Writing Adult Roleplay a Sin?

Started by summoner2183, September 22, 2015, 06:12:12 PM

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summoner2183

Guys, i dunno if anyone has thought or wrestled with this before, but is adult sexual roleplay that we write here is considered a sin? I mean I am a Christian and all that... and I know that this is is just writing for fun. But this idea is niggling in my mind so I thought it would be better for me to get it off my chest and hear what you guys think on the subject.

Lustful Bride

I say personally that its in the gray area. :/

Matttheman89

I've never considered it a sin. I'm...not really sure why anyone would.  ???

Aethereal

      "Sin" is up to just about everyone's own interpretation. For some, it may be just speaking with a member of opposite sex without their representative, for others you would have to physically go and have sex with someone not your spouse while married. Whether you consider it a sin is up to your own interpretation; from a random irreligious person's standpoint, I'd assume it'd be less so than watching porn.

Caehlim

Is there someone at your local congregation that you could speak to regarding the issue? You could perhaps discuss this with your priest or similar spiritual adviser.

In regards to roleplaying itself, I'd recommend taking a look at perhaps the Chaplain's Corner or FAQ of the Christian Gamer's Guild who have some fascinating and in depth discussions regarding roleplaying from a christian pro-roleplaying point of view.

In regards to writing erotic fiction, Goodreads has an entire section devoted to the Christian Romance genre. Christianity Today featured an article discussing in detail Why Romance Novels Aren't Emotional Porn.

Ultimately the choice is yours to make, how this sits with your moral and religious code, however there are plenty of useful sources of information available to consider along with this issue.
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TaintedAndDelish


If you are a Christian then I think most Christians would agree that yes, it is a sin.
Sorry...

Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's servants, animals, or anything else

Now, this is where it gets fun.

What is adultery, technically speaking?
Does adultery include relationships in which there is no physical contact?
Does this apply to online relationships where people become emotionally entangled?

What is coveting?
Is it simply desiring something you don't have, or is it more along the lines of being obsessed with something you don't have?
Does this apply to people with mental disorders that cause them to be obsessive due to chemical imbalances?

What are the intentions behind these commandments? What is the "spirit of the law" so to speak?
Who has the final say in interpreting what these laws mean?

Is it OK for different churches to have different interpretations on what these laws mean, or is being incorrect in how you interpret these laws a huge liability?




Aethereal

       I don't really see roleplay as comparable relationship, nor does it have to do with something I want but can't have. If there exists a relationship, it's between a fictive third person and another fictive third person, not I or someone else behind the screen. Nor do written things belong to anyone in other than creator's right to them sense. Granted, I do make a specific point in rifting OoC and IC.

Capone

It's actually a topic that I've thought of a lot myself as a Christian and have frequently struggled with in regards to being here. I think the most important thing, which is where a lot of people get lost in the shuffle, is to ask yourself why something is a sin, firstly. Taken at their most basic level, a sin is an act of selfishness. If you think about the Ten Commandments and Christ's Philosophy, you can get a pretty good idea that the idea of "good" and "evil" comes down to selflessness versus selfishness.

So where does that leave adult roleplay? Well, quite frankly, it is self-indulgence in a sense. Do you need to include smutty activities in your games? What purpose are you doing it for? Does it take away from other, more beneficial activities?

There are lots of ways to rationalize erotic roleplay being a sin and for it not to be. What matters, I think, is how it impacts your personal life. Are you trying to fill a hole in your life, particularly an emotional one? In that regard, erotic roleplay and interaction on the forums can become quite addicting, in which case, yes, I can most certainly see it as a Sin. It is these sorts of thoughts and feelings that have, in the past, driven me away.

Since returning, however, I've found that being on E has actually encouraged me to be more social, and I've overall been feeling more confident. So like most things human, there's a lot of pros and cons to consider. Is it a sin? Honestly, it probably is. So would all the curse words I shout at other drivers on the road or the little white lies I tell. Which is not to say "It's okay, Jesus forgives me", but that I must put into perspective what sort of priority E holds on my life versus other things, and whether it belongs there.

If I ever turn down spending a Saturday with friends because I'd rather be on E, I know I'm in trouble.

TaintedAndDelish

I think a better way to judge whether erotic role play is OK to do or not is to ask yourself some questions that are more closely aligned with realistic morals. Nobody can know the "god", so nobody can know whether or not the "god" is pleased or displeased.  To me, this is a useless pursuit. I would be more inclined to ask more realistic questions such as:

1. Is this causing real, tangible harm to myself or anyone else? 
2. Is it preventing me from doing things that I need to do? 
3. Am I doing this in moderation?

On the positive side:

1. Is this enhancing my life is some way?
2. Is this providing enjoyment, relief, stimulation or education?


Capone

But what you say is discussing morality on a relativistic plane outside of the theology that is causing the concern. If I were to be speaking without my faith as a consideration, yes, you're perfectly right. But the thing about faith is that it comes with additional baggage, and the concern being expressed is therefore going to be met with different values.

We could spend days arguing what "realistic morals" even are. I took enough introductory sociology and critical thinking classes in College to know that morality is, on a pragmatic level divorced from theology and most institutions, all in the eye of the beholder. Just look at how small differences in, say, personal space are viewed from culture to culture. What's one man's sin is another man's Tuesday, so to speak.

The purpose of the journey of a Christian is to be in the world, but not of the world. In other words, whether the moral is realistic or not is irrelevant, it is still something that ought to be strived for. Much like how many monks try to remove themselves from the world in an effort to reach enlightenment, it is a part of the religion's philosophy (that, unfortunately, becomes bastardized and turned into a club to beat others over the head with).

TaintedAndDelish

#10
I agree with your points, Capone.

Assuming that one believes in Christ and that this is not to be  debated at this time, how does one determine if this is a "sin" or not? There are different Christian definitions of what a sin is, so who's definition of sin is the correct one? Are the commandments and the words of the Bible and Torah more of a guideline that people are free to interpret as they see fit, or is this the absolute, unarguable law laid down by god himself?

Can those with a more liberal interpretation, and those with super-literal interpretation of the bible both be correct? Truth by nature cannot contradict itself, otherwise it is not truth.

One person will claim that the word of god is black and white, absolute and with no room for interpretation. The words say what they say, they are god's words channeled through man, and they are final - even if they conflict with what we perceive as reality or make no logical sense at all. You obey them without question or you are in big trouble.

Another will say that you need to consider the context in which these words were written, the human who wrote them, and the audience that they were written for. Some will say that you need to make reasonable assumptions about the spirit or intention of what was written. You have to make assumptions about what god must have meant when he said this or that.

Having differing opinions on how the bible should be interpreted leads to disagreements on what is a sin and what is not. What I see as problematic here is that there is no authority to resolve this. There are the opinions and judgments of fellow humans, but that's is it, and often those opinions are in conflict, so they cannot not be absolute truths. To say that one narrow sect of Christianity is correct and the rest are wrong seems rather problematic.

To me, the question of whether or not erotic role play is sinful, is not answerable until the dilemma described above is resolved.


Fun fact: According to the book of Genesis, the first sin was in acquiring knowledge of right and wrong. Men and women were supposed to remain in blissful ignorance. Because of this sin, they were kicked out of paradise.

Capone

I'm sleepy and will get to the rest later, but wanted to respond to this:

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on September 23, 2015, 11:53:36 PM
Fun fact: According to the book of Genesis, the first sin was in acquiring knowledge of right and wrong. Men and women were supposed to remain in blissful ignorance. Because of this sin, they were kicked out of paradise.

Actually the first sin was in disobeying God. Yes, it resulted in acquiring knowledge of good and evil, but the actual sin was in knowingly disobeying God's command.

Aethereal

Quote from: Capone on September 24, 2015, 12:20:44 AMActually the first sin was in disobeying God. Yes, it resulted in acquiring knowledge of good and evil, but the actual sin was in knowingly disobeying God's command.
From where comes the age-old question: by what does one comprehend disobedience is bad (or make a well-informed decision) if one does not have the concept of good and bad?

eBadger

Quote from: summoner2183 on September 22, 2015, 06:12:12 PM
Guys, i dunno if anyone has thought or wrestled with this before, but is adult sexual roleplay that we write here is considered a sin?

Genesis is all about people having sex.  Lots of other mentions of it in Old and New as well, including descriptions of genitalia and cum and there's even a gangbang in there (Ezekial, you perv).  So unless you have some interesting views on the Bible itself, just writing about sex doesn't seem to be a sin. 

Both Old and New seem to be clear that Adultery is about physical sex.  But Matthew says just looking at a woman lustfully is adultery.  So dunno, but it all seems to flow from the physical aspect of desire and intercourse, not from the emotional or intellectual bond.  There's no mention that talking to another man's wife about sex is adultery.  As E is just about discussion I'm inclined to say you're good. 

Coveting is one of those WTF sorts of sins.  It's bad to want anything, but people do, so it's a sin but one you're sort of doomed to just feel guilty about.  I like Paul on it, though, better to marry than to burn implies we shouldn't expect the absence of sin, but should instead manage that sin in the least 'bad' way.  Experiencing fantasies by a method that is physically chaste could meet that philosophy. 

Lux12

#14
To be frank, the bible says nothing about it. Secondly, logically speaking, who is it hurting? As a pagan, my general attitude is as long as it does not cause undo harm, then there's no real reason for the Divine to be upset. Once again, I cannot think of anything in biblical literature that explicitly condemns it or mentions it. I know it speaks against your life being ruled by lust, but it does not forbid sex outright either. Of course, it only speaks against physical acts of promiscuity. Then again, you have the Song of Solomon which seemingly celebrates sexual love.

Vergil Tanner

#15
Well, you could consider it falling under lust and lechery. Honestly, I would take the approach that according to Mosaic Law, there are 613 Commandments (and the ones the Bible refers to as "The Ten Commandments" are actually the second set that Moses got after he broke the first set (which actually is more than ten) and are entirely different to the ones commonly cited as "The Ten") or so. I mean...yeah, they consider lust a sin....you know what else the consider a Commandment?

You're not allowed to make human forms even for decorative purposes, men and women aren't allowed to wear the other ones clothes. You're not allowed tattoos, you aren't allowed divorce, a rape victim has to marry her rapist, you're not allowed to eat meat that was not ritualistically sacrificed (no, seriously), you're not allowed to cut your hair, you're not allowed to eat fresh grapes, raisins or drink wine (or anything wine-based)....I could go on, but I won't; there are 613 laws in the Mosaic Law (primarily in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Exodus, with some of them in Numbers) and I don't want to bore you or come across as if I'm "bashing" Christianity; I'm just using these to make a point.

Basically, there are some pretty silly laws in the bible, let's be brutally honest, and thought crimes are among them; setting aside for a moment the gross immorality of "thought crimes" - which lust is, even if you're creating works of fiction off of it - as a Christian, I presume the OP believes in an all-loving, all powerful deity....in which case, even IF he somehow has an issue with this one tiny human in the vastness of eternity having some lustful thoughts, he should be able to forgive people and - if he's all loving - willing to....in which case, there's no issue.
Worst case scenario, just pray and ask for forgiveness, since the Bible explicitly says that the ONLY Sin that cannot be forgiven is Disbelief (Well shoot, I guess I'm goin' to hell if the Christians are right). So honestly, I wouldn't worry about it; there are silly laws in the bible, and any god worth his/her salt isn't going to condemn you to eternal damnation because you had some naughty thoughts that didn't hurt anybody and brought you some momentary joy. *shrug* If you believe in an all powerful, all loving god....there's really no issue. :-)
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Oniya

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 26, 2015, 06:21:02 PM
You're not allowed to make human forms even for decorative purposes, men and women aren't allowed to wear the other ones clothes. You're not allowed tattoos, you aren't allowed divorce, a rape victim has to marry her rapist, you're not allowed to eat meat that was not ritualistically sacrificed (no, seriously), you're not allowed to cut your hair, you're not allowed to eat fresh grapes, raisins or drink wine (or anything wine-based)....I could go on, but I won't; there are 613 laws in the Mosaic Law (primarily in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Exodus, with some of them in Numbers) and I don't want to bore you or come across as if I'm "bashing" Christianity; I'm just using these to make a point.

Basically, there are some pretty silly laws in the bible, let's be brutally honest, and thought crimes are among them; setting aside for a moment the gross immorality of "thought crimes" - which lust is, even if you're creating works of fiction off of it - as a Christian, I presume the OP believes in an all-loving, all powerful deity....in which case, even IF he somehow has an issue with this one tiny human in the vastness of eternity having some lustful thoughts, he should be able to forgive people and - if he's all loving - willing to....in which case, there's no issue.
Worst case scenario, just pray and ask for forgiveness, since the Bible explicitly says that the ONLY Sin that cannot be forgiven is Disbelief (Well shoot, I guess I'm goin' to hell if the Christians are right). So honestly, I wouldn't worry about it; there are silly laws in the bible, and any god worth his/her salt isn't going to condemn you to eternal damnation because you had some naughty thoughts that didn't hurt anybody and brought you some momentary joy. *shrug* If you believe in an all powerful, all loving god....there's really no issue. :-)

[useless trivia]Just as a note, some of those laws applied only to the Levites (the priestly class).  Most specifically the raisin/grape/wine bit, as there are numerous other references to non-sinful wine-drinking throughout the OT and the NT.  Indeed, the Passover feast (and later the Last Supper) includes wine on the menu. The story of Samson is pretty explicit that his refraining from the 'fruit of the vine' (and his mother's adherence to that during her pregnancy) is what led to his great strength - as long as he didn't cut his hair, which was another Levite thing.  [/useless trivia]
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Vergil Tanner

Oh, I know, I was just using it as an example of a silly law :P There are some that are people-specific, but the majority of the 613 laws are very general (as in, most people have to obey them). I mean, one of the Ten Commandments (the ones that the Bible refers to as The Commandments) is "Don't boil a lamb in its mothers milk." Because apparently that was a big enough problem to warrant being the tenth commandment. >.>
My point still stands, though :P
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Lilias

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 27, 2015, 04:38:15 AM
I mean, one of the Ten Commandments (the ones that the Bible refers to as The Commandments) is "Don't boil a lamb in its mothers milk."

No, it isn't. The Ten Commandments are these.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Vergil Tanner

#19
Nope...well, technically not. Those were, if memory serves, the first set; those ones were smashed when Moses returned to find the Isrealites worshipping a Golden Calf. He returned to Mount Sinai and got a new set direct from God, and this is the set that got put into the Arc Of The Covenant (Exodus 40:20) (the following list was revealed in, I think, Exodus 34).

1) Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3) The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4) All the first-born are mine.
5) Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6) Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8) The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9) The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10) Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.


Now of course, modern Christians refer to the first set as the Ten Commandments - understandably so - but the ones that the bible refers to as "The Ten" are the second set, since Moses broke the first set...so he went back up to get a new tablet (interestingly, the first set was written by Moses, the second was written directly by God). That is, if my memories of what happened in the bible are correct....it's been a while since I read it, haha.
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Capone

Keep in mind in the New Testament Jesus basically said "The old laws are no longer valid", to horribly paraphrase. And a lot of this is because of the purpose those old laws held. Think about the context of the time period those laws were written, and also try and actually read through those books of the Bible. More laws were added because the Jews kept on saying "Yeah... y'know what? Screw God, we're gonna do our own thing" and bad stuff happened. A lot of the laws of the Old Testament were trying to account for man's sin nature and instead steer him clear. A lot of them certainly sound barbaric to us today, but in the context of what was going on, what sort of laws these people were used to, it actually makes a degree of sense. However, because they were specific to a time period and to a group of people, it is one of the reasons they were sort of "wiped clean" with Jesus, who opened up salvation to gentiles. The New Testament is really where it changes from a set of rules to follow to a philosophy with guidelines.

So yes, there's a lot of laws in the Old Testament and people were very strict about it. Note that when Christ speaks up about the "most important commandments", he refers to the original set. A Lawyer asks him what is most important, and he responds to Love and Honor God, and follows it by loving and honoring your Mother and Father, and then loving your Neighbor. What can be extrapolated is that the original Commandments were written in a "trickle down" effect, where following the ones up top will inevitably lead to following the ones beneath. If you struggle with the top commandments, you're going to struggle with the ones beneath.

And yes, your memory serves you correct. Opened my Bible up to double check, and God gives a new Covenant, one in which he has Moses write upon Mount Sinai on stone tablets to be referred to as the Ten Commandments. It should also be noted that, as I bring up Christ here, while he refers to the original Ten when the Pharisees are trying to place him in a logic trap, he often says "My Commandments", which are separate from the Ten.

Vergil Tanner

#21
Right, good to know; I dusted off my [heavily annotated] King James just to make sure I wasn't talking out of my backside, haha...there's nothing worse than saying something and then realising that you were absolutely wrong. XD

Although, that's sorta always confused me...people say that Jesus abolished the "Old Law," but my reading of the bible was somewhat different.
In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus says that the old law won't be changed until all of heaven and Earth pass away and "all has come to pass," as well as saying that he has NOT come to abolish the old law...Luke 16:17 says a similar thing in that "it is easier for all of heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest letter of the law to become invalid." In John 7:19, he even criticizes people for not following the Mosaic Law....so it seems to me that Jesus - in the context of the bible; obviously as an Atheist, I don't believe any of this actually happened, but that's a debate for a different day - came to add to rather than subtract from the "Law." Am I missing something here? XD


Although, I would argue about that "in the context of the day" stuff; most of the laws in the bible regarding murder and theft and whatnot were most probably inspired by earlier codes such as the Egyptian law and the Code of Hammurabi, both of which predate the bible by at least a few centuries. The laws in the bible are actually fairly typical of the time rather than particularly progressive or revolutionary. At least, that's what my studies into the period seem to suggest (Ancient/Modern History Graduate here, haha).
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Lilias

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 27, 2015, 07:36:12 AM
Nope...well, technically not. Those were, if memory serves, the first set; those ones were smashed when Moses returned to find the Isrealites worshipping a Golden Calf. He returned to Mount Sinai and got a new set direct from God, and this is the set that got put into the Arc Of The Covenant (Exodus 40:20) (the following list was revealed in, I think, Exodus 34).

1) Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3) The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4) All the first-born are mine.
5) Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6) Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8) The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9) The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10) Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.


Now of course, modern Christians refer to the first set as the Ten Commandments - understandably so - but the ones that the bible refers to as "The Ten" are the second set, since Moses broke the first set...so he went back up to get a new tablet (interestingly, the first set was written by Moses, the second was written directly by God). That is, if my memories of what happened in the bible are correct....it's been a while since I read it, haha.

If you go by Talmudic hermeneutics, you can find all sorts of extras in the books. :-) There is certainly no suggestion of what you're saying in the manuscripts out of which the Septuagint translation was worked, and as that dates from the 3rd century BC, that cannot be put down to Christian influence.

Anyway, the Ten (the first set, if you accept the existence of a second) appear in Exodus 20, and the injunction about milk and meat in Exodus 23. (They both appear in Deuteronomy as well, again a few chapters apart.) It is a classic case of misinterpretation by people who don't grok that the language of the Bible is poetry, thus a lot more nuanced than the face value of the words.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Vergil Tanner

#23
Honestly, I don't much care about which translation or how it was mistranslated or anything like that; things were added and taken away and edited and all that lot all through its history, such that the book we have today is likely entirely different to the book that was "originally" put together by the very first "Council...." I just work on the book that is presented by most Christians today as the basis of their faith, and in that version - the one shared by most of the Christians on Earth - there are two sets. I honestly don't know when the second set was slotted into the bible or if it was there from the beginning, all I know is that it's there in the commonly accepted versions of the bible today, and that's the one I'm going to look at when talking with a Christian. In this case, I'm not overly interested in the prose or the translations or anything; I'm primarily focusing on what happened narratively. :P

But a slight note on the translations: The original text - even if what you're saying is correct - in this context doesn't matter. The current versions that most if not all Christians use has that distinction of the two sets being made, and so that's what should be used to discuss the current faith. No point in dragging up an earlier version that doesn't match the current version if the Christians are using the current version as the basis of their faith, y'know? Especially since the Septuagint isn't actually considered part of the main Christian Canon; the Catholics use a lot of those books, but their own versions of them, and the Protestant church rejects most of them as non-canonical. So talking about the Septuagint when talking about Christianity is pointless, since everything that is considered "Canon" is in the current bible, and a lot of things in the Septuagint are rejected as non-canon. I think that the "extra" works are classified under the Apocryhpa, which are the "hidden" or "extended universe" books, as it were.

Interesting in and of itself and something I'll be looking into in more depth than just my current basic google search, but ultimately irrelevant when discussing theological concerns of modern Christians since the Septuagint is normally never accepted as Canon in its entirety and usually just added on as an extra little footnote.

I mean, if you want to get technical, I don't accept the existence of either of the sets of Commandments, since I don't think Moses ever actually existed as a person. XD But again, that's a debate I would really rather not have today, haha.


As it is, I think we're slightly derailing the topic of this thread, so perhaps we should dial it back a little. :P
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Lilias

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 27, 2015, 09:18:23 AM
Honestly, I don't much care about which translation or how it was mistranslated or anything like that; things were added and taken away and edited and all that lot all through its history, such that the book we have today is likely entirely different to the book that was "originally" put together by the very first "Council...." I just work on the book that is presented by most Christians today as the basis of their faith, and in that version - the one shared by most of the Christians on Earth - there are two sets. I honestly don't know when the second set was slotted into the bible or if it was there from the beginning, all I know is that it's there in the commonly accepted versions of the bible today, and that's the one I'm going to look at when talking with a Christian. In this case, I'm not overly interested in the prose or the translations or anything; I'm primarily focusing on what happened narratively. :P

If you're going to trot out the 'Scripture says X' argument, translation and mistranslation are crucial elements, because if you get it wrong, then simply Scripture doesn't say X. :-)

The OT is notorious for misinterpretations, especially in translations following the Masoretic Text, which added vowel points to the original all-consonant text. Given how many words only differ in their vowels, the choice of vowels to add can mean massive skewing of the original text.

Also, there's no such thing as 'the Bible shared by most of the Christians on Earth'. If anything, the Bible you are familiar with is missing 10 OT books that Luther decided they weren't good enough to remain in the canon that had stood for a millennium.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 27, 2015, 09:18:23 AM
But a slight note on the translations: The original text - even if what you're saying is correct - in this context doesn't matter. The current versions that most if not all Christians use has that distinction of the two sets being made, and so that's what should be used to discuss the current faith. No point in dragging up an earlier version that doesn't match the current version if the Christians are using the current version as the basis of their faith, y'know?

Obviously, the Christians you know are different from those I know, because I've never had anyone (except, perhaps, Messianic Jews) go on and on about how the entire Exodus, with Deuteronomy tacked on, is the list of the Ten Commandments.

Also, define 'current version'. The 'no point in checking earlier ones' line belongs more with the lunatic fringe who really think that the Bible was originally written in King James English. ::)

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 27, 2015, 09:18:23 AM
I mean, if you want to get technical, I don't accept the existence of either of the sets of Commandments, since I don't think Moses ever actually existed as a person. XD But again, that's a debate I would really rather not have today, haha.

It's not about getting technical, just getting facts right. Thought you'd appreciate facts. ;)

Now back to our regularly scheduled debate on the sinfulness of writing fiction.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

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