Lamb of God vs Pig of God

[Sandy]

Hi Everyone
This post is concerning the ongoing discussion between Old Shepherd and myself regarding a quote from Laurence Gardner, which I originally had posted at Eliyah's forum two years ago, and was carried over to this forum a couple months ago.

Original post
My reply after Old Shepherds remarks

I have been searching, off and on, for almost two years now to know the truth of this matter. After the issue was again brought up here at this forum I contacted a person in New Guinea and I received this response to my query this morning.

Dear Sandy,

I'm sorry that I am so late in responding to your email of Sept. 2. Shirley and I have been out in the "bush" for two months where there are no phones - and so no email.

Concerning using "pig" for "lamb" in Papua New Guinea, it is possible that this could have been used as many groups use "pig" as a generic term for "large four-footed-animal" much as English used to use the term "man" to refer to both an adult male and generically for humans. But since there are over 150 translations into languages in PNG, I can't give you the name of a specific language that would have used that.

I would not encourage the use of that term now for two reasons. First, there has been more contact with the outside world and with many young people receiving some education, sheep are not as unknown as they used to be. Second, the pig is a detested animal for Jews and was considered unclean in the Old Testament. People who know this would consider using pig as inappropriate as they would see how it was contrary to Jewish culture. They might use something like "sheep-pig" where pig is understood as generic for large animal and not a pig. A camel would be called a "camel-pig".

I hope this is helpful and not too late to help you with your research.

Sincerely,

Bob Litteral

If certain people here feel the need to verify this response they can contact the person via their (Bob & Shirley Litteral) email address [email protected]

Also I have been in contact with someone who lives in New Zealand and knows Laurence Gardner. She contacted him for me regarding this issue and here is his reply.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this but Laurence has just got back from a couple of weeks in Canada. Here's his reply to your question:

Quote:
This particular question is rather difficult to answer fully. The 'pig' item is not mentioned in the Bloodline book, but I happened to hear about it before I gave that particular lecture, so I popped it into the talk. The information came from a BBC TV programme that I saw back in March 1997 concerning the world's various translations of the Bible subsequent to the original 17th-century King James translation. They read the item that I cited from the Papua edition on the show, but beyond that I really cannot help with anything more specific.
Unquote:

Karen

I am not at liberty to give out Karens email address.

I hope this will finally lay this issue to rest, but it probably will not.

[OldShepherd]

Here is the initial post.

We can cite an extreme version of how this works in practice. We can look at a Bible currently issued today in Pacific Papua New Guinea where there are tribes who experience familiarity on a daily basis with no other animal but the pig. In the current edition of their Bible, every animal mentioned in the text, whether originally an ox, lion, ass, sheep or whatever, is now a pig! Even Jesus, the traditional "Lamb of God", in this Bible is "the Pig of God"!

Note, this is stated as fact! To which I responded with this quote from Encarta which proves the highlighted portion of the above statement to be false.

"The wild animal life of Papua New Guinea is abundant and varied. Commonly found mammals include the tree kangaroo, wallaby, wild pig, and dingo, as well as varieties of squirrel, rat, bat, and mouse." Papua, New Guinea," Microsoft® Encarta® 96 Encyclopedia.© 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. ©

http://www.eliyah.com/forum2/Forum1/HTML/001465.html

You quote from your missionary friend,

Concerning using "pig" for "lamb" in Papua New Guinea, it is possible that this could have been used as many groups use "pig" as a generic term for "large four-footed-animal" much as English used to use the term "man" to refer to both an adult male and generically for humans. But since there are over 150 translations into languages in PNG, I can't give you the name of a specific language that would have used that.

I would not encourage the use of that term now for two reasons. First, there has been more contact with the outside world and with many young people receiving some education, sheep are not as unknown as they used to be. Second, the pig is a detested animal for Jews and was considered unclean in the Old Testament. People who know this would consider using pig as inappropriate as they would see how it was contrary to Jewish culture. They might use something like "sheep-pig" where pig is understood as generic for large animal and not a pig. A camel would be called a "camel-pig".

Parts of this reply are very similar to my response from 2 years ago.

It just so happens, this scarecrow has a brain and knows something about New Guinea. I have an interest in WWII and have read quite a bit about the coast watchers. Not only does N.G. have the indigenous animals I listed, but cattle and sheep have been imported for over a hundred years.

Also the statement about pigs is ridiculous on its face. How could Jesus be the "pig" of God, if pigs are unclean? How would a so-called Bible like this explain the "pig" of God killing a herd of pigs, in the NT? And since, according to Shaniyah, the only animal they have are pigs, if they become Torah observant then they would have to starve because they do have have any other meat.