Adventures in Translation, Part 2

Over at “Adventures in Translation,” I have updated the article to list seven different reasons why translators using the transliterated term eucharistized were doing so inappropriately. If you read that article, then you know that translators are hardly neutral and unbiased. Yet prior to my pair of articles on translations (on …

Adventures in Translation

In “Translations of Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 66,” I noted that lengths that translators will go to make an early church writer express the theology of the translator. One of the most common ways this is done is, ironically, by choosing not to translate a term for which there …

Eucharist For Prisoners

This is part of a series on Roman Catholicism and the eucharist. See this index. The Ancient Witness In “Translations of Ignatius: Letter to the Smyrnaeans,” we discussed the problems with how the context of this passage is handled by translators with respect to the sacrifice of thanksgiving (‘eucharist‘). They …

Selected Photography

NOTE: All photos taken by members of the Ramsey family. Click or tap on any photo to load the full sized version. Animals Plants The Equator The real equator The tourist equator Art We thought going on a boat called the “Susy Love” was a bit “Sus(picious)” Quito Virgin of …

Prayer and Thanksgiving

The Greek word for thanksgiving occurs in scripture in three primary forms: εὐχαριστέω (eucharisteó), verb: give thanks εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), noun: thanksgiving; gratitude εὐχάριστος (eucharistos), adjective: thankful It’s fairly common. You can see all of the references here. In the early writings of the church, the word is often left untranslated and transliterated as …

Religion and the Failure of Education, Part 1

In this short, two-part series, we are going to demonstrate how meaningless it can be to have a PhD in Theology or to have numerous academic publications. This will serve as a practical example of why formal appeals to authority in religion are close to meaningless. Introduction Ryan Haecker graduated from Cambridge …

Joe Heschmeyer on J.N.D. Kelly

During my research on J.N.D. Kelly for “Eucharist, Redux #10: AI Misquotations,” I came across an especially egregious example of misquotation. But, before we talk about that, I highly suggest reading that article first, or else you’re likely to be confused by this one or frustrated by the lack of …