World's Oldest Bible Going Online 1183
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.
Not BCE (Score:5, Informative)
It would be a neat trick to have a gospel of Matthew from the fourth century BCE. It should be CE (or AD).
Re:Not BCE (Score:2, Informative)
AD = Anno Domini ("Year of Our Lord") = CE = Common Era.
Re:your math skills need work (Score:3, Informative)
You're aware that 400 AD is in the 5th century, right? This Bible was really written between 330 and 350 [1] [wikipedia.org].
!= The Septuagint (Score:5, Informative)
Bad Summary, Questionable Claim (Score:5, Informative)
Where to start, where to start...
First of all, there's some dispute as to whether Sinaiticus is indeed the oldest -- a cursory Google will show that Codex Vaticanus is believed by some to be older [wikipedia.org].
Second, it's patently untrue that Sinaiticus "makes no mention of the resurrection". The version of the gospel of Mark in it omits the last passage where Jesus appears to his disciples, but other post-resurrection appearances occur in the other gospels -- and even the Sinaiticus Mark version ends with an angel's pronouncement that he has risen. You can read an English translation for yourself here [jacksonsnyder.com].
Summary is wildly inaccurate (Score:5, Informative)
First, as others have pointed out, the Codex is from the 4th century CE (i.e. "AD") rather than BCE (or "BC").
Second, saying "it makes no mention of the resurrection" is inaccurate. It doesn't contain the final 8 verses from Mark's Gospel, which have been considered to be a late addition for years and are usually square-bracketed in modern Bible editions.
However, if you actually *read* Mark's Gospel, it has plenty of references to the resurrection of Jesus earlier in the text. Plus the Codex Sinaiticus also includes the other three Gospels, all of which include post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
But apart from misdating the document by 800 years, misstating the impact of putting it online and misrepresenting the likely attitude of Christians to its publication, the summary is fine...
Wrong Interpretation by Poster (Score:5, Informative)
This is a misleading statement by the poster and the article itself. The post-resurrection text in Mark (which is the only text the article seems to mention is in contention) has always been recognized by the modern Christian church as not appearing in the earliest manuscripts. Don't take my word for it; pick up the latest NIV Bible and look at Mark 16:9-20. It most likely mentions this very fact.
The article only mentions the text in Mark missing. From the article:
Unfortunately, you still need to deal with the resurrection stories in the other three gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) as well as the Old Testament references such as Psalms 16:10.
Re:your math skills need work (Score:2, Informative)
You're aware that 400 AD is in the 5th century, right?
Don't you mean 401 AD is the 5th century, since this non-technology-savvy counting starts with 1? I believe we did this to death back in the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 and then some. :)
The resurection in early documents (Score:4, Informative)
However Mark 16:6, which is included, still declares the resurection:
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him."
Additionally, the article only refers to the book of Mark as making no reference to the resurection. No mention is made of the other three gospels.
See Mark 16 in the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Re:I really wish people would get a clue (Score:5, Informative)
The Index (of forbidden books) was updated until the Vatican II council (1966) and is still considered by the Holy See to have a moral value as a list of the books one should prevent oneself from reading.
The general feeling is that the Roman Catholic Church's main dogma is the "the doctrine is the truth" so if something seems to be the truth outside of the doctrine, it is dangerous and should be fought. The Church is not known for its research centers trying to find archaeological proofs of the Bible or to correct its versions with the many manuscript fragments that are found regularly.
Re:Yes, and to take it further (Score:4, Informative)
Re:As a literary.... (Score:5, Informative)
Muslims don't have a problem with dogs, they have a problem with *pet* dogs.
You can own a dog to protect your property or yourself, but it shouldn't be allowed into the house.
Re:As a literary.... (Score:5, Informative)
This will probably never get seen and not get modded up, but while you are correct in one sense you are not in another; as a Muslim let me explain:
A fundamental belief in Islam is that through the ages, the uncorrupted Bible became rife with revisions and mistakes - the resurrection of Jesus being a prime example (the other big one being the trinity). For Muslims then, this version of the Bible bolsters the belief that Christianity during the time when Islam was beginning, was corrupted - not the word of God, but the word of man, if you will.
Without these changes there isn't a need for Islam because Islam (like Christianity) and Muslims perceive Islam as a correction to faiths before it.
I say all this as a Muslim and you are right - most Muslims do and all should respect the other people of the book (and other faiths as well - I was born in the West and other people's religions are none of my business). Moreover, there is an overlap in the views of people of faith especially extremists): Muslim-Americans voted in droves for George W. Bush in droves the first time around because they saw the Christian's right family/conservative values issues as overlapping with their own (as a small L liberal I found that particularly disgusting and as a result refuse to have anything to do with CAIR, who endorsed Bush).
Some Muslims may see a "hierarchy of infidels" but I think calling anyone an infidel, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, is pretty blasphemous myself.
Re:re-written (Score:5, Informative)
The slashdot article is wrong. The codexsinaiticus website says it's 1600 years old, which would put it at about 400AD (or 400CE for the politcally correct crowd), not 400BC.
Re:I really wish people would get a clue too (Score:4, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") was a list of publications prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church...
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it is both in Latin and in Greek, and arameic, and hebrew, and ... The versions that were accepted as bible were initally spread with greek and latin versions of the same text on facing pages, or only the latin text.
You are correct that greek is the original language of the bible (well actually a syrian arameic dialect for most of the bible, but most of the new testament was indeed originally written down in greek), but the versions that were actually used were latin, not greek.
Latin is certainly the language of the bible, despite the book being originally written in greek. And the bible and the church were the main motivation, and the main people for the renaissense to push latin as a language.
For comparison, muslims use an arabic quran. However the quran was written in kufic script of a southern arameic dialect, which has long been a dead language that noone has understood for more than a millenium, and even an arabic linguist would not be able to read the few orignal verses that remain, nor can you learn either arameic or kufic anywhere in the islamic world (google "christopher luxenberg" for the description of someone who actually tries to understand it). Arameic and arabic are of the same family, but then again so are English and Parsi (example farsi site [bhrc.gov.ir])
Re:First Comment on topic! ... oh wait... lol (Score:5, Informative)
So, if it was dated to 4 BCE (thats BC for you christians who havn't adopted the new format for dates) ... how does it have the gospel of mark (which was written after christ?)
Because whoever wrote the summary has trouble with dates. The article makes it clear:
Handwritten in Greek more than 1,600 years ago
...or the very first line:
The oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, a 4th century version that had its Gospels and epistles spread across the world, is being made whole again â" online.
How sad is it that neither the editor nor the first poster bothered to check the article for errors, especially one involving 800 years?
Book burning (Score:5, Informative)
This news is great, we could actually see one of the oldest copies around. Part of me truly wonders how many more manuscripts (religious or not) would have been available today if people back then don't have the habit of burning every piece of paper they dislike.
Religious book burnings are only part of it. Try to imagine what went up in smoke when the great library of Alexandria burned (mostly as a result of warfare). Modern archeologists and historians find it hard to even contemplate that loss. Fortunately, once in a while we do get very, very, lucky:
The Oxyrhynchus papyri [wikipedia.org], not religious texts and much of the material was mundane public and private stuff like invoices, edicts and tax records but valuable to archeologists.
The Villa of the Papyri [wikipedia.org], IMHO by far one of the most spectacular discoveries yet. Much of it seems to consist of Epicurean texts but who knows what else is in there. The lost works of some of the great ancient historians and scientists? One can hope...
There are probably quite a few more such finds that deserve mention. Book burning and generally all efforts to suppress and destroy written material, be it religious or secular, are among of the worst manifestations of ignorance. We are fortunate that once in a while the efforts of these zealots and vandals are undone.
Re:First Comment on topic! ... oh wait... lol (Score:3, Informative)
The summary above, where it says "The Codex Sinaiticus dates to the fourth century BCE" is wrong. The article states "Handwritten in Greek more than 1,600 years ago". Whoever wrote the summary just got confused about the difference between BCE and CE.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)
I thought Landover baptist was a parody site?
Re:Original (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that nobody has a perfect understanding... not myself, not the pastor of my church, nobody. That's not the point, as far as I can tell.
Most prophecy in the Bible is written so that it isn't obvious exactly when or how it will be fulfilled, until it has been fulfilled. For instance, the birth of the Messiah (or Christ) did not have a date, and nobody knew that he would be born in a feeding trough. The point is so that God can show the world that He has a plan, and that He has the power to fulfill it after it has been stated (in other words, he knows the future).
The unfulfilled prophecies, including those in the book of Revelation, are similar for us today. We don't know exactly when it will happen, or how. So, nobody has a perfect knowledge of it.
He's God... if He wants you to know a certain amount of the Bible, He can and will give you the insight to make it happen.
(For those who don't believe in God, please... please, spare me the comments on how I am stupid for my beliefs and how anyone living in a modern world who believes in God is insane... those comments are getting quite old, and prove nothing.)
Re:re-written (Score:2, Informative)
Re:!= The Septuagint (Score:3, Informative)
All you need to know... (Score:5, Informative)
1. The Codex Sinaiticus has been corrected by so many hands that it affords a most interesting and intricate problem to the palaeographer who wishes to disentangle the various stages by which it has reached its present condition...
2. Tischendorf identified four different scribes who were involved writing the original text. However, as many as ten scribes tampered with the codex throughout the centuries. Tischendorf said he "counted 14,800 alterations and corrections in Sinaiticus." Alterations, more alterations, and more alterations were made, and in fact, most of them are believed to be made in the 6th and 7th centuries.
3. There are glaring examples where one scribe had copied verses up to the end of the first, but when he looked up to his example again to continue copying, his eye fell upon the second occurrence of the phrase, from which he continued, omitting all of those words between the two occurrences of the phrase.
4. If you are not acquainted with the Greek, you can study the alterations and changes that have come into the New Testament by Sinaiticus and Vaticanus through Westcott and Hort by getting "The Doctored New Testament"
Google is your friend, not Wikipedia, nor Slashdot. Seek and ye shall find - Anonymous Coward 5:1
Re:Same as always? (Score:4, Informative)
1. It was perverted from the start.
There's a lack of evidence to support that claim. There's no good reason to believe than any of the New Testament books were written after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. And we can see the full gospel message - resurrection for our sins all over the NT e.g. in books as early as 1 Corinthians written between AD 53 and 57 - less than 30 years after Jesus death. You want to say that both the NT and the OT have been changed by New Testament believers. The former is unlikely - there's an abundance of ancient NT manuscripts (20,000 by some counts) which are identical by and large, no evidence for this process of accretions and deletions. The latter is impossible, because we have access to books of the OT from before the time of Jesus out of the dead sea scrolls. The eternal virginity of mary is not something that I'm concerned about. Clearly Jesus did have brothers - we hear about them in the NT. This is a late Roman Catholic thing. I'd like to hear more about Ebionites. Perhaps you can give me some credible references. It surprises that they're so small on the academic radar.
2. That wouldn't even be the end of massaging it into a different shape.
Fortunately because the sources for Christians today are so very good e.g. the Syniaticus, modern Christians can go back to the text and work out what the truth of the matter is. So we can make conclusions about things which are true for ourselves, and detect the things we've missunderstood. The good news as well is that new fragments are turning up all the time which take us back earlier toward the events, all giving greater support to the later codices that we have.
3. Which brings me to the point, they had no problem dealing with the Ebionites or with the Syriac churches which were a lot closer to where it all happened. They just proclaimed them heretics. I'm guessing it will be the same today. People will just proclaim this manuscript as some gnostic heresy, and continue as if nothing happened.
People claim things are gnostic heresies when there's *evidence* to suggest that they're heresies. e.g Muslims sometimes claim the 16th c. Gospel of Barnabus is in fact a true gospel account that the church has surpressed. But we know that this can't be true for all sorts of reasons. e.g. some soldiers are recorded rolling out barrels to be refilled with wine. But we know this impossible because there were no barrels until much later in the near east. This is an example of the application straight-forward tools that historians use every day.
Hope that helps. Joel
Quote from 99luftballon is misleading (Score:2, Informative)
There's an error in the quote from this story. The Codex Sinaiticus doesn't have any post-resurrection stories, but it does mention the resurrection. It ends at Mark 16:8, but just two verses prior in 16:6-7 we have:
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "
Re:Oh noes! (Score:4, Informative)
No resurrection? Do your homework. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a literary.... (Score:4, Informative)
fundamental belief in Islam is that through the ages, the uncorrupted Bible became rife with revisions and mistakes - the resurrection of Jesus being a prime example (the other big one being the trinity).
Being a muslim, I can see how you got this wrong, but the Trinity was never outlined in the bible. It is a tenant of faith that was conceived by the Church later on. I believe the councils of Nicea and Trent established it.
Re:Original (Score:3, Informative)
That's not the way prophecy in the Hebrew or (early) Christian culture worked. Prophecy was a word from God meant to guide and comfort. It was (almost) never spoken to people in the future, but those in the present. It was supposed to guide or correct behavior a group of people.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually again, "the book of the dead" is the title of an archeological account by Karl Richard Lepsius, created in 1842. So the "book of the dead" is a platry 165 years old.
The papyrus that was found is not a book, but at best a pamphflet, a religious text containing the procedure that the God of Heaven would follow in the afterlife, to decide between heaven and hell. It is not an account of the Egyptian religion, and there are hundreds of different versions of said papyrus.
The religion that they are about was killed by the muslim invasion of Egypt (then Byzantium) immmediately following the death of their paedophile prophet, and it's only surviving full books destroyed by those muslims when they burned the library of alexandria, believing it to be competition for the quran. After the massive extermination campaign the muslims waged in Egypt, amongst other things selling every black egyptian as a slave (before the muslims, you started seeing 100% black people near the nile before you crossed the egyptian border, right now you have to go another 800 kilometers (and you'd be in darfur/south sudan, so they're still racistly eradicating blacks)), nothing was left intact.
Re:First Comment on topic! ... oh wait... lol (Score:2, Informative)
If it is an article on Christian religion and they use BCE or CE rather than BC/AD you can expect an anti-religious bias in my experience.
Bad Summary: Here's Why (Score:2, Informative)
1) The summary said that the book was dated from the fourth century BCE. This New Testament was found in the fourth century *AD* (or ACE if you prefer, but since we're talking about Jesus, might as well be AD).
2) While this is the oldest surviving New Testament, that does NOT make it the oldest surviving version of Mark or any of the other Gospels. Historians have dated and reliable fragments (e.g. a couple pages here, a couple pages there, etc, a.k.a: all that's left after 2000 years of poor care.) from as early as the second century AD, including those with Mark's resurrection story.
3) And about the codex's Mark not having the resurrection, that's not really a big problem. The other three gospels in this codex DO have the resurrection story in them, so that stands to reason that Mark would have had the resurrection story if it weren't for a large number of pages being missing from the codex. From the article: "The Gospel of Mark ends abruptly..." which tells us that if it ends abruptly then it probably wasn't the end the writer meant. Also from the article: "Handwritten in Greek more than 1,600 years ago -- it isn't exactly clear where -- the surviving 400 or so pages..." which tells us that there's a substantial amount missing. So put two and two together: if the other gospels in the same handwritten codex have the resurrection, and Mark ends abruptly, and the codex is missing a alot of pages, then it's very reasonable to assume that the person who wrote this down did not mean for Mark to end that way.
Re:I really wish people would get a clue (Score:1, Informative)
"...big differences between Catholics and Protestants was that Catholics were not allowed to read the bible."
This is what we call a lie. It is simply not true. There were particular translations of the bible that were forbidden because they were badly translated. But if you could read, you could to read the bible. It was not forbidden. There were English bible translations by Catholics prior to the King James translation.
The rest of your post is rubbish.
Re:!= The Septuagint (Score:4, Informative)
Well...
1) No, it's not the Septaguint, because the Septaguint is the old testament (aka Jewish Torah), whereas the main interest in the Codex Sinaiticus is that it is (maybe - in contention with the Codex Vaticanus) the oldest new testament, although it does also contain part of the old testament. Other copies of the old testament (e.g. dead sea scrolls) are much older.
2) The new testament canon was not decided upon at the (1st) Council of Nicea - it was provably already established before then, and the "procedings" of the Council still survive (as do writings about it by participant Eusebius). There are many persistent and untrue internet myths about the Council of Nicea.
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Canon%20Law/Nicea/CouncilNicea.html [cua.edu]
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html [tertullian.org]
3) It may in fact be exactly the same version of the new testament as existed in the time of roman emperor Constantine I (who convened the Council of Nicea) - given that it may well date to his time (although **precise** dating unknown), it may be one of the 50 copies of the bible that Constantine is recorded (by Eusebius) to have had produced.
Re:As a literary.... (Score:4, Informative)
Tertullian espoused trinitarian theology back in the 2nd century (and in fact coined the term "trinity" in its theological sense), based on various proof texts where the Bible equates God, Jesus, and the holy spirit as being the same in power and substance, which essentially means they are the same person. Of course, this interpretation requires the use of logical inference (which shouldn't be a problem for anyone who's had to take a college class on law, philosophy, or higher-level mathematics).
Re: Aramaic is alive and Well (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)
Latin is certainly the language of the bible, despite the book being originally written in greek.
That would depend on where you lived, and what date you are talking about. The eastern part of the Roman empire was Greek speaking, and the western half was Latin speaking. When Constantine I had 50 copies (a significant effort) of the bible made c.330AD, they would have been in Greek - this was not a translation project. Also remember that written copies of the bible were extrememly scarce and would have only been read by a small number of scholars and early church fathers. Most 4th, and even 5th, century "Christians" were quite unclear about what exactly the new religion believed in, and saw no incompatability in also clinging to belief in the sun god Sol Invictus (as recorded and bemoaned by Pope Leo I c.450AD).
The earliest latin translations, and proliferation therof, of the bible start around the end of the 4th century with the translation of St. Jerome (based on the Hebrew original, not the Greek Septaguint) which became known as the Vulgate.
Re:!= The Septuagint (Score:2, Informative)
Damnatio Memoriae? (Score:4, Informative)
1. You don't seem to understand the Romans very well.
For a start, they actually deliberately erased the records about some people, who they thought he _shouldn't_ be remembered. Traitors, for example, could get a "Damnatio Memoriae", meaning that the Romans literally tried to erase the person from all recorded history. Census data, chronicles, monuments, etc, they'd erase any mention they could find.
They weren't the only ones, btw. In Egypt, Hatshepsut was almost erased from history as a Pharaoh by her son (though he did leave everything alone that didn't mention her as a Pharaoh), and Akhenaten. The Greek states also occasionally practiced that kind of thing.
Basically you seem to assume that, like today, if someone got famous for the wrong reasons (at least from the point of the view of existing law and government), you'd want to know and record every single detail about him. E.g., the way everyone knows all the details about the Unabomber. In the ancient world essentially they'd try to prevent other people like Herostratus from being tempted to achieve fame by nefarious means. Precisely _because_ those bombings were made to achieve a certain exposure for him and his manifesto, someone like the Unabomber would have vanished from the records altogether in the ancient world.
2. Well, you have to understand that he achieved that notoriety a (relatively) long time after his death. It would be many decades before Rome even figured out the difference between Christians and Jews. The Jews were quite rebellious and had a major religious problem with the Romans too, so yet another group of them preaching fire and damnation against the romans, was, well, business as usual.
Basically by the time that Jesus got really famous, there was no way to go back in time and tell the governor, "psst, make sure you record everything about this guy."
3. I don't know what you mean by, "The Romans put an inordinate amount of effort into killing the guy". It doesn't seem like any signifficant kind of effort to me. Just about everything about it, that I remember, was bog-standard (in fact, regulation standard) for a Crucifixion. Even posting guards there, or breaking those two other guys' legs when they weren't dead yet, and everything, was a standard crucifixion. They already knew in advance exactly what to do when they can't leave someone on the cross for several days. The Romans were organized like that :P
Or what did you mean?
Re:Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)
On the literalist argument (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Proof please (Score:3, Informative)
Like most versions before 500 AD, it's missing Mark 16:9ff, which is why that passage probably says "This passage is not in the most ancient manuscripts" in your Bible. The resurrection story is still present in Matthew, Mark 16:7-8, Luke, John, Romans, etc.
Re:As a literary.... (Score:3, Informative)
The Mormons will....
The Mormons "believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly" (Article of Faith 8). The idea of humans corrupting the inspired records of the Bible is basic to our understanding of the last 2000 years of religious history. The Book of Mormon speaks of "plain and precious things which have been taken away."
On the other hand, the fact of the resurrection and many other Christian doctrines is corroborated by other (religious) sources, and is fundamental to our faith. So the absence of these doctrines' mention in a particular source would not lead us to wonder about our doctrinal foundation.
Mormon scholars are actually quite interested in early Christianity. A significant amount of research at BYU (a Church-sponsored school), for example, has involved the Dead Sea Scrolls: CNN article [cnn.com]; BYU research summary [byu.edu].
Re:Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)
It's common knowledge that the bible is a collection of different works. That is why it is organized into books and chapters. The King James Version of the bible was actually an attempt to organize everything into one package. Before that, a bible was more like a library.
Re:As a literary.... (Score:4, Informative)
As to the "evolution over time" argument, a careful study of the earliest manuscripts or their transcripts (there are tens of thousands of extant copies of the various gospels and epistles, and a significant number of these can even be traced into the first century AD) will show that none of the central tenets of Christianity undewent any modification since the earliest manuscripts. Portions that have been found to have been appended by other writers at other times (most likely well-meaning scribes or monks) have never been found in sections of the text that deal with the core beliefs of Christianity (e.g., virgin birth, miracles, death, resurrection--others have already addressed the issue of the recent Mark text not invalidating other internal references to resurrection). One of the most well-known examples of such an embelishment is the end of the "Lord's Prayer" [I'm typing from memory here]:
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our tresspasses
As we forgive those who tresspass against us
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil
For Thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
Forever and ever. Amen!
The final section (those lines in bold italics ) does not appear in the earliest and most trustworthy manuscripts. Modern translations that hold to high standards to scholarship omit those verses, or at least print them following a note the explains that they do not appear in the best manuscripts. If you take away those lines, no critical teachings of the Christian gospel have been compromised. In fact, they are sentiments expressed of God elsewhere in the Chritian Scriptures, including in the book of Psalms and in the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John.
Yes, while church leaders came together in the fourth century to formalize the official canon that is accepted today, history shows us that there were lists of accepted writings as early as the second century AD. Most scholars agree that no such list was needed during the first century, because many of the original witnesses, or the people who had received their direct accounts, were still living. The modern "conservative" or "fundamentalist" Christian sees the canonization of Scripture as a divinely sanctioned act that preserved only those texts that were necessary for the advancement of the Gospel. I find myself in a slightly different camp. While I believe God used canonization to preserve those writings that were passed on to this day, I believe there were likely other writings that were lost, either temporarily (yet to be discovered) or permanently (destroyed). The teachings of the Christian Scriptures encourage believers to critically examine all teachings to see if they align with the truth of the previously recognized Scriptures (the Old Testament--the Hebrew Law and Prophets, plust the Poems). In the letters of Peter, he places Paul's writings on the same level as Scripture in that day (during the first century), so there was an early acceptance that Paul's teachings of Christ's death and resurrection aligned with the Old Testament's prophecies of a suffering messiah who would
Not so, sir (Score:4, Informative)
"For the Romans, Jesus was a John Doe. Just another non-citizen nutter who spoke against the Emperor and was nailed for it. Business as usual."
Have you read the Gospels? Jesus did not speak out against the Roman Empire. He preached keeping your faith to God and worldly affairs separate ("render unto to Caesar"). This is why Pontius Pilate was so perplexed that Jesus had been arrested. He could find no fault with the man, and certainly didn't find that he'd rebelled against Rome in any way. Jesus was arrested because the old Hebrew priesthood considered him a blasphemer and wanted him dead. They just didn't want the blood on their own hands, so they turned him over to the Romans. Recall that Pilate pleaded with the crowd to let Jesus go.
This little meme really annoys me, because it's starting to catch on in some circles. Shane Claiborne writes in his books that Jesus came to topple Rome. He did no such thing, and he made his purposes clear. He was here for the coming kingdom, not this one. The Jews rejected him as a Messiah in part because he wouldn't oppose Rome. They thought the Messiah would be a kind of military commander to free them from the Roman yoke.
Re:No resurrection? Do your homework. (Score:2, Informative)
Everyone has a preference. I prefer New King James, even tho it's based on the Textus Receptus and isn't completely up-to-date with current and more complete textual witnesses (tho it does include notes referring to the differences if you get a study bible version of this translation). NASB is also another good choice that I like to read. I've been looking at the Holman bible too. If you get one, get a bona fide study bible. The extra cross-references and notes on other texts are very helpful.
As to the best recommendation for the absolute best "version"? I like the UBS Greek as well as Robinson's compilation of the Byzantine Greek texts. Greek isn't hard to learn and there's nothing that will expand your understanding more than getting closer to the original writers. Mounce has a lot of good texts to help you learn Greek too. Nowadays, light reading is the English translations I have - study is the Greek itself.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:1, Informative)
Just a correction, Quran was "inspired" in Arabic and written in Arabic. Muhammed was an Arab and lived among Arabs. Evidence of Arabic scripts is available as early as 8th century BC. Some of the finest Arabic poetry is as old as 4th century BC.
You are mixing fonts and typefaces with languages. Kufic is a typeface and a beautiful one at that. Modern Arabic script has its origins in Nabataean Aramaic and was finalized in it current script in the late 8th century AD.
So, today's Quran is the same as the Original Quran. Both written in Arabic but with different typefaces and scripts. One must differentiate between translation and transliteration. For example: "elah" and "god" are the same, but the first is a transliteration in Arabic with Latin alphabet while the second is a translation into English.
My 2 cents.
Re:theologically correct, not historically accurat (Score:3, Informative)
The Gnostics are a good example. They were slaughtered by the Emperors after Constantine, and they had their own Gospels.
Though there are many documents that could be included among the gnostic gospels, the term most commonly refers to the following:
* Gospel of Mary (recovered in 1896)
* Gospel of Thomas (versions found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1898, and again in the Nag Hammadi Library)
* Gospel of Truth (Nag Hammadi Library)
* Gospel of Philip (Nag Hammadi Library)
* Gospel of Judas (recovered via the antiquities black market in 1983, and then reconstructed in 2006)
Another Perspective (Score:2, Informative)
First regarding myself; I'm sure I'm considered radical by many, but I like to consider myself Biblical in my ideology and worldview. I strive to live by the principals I find in the Bible, while I'll be the first to admit that I often fail at this.
Regarding Scripture, I think the Bible has proven it's validity and accuracy both prophetically, as well as personally for me. I therefore believe that the original texts were inerrant and infallible; the authors were under direct and authoritative inspiration. Certainly because we do not have the originals, only copies of copies, there have been transcription errors, as well as the unfortunate intentional addition or omission by a over-zealous handler of the texts. Contrary to popular belief though, we can logically conclude with a reasonable degree of certainty, that these mishandling are minor. At least regarding the New Testament, after the writing copies were almost immediately spread across the known and civilized world. As an earlier poster mentioned, the earlier manuscripts that we have are then descended from those copies that were spread. The differences between the manuscripts that we have are almost all minor and most are easily identifiable as change. Therefore if any changes were made that we don't know of, they necessarily would have been made in the very small window of time between original authorship and duplication/spread, otherwise the manuscripts we have (some quite recently), could not be so similar.
So basically, to put it clearly, as does the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:
"WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant."
Finally, regarding the current state of the Christian faith, there have been many very valid accusations of bigotry and hypocrisy directed toward some of those who claim the banner of Christianity. When dealing with this sort of situation please remember that a outward claims and truth can often be very different. Read 1 John, starting with chapter 2:1-6. John very clearly explains what it really means to abide in Christ (to have true faith). Please do not disregard Christ and what I consider to be His infallible teachings on the basis of fallible humans and their mistakes, or even their knowledge-less zealotry.
Before judgment is passed on an ideology, consider it with an open mind. Compare a modern translation with this online one, pray about it and actually read and study it; I don' t think you will be disappointed.
http://www.twowaystolive.com/
Re:Original (Score:3, Informative)
Most prophecy in the Bible is written so that it isn't obvious exactly when or how it will be fulfilled, until it has been fulfilled.
How convenient.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdiction [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia [wikipedia.org]
Re:First Comment on topic! ... oh wait... lol (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh. atheism is just the absence of believe in Gods. That's all. No rituals. No leaders. Belief in anything else, such as proper science, not required. Ergo. Not a religion.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:2, Informative)
Wikipedia is as good as anywhere [wikipedia.org]: