[geeks] Witches and Well-Poisoners (was Re: [rescue] It's official, the U.S. is screwed for 4 more years)

[Ido Dubrawsky]

On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 09:42:25AM -0600, geeks-request at sunhelp.org wrote:
> From: geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org [mailto:geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org] On
> Behalf Of Charles Shannon Hendrix
> Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 6:25 PM
> To: The Geeks List
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Re: [rescue] It's official, the U.S. is screwed
> for4 more years
> 
> 
> Tue, 09 Nov 2004 @ 12:02 -0500, Phil Stracchino said:
> 
> > The thing with a lot of these "moral" decisions made based on the
> > Bible is that half the time, they get'em wrong anyway.  Of course,
> > this is hardly surprising when you consider the idea that the
> > Authorized King James V Bible is the verbatim word of God and
> > literally true even when it contradicts itself.
> 
> > For example:  The Old Testament, commonly regarded as the more
> > barbaric and bloody part of the Bible, says (or is almost universally
> > mistranslated as saying) "Thou shalt not kill."  But it also says,
> > "Thou shalt not suffer a well-poisoner to live" ('witch' is a
> > mistranslation), and "If a man comes to kill you, then rise up and
> > kill him."
> 
  Ummm...actually the term is properly translated as "witch" (or "sorceress" 
more appropriately).  The Hebrew term is difficult to translate into an English 
equivalent because of various ambiguities.  But, "witch" is more appropriate 
than "well-poisoner." The problem is that the Hebrew text of the bible was 
translated into Aramaic and that translation was the basis of the KJV (IIRC).

  As for the second quote...I believe that comes from the Talmud.

  Part of the problem with the translations is that the terms changed over
time.  Just like Justices Scalia and Thomas claim that there is no right to
privacy in the constitution because it is not explicitly stated there; the fact
is that the constitution intends for a right to privacy.  Why the word does not
appear in the constitution is because back in the time that the constitution
was written the word 'privacy' meant 'going to the bathroom.'  I think it would
have been very odd if one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights would have
said "Congress shall pass no law that abridges the right to go to the bathroom"
Contexts change over time and should be accounted for when trying to determine
the original author's intent.  Failure to do so indicates a lack of under-
standing (or desire to understand) the evolution of language.

Ido
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Ido Dubrawsky, CISSP           		E-mail:          ido at dubrawsky.org
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