The Bible in modern English.

Was watching Compass on ABC TV, a great program about women in the early Church. Not just Mary Magdeline but also Joanna and touched on Susannah, with other women who may have not just been disciples, but may have bankrolled the entire movement.

Was also reading Deuteronomy in the New King James version, which replaces the archaic ye and thou with modern equivalents. It still contains cross-references between paragraphs and sentences between books, and alternative words when the original sources have two versions. Eg. ‘Stiff-necked’ in one original source is ‘stubborn’ in another.

I read enough of a book that compared word for word four English translations: King James, NIV, RSV and another, to get the gist of it. Eg. One version omitted the words “as you have seen” present in the other three.

And I read about a third of the first volume of a 12 volume set by the translators of the NIV bible. I didn’t like the start of the introduction which is complete BS, because it starts by saying that every word of the Bible being the Word of God, and the translator is heavily into completing the translation quickly before God destroys the world (circa 1978).

In the TV program on Compass, it was pointed out that Jesus gave his disciples nicknames. The Magdela of Magdeline means Tower. John and James are Sons of Thunder. Simon that is called Peter is the Rock, but more accurately “Rocky”. As Missy pointed out to me, the first Rocky. So what is normally called the 3rd Epistle of Peter is more accurately ‘Rocky 3’.

I’ll never do a new Bible translation, but if I did, it would not be a translation but a transliteration of the earliest extant text. The difference between translation and transliteration is that transliteration retains the original grammar rather than moving the words around, so it removes a major source of error, but at the expense of having Yoda-like original grammar like ‘happy you are’. Not a problem for readers as they can soon get used to it.

Up until about 535 AD, the Syrians didn’t have separate books for the first four NT gospels, but a single book. And they really liked it. I think that’s worth looking into in more detail.

I mentioned the earliest extant version. That’s because earlier versions were modified by later writers in order to make the Bible more sensible. In so doing they changed what it actually said. By and large, the parts of the Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls were ignored by translators. I’ve so far only seen one reference, to a sentence in John, where the text in a Dead Sea Scroll has been taken as definitive. The earliest versions can be peculiar.

But, Um, why bother with the Bible at all? A simple answer. Length. There is no shortage of ancient documents, but most are just a few sentences and very few are long. The Bible gives an insight into ancient literature, and incidentally into ancient government.

And then I read the entry on Bible from the 1895 edition of the Chambers Encyclopaedia. It’s an excellent article summarising a lot of Bible scholarship. Although in many ways startling, it’s not offensive to either Christians, Jews or Atheists. It begins by pointing out that “Bible” and “Testament” are both Latin inventions. Before that in Greek it was plural “Bibles” and “Covenant” (ie. contract). There are so many insights in that Encyclopaedia article that I can’t even begin to summarise them here. It gives me enough information to summarise the whole Bible in six words “The rise and fall of Israel”. The link between the old and new testaments is Jer 31.3.

Again reading between the lines, the error that caused Jesus birth to be placed in Nazereth can be seen in Amos 2.11 where “Nazarite” is defined as “Prophet”. The Encyclopaedia article notes that a “prophet” is is defined in three places in the Bible as a spokesman, not as a person who makes prophesies. There are some propheses in the Bible but not one has a date attached.

The article goes through the history in the old testament and notes that the great literary period was 800 to 400 BC, only Chronicles, Ecclesiastes and Daniel is later. The old testament can be split into law, prophets, and misc. There’s a great difference of opinion on the date of the law.

“Scripture” is more accurately “writing”.
“Pseudepigrapha” is more accurately “ghost-written”.
“Psalter” is “songbook”.
“Psalm” is obviously “song”.

In the New Testament, the books are basically back to front. The epistles were written before the gospels. And Revelations must have been written long before John because Rev 11 is prior to 70 AD.

Any translation of the Bible must use “just critical principles” based on

• Manuscripts, especially the more ancient
• Ancient translations
• Citations in ancient ecclesiastical writers

Bad news for fornicators by the way, the ten commandments specifically says fornication not adultary. This isn’t good news for adulterers because elsewhere in the text it specifically bans adultary.

John Mill (Oxford, 1707) found 30,000 differences in text between different ancient sources.

The first atheist analysis of the New Testament can be found in the work of David Friedrich Strauss (1835) “Leben Jesu”, in English “the life of Jesus”. Strauss used textural analysis that had previously been successful in separating fact from fiction in the myths of ancient Greece and Rome. “The supernatural element of the gospels being impossible, shows that the narratives arose long after the life of Jesus – they are mythical”. This caused an uproar at the time. Being immediately sacked from his job was just the start of his problems.

I then read the introduction and glossary of the Complete Jewish Bible – English Version. This is an absolute mine of good synonyms. The translater here is not a Biblical scholar, but a Messianic Jew who put together a combined Jewish old and new testament for the first time.

Let’s start with the names of God. There is a deliberate religious policy of mistranslation in the Jewish church in order to avoid taking the name in vain which, coupled with accidental Christian mistranslations take quite a bit of sorting out. The only authentic OT name is the tetragrammatron “insert hebrew here”. This has been rendered as Y-H-V-H, Jehovah, Yaweh, Yahveh, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh and Yah.

Other names that get mistranslated as “God” include:

• adonai = my lord
• elohim = judges (note that this word is a plural)
• elohei = judge
• el = judge
• eli = my judge
• elyon = the highest
• hag’dulah = the greatness
• hag’vurah = the power
• hakadesh = holy one
• ham’vorakh = father
• hashem = the name
• kurios = lord (in Greek)
• ruach hakadesh = holy spirit
• shaddai = almighty

“Imbued with the holy spirit” is more accurately “became Jehovah’s spokesman”.

Different names for Jesus include Hebrew versions Yeshu, Yeshua, Jeshua, Joshua, and Greek version Iesous, and Immanuel, Emmanuel = El with us.

Some other synonyms:

• christ = king
• messiah = priest
• annointed = oiled or oily
• archangel = spymaster
• apostle = emmissery
• disciple = student
• cherub = monster
• cherubim = monsters
• baal = master or lord
• beelzebub = lord of the flies (satan)
• barabbas = son of father
• barnabas = exhorter
• commandments = commands
• old testament = tanakh
• bartholemew = son of Ptolemy
• voice from heaven = daughter voice
• bethany = house of poverty
• bethlehem = house of bread
• son of god = son of the father
• benjamin = son of right (hand)
• belial = worthless (satan)
• diaspora = dispersion
• baptist = immerser, dipper
• gabta John 19.13 = pavement
• gethsemane = garden with oil-press
• gehenna = valley of Hinnom (not hell)
• gog = prince of Magog
• gentile = non-Jew
• heathen = non-Jew
• halleluyah = praise Yah
• armageddon = hill Megiddo
• virgin = young woman
• israel = descendents of Israel, Genesis 32.10
• levite = temple worker (ie civil servant)
• manna = unknown food
• martha = lady
• leprosy = contageous skin disease
• nazarene = sprig
• rabbi = my great one
• satan = the adversary (in the legal sense)
• the devil = the adversary
• deacon = caretaker, attendant
• pentecost = fifty
• sheol, hades, hell = the place of the dead
• laying on of hands = promotion
• seraphim = monsters
• tabernacle = shack
• little girl (talita) Mark 5.41 = lambikin
• the word = scripture
• phylacteries = two leather boxes
• torah, law = teaching
• scribe = teacher
• non-kosher = torn
• repentance = turning
• sadducees = temple workers (ie civil servants)
• charity = rightness
• mitzvah = command
• hosts = armies
• judas iskariot = Judah son of Simon of K’riot
• jew = resident of Judea
• yom kippur = the fast

I told you The Jewish Bible is a mine of synonyms.

After The Jewish Bible, I started reading “Josephus – the complete works”. It immediately became clear that the start of Genesis is missing two words: “Moses said”. This also clears up another paradox, if the name of god was revealed to Moses in the desert then how did it come to appear in Genesis 2.4?

Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews” Book 1 to Book 2 chapter 7 is actually a better rendition of Genesis than Genesis itself. Josephus has a heck of a lot more information about the start of Exodus than Exodus does, about five times as much information.

By the time we get to the parting of the Red Sea, Exodus 14 and AotJ Book 2 Chapter 16, the two accounts run parallel without any significant conflict, but Josephus reports what Moses said to God. Exodus on the other hand reports what God said to Moses and not what Moses said to God. Josephus’ version looks a lot more reliable, and is equally long.

The ten commandments appear in Exodus 20 and AotJ 3.5.5. Where the Bible says “then God said all these words”, Josephus has “the first commandment teachs us”. It’s a different slant on the same event. Where Josephus has just “other laws from God”, Exodus fills up two chapters listing 70 of these laws. Exodus and Josephus both go into a lot of detail about the building of the Tabernacle, 5 chapters in Exodus and 8 chapters in Josephus. The death of Moses is at the end of AotJ 4, but he’s still alive all the way to the end of Deuteronomy in the Bible.

The book of Joshua range AotJ Book 5 start in the same way. Again, the Bible is all about “God said to Joshua” where Josephus has “Joshua commanded the multitude”, again Josephus looks a lot more reliable.

The whole of Biblical Joshua is compressed into Chapter 1 of AotJ Book 5. Samson first appears in Judges 13.24 and in AotJ Book 5.8.4 after about the same amount of text. David first appears in 1 Samuel 16.13 and in AotJ Book 6.8.1. Let’s do a direct text comparison again. The Bible has “God said to Samuel ‘Don’t pay attention to how he looks or how tall he is, because I have rejected him. God doesn’t see the way humans see’. The exact same passage in Josephus is “when Samuel inquired of God whether he should anoint this youth, who he so admired, and esteemed worthy of the kingdom, God said ‘Men do not see as God seeth. Though indeed hast respect for the fine appearance of this youth’ … God said none of them”. Very similar.

Saul dies at the end of 1 Samuel, and the end of AotJ Book 6. David dies at the end of AotJ Book 7 and in 1 Kings 2.10. The events in the Bible and in Josephus run parallel for at least that far. The death of Ahab comes at the end of 1 Kings and at the end of AotJ Book 8.

Compare text again. 2 Kings has “Moab rebelled against Israel”. AotJ Book 9 has “About the same time the Moabites and Ammonites made an expedition against Jehoshaphat”.

There are about the same number of words in parallal texts between AotJ and the Bible to 2 Kings. 2*450*272 = 244,000 words for the AotJ vs 15*45*412 = 278,000 words for the Bible.

The Bible quits in the period between the old and new testaments, but Josephus’ Ancestry of the Jews continues through with even more detail. The entire new testament fits in a single paragraph of Book 18, to be specific 18.3.3. John the Baptist makes an appearance later, in 18.5.2. Emperor Nero makes an appearance in AotJ 20.8. The last chapter, 20.12 is the 13th year of Caesar Domitian.

Other books by Josephus are “the wars of the jews”, “against apion” and “discourse to the greeks concerning hades”. “The wars of the jews” covers the period from Antiochus Epiphanes to sedition of the Jews at Cyrene and talks about the war between the Jews and the Romans.

There’s more of parallel texts in the Appendix. AotJ covers all of genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy (not all in order), joshua, judges, ruth, 1 samuel, 2 samuel, 1 kings, 2 kings (not all in order), the parts of 1 chronicles that overlap 2 samuel, Most if not all of 2 chronicles (which overlaps 1 kings, 2 kings & others).

As well as parts of Isiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah. Much of Daniel and Ezra. Touches on Ezekial and Nahum, and has the start of Jonah. Has all of 1 maccabees, some of 2 maccabees. Most of Esdras & Esther.

Josephus “Ancestry of the Jews” does not include the psalms, proverbs, song of solomon, ecclesiastes, hosea, joel, obadiah, micah, habakkuk, Zephaniah, haggai, zechariah, malachi, job, or lamentations.

So, a great way to make the Bible better is to do major replacements of the old testament using parallel passages from Josephus AotJ. Actually, I think it’s an essential first step.

Now checking what Encyclopaedias say about sources of Josephus. The princpal edition of the greek text comes from 1544. The AotJ was written in 93 AD. The 1895 Encyclopaedia suggests that the paragraph about Jesus may have been a later addition.

But is that valid? Sources of the old testament include Greek (septuagint), syriac, coptic, samaritan, and hebrew (masoretic) versions. All were heavily influenced by the septuagint. There is a legend that the septuagint was written in Alexandria between 288 and 247 BC. But its antiquity is based on the “Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates” and on Ecclesiasticus, both of which are widely accepted to be spurious. The first publication was in 1519.

The final defeat of the Jews by the Romans was in 70 AD and Josephus, writing in Greek in 93 AD, could well have a different version to a pre-70 AD version. It could thus be considered a modern Bible.

Jaysus.

sibeen said:

Jaysus.

Yup.

sibeen said:

Jaysus.

H. Christ!

OK…. Where’s Mr Panty Parts. I give it 10 seconds…..

10……………9…………… 8…………………. 7 …………………6 ……………..5………………….

Doing some heavy Bible Study lately moll, by the seem of it :)

Have you done Thomas from the Koptic bible?

Criticizing people and religion has made me grumpy, so there will be much less criticizing people and religion.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Criticizing people and religion has made me grumpy, so there will be much less criticizing people and religion.

Religion usually ends up making people grumpy, which explains much about the state of the world.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Criticizing people and religion has made me grumpy, so there will be much less criticizing people and religion.

Why not just give it a miss then?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Criticizing people and religion has made me grumpy, so there will be much less criticizing people and religion.

sounds like being moderate is your new motto.

I was hoping moll might set me straight on the Universe expansion thread, but it seems he’s been to busy to bother with that science stuff.

captain_spalding said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Criticizing people and religion has made me grumpy, so there will be much less criticizing people and religion.

Religion usually ends up making people grumpy, which explains much about the state of the world.

Criticizing religion makes me feel joy and peace :D I’m happy that I am not fooled by it all.

hi my name is lahlia

i am 6 and a half years old

Hello Lahlia. You might be better over in the Chat thread.

buffy said:

Hello Lahlia. You might be better over in the Chat thread.

i did

thank you buffy

Thanks for putting that together, Moll.

roughbarked said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Criticizing people and religion has made me grumpy, so there will be much less criticizing people and religion.

Why not just give it a miss then?

This is what I’m thinking.

Let the anger go and use the energy for something else.

Better state of mind with more calm thrown in.

My next step was to look for the earliest extant versions of the Bible. That leads immediately to the Dead Sea scrolls, and from there to the Temple scroll. Why the Temple scroll? Both because it is the longest Dead Sea Scroll and because it uniquely contains parts of a four biblical books. These are Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. No other Dead Sea scroll contains parts of more than two biblical books. The Temple scroll contains most of Deuteronomy.

Amusingly, despite this, the Temple scroll is listed as “non-biblical” and “original composition”. It seemed worth looking up. I have an English translation at home. It initially disappointed me in that turned out to be the almost exact opposite of Josephus. In Josephus, Moses takes centre stage and spoke often to Yahweh. The Temple scroll claims to have been written by Yahweh and doesn’t mention Moses at all.

It seems a ridiculous claim, but what if Yahweh isn’t supernatural?

I tried and rejected hypotheses. Now I have one that isn’t easily rejected. The Temple scroll, like the Bible, claims that Yawheh is a god, is singular, is not a king, lives for ever, makes laws and collects taxes. Seemed impossible, until I remembered that one synonym for Yahweh is Elohim, which is plural and means judges. A collection of judges, the high court perhaps, not quite, but it did lead me to the next hypothesis.

Replace the word “god” with “parliament”, to be specific a parliament with representation from all twelve of the tribes of Israel. And rewrite. Yawheh is a parliament, is singular, is not a king, lives for ever, makes laws and collects taxes.

It’s my working hypothesis for the moment. Needs checking further. For the moment, let’s leave aside the contradiction of Genesis (god made the heavens and the earth), and those of Exodus (the burning bush and the parting of the Red sea), none of which are consistent with the actions of parliament. Perhaps I’ll look into those later.

Let’s review the Temple scroll further.

The Temple scroll starts with tax law, moves onto plans for the parliament building, then onto food and hygeine laws, and finally onto war (the role of the king and how to divide up the booty) and marriage laws.

“You shall not support another parliament, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous parliament”.
Note (Y and J are the same letter in Hebrew).

“the High Priest is to minister to Yahweh”.
Note (The use of ‘minister’ for both church and parliament is no coincidence)

“They shall eat them on that day in the outer courtyard before Yaweh, an eternal rule for their generations, year by year”
Note (This makes sense if Yahweh is parliament)

“I shall accept them and they shall be my people and I shall be for them for ever.”
Note (Again, this makes sense if “I” is parliament)

“The contract which I have made with Jacob in Bethel”
Note (Needs lookiong into)

“When I extend your frontiers as I have told you”

“I test you to discover whether you love Yaweh, the parliament of you fathers, with all your heart and soul, and it is him that you must hear and his voice that you must obey”.

“Yahweh, your parliament, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage”.

“I will be compassionate to you and multiply you as I told your fathers provided that you obey my voice, keeping all my commands that I command you today”.

“When you enter the land which I give you … you may surely appoint over you the king I will choose”

“He (the king) will definitely not acquire many horses … many wives (or) silver or gold”. The king is described specifically as the leader of the army. He has no civilian role.

Rejected hypothesis: The Temple scroll is the original form of the Bible. That hypothesis is based more than anything on the observation that the oldest extensive documentation in the Middle East is tax law. I reject it on the basis that the text of the Temple scroll starts falling apart near the end, there are too many references to earlier documents (Jacob, Egypt, earlier law, etc.) for the Temple scroll to be ancestral. I agree with the scholars that it is a later attempt to tidy up, expand and improve on the laws of Deuteronomy.

The hypothesis that god is another word for parliament can be rejected too, for now. Because one passage says “serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, silver and gold”. Such hand-made gods can not by any stretch of the imagination be considered parliaments. But on the other hand, they can’t be considered supernatural either. An idol may be a symbol of parliament, but not a parliament itself. The earlier command to smash but not steal idols serves the practical purpose of discouraging counterattack by enemies for the recovery of valuable goods. Monetary poverty has the same aim. Both are good survival strategies and have nothing overtly to do with religion.

Some more synonyms:
holocaust, burnt offering = incense
offering = payment
altar = hotplate

“sin-offering” … cripes, the Bible is starting to make sense, there is a revolting ritual described in the Temple scroll (and in the Bible) that seems to tie the whole Bible together. It’s called “sin-offering”. The ritual is as follows:
Once a year, a tribe gathers together and an animal is brought out. To that animal is transferred, mentally, all the past sins (ie. felonies), iniquities (ie. immorality) and guilt (ie. regret) of the tribe. The animal is killed and burnt, completely freeing every member of the tribe from future consequences of past felonies, immorality and guilt.

This at a stroke explains the Jewish passover, Catholic confession, and the description of Jesus as a sin-offering, a lamb of God. The date is called “atonement” and the process is called “mortify”.

It’s quite an effective psychological trick, saying and in fact believing that you never committed a crime but that it was someone else and he’s dead. But it means that anyone can get away scott-free from any crime if they can escape the law until the week after the fourteenth day of the first month.

Well, if god isn’t a synonym of parliament then, coupled with the archaeological evidence that shows that the Exodus never happened and that Joshua never destroyed Jericho, the whole historical component of the Bible up to about 197 BC looks like rubbish. And as the chronology of the canonical old testament ended in 430 BC … it’s starting to look not more reliable than Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey written at about the same time.

That’s some pretty interesting stuff. I like the book of Lamentations, it’s a pretty good description of a besieged city.

This link is interesting.

The Bible unearthed

For instance, if the Pentateuch was originally three documents
J = Yahweh
E = El
D = Deuteronomy

Then the Temple scroll is seen as an attempt to reconstruct and expand D.

“While some scholars argue that the texts were composed and edited during the existence of the united monarchy and the kingdoms of Judah and Israel (C. 1000-586 BCE), others insist that they were late compositions, collected and edited by priests and scribes during the Babylonian exile and the restoration (in the sixth and fifth centuries), or even as late as the Hellenistic period (fourth-second centuries BCE). Yet all agree that the Pentateuch is not a single, seamless composition but a patchwork of different sources, each written under different historical circumstances to express different religious or political viewpoints.”

“The connected historical narrative of the books that follow the Pentateuch — Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings — is so closely related to Deuteronomy linguistically and theologically that it has come to be called by scholars since the middle of the 1940s the Deuteronomistic History.”

“A victory stele erected by Pharaoh Merneptah in 1207 BCE mentioned a great victory over a people named Israel.”

“many contradictions between archaeological finds and the biblical narratives”.

>“sin-offering” … cripes, the Bible is starting to make sense, there is a revolting ritual described in the Temple scroll (and in the Bible) that seems to tie the whole Bible together. It’s called “sin-offering”. The ritual is as follows:
Once a year, a tribe gathers together and an animal is brought out. To that animal is transferred, mentally, all the past sins (ie. felonies), iniquities (ie. immorality) and guilt (ie. regret) of the tribe. The animal is killed and burnt, completely freeing every member of the tribe from future consequences of past felonies, immorality and guilt.”

that’s an interesting subject.

there are certain organic realities, like creatures need eat each other to survive, and man has long been ascending to the top of the food chain, but has too the complexities and burden of consciousness.

that there has long been going back through history things sacrificial related food that serve some broader function is not surprising at all. Humans have had domesticated animals, or semi-domesticated animals going back a long way too, so there are the conflicts associated with keeping and raising creatures then eating them, and their offspring. Still today man nurtures creatures to eat.

transition said:

>“sin-offering” … cripes, the Bible is starting to make sense, there is a revolting ritual described in the Temple scroll (and in the Bible) that seems to tie the whole Bible together. It’s called “sin-offering”. The ritual is as follows:
Once a year, a tribe gathers together and an animal is brought out. To that animal is transferred, mentally, all the past sins (ie. felonies), iniquities (ie. immorality) and guilt (ie. regret) of the tribe. The animal is killed and burnt, completely freeing every member of the tribe from future consequences of past felonies, immorality and guilt.”

that’s an interesting subject.

there are certain organic realities, like creatures need eat each other to survive, and man has long been ascending to the top of the food chain, but has too the complexities and burden of consciousness.

that there has long been going back through history things sacrificial related food that serve some broader function is not surprising at all. Humans have had domesticated animals, or semi-domesticated animals going back a long way too, so there are the conflicts associated with keeping and raising creatures then eating them, and their offspring. Still today man nurtures creatures to eat.

I mean humans are high functioning predators, with a conscience, they too are broad nurturers(of technology, and social systems) as a consequence of having a large array of mind tools, so right off the bat there are complexities, or issues.

think about eating your pet, some circumstance that required it, it’s a good starter to some organic realities, the social and psychological realities also.

modern man, civilized man today has the benefits of compartmentalizing. Some brute kills your food for you, another cuts it up, another packages it maybe, another transports it, another serves it to you. You get the idea.

what what civilized modern man’s sacrifices are?

that should’ve said something like…….

what are civilized, modern man’s sacrifices?

A translated modern bible, free of hard to read stuff.

Rewritten in modern day usage.

Would sell well I reckon.

Tau.Neutrino said:

A translated modern bible, free of hard to read stuff.

Rewritten in modern day usage.

Would sell well I reckon.

Nah, there’s already some around. Lots of christians don’t like them, they prefer the gravitas of the older versions.

party_pants said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

A translated modern bible, free of hard to read stuff.

Rewritten in modern day usage.

Would sell well I reckon.

Nah, there’s already some around. Lots of christians don’t like them, they prefer the gravitas of the older versions.

Depends

Some people like the older versions.

Some people like reading the older and newer versions.

Some people like reading new versions.

Tau.Neutrino said:

A translated modern bible, free of hard to read stuff.

Rewritten in modern day usage.

Would sell well I reckon.

Has been around for decades. Never bought one.

Tau.Neutrino said:

party_pants said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

A translated modern bible, free of hard to read stuff.

Rewritten in modern day usage.

Would sell well I reckon.

Nah, there’s already some around. Lots of christians don’t like them, they prefer the gravitas of the older versions.

Depends

Some people like the older versions.

Some people like reading the older and newer versions.

Some people like reading new versions.

New versions in popular modern English already exist. There are half a dozen of them published from the 1990s till now. They are not such popular best sellers as you might imagine.