I can understand why you are skeptical. You have given some plausible reasons for that.
However, just think about something very simple: If the ancient texts were not really understood, they would not make sense or they would appear inconsistent, there would be no workable vocabulary and so on.

I have studied ancient Greek at school, I liked it a lot and was quite good at it. Among the texts were a lot of Socrates' dialogues, and you know what that means: a lot of critical thinking and simple logic. The meaning of texts would have totally "collapsed" and understanding would be greatly impaired.

In fact, since we are talking about understanding, from my own experience sometimes I have a difficulty in understanding certain modern philosophy texts, whereas this ha never happened with ancient ones!

Your mention of Ancient Greek struck me how lucky we are to have a number of different genres to compare with others over measures of similar and different time. The plays written by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. The mathematics of Euclid and Apollonius. The poems in different generations going back to oral traditions. The different histories and commentary regarding the 'pre- Socratics.' The style of Thucydides is especially helpful as he wrote for a completely different purpose than other writings that have survived from the precise years of his authorship.

Many other languages permit a contrast of that kind. Sanskrit, Hebrew, Chinese, Farsi, Latin, etc. I am sure I am leaving out many others due to my ignorance. The point is only that such examples are different from inscriptions and examples of writing where there is little to no means of cross reference to other uses of speech.

:up:

If we are to take ancient writings in the original seriously at all, we have to assume that we can both understand them, and that there is a common human condition that super-cedes all consideration of culture time and place.

There is no diffiference between translating a text and understanding it. The language of ancient texts has changed for 2000 years and it's impossible to read them the way they were intended because the gap between them and us is so vast. English, that which you understand with, wasn't around in those days. That's my argument

There is no diffiference between translating a text and understanding it. — Gregory

translate (text): express a text from one language in another language
understand (text): perceive the meaning of text

Do they look the same to you?
They are two different processes that can be connected in a sequence: understand -> translate. You must first understand a text before you can translated it. But the result can be equivocal: you may undestand the source text very well, but do a lousy translation of it. And vice versa: you may do an excellent translation but it might not correspond exactly to the source text because you have not understood that text well.

it's impossible to read them the way they were intended because the gap between them and us is so vast — Gregory

I agree. Also we can't know how they pronounced the words ...

But as far the meaning of the text is concerned we can be pretty sure of its undestanding, since, as I already mentioned, the texts would not make sense to us on a constant basis. From the moment a vocabulary, grammar and syntax of an ancient text of a certain period and place are established, we can be certain to undestand any text of the same period and place. It works like decoding. Once you find the keys and the patterns of the encoding system used to encode a certain code, you decode any other similar code. Words are also codes (symbols)
Besides, there were events in that period the description of which is compatible with various texts (references) about them. For example, The narration of Socrates' trial and our understanding are compatible with the text in Socrates' dialogues. They all "stick together", see? And this indicates successful undestanding.

Going from one language to another is expressing ideas that are passed on in the process of translation. We don't know the sounds they used and the ideas we have of their ideas is a rough estimate at best into understanding the minds of our ancestors

Translating is a form of understanding

My main point is that our knowledge of past cultures passes through the shapes and forms of each generation back until you have reached the culture you wish to study. You can't skip centuries and millenia to peer into a civilization. Ergo, older cultures will be harder to correctly understand — Gregory

This seems to me the statement of yours that best encapsulates your argument. Would you agree, Mr. Gregory?

Manuscripts are just scribble unless something understands what the ideas involved there. The language that one uses to read ancient copies of the Bible has passed through many, many generations of change since those books were written. There are disagreements on what words, clauses, and phrases mean because of cultural and linguistic evolution has blurred the ideas themselves that are written about. What this means is that we have the writings of the translators but we don't know the full story of the evolution of language that results in our present usage of language. The longer ago it was, the less likely we know how to translate it properly. People will always disagree agree on what texts mean because that well is endless. It's the history of our ancestors and the older ones are further from, and so there thoughts are as well. The key here is that everything word is really a thought. It's uniqueness is that it is expressed

We don't know the sounds they used ... — Gregory

OK, but you didn't reply on my comment on your wrong statement "There is no diffiference between translating a text and understanding it." ...

:heart:

Here's a funnly little trick you can try out if you're a linguist interested in ancient languages. Take the letters of (say) ancient Sumerian and find the letters closest (phonetically? graphically?) to them in ancient Chinese and see what happens and vice versa. Something interesting should happen...hopefully. What I'm driving at is read in (say) Sanskrit but understand in Chinese and do the reverse. Is that even possible? :chin:

"express a text from one language in another language" means "perceiving the meaning of text" while using different grammar, signs, ect

"express a text from one language in another language" means "perceiving the meaning of text" while using different grammar, signs, ect — Gregory

But, really, can't you see these two are totally different processes/actions and independent from each other? After this, I give up.

Language only exists as understanding, and the same applies to translation.

With enough introspection and study, yes I think we (as fellow humans) can understand the use of shape, sound, syntax and meaning found within ancient languages. We are certainly outside of the original context that the languages were found within, but we can still consciously connect to those times and witness what "it was like" to be there. All through the meditation on the languages themselves.

So you're saying through archetypes?

Essentially, yes.