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Comment by ammojamo | Hacker News Reader

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

(Matthew 5:33-37)

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This is why I'm perpetually confused by the official swearing of oaths by practicing Christians. There aren't a lot of new rules in the New Testament, but this is one of them.

Am I misinterpreting the passage?

No Christian can obey all the statutes of the Bible, or else they'll have to withdraw from modern life. The book is contradictory anyways...another part says obey the laws and regulations of the land. So, if the law says you must swear in, what then?

Was raised Christian (no longer one) and even attended a Christian college where we took an oath to be diligent, hard-working students...somebody better not check my transcript because I did the exact opposite.

non-Christian reader of Jesus son of Mary here.

He is simply saying that your outward promises must be a simple reflection of your internal resolve. "simple yes or no". And dressing it up either as being based on divine attribures or your given nature is a form of deception, self-deception or otherwise.

"anything more than this comes from evil"

Which is basically true. You know your internal position. It is either yes or no on 'promise x'. Why dress it up?

> No Christian can obey all the statutes of the Bible

Love God with all your heart and all your mind, and love your neighbor even as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on this.

That's the meta "statue". It's basically the foundation of a subset of human religions, certainly the Abrahamic ones.

Most struggle with loving ourselves, our fellow bipeds, or our God, or some combo but the clue is the implication that they are all one and the same. ["even"]

It is really core to the entire matter. Love in the fullness of its meaning.

Christianity is infinitely moldable to what people in power want it to be. Every rule can be ignored, every rule can be created.

That's how it's spread all over the globe at rapid pace.

Christian here. You are not misinterpreting. You are correct. In all religions unfortunately people develop traditions and beliefs that are even contrary to the text, and leaders are not good at correcting it.

Swearing by the Bible is a contradiction. But swearing by the Old Testament alone is not a contradiction.

Guess what, this conundrum did come up in 2000 years of Catholic teaching:

https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-are-oaths-allowed

This is like, “well, there are other passages that conflict with that, so maybe just do it when it’s appropriate”

> maybe just do it when it’s appropriate

when we want you to

The bible is full of contradictions and provably false statements. Then some believer just cherry pick the ones they want to believe in.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/thou_shalt_not_kill

It is utterly forbidden to kill in the bible.

200 years after Christ, the Roman army was "Christian".

Hmm.

That's not true. What is forbidden is murder.

Hebrew has two words for killing. One implies a guilty mind and the other does not. Ask a Hebrew scholar and they'll tell you that the word used for "murder" doesn't include things like military service or capital punishment. And of course, any other interpretation would be at odds with what actually happens in the rest of the Bible.

Very interesting, thank you.

So, is the Bible saying you shouldn't swear oath on a Bible?

That passage says you shouldn't take an oath at all, and then gives specific examples. It doesn't say "on a Bible" because the Bible was not compiled until later.

My brain literally locks up when I read King James-style English.

I wonder if AI can discover patterns in language or other signal domains that totally disrupt the modern brain and cause humans to crash.

Biblical passages nearly do that to me, so I think that they must exist.

That's not King James that's a more modern translation.

KJV:

Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

I really like the use of the word "thine" here. In the Scandinavian languages it's translated to "din" (singular) or "dine" (plural) (with an ee sound like in leek, instead of ay like in fine dining). It means yours. In the Scandinavian languages "min" (also with ee pronunciation) means mine. So the thing can either be thine or mine. It's very familiar language to us Nordic types, albeit archaic.

Very interesting. My understanding is that even when the KJV was being written these pronouns were becoming archaic. If it wasn't for the Bible and Shakespeare I wonder how many English speakers would recognise them.

It's, for lack of a better term, "High English." It is meant to sound grand, and thus the grander old style was used. Which is entirely appropriate; IIRC the original Hebrew uses grander language for poetic passages & the words of the LORD.

Thou = singular second person

You = plural second person

It uses them because there is an actual difference. In modern English, you cannot tell if "you" is referring to one individual or a group without examining the surrounding context and adding your own judgement (a translator looking at the original text will have much better judgement).

Even in Shakespeare the use of them is pretty inconsistent grammatically but makes perfect sense as a stylistic choice.

These pronouns were adopted by groups like the Quakers for a long time after the KJV was made. they didn't refer to a single person with "you" because it is a kind of "royal we" where you ascribe plurality to a singular person (when they believed that only applied to God).

When the KJV uses thou or you (it uses both depending on plural vs singular pronoun references), that is because the underlying text is implying something different. Translations without this distinction are losing some of their meaning.

You've mentioned “concepts, analogies, and metaphors of that era are now of no relevance to the common happenings of the present day” before you edited your comment. I think it is the grave error that results in the rest of your conclusions about “malfunctioning brains” (which is one of the hopelessly obsolete “concepts, analogies, and metaphors” still so common in the present day).

It totally possible to post the same quote as some kind of proto-Anarchist slogan. “Never let any earthly power control what you should do”, and so on. Whoosh, and Bible becomes hip. Of course, it would be incorrect, but who cares?

The paradox is that most actual is most often most transitory, and most ignored and overlooked is most often the most solid. “Philosophy is untimely”, etc.

I edited it several times. I was using GPT to generate old English to try to convey the difficulty of encoding information. I ultimately removed those paragraphs and went with the more interesting point about pushing thought in a way that causes the brain to work harder or deadlock.

The English in today's King James Bibles isn't even King James' English. It was originally written in King James' English in 1611 but was updated in 1769: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version#Standard_te...

From Wikipedia: "The 1611 and 1769 texts of the first three verses from I Corinthians 13 are given below.

    [1611] 1. Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestowe all my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned, and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing.

    [1769] 1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

The ESV (English Standard Version) is considered the modern equivalent.

    [2016] 1. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Cool, so it ought to be Early Modern English akin to the language of Shakespeare then?

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