To put a finer point on it, your understanding of the author’s understanding of the thing in this instance is a third Venn circle without much overlap to those first two. 🤌🏾
a man sees something here doesn’t understand. He makes up a story to explain it.
The story is shared among a tribe for generations, occasionally a skilled storyteller improves it
Eventually writing is invented, the story at some point is written down, maybe improved one more time as it’s put to paper
It’s copied over generations, occasionally improved by good writer, it is adjusted and added to a collection of stories about God and his prophets and miracles
Even had the writers wanted to fact check the stories, they couldn’t, they had spent too long in oral transmission.
Even the new testament wasn’t written by the people who were there at the time, it was more like telling the stories that your grandfather heard from his grandfather
People are pretty prone to improving stories they tell, they make them flow better, they make people’s motives clear when really they were hidden
Add to this tons of translations to different languages, not to mention different versions of the book in the same language. So it’s a massive buffet where anybody can pick whatever suits their taste.
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To put a finer point on it, your understanding of the author’s understanding of the thing in this instance is a third Venn circle without much overlap to those first two. 🤌🏾
Also, many retellings of the thing in different languages with different understandings and intentions over many centuries.
“the thing” itself is (and should be) missing from the diagram.
It’s more:
Even had the writers wanted to fact check the stories, they couldn’t, they had spent too long in oral transmission.
Even the new testament wasn’t written by the people who were there at the time, it was more like telling the stories that your grandfather heard from his grandfather
People are pretty prone to improving stories they tell, they make them flow better, they make people’s motives clear when really they were hidden
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Add to this tons of translations to different languages, not to mention different versions of the book in the same language. So it’s a massive buffet where anybody can pick whatever suits their taste.
I’ve also read The book of the damned by Charles Fort.