Nick on Quora

Not merging this question, but:

Laura Hale’s answer to Who is the most followed/viewed/prolific Quoran that has never been awarded Top Writer?

A disproportionately Indian list, no matter what your criteria (and Laura Hale goes through several). Her criteria do not factor in being passed over several times running; Laura?

I’ll register some confusion at Robert Semple’s answer that it’s a day labourer; I’ve read Crossan too, and I don’t remember that.

I’m not disputing it; Crossan is pretty dense.

What’s stuck in my head is what the Jesus Seminar decided (and Crossan was a prime move behind it, but not the only one): they were inclined towards interpreting it as “builder”, because of the number of building references in Jesus’ parables and sayings (capstone, not a stone upon a stone, etc).

Note that the Greek word used in the Gospels, tektōn, shows up in English: archi-tect (literally chief tektōn), tectonics.

I’ve tried to reword the question to what OP Sam Rizzardi intended (“what do King James Only proponents think…”); but QCR knows what he intended out of the question better than OP does, clearly. *sigh*

There are different flavours of King James Only, as explained at King James Only movement – Wikipedia. Not all versions hold that KJV is divinely inspired, and most are opposed to modern textual scholarship (moving away from the Textus Receptus for the Greek); they would find allies in the Greek Orthodox church. In most versions, KJO says nothing about languages outside of English.

Going through the flavours.

• “I Like the KJV Best”. Likes it for style, doesn’t actually make any big theological claims. Indifferent to other languages.
• “The Textual Argument”. Prefers the older redactions of the Greek and Hebrew texts that the KJV used. Would be fine with e.g. the Vulgate for the same reason.
• “Received Text Only”. Thinks the older redactions of the Greek and Hebrew texts are providentially selected. Again, would be fine with e.g. the Vulgate for the same reason.
• “The Inspired KJV Group”. Holds that the KJV translation itself was divinely inspired. Does not necessarily say that translations into other languages might not be divinely inspired; though I assume they don’t expend a lot of energy exploring that possibility.
• “The KJV As New Revelation”. Holds that the KJV translation supersedes the original Greek and Hebrew themselves, because it is literally a new revelation from God. Would therefore reject all other translations, unless they are translations from the KJV direct. Called Ruckmanism after Peter Ruckman.

Where does it leave non-English translations? #1 doesn’t care. #2–#3 wants them to be textually conservative. #4 is agnostic about them (though it would at minimum expect them to be textually conservative as well). #5 rejects them.

OP, but I’m answering a question raised elsewhere by Zeibura S. Kathau.

Luke 2:14? The source of the confusion is a manuscript variant.

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία[ς].

The version I as a Greek grew up with has “good will” in the nominative, εὐδοκία. “Peace on earth, among people good will.” That’s Erasmus’ text, which is the established Greek Orthodox text (the Receptus).

It kinda looks odd, and modern editions of the Greek go instead with the genitive reading in manuscripts, which is also what the Vulgate has: people of good will, hominibus bonae voluntatis.

The wording “good will to all men” comes from someone looking at the old Receptus Greek text.

Which is what the King James did: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

What’s interesting is what contemporary English translations do with the genitive of εὐδοκία:

• NIV: and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.
• RSV: and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.
• The Message: Peace to all men and women on earth who please him

See what’s happened there? The contemporary interpretation is that it’s people of Good Will alright; but it’s not their own Good Will. It’s God’s Good Will. People in God’s eudokia.

1. To a dog, smell is much, much, much more important than sight.
2. The dirty clothes don’t smell bad to a dog. They smell of wholesome, owner-y goodness.

Mehrdad, I feel bad when I pass on A2As from you that I can’t answer. I can’t answer this either, but let’s analyse this.

Why was the EU formed? Really, for political reasons: with the hope that a closer financial, and then political union between France and Germany would prevent World War III. That agenda has in fact been embraced by a lot of people, who really do think of themselves now as European in Europe. It’s also been implemented very arrogantly, but that’s another discussion.

The exclusion of Turkey is probably a mistake, but if you’re going to build a United States of Europe, you do need a foundation of cultural commonality. I prefer to regard cultural commonality as a family resemblance kind of thing: the German and the Turk have nothing in common, but the Greek and the Turk have a lot more in common. But the deciding vote isn’t the Greek’s. (And the Greek’s vote for yes is not so much out of affection for the neighbour, as it is a “keep your enemies close” thing. Sorry.)

So. What about the Turkic Council that User-13062983365168259472 mentions?

It exists, but it is mainly cultural, it is not political or financial.

Culturally, Pan-Turkism is already a success; you don’t need a structure to teach people they are Turkic, the way the EU needed to teach people they are Europeans.

Politically? Erdoğan can influence Turkic nations without needing to resort to a formal arrangement; a formal arrangement would probably bind him into consensus too much, and make Turkey a primus inter pares, rather than what he’s likelier to prefer.

Economically? You’ve heard the arguments already: Turkey is doing very well, and the other Turkic nations would need Turkey more than Turkey needs them.

So I’m guessing that’s why.

But Mehrdad, I now have to ask you an indelicate question.

If there is a Turkic Union…

… what does Iranian Azerbaijan do? 🙂

Is it really that bad to bring your daughter when talking to foreign diplomats and people of power?

Why stop there? Why not bring the in-laws? And your cousin Vinny, who just loves sushi?

Is it really that good to bring your daughter along? What are her qualifications for being there? What is the reason for bringing her instead of a seasoned diplomat? And what perceptions does it raise about your judgement, be she qualified or no? Claire Underwood was not intended as a blueprint for US governance.

The Donald may or may not work out why established politics has put in the ringfences it has. The Donald’s supporters ditto.

But yes, there is a very good reason why nepotism is considered a bad thing. Over and above the lack of security clearance. And there’s a very good reason why conflicts of interest are meant to be both avoided, and to be seen to be avoided. Presidents get a salary precisely to avoid that perception.

It’s this little thing called corruption. You know. The kind of thing that has been happening a little less blatantly in DC all these years. The kind of thing Trump was voted in to drain the swamp of, ostensibly.

Actually, US politics stopped being fun for me for a decade now, so I’m surprised I’m even wading in here. But though I am a staunch republican [Australian definition], I really must defend the dignity of the monarchy against my confrere Michael Masiello (who has wisely turned off comments on Trump answers).

That is not what constitutional monarchs do. That’s not even what absolute monarchs do, really.

That’s what banana republics do.

In Greek: Γείτσες! A baby-talk-ish version of “health(s)!” (You may be more familiar with the less baby-talk-ish Yassou!, “health to you!”

Well, this one has worked out well for me. More or less. 🙂

Banter.

The coupling of Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing is the coupling that’s brought me to tears. To me, that’s the marriage of true minds.

• Explicit predicate structure of arguments. Which throws natural language notions of case out the window (although prepositions are included as well): it really is a matter of argument #1, argument #2, rather than accusative, dative, etc.
• Very explicit, computer-parsable syntax, with spoken brackets for syntactic structures.
• Logical, rather than natural language, notions of negation. (Again, more natural representations are included alongside it.)
• Berserk allomorphy in compounding, and no distinction between derivational morphology and compounding.
• Differentiations in determiners that are also very logicish and independent of definiteness.
• No substantial noun/verb distinction (the terms are avoided in Lojban); a noun is just a verb with a determiner, and thus can have tense or mood the same as a verb.
• Locative as well as temporal tense and aspect, and explicit Vendlerian categories of aktionsart.