gif

 

"The Real Alpine K"

an essay by Dwayner

 

Alpine K is probably trying to be funny in his own way although some people don't know him well enough to tell if he is joking or just a jerk. Points in his favor...they say he skis well and climbs well and I know he drinks beer. He's got a big smirk on his face most of the time so he seems to lead a happy life. He's got a cool job.....Only 427 words more to go.................uh.....it's well known that he has posted nasty stuff under the name "Feck" but that too seems to be just in jest, or so they say....uh.....I think his real secret desire is for Dwayner to teach him how to write "Alpine K - Big Wall Master" in hieroglyphs. (All you gotta do is ask, buddy!) .....I'm running out of ideas fast, Cap'n!....uh...bolts suck...Big Lou is so huge....aaaahhhh, forget it.....I flunk. Bailiff, wack my piton.

Orchestra, please. Maestro, if you will.....

 

LB-Big-Band.jpg

 

Here's to brother Alpine K. bigdrink.gif

Brother Alpine K.

Brother Alpine K.

Here's to brother Alpine K.

Who's with us tonight.

 

He's happy,

he's jolly

He wants to be Dwayner's Big-Wall Buddy

By Golly

 

Here's to Brother Alpine K bigdrink.gif

Who's with us tonight.

 

So drink up..... bigdrink.gif

 

hank.angry.dwarf.090501.jpg

Posted

VeggieB: I agree with you most of the time, but I have to stick up for AlpineK here. He's just talking the smack; he's really a good guy (he's a liberal and stuck up for me, a raging right winger).

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