Listen Eric, here's the point you're making for me: you, as an English speaking person in the 21st century have no way of knowing what those words as originally recorded actually mean OTHER THAN to accept OTHER PEOPLE'S translations as fact. You can use a web site that tells you what the original word means but you're still taking it on faith that the English version you're reading has maintained the meaning throughout the different translations. And yes, even with the original in the original Hebrew or Greek (translated from Aramaic to Ancient Greek to Latin to English) it is still impossible for YOU to know for certain that the translation of a word is what the author meant it as. You cannot know because the authors aren't there to tell you, the author's words have been translated from the original language into other languages and then to yours, AND you still have to accept that the translation you're getting is what it says it is based on others' interpretation.
Now, to me, that sounds like when I accept that through rigorous testing a scientist says there is a layer of ash laid down over the entire world that, through examination and methods of testing that is both documented and verifiably tested and whose results can also be reliably reproduced, shows that an asteroid hit the planet 66 million years ago.
That sounds like the same kind of acceptance it takes for me to believe when a skull is dug up of a species that resembles man so much, but isn't man, and whose remains include various tools and information that can be gleaned by looking at all of the residual stuff that was left behind when they died, that this humanoid species was here before men ever walked the planet.
Your faith in the words as they've been translated meaning this or that comes about because someone ELSE had some level of expertise that allowed them to translate it from x to x. Period. You didn't speak the original. No one alive has ever heard Aramaic in its original form. It's a definite FACT that ancient Greek and modern Greek are related but that all syntax is different. This means that it is a FACT that if an ancient Greek speaker were to speak to a modern Greek one, the ancient Greek would be using words the modern one would understand individually but the sentences would not make a lot of sense.
So, again, you're accepting that these things are what they say they are exactly as intended when the truth is that without having been translated a few times already to other languages you'd be entirely lost if trying to read the original. There's even a science behind interpretation. It's called hermeneutics. If there was nothing lost in translation why the need for a whole science to try to interpret the translations?
The same goes for Hebrew.
Oh wow here is a link
In fact, since I know neither (assuming you dont speak modern Hebrew) I have to take what these other people say at face value.
I've given a real world comparison in that I DO speak another language fluently. I read it. I write it. And there are still times in it where I realize that something said like x actually meant x. Or that there are words for which there just is no translation. That's my own experience with languages informing me on how all of them work. Or, like the Bible says, God confused the people and their languages and made it to where no one could understand the other. Genesis 11:8,9 clearly says this.
So, like I've beleaguered to say over and over, you're accepting of some other person's/peoples' translations but refuse to believe other people when when they also try to better understand this creation that was given to man that includes a lot of questions about what's in it as the evidence as tested doesn't seem to line up very well with the accepted translated meanings of things in the Bible.
I've been open about being a natural skeptic and that in no way makes me some bad Christian. I accept and believe everything I need to to lay my head quietly at night. I try to square what I'm being told (via translated text) in the Bible with the evidence that shows itself all over the world that there are things that don't line up with the idea that man is the only bipedal humanoid to have ever been created or to have walked the planet or that the age of the dinosaurs doesn't massively skew the age of the planet and our timeline in it, or even the age of the universe as it relates to man. If light is an observable marker, and it can be traced to stars that shined 13.5 billion years ago, then in Genesis where we were created six days after light, we as men should be 13.5 billion years minus six days old. Are you telling me that there are no stars that shined 13.5 billion years ago? According to you, that light should be ~6000 years plus six days old. And that's just not true because we can accurately measure things that are out there shining way beyond 6000 light years right NOW.
You don't like my logic and so you've gone on the offensive throughout our entire interaction seeking to beat me up with your understanding of the words as they've been translated. And in doing so, you've shown yourself to be the kind of Christian that puts being right over taking the time to try to educate someone on the basis of those beliefs.
I've asked, well before you ever asked for anything, for an explanation of why you claim man is 6k years old but that the planet is much older but how can that be when the earth and light and all that stuff should only be a few days older based on the literal words of Genesis. You can't even resolve the basic broken logic of your own assertion when asked simply and instead start going off and latching on to my humble admission that I have trouble with believing when faced with all the evidence that the world contains that flies in the face of what the Bible says in Genesis. Owl also tried to put forth this same argument and you levied some accusations at him as well.
If you're going to be the board "expert" on all things Christianity, maybe try not being a flagrant turd when you try to explain to people that butt up against you for the inconsistencies that exist between the Bible and the things we find in the world. God made both, right?
Can we not seek to understand Him better by examining both? Doesn't an examination of these things make us naturally have questions about the [apparent] incongruent nature that splits what we see and test to learn more about and what we read and try to understand better?
Still waiting on Eric to show me biblical evidence for dinos and people living together and for anything that explains how there are other hominid species. Or even to explain how if God doesn't mess up then why the need to wipe almost everyone and everything from the face of the Earth and start over again. And to do so without trying to attack the person bringing the question to him because he is the board authority on these things.
In the end, I submitted and chose to believe there are things I just don't or can't understand. I chose to accept Christ on faith. That doesn't mean I don't also wrestle with the nature of the way I was made. And that's ok. I'm sure He will understand when it's time to understand. And if not, that's ok too. Nothing I can do about it other than to say that I truly tried to make sense of it all, and barring that I chalk it up to I just don't get it. And that's ok too.
That's MY walk. How dare you seek to tear me down as not Christian enough for YOU. That's shameful, but that's YOUR walk. I'm over here drinking my coffee peaceful in my own heart about who I am.