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Breakthrough Decodes 'Classical Holy Grail'
wka writes "Scientists at Oxford University have made a major breakthrough in their study of a large collection of Greek and Roman writings. Many of the documents known as the 'Oxyrhynchus Papyri' (found at 'ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt') are 'meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time.' Using an infrared technique originally developed for use with satellite imaging, scientists are able to view the original writing, which 'could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence'. Thus far, works by Sophocles, Lucian, Euripides, Hesiod and others have been (re-)discovered. Additionally, scientists think they 'are likely to find lost Christian gospels.' (via The Light of Reason)"
Not holding my breath on that one though.
www.whitedust.net
20+ comments and no discussion of the science -- mostly just bashes on Christians. I hate the elitists who seek to tear down instead of build!
Put identity in the browser.
I am fascinated to hear that more gospels may be revealed. The Gospel of Thomas was enlightening and actually led me to a better understanding of mainstream Christianity. Non-ecumenical gospels are fascinating because they haven't been highly tainted through interpretations and translations.
People should not fear what they do not understand; people should fear because they do not understand.
"In this case, lost works by Sopholces are invaluable; we have only 7 of his plays complete."
As Carl Sagan explained it:
Imagine that we had some plays by this Shakespeare fellow, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Cymbaline, Pericles, The Life of Timon of Athens, The Winter's Tale and Troilus and Cressida.
Fine plays all. We know from the record that he wrote a few other plays that were well regarded in his time, but alas, those have been lost.
KFG
This is fascinating, but since this is a geek site I'd like more geek info. Like the tech behind it, info about the lab, if there are simple ways to use similar versions of this with neat hacks etc. Combined with this article ("Light Scattering Method Reveals Details under Skin") and other research I've been following in imaging and structured light, it is clear that there are a ballooning number of applications based on clever ways of radiating and analyzing specific wavelengths, polarizations, etc. of light with computers. How about some more info?
N.B. I don't include Thomas in quite this category - it is a much more complicated case. But, despite the shrill nonsense that comes from the entertainment industry (anybody see the epigraph on "Stigmata") most scholars, myself included, would not regard Thomas in its present form as even being in the same class as the 4 canonical gospels.
At any rate, I suspect that any "lost gospels" found here will be of limited interest, mostly to scholars and pedants. Move along, nothing to see here.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
does not benifit mankind.
I might not be a wit, but at least I am more than half way there.
I'd add additionally that there have been controversies in Christianity from the get-go. (A number of them are alluded to in Paul's writings (which are the earliest Christian literature known.))
The "Lost Gospels" are not lost as much as they were *not preserved* by copiests in the early years of the Church. Fragments of many of them have been known. Occasionally an entire work - like the Gospel of Thomas are discovered.
They are extraordinarily useful for helping people understand the early fights within the Church. And for putting the writings that the Church has deemed Orthodox into perspective (since we finally have access to the documents that the cannonical works were written in response to).
In illa quae ultra sunt
Elaine Pagels work in the subject is fascinating - gnosticism itself is fascinating in its contradictions and, if anything, shows how different christianity might have been.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
It looks like there already is a Gospel of Judas.
The owls are not what they seem
> I hope one of the new gospels has something that will really get the Bible-thumpers in a rage. Something like "Thou shalt not discriminate against gays"
The (purported) Secret Gospel of Mark would fill the bill, though as others have already pointed out, Christians have spent the last 16-17 centuries ignoring the ones that the early Church decided were off-message.
However, the fact that all we have of the SGoM are quotes of the sexual shockers purportedly in it is makes me suspect that it is a modern hoax. The existence of layers of secrets to be progressively revealed only as an initiate advances would be no surprize, given that lots of contemporary religions operated that way, but the secrets were usually dull symbolic stuff, not scandals or fourth rate sci-fi yarns.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's not open to debate. It's a personal choice and should be respected.
A few counter-examples:Faith can be used to justify appaling acts and discrimination or can limit development of society, and is not something to be respected.
Those that lack it, can never understand it.
I can understand the impulse to believe something without proof because it makes your life easier. I understand it, but I don't believe in it. Life after death, judgement of the wicked, etc, etc are all beliefs that make living life a lot easier to live. Though really I don't get the appeal of actual eternal life though. People would go all batty after the first few hundred years. I suppose many people just haven't thought it through far enough.
It's a personal choice and should be respected.
Why should I believe someone elses beliefs carte-blanche? What if their beliefs in faith interfere with my own beliefs? This just strikes me as an easy way out to try to appease everyone. In other words "Why can't we all just get along?".
AccountKiller
The bible has already gone thru zillions of revisions, leaving out many parts along the way. Remember, there was a huge pile of hallucinatory writing done by starving desert dwelling hermits. They had to toss out the completely incoherent gibberish so they could publish the quasi-coherent hallucinations.
William Burroughs and Ted Kaczynsky had predecessors.
A short commentary on faith:
One, a definition from Hewbrews:
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
That is very open to interpretation, so don't be so sure you've figured it out.
A nice comment from one evangelical I like, Jim Wallis,
"Perhaps the greatest heresy of twentieth-century American religion was to make faith into a purely personal matter and a private affair."
It is risky business, protecting faith as you do. Once you say your faith can't be criticized, then you say that faith doesn't have to be developed.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
I mean, really, think you couldn't bribe a sympathetic Roman? You think people just started to play politics in the the 20th century? I can hear it now:
"Alright Paulus, I'll do it just to f*ck that bastard emperor for sending me to this Zeus-forsaken desert, but get his ass outta the Roman empire because if anyone ever sees him again we're toast."
"Where's he gonna go? It's the whole known world?"
"Hell I dunno, send him back to friggin' heaven if he's such a hot shot".
"YES! Listen Jesus, this guy's gonna wing you to make it look good. No don't worry, he's highly trained, says it happens all the time in the gladiator fights. You spend a couple of days in the cave until they all split, then we say you've been recalled to heaven and will come back in a couple thousand years. Or better, we'll make up some vague signs so we can do it anytime. You head up to the hills and make your way to Japan. Nice people, can't understand a thing we say, so who'll know?"
"No, you can't take Mary, so make the best outta that time in the cave, man."
It doesn't take much imagination or unbelievable actions to make that all happen, just a little back-room dealing. WHEREAS all the rest you say DO require events which have never happened before or since or are in the least provable. So what's more believable? That there was one and only one "Son of God", Virgin Birth, and resurrection? Or that somebody was playing politics, and PR in an ethnic squabble with the Romans, and that history is written by the winners?
For me, the latter.
I'm perfectly happy following the teachings and philosophy of Jesus without needing him to be the "Son of God", any more than I am. Especially since he seems to have copped a good deal if it from Buddhism.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I was so surprised when I read this for the first time---this story is so similar to a Korean legend of an honest forrester (timberer? well, he makes living out of cutting/gathering wood from mountains and selling it to the people on the plains) who dropped his axe in a deep lake by mistake, weeped next to the lake (because that was his only possession), at which time a lake divinity appeared and presented to him silver, golden, and iron axes in that order, and when the forrester honestly said that iron axe was his, the divinity gave him all three axes (well, the original stories is more eloquent and developed than this, but this is as much as i can do in one sentence).
I'm not sure whether the similarity is because this is such a common motif or because of some shared ancestry between Israelites and Koreans (or whatever Asian race modern Koreans descended from).
Consider:
While Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, only 7 have been uncovered in their entirety. Missing texts may be a common theme for classical Greek literature (??), but is really not very common for Christian texts.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Hundreds of copies of writings of the church fathers exist as well. In short, no one's really looking for any *new* gospels or epistles since there really aren't any indicators that they exist like with Sophocles plays.
That being said, this still could potentially be profound for Christianity in other ways. For example, while we have thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the originals from (or anything copied during) the First Century are scant at best.
Couple that with many scholars' theory that several books of the New Testament were orginally written in Hebrew or Aramaic (many Oxyrhynchus Papyri are in Hebrew & Aramaic), then you could potentially uncover a copy the Gospel of Matthew in it's orginial, First Century Hebrew.
The potential for "get[ting] the Bible-thumpers in a rage" is there, but only from the perspective of realizing how Jewish and Old Testament law-upholding Jesus/Yeshua really was.
What's the betting that the one that reads "'The Bible' copyright 134AD, Any resemblance to people past or present is purely coincidental" is quickly covered up?
I stronlgy doubt any of them ever wrote a disclaimer. Law hadn't yet come up with that particular vehicle in those days. You either took it on faith or not.
It will be interesting though if they dig up more evidence of the Gospels of Mary, and if they find clear evidence that Christ was married to Mary Magdelene.
Were those to pieces of evidence ever to be found and brought to the light of day would cast doubt on the foundations of the Christian religions. For example, if Christ had children which was entirely a Jewish custom if you will, it would mean that every pope including Peter was an impostor. It would also mean that there is a presence of Christ still in existence on this earth. How very interestng that would be.
Of all of it though, this is a worthy discovery. Yet another benefit of the militiary paranoia delivered to mankind.
and it's entirely likely that he did, he was Jewish after all and Jewish law encouraged men to breed like rabbits.
I read that story in the Torah (interesing how the torah is more readable than the bible..)
Anyways, being a carpenter I actually fully understood the non-miracle of the event.
What occured to me afterwards is that people back then had teh same eyesight problems as they do today, but today we have corrective vision tools, like glasses and lasic surgery.
But the story is really quite interesting. From it is easy to deduct that they were falling the trees away from the river. (Falling is a term to describe the cutting the last part of the tree from the opposite side in which you want it to fall, so not to get your axe stuck as the tree begins to.) As such the, the swing was such that the axe head, upon comming lose during a swing, went into the rapidly flowing river - a little bit of white water - enough to block clear sight of the axe head, especially if you have bad eyesight to begin with.
But the Master/lord saw where it was, and grabbing a forked branch (of which there were plenty of - a by-product of cutting trees down) and put it into the water to hook it into the fork.
As the water was moving, such an act caused not only the water to take an altered path, clearing the sight of the axe head for the others to see, but also helped to raise the axe head up to the surface (like skiing on water). But the branch was either not strong enough to lift it out of the water, or such an attempt could have been to risky, as the rushing water may have been helping to keep the axe head in place in the stick fork.
Being the that lord (landlord??) was holding this stick, he probably couldn't reach the axe head himself, so told one of the others to grab it.
How do you feed alot of people?
Q: are people that stupid to follow someone for an extended period of time without taking some food with them? NO! But considering why they were following Jesus (to learn how to excape the dishonesty of society) they just needed an excuse to be able to eat what they brought without letting others know what they had brought (so to better avoid possible attempts to steal from them). The solution: pass a basket around that will allow or provide an excuse as to where they got their own food from...in teh eyes of those "others" around them.
There is plenty more commn sense explainations to the "miracles"... from walking on water to turning water to wine...... many of which are related to common knowledge of an experienced carpenter/boat builder.. of that time. - a vessel in which wine was made, when emptied, still contains residue that adding water to will help wash out giving color and taste to teh water - where at a wedding there is no need for alcohol in order to get drunk with the event. Was Jesus a surfer? Cetrtainly he understood wood and floatability and what happens when you walf to the end of a surfboard.... and the eyesight problem of an observer at a distance.
Perhaps any writtings newly exposed will help to show this.
Is that "the time is at hand" a reference to something being a matter of time, or is it a statement of choice, and the ability to do it now or later.?
Talking bush? There is a type of bush that produces some sort fo burnable oil on it leaves and can be set a fire -- cooler blue flame -- without burning the bush.
But Talking.... Well when you have the world listening to a lying president, hearing the illusuion of war drums and believing them, is it really so hard to believe bicameral mind (search google for julian jaynes work) voices can exist?
In the movie and entertainment business special effects are created all the time.... 50 foot tall cross walking out of a tomb..... easy as pie...
Hmmmm, what was the nature of alot of the writting being now exposed?????
The story of Noah is from the sumerians. There are some passages in the old testament that very closely follow the tao.
The old testament is simply a collection of stories from around the world as told by merchants and travelers. It's more like a book of short stories which contain retelling of myths.
Why somebody based a whole religion around it is a mystery to me, why people this day and age believe it to be 100% true and want to hang passages from it in their court house and schools is incredible to me.
I guess it's the power of myth.
evil is as evil does