[HN Gopher] Internet Sacred Text Archive
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Internet Sacred Text Archive
Author : mahami
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-12-24 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sacred-texts.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sacred-texts.com)
| yob28 wrote:
| space_ghost wrote:
| When I think "internet sacred texts" I only think of RFC1925.
| Maybe that's just me. ;)
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I can't help but think of "hunter2", and others.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Definitely not just you - I expected a collection of Internet
| lore, famous copypastas, RFCs, etc.
| nvr219 wrote:
| Very cool! If you're interested in Jewish texts specifically,
| check out Sefaria.org which is an absolutely amazing project.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| Thanks for the pointer. I'm trying to learn more about the
| intertestimental literature after listening to Mike Heiser's
| podcasts.
| macintux wrote:
| Interesting that Scientology doesn't show up in the list of
| topics.
| qart wrote:
| For copyright reasons, most probably. We know how litigious the
| bosses* at Scientology are.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_(video_games)
| slyall wrote:
| See the FAQ. All of it is copyright and Scientology are a
| aggressive at defending that.
|
| https://sacred-texts.com/faq.htm
|
| " Funny story actually.... I was actually contacted by a very
| testy lawyer from the Scientologists at one point. She was more
| than a bit bothered that I refused to post anything about them,
| until I pointed out that they had sued everyone aggressively
| for posting proprietary material about them for years, and now
| they expected me to cover them? She finally admitted that I had
| a point there..."
| WalterBright wrote:
| In the days of yore, people would get burned at the stake for
| making illicit copies. These days, one gets sued to oblivion.
|
| I have to say, it's an improvement!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale#Betrayal_and_d.
| ..
| hackingthelema wrote:
| The record of the Babalon workings of Jack Parsons with Hubbard
| are on there, at least: https://sacred-texts.com/oto/lib49.htm
|
| More on it @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babalon_Working
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| This is a nice resource!
| jacobrussell wrote:
| > Yes, Send Me The World's Wisdom
|
| Pretty good call to action.
| CPLX wrote:
| For some reason I thought this would be an archive of things like
| the parsing html answer on stack overflow and similar. Guess I
| should probably log off for awhile.
| userbinator wrote:
| It does say "Internet" in the title.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| That's the opposite of a sacred text; a profane incantation.
| qart wrote:
| Be careful with this. I am an atheist, and by no means am I
| adamantly defending Hinduism. But the translated Hindu scriptures
| are mostly over a hundred years old. Most such translations carry
| heavy biases. Quite a lot of of the time, the translation says
| what the translator wants it to say.
|
| If you have a personal affinity for some of the translators at
| sacred-texts.com, or if you want a historical perspective of
| translations, sacred-texts.com might serve you fine.
|
| But if you want translations that try to transparently convey
| what the original scriptures say, you'll have to look long and
| hard (elsewhere) for academically vetted translations by people
| who have expertise in the language of the original text.
|
| I don't blame sacred-texts.com for offering these old
| translations. Copyright and all. But I hope they have put the
| appropriate disclaimers about treating old translations as
| authoritative.
|
| Speaking of vetted... could someone please direct me to a good,
| transparent translation of Bhagavad Gita? I don't mind the
| translator expounding on some authenticated background
| information. I don't want personal commentaries.
| jaldhar wrote:
| "to transparently convey what the original scriptures say"
|
| All translations are lossy. So why not read the original?
| Granted, Sanskrit is not easy. But it's not insurmountably
| difficult either especially for a person of Indian origin. And
| the language of the epics (of which the Gita is a part) is
| generally a lot simpler than in e.g. kavyas or technical
| shastras. A few months is long enough to pick up enough
| understanding of grammar and along with a dictionary you should
| be able to work through the relatively short Gita quite
| quickly. Yes, this is still much slower than reading a
| translation but if you're goal is avoiding commentorial bias
| this is the only rational way to go.
| hackingthelema wrote:
| Have you read Eknath Easwaran's translation of the Bhagavad
| Gita?
|
| Its structure is Chapter-Introduction, Gita Chapter. If I
| remember correctly, the authenticated background information is
| mostly what goes on in the introduction to each chapter (i.e.
| 'Drona was born a brahmin, a member of the priestly caste, but
| in search of wealth he took up the way of the warrior and
| excelled in the knowledge of arms,' since the background of the
| character is not explained in the Gita itself).
|
| I don't remember much personal commentary in the chapter
| introductions, and you can easily skip them and just read the
| Gita translation itself, since there are no commentaries
| interspersed with Gita translation.
|
| I'm not sure if that meets your 'no personal commentaries'
| criteria, but I liked the translation. [Edit to add: listing
| some of the translations you have found wanting might help
| guide suggestions.]
| vram22 wrote:
| qart wrote:
| Thanks! I checked it out, and Eknath Easwaran's translation
| looks good to me. All I have to do is skip the first couple
| of pages of each chapter.
|
| I have not read any translation yet. Archive.org has
| Prabhupada's translation, which was the exact opposite of
| what I was looking for. So I dropped it after 5 minutes of
| skimming. I have chanted the Gita in some prayer groups when
| I was very young, without understanding any of it. That's
| about it.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| All translations are biased by the translator; there is no such
| thing as a translation that "transparently" conveys the meaning
| of the original. Even moreso when you are dealing with writings
| from an ancient culture, where much of the cultural context is
| likely missing.
|
| For example, Genesis 1:1 is often translated as "In the
| beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..." but that
| itself reflects a particular translator bias. The medieval
| Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) said it should instead read,
| "When God began creating..." by comparing how a particular word
| is used in other contexts. There is a subtle but important
| difference in meaning between the two translations: the first
| implies creation ex nihilo (as it says creation occurred "In
| the beginning"), while the second allows for an eternal
| universe within which our current world was created (and which
| may have gone through many acts of creation -- such a belief
| has been common in the more recent past). Of the two it is not
| at all clear which more "transparently" conveys the original
| meaning of the text -- because that meaning would only have
| been obvious to someone living 2500 years ago in ancient Israel
| (or possibly in the diaspora in Babylon).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > All translations are biased by the translator
|
| All understanding of a communication is biased by the
| recipient (reader/listener), and translation necessarily
| compounds this by filtering the message the translator
| understands again though the translator's own understanding,
| preferences, and style with regard to the target language.
|
| EDIT: Of course, with a religious work where you've waved off
| human fallibility in authorship and compilation by simply
| denying that those were human acts, but instead adopting
| doctrine that they were divine acts through human
| instruments, you can just do the same for your preferred
| translation and the problem is neatly solved, at least within
| your doctrinal framework.
| noizejoy wrote:
| Even the sender of a communication may be a source of error
| by phrasing something different from what they meant to
| convey.
|
| From not communicating in one's native tongue or not
| learning one's native language well enough to simple brain-
| farts - there are numerous things that can lead to
| miscommunication on the sender side, too.
|
| Communication of complicated concepts is just incredibly
| lossy every step of the way.
| greggsy wrote:
| So what you're trying to say is, that some of these need some
| <citation needed> tags?
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