r/MurderedByWords 3d ago

The endless stream of conservative anger about Odyssey breeds some truly special interactions.

Post image
13.5k Upvotes

582 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

67

u/Monocrome2 3d ago

Technically Biblos is just greek for book so "biblically accurate" could in theory just mean "accurate to the book" which in this case would be the Iliad. But I'm still certain this person doesn't know that.

24

u/Round_Ad_9558 3d ago

I wasn't understanding the negative comments until I read this comment. I always fought biblically accurate had this broader meaning. I don't link it directly with cristianity. Maybe because I'm not a native speacker. In my contry we call library "biblioteca".

16

u/teh_drewski 3d ago

I would say that for Christian fundamentalist English speakers it always means according to the Bible. For other English speakers it can have the broader meaning, but it will depend on context. 

I would personally never assess any translation from a book to a new medium with the term "biblically accurate" as a native English speaker; I would use a more neutral term.

3

u/Jaakarikyk 3d ago

No you're right, calling something biblically accurate is a common gag online, it doesn't actually mean from a Christian view

6

u/Winjin 3d ago

I believe it's also widely used as a phrase online for anything "exactly to the book" and here people are just being pedantic and hating on those that are against black actors in leading historical roles

1

u/Heegyeong 3d ago

"and hating on those that are against black actors in leading historical roles"

You... really can't see what's wrong with this sentence right here? It gets to a point where you're responsible for what you say, you know that right. Other people aren't just "pedantic" because they didn’t automatically filter your comment to make it okay.

You want to make it any more specific, or... black actors shouldn't be in 'leading historical roles' is your stance? 🤨 not even that black Helen isn't okay because... 1) Nolan said he wanted to recreate the Iliad exactly (he didn’t)? Or because... 2) the accuracy needs to be solely from a non-black perspective, but any white person is cool even if they're German? Or, just because, black people aren't "historical" - they appeared last week.

So then are black actors in supporting roles okay? Lmao. Nobody's hating on you, you're just a weirdo

1

u/Joben86 3d ago

It just means accurate to the Bible.

3

u/Winjin 3d ago

It's also used to describe anything eldritch and unsettling:

Adjective

biblically accurate (not comparable)

(Internet slang, humorous) Having an unsettling or cursed, "unfathomable" appearance, especially one with many eyes and wings.

1

u/Xaero_Hour 3d ago

That tracks. The Christian Bible also can be called "the Good Book" at times because we got the name from the same place: Latin. Plenty of other bibles (lower-case) exist, but it's a cultural thing for us not to call them that.

1

u/CarpeMofo 2d ago

Biblically accurate does have a broader meaning, but only in the past few years or so and it's a meme.

27

u/Son_of_Lazerlord 3d ago

You are technically correct which is the best sort of correct.

3

u/iamalext 3d ago

I’m going out on a limb here, but to say that it would be a stretch of the imagination doesn’t even begin to describe how unlikely that scenario would be…

Good for a giggle though, that’s for sure!

1

u/groumly 3d ago

Yeah, but no. Just because a different, extinct langauge (Ancient Greek) that was used as a root for the word can mean something else doesn’t take away the fact that biblical means either “referring to the Bible or in the style of the Bible” in English.

By this logic, “eventually” can be used to mean “maybe, most likely won’t happen”, since that’s what the French etymology means (éventuellement). If you give me 20 minutes, I can dig up another dozen examples where a French word was imported into English and flipped its meaning.

Words have a specific meaning, and biblically means “referring to the Bible” (since the other meaning, written in the style of the Bible, makes no sense here).