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Tuesday, 24 May 2016

More about bias

Jeremiah 2 gets about as raunchy as I have read in any prophet. Didn't know the Bible was fun, eh?

This instruction is given to the  'hot young dromedary, fleet in criss-crossing her ways' - hey, stop exposing yourself: (verse 25)
Withhold your foot from being barefoot, and your gullet from thirst,
and you said, Desperate? No. For I have loved strangers and after them I will go.

Remember in contrast the invitation and warning to Moses about holy ground. Rethink the image of living waters.

Look at the music. Note how the accent supports the implied rhetorical question. This is a camel with a mind of its own.

The style also feels different. Too early for me to tell really. I note though that traditional translations seem to not allow for the love of God for his people, but they concentrate on rule and payback. That's not at all the way these books should be read (even though that is a natural way of reading for human beings and a kind of natural justice or karma).

As I wait to wake up, news in the distant background... I query the data for some statistics on distinct language. Jeremiah at first glance into my pile of stuff does not look particularly unique in his use of language - not like Job. But I accidentally worked out a new way of confirming unique occurrences. I note that my KJV does not bother. So the hapax of winter (Song 2:11) is compromised everywhere with the English merism, summer and winter, where that winter is really autumn.  This shows a Northern bias in translation. So take that! We have not got the 'Word of God' in the KJV. We have a northern bias about the 'Word of God'. With me, you will have all sorts of bias but not that one. I will use winter only once in my reading.


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