World's Oldest Bible Going Online

99luftballon writes "The British Museum is putting online the remaining fragments of the world's oldest Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus dates to the fourth century BCE and was discovered in the 19th century. Very few people have seen it due to its fragile state — that and the fact that parts of it are in collections scattered across the globe. It'll give scholars and those interested their first chance to take a look. However, I've got a feeling that some people won't be happy to see it online, since it makes no mention of the resurrection, which is a central part of Christian belief."On Thursday the Book of Psalms and the Gospel According to Mark will go live at the Codex Sinaiticus site. The plan is to have all the material up, with translations and commentaries, a year from now.

So they did what Hollywood does

[UrinalPooper]

They took an OK script and tacked on a happy ending...

Re:Fourth century BCE you say

[A beautiful mind]

The bible is 4th century BCE scifi.

It has won a popularity contest though 600 years later.

So the end of the Gospels are missing

[oodaloop]

Everybod knows the Flying Spaghetti Monster hid them from us. He's such a prankster!

Re:Oh noes!

[dvice_null]

"It's too risky for anybody to translate that [The Bible] into other languages. Mistakes can creep in... and that can lead to heresy. True Christians should only read English."

"If your original Hebrew disagrees with my original King James --- your original Hebrew is wrong. If your original Hebrew agrees with my original King James, your original Hebrew is right."

http://wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/1131751.html [livejournal.com]

Forget the fundies...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Who wants to start a betting pool on how many rounds of copyright "harmonization" it'll take before this sucker gets yanked out of the public domain and back under cover of copyright and darkness(as Big Content and God intended)? Particularly hairy for theological documents: At least in all Berne Convention signatories, copyright is life of author + 50 years(or greater). Presumably Jesus' 50 years started ticking at his Crucifixion, was it reset at Resurrection? If so, did it start again at Ascention, or does that not qualify as death, leaving His Works perpetually copyrighted?.
Muslims are in even more trouble. Allah doesn't exist in time, per se, nor does he fall neatly into either the category of individual author or corporate author. Being eternal, though, it is unlikely that his works are out of copyright.
Jews should mostly be ok, I think one or two of the prophets may have ascended rather than dying; but their quotations are generally short and pithy enough to fall under fair use.
Scientologists are screwed; but at least "All your base are belong to Hubbard" constitutes unambiguous legal advice.


Joking aside, though, this is great. Exactly the sort of thing that digital distribution is great for. There are loads of delicate and moldering historical documents of considerable interest that are, today, virtually impossible for anybody but scholars with nontrivial access to get their hands on. With digitization, the whole world can get access for peanuts.

Re:Fourth century BCE you say

[stupidflanders]

Unlike most SciFi Chanel shows, though, this one was not canceled. It has been running for 2000+ seasons!

Re:As a literary....

[Anonymous Coward]

You ever try putting a burkha on a dog?

THANK YOU!

[stupidflanders]

Although the chance that anyone on Slashdot will bother to read the text is low.

Re:Translation and commentaries?

[SplinterOfChaos]

Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate.

Re:Summary is wildly inaccurate

[Rocketship Underpant]

New Slashdot now combines the worst of both Old Slashdot and Reddit â" wildly inaccurate story blurbs combined with crude and inappropriate slurs directed towards anyone with faith. I can't wait for the dupe tomorrow.

Oldest and Newest

[sharperguy]

The oldest and the newest [lolcatbible.com] bibles on the same internets!

ob Red Dwarf

[mike2R]

Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental."

Re:Fourth century BCE you say

[FinchWorld]

I always wondered that if all human knowledge/evidence was lost, books, video clips etc. (With one exception) and a handful of humans survived, with no prior knowledge of anything before themselves except a grasp of English, and these people were to find the only surviving books, a complete works of J. R. R. Tolkien, what the hell religion would be like then.

Re:Oh noes!

[jimicus]

"It's too risky for anybody to translate that [The Bible] into other languages. Mistakes can creep in... and that can lead to heresy. True Christians should only read English."

"If your original Hebrew disagrees with my original King James --- your original Hebrew is wrong. If your original Hebrew agrees with my original King James, your original Hebrew is right."

http://wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/1131751.html [livejournal.com]

At least a few of those quotes I recognise as having come from the Landover Baptist Church forum:

  http://landoverbaptist.net/ [landoverbaptist.net]

Re:Welcome to Rabidly Anti-Christian Slashdot

[SirLoadALot]

Actually, we do our best to smugly mock all religions without prejudice whenever we get the chance. That's because most fundamentalists of any stripe think all unbelievers will burn equally well in hell, so we return the favour as best we can.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:First Comment on topic! ... oh wait... lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Rounding errors?

WTF?!?

[ActusReus]

Do you believe WWI happened ? Well we are MORE certain about the bible being unchanged than we are about that little event actually having had place.

The fact that somebody actually got modded +5 for questioning the occurrence of World War I has certainly given ME faith in miracles.

Re:Intelligent majority?

[Stooshie]

Yep, it's insults all the way down.

Re:Same as always?

[Stooshie]

... I always regarded Catholicism as an attempt by government to control/weaken Christianity ...

Oh really? It must be true then.

Re:Oh noes!

[MightyYar]

Do Americans still have first-year Latin classes?

They got rid of it just before they did away with Pompous 101.

My question is

[I7D]

Will it blend?

Re:I really wish people would get a clue

[Snaller]

"I really wish people would get a clue"

Indeed, especially those worshiping unprovable supernatural beings.

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.

*Bonk*

Re:Book burning

[sm62704]

If there is one thing as a species we are really good at..... it's ignorance.

That was a truly ignorant statement. As ignorant as humans are, all evidence points to the fact that we are far more knowledgable than any other species on the planet.

Re:Oh noes!

[drinkypoo]

Faith, hop, and charity... and the greatest of these is hop.

Re:fp

[MRe_nl]

Chorus angelorum te suscipiat et cum GNAA quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.
*smack*

Re:Bad Summary, Questionable Claim

[halivar]

If you take away religion we'll just replace it with some other form of tribalism. Maybe base it on professional sports teams.

Or CLI text editors.

Re:Oh noes!

[BigJClark]

I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie

Dear sir, I thank you for this gem.

Re:Best part missing from later versions!

[archammer2]

If I had mod points, you'd be getting them.
Still, don't lump all "American Christians" into the same bucket, either. Some of us do have a bit of sense.
Regarding the homosexuality issue, as I told a friend of mine once, "A few lines later the bible condems men with long hair. You don't see any 'God Hates Mullets' signs, do you?"

Re:Original

[bckrispi]

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life in bed."

Great Scott!! He's right!

Re:Original

[Anonymous Coward]

No way. Horoscopes are infinitely more accurate. They can be pinned down to a 24 hour period. Today's horoscope will happen today. You get a new one tomorrow.

I think fortune cookies are valid until you use the bathroom.