Slashdot Mirror
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)"
Yee ha
Dan Brown just had his next idea for a book...
I bet the pornography industry was interested in what people used to look at back in olden times. Hell, the pornography industry spurred the development of a lot of other useful technologies too!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Frist stop!
'could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence'
Well no, but it could certainly increase the number of them that we can read.
Additionally, scientists think they 'are likely to find lost Christian gospels.'
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 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", or "Thou shalt not fuck around with elections".
until they discover evidence of the existence of Biggus Dickus?
Scientists don't know what to make of the latest message...
..can it decipher doctors' handwriting on prescription pads? That would be a momentous scientific advance!
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
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'.
:)
dei scientiam arrident
Euripides papyri you pay for 'em.
Not holding my breath on that one though.
www.whitedust.net
As a classicist, I want to express the incredible debt we owe to physical sciences. We dig stuff up all the time we can't read, and rely on chemists and physicists to find a way to get to the text. The Vindolandum tables, for instance - slats of wood on which Roman legionaires in Britan wrote letter on, and which were burned. Chemists managed to trace the residue of the ink on the wooden remains and we have volumes of personal correpondence.
In this case, lost works by Sopholces are invaluable; we have only 7 of his plays complete. Any scrap we can add to the corpus provides a much better perspective of greek tragedy in general. And the possibility of finding lost gospels is always exciting for those of us interested in the development of Christianity.
So to sum it up: Thanks for the help, guys! We'll be sure to include your names when people start asking who's responsible for the next crappy sword-and-sandal flick!
An unknown spyware vendor has been funding the research and is now starting to dredge up keylog files with negative timestamps. "They never refused to accept our EULA ", Spokesman S. Ucker commented.
Naaa. It's just a bunch of data written on paper punch scrolls. What we really need to find is the computer to decode this information. THEN we will make progress.
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
> ...Lost Gospels...
Finally they can decode In The John 3:16: "An_ _e_us we_t dow_ on t_e me_ty co_k _hrou_h t_e gl_ry _ole."
Hopefully it won't upset too much in religion.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The use of multispectral imaging (MSI) to view ancient papyri has been going on for some years now, with the following being some of the most interesting projects:
- recovering text from a manuscript containing 10th century copies of some of Archimedes works which had been erased and over-written in the 12th century. http://www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html
- similar to the project above, this is the recovery of carbonised Roman papyri found in Herculaneum (which was covered in 100 feet of lava during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-14522 44_1,00.html
There are also lots of other artefact imaging projects, such as that being carried out by the Digital Hammurabi Project (http://www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi/), who want to digitise (make high-res 3D computer models of) ancient cuneiform tablets or the work at the University of Kentucky which may allow text to be 'read' without the artefact being touched at all - using a CT scan which can be decoded on a computer http://www.research.uky.edu/odyssey/fall04/seales. html
Awesome stuff...
In one episode, a priest claims to have uncovered long-hidden scriptures, but they're forgeries. That doesn't stop someone from trying to blow up the crypt where he hid them. Can anyone refresh my memory as to the episode name or season/ep number...
How much are we betting that the scientists got their ideas by watching CSI?
liqbase
But I've discovered it's really an ancient Linux (kernel 0.2.1), where all console output is put on paper. What did they find important enough to try and save? Apparently the following command, entered over and over:
$ fortune
The Peanut Gallery, Ubergeek, Biblically Sober
NCAAbbs.com: Thousands of fans, Hundreds of teams, Just one place
I hope these works are not going to be reprinted without fully compensating the original authors, and their descendants.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
"Additionally, scientists think they 'are likely to find lost Christian gospels.'"
Who would care about these? All christians should be killed due to their crimes against humanity.
"Your God is dead and no one cares
If there is a hell I will see you there
-- Trent.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
brilliant headline for this story, especially as neither any actual decoding nor anything related to the holy grail is involved. Journalism? Yes, on the level of WeeklyWorldNews.
Many forget the definition of faith. Evidence doesn't matter. Faith by definition is a belief in something that can't be proved or truly understood. It's not open to debate. It's a personal choice and should be respected. Those that lack it, can never understand it. There seems to exist a universal human need to embrace it, regardless of motive. I personally lack it, but honestly wish I didn't.
Until it's capable of decoding Ogg Vorbis, I'm not buying it.
have you given any thought to the idea that people might take you more seriously if you used a spell checker?
'Classical Holy Grail'
... for God's sake let them drink using the wooden cup and not the golden. I tell you, I've seen it happen before, I know.
It makes me wonder why the Church is under such attack these days. Personally, I feel that the end times are near, the Father of Lies knows it and is doing everything to harm the Church.
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.
Most were found to be missives describing the possibilities of making your manhood godsized, as well as easy ways to get that funding for that Collesium.
There was also several messages from a certain Visigoth offering an opportunity of much gold, if only the Romans would finance a small fraction to allow extraction of it.
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
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 demand a SHRUBBERY!
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.
Yeah, but that one is not meant to be taken literally. Duh!
It's like that stuff about wearing mixed clothing.... obsolete because it's convenient for it to be.
And I'm sure some bumbling idiot director will come along and make a movie of it, to join all those other quasi-religious movies...(viz. Dogma, Constantine, EOD etc.)
Shouldn't that be 'from the invisible-ink department'?
more of this garbage texts. i'm wondering if i dump ... ... ... are ANY of this "classical"
my sis'es collection of
"woman-falling-in-love-with-muscle-man" romatic
books on a well know dump-site they will become a
gold mine in a few thousand years
anyways call me if they find anything NEW like
how romans managed their vast armies without a
number system to do resonable calculations with or
how they built the great pyramids or a hint on
atlantis
now-a-serious
books worth something (excluding herodot)?
I wonder what discoveries will be made that could cause a re-renaissance in our modern civilization.
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
that one of the Popes, I think John Paul II, wanted to take the Catholic Churche's money and help the poor around the world. From what I understand and unfortunalely, I'm having a hard time corroberating, he was disgusted that the Curch had so much money and was sitting on it. The Cardinals or some such Church Bureauacracy wouldn't let him.
I'm beginning to think I didn't read it and it's just wishful thinking on this lasped Catholic.
... I see that my spelling errors and amount of caffine intake (or lack thereof) is highly correlated.
You don't see historical value here ? How has the 2nd century view of Christ changed from the modern interpretation ?
Your example suggests that only 150 years after his death Christ was viewed as a super-human avenging spirit. 2000 years later we view him as a meek and mild self-sacrificing man. Yet the text of the gospels remains them same.
If you fail to see any interest here, I suspect you are more interested in reiterating the rhetoric of your teachers rather than studying early Christianity and interpreting the scriptures in the context of the epoch in which they were written and the church founded.
From the article:
"Key words from the master of Greek tragedy
Speaker A: . . . gobbling the whole, sharpening the flashing iron.
Speaker B: And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle's songs, that wakes up those who are asleep.
Speaker A: And he is gluing together the chariot's rail.
These words were written by the Greek dramatist Sophocles,"
"Ahuttle's songs". Sophocles puts characters on stage with iPods!
Bert
Or was Sophocles a marketeer, busy with product placement. It is not easy to understand history properly, especially if it is some 2k years old (hint, hint to another subject).
Also, it doesn't help your case that you point to a couple of "Jesus Myth" sites to bolster your case. You realize that these people are considered to be a joke in the world of New Testament scholarship, don't you? The "anti-Jesus" advocates are far worse than the "pro-Jesus" advocates, so far as distorting history goes. I would suggest you read a good, standard intro to new testament, such as Raymond Brown's, before you continue to spout this bilge.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Latina -- lingua Amoris -- vivit in aeternum post hunc splendidum eventum.
Vita Immortalis est tua si habueris bounum karma.
AI soluta est (Q.E.D.) quod erat demonstrandum -- educatio classica est melior quam diploma in scientia!
anyone else find it curious that researchers from Brigham Young might be finding new christian gospels?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
About time.
400,000 fragments. When can I get a translated set on Amazon?
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.
The Lost Axe Head (2 Kings 6:1-7)
"Canticles of Leibowitz"
christianity and science went hand in hand in destroying the americas and claiming them 'for god'. what part of 'god guns and gold' dont you understand? science then went on to support stalin, hitler, mao, and anyone else who would pay them money and let them play with their toys. boo fucking hoo, a few people got burned at the stake. most of them were WOMEN, who arent even allowed into engineering colleges because of stupid asshole 'scientists' who still carry around neanderthal views about half of the human race. science, in the general, gets exactly what it deserves.
Turns out that this was merely a grail-shaped beacon at the Egyptian rubbish dump.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
how about a quote for us heathens? :?
Is the line
" Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."?
I don't think that covers it
high flying high diving lizard act, a sight to behold for all ages
The most famous case being Galilleo being forced to retract und menace of excomunication and worse. Mind you, the church recognized its error... 400 year later in 1995+ if I recall correctly. So we can expect them to recognize the other terrible stuff maybe , by year 23789 or so.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
You know, it's almost as if you had to be an idiot to be a Christian, right? Well, at least it's not a jew or muslim genetic defect.
He had has wife, did you know what her name is?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Cool. They were dumpster diving for antiquities. Sweet.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
again
Oxford academics have been working alongside infra-red specialists from Brigham Young University, Utah.
There's a ruby spectacles joke in there somewhere.
Sir Galahad: Zoot!
Dingo: No, I am Zoot's identical twin sister, Dingo.
[He tried to get past her]
Dingo: Where are you going?
Sir Galahad: I seek the Grail! I have seen it, here in this castle!
Dingo: No, oh no! Bad, bad Zoot!
Sir Galahad: What is it?
Dingo: She has been setting a light to our beacon, which, I've just remembered, is Grail shaped. It's not the first time we've had this problem.
Sir Galahad: It's not the real Grail?
Dingo: Oh, wicked, bad, naught evil Zoot! Oh, she is a bad person, and she must pay the penalty!
[Turns to camera]
Dingo: Do you think this scene should have been cut? We were so worried when the boys were writing it, but now we're glad! It's better than some of the previous scenes I think.
Left Head: Our was better visually.
Dennis: Ours was committed, it wasn't just a string of pussy jokes.
Bridgekeeper: Get on with it.
Tim: Yes! Get on with it!
Army: Get on with it!
Dingo: Oh, thank you, thank you!
God: Get on with it!
>A lot of the history of Christianity revolves around bashing people who try to point out the actual reality of the universe.
Would it be narrow minded to hold a grudge against what happened over 500 years ago?
And whoever knew the word "suckers" was missing from the end all along...
and the early RCC thought they had all those "heretical other" gospels destroyed! Ha!
With all this talk about finding lost Gospels, nobody has even thought to mention the greatest Greek poet, whose works, all but a few fragments, were destroyed over the years by religious zealots. I'm talking about Sappho, of course.
I'd be very keen on reading any of her poems. What little we still have is all fragmentary, and highly unlikely to be representative of her best
So come on, folks, please look for her poetry too, while you're reading about 50-foot tall crosses.
Lemon curry?
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 already have a book with all the classic Python Holy Grail. It has all the various notes, cut scenes, pictures from the making of it. Honestly, rather than going to all that trouble, they could have just asked!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
... if you want just one current case.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
The sad thing is, you've been modded down to -1.
Stick Men
-- Gospel of Terry
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This will just raise my reading list of Greek authors by a lot--actually infty, from 0 to 1.
Sounds interesting though, like unexpected evidence from a famous case. After all, antique texts have been collected for some time.
Now take a look at my brief-case full of correspondece between Oswald and Mr. XXXXX from US YYYYY service.
The Shoveller: Yeah, I've heard of this guy. He's a big crime-fighter down east.
Mr. Furious: What's his power?
The Blue Raja: Well, he's terribly mysterious.
Mr. Furious: That's his power, he's mysterious?
The Blue Raja: He's TERRIBLY mysterious, actually.
http://www.crosswire.org/jsword/
"The J-Sword Project is a group of programs that work together to bring Bible study to a wide range of people using the Java platform. It includes Bible Desktop, a desktop based Bible study tool."
however, any translations or images of those works would be copyrighted by their [authors].
Translations yes, images no. Images of a public domain work are mere copies, and new editions are subject to U.S. copyright only in the parts that were added or changed in a way involving creative effort. And as for translations, who's to say that at least one translator won't CC license his or her translation?
Because it's a public domain work, multiple competing translations will likely appear, and I'm rawther sure that at least one of them will carry some sort of Free license.
"Well, you can imagine why people in the sciences might be a little snarky on this subject."
And how many of the anti-religion Slashdot comments are from scientists?
"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."
There's also a gread deal about Faith, and religion that DOESN'T make life easier. And yet people still believe, even though discarding all that and going for a secular view would make life so much easier.
"Why should I believe someone elses beliefs carte-blanche?"
Since when has respect been defined as "I must believe what you believe"?
"What if their beliefs in faith interfere with my own beliefs?"
Then don't associate with them.
"In other words "Why can't we all just get along?"."
That applies to BOTH sides.
""Perhaps the greatest heresy of twentieth-century American religion was to make faith into a purely personal matter and a private affair.""
That's a part of it, because ultimately religion is a choice that can only be made individually.
However most religions do instruct the faithful to let others know about their religion, and that runs counter to the "don't ask, don't tell" that secularism believes that religion should adobt.
"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."
Critisizm is fine. Backing it up is much harder.
I figure I'd like to say Jesus is Lord. Its awesome because I know straight from divine intervention. Elitist people like to think they know everything, talk in big words and then claim God doesn't exist. The truly smart person knows he doesn't know everything, and bows before a higher power. This is quite the contrary look at the elitist view that religion is the opiate of the masses.
I think it'd be nice if they found more stuff on Jesus, for the unbeliever's sake. Any time you get something told to you straight from God, you know you can believe it. I'm currently trying to rally Christians to become stronger evangelicals and master apologetics in order to convert the unsaved. But I'm starting slow, with an email campaign for now. Maybe work on a book... There are many strategies for conversion, and I need to learn as many as possible. Its even fun to be on a mission from God.
God spoke to me.
The Sun is Invincible! Long live the Sun!
These images of an early Greek papyrus are clearly copyrighted by Oxford.
There is a technicality in U.S. copyright law (17 USC 303) that applies only to works fixed before 1978 but published between 1978 and 2002, that such works are copyrighted at least until December 31, 2047. Is this the case? I can't tell because the copyright notice at the Bodleian Library copyright page is incomplete, lacking a year of first publication.
If the manuscript was first published before 2003: It falls under this technicality and is copyrighted until December 31, 2047.
If the manuscript was published on or after 2003: Oxford claims a copyright, but is it enforceable in the United States?
ObTopic: The works that are the subject of this article are first published in 2004 or 2005, so the special dispensation for works first published in 1978 to 2002 inclusive does not apply.
It's been so easy to fight that stereotype about blacks being genetically stupid! That certainly hasn't stuck around for several hundred years, only recently being challenged intellectually and less so emotionally.
Irrational beliefs often exist *in spite of* evidence to the contrary.
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.
It must be this decipering thing that's the real problem... I mean what's involved ??
Get the med from the shelf, count the amount, put it in a bottle, and print a lable.
Typical scenario... You wait in about a 4 or 5 person line to drop off you prescription. usualy there is 1 person both getting the new perscriptions and cashiering the filled prescriptions... and there are like 3 or 4 people in the back who are actually doing the counting and lable thing... After your 45 minute wait you get to again wait in this 4-5 person line.
I don't get it.. I just don't
dbcad7
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
JOB French Lights 1.25
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?????
"Additionally, scientists think they `are likely to find lost Christian gospels.' (via The Light of Reason)" (Emphasis added). Now *there's* an ironic juxtaposition.
"And Saint Atila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'Oh, Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that with it thou mayest blow thy enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats, and large.."
It would be far more interesting if this was to turn up the lost writings of Tacitcus and Cassius Dio rather than another lost gospel.
Hell, even a good novel would be a fantastic find: AFAIK, there are only 2 novels that we have from the Roman age: Apuleius's The Golden Ass and Satyricon, by the writer Petronius.
Most likely though the Papryus will record financial and legal transactions from the period. These are actually very common in Egypt, since the conditions there will preseverse dry matter for centuries.
And for your general information, the other gospels and new testament works have not been "tainted" through translation or interpretation- anyone who wants to can still access the original greek of those texts.
We have no original texts; the earliest texts that we have are fragments of copies of copies. Unsurprisingly, these multi-generation copies disagree with each other in places. One well known disagreement is the ending of Mark. The modern ending is found in none of the earliest manuscripts, and when we do begin finding manuscripts with an ending, we find two different endings. The Catholic Church declared the currently popular ending canonical at the Council of Trent in the 16th century.
There is also no "the Bible." Each major branch of the Christian church has their own Bibles, with numbers of books ranging from about two dozen for the Syrian church to 66 for the Protestants to 81 for the Ethiopian church. The most common dates I've seen for the Gospel of Thomas are 100-150, which puts it in about the same range as the 90-120 dates for the Gospel of John.
Since you brought up Paul, it's worth examining the authenticity of his writings too. For example, the Ethiopian Bible has 3 letters to the Corinthians, while the Catholic/Protestant Bible has only 2 such letters. Several of his epistles, including 3rd Corithians, were debated strongly when the Catholic church began putting together its Biblical canon in the 4th century. The Catholics rejected 3rd Corinthians, but kept several of the other more dubious epistles, which modern scholars now have come to same conclusion that some 4th century bishops did--they were forgeries.
The controversy over what was really canonical or not erupted again in Europe with the Protestant Reformation. Luther rejected the apostolicity of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, and moved them to the back of his translation of the Catholic Bible. Modern rediscoveries of the gnostic gospels, and communication between the European branch of Christianity with branches in Asia and Africa with their different Bibles have brought these controversies to life again.
You verses diety? Prabobly rediculos, but launch missiel with nickle kernal... amandemtn, speach highrarchy... you lose, soully!
They did burn an awful lot of heretics, who, while not "witches," certainly outnumber the few dozen Salem victims.
Centurion : What's this, then? "Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house?
Brian : It says, "Romans go home. "
Centurion : No it doesn't ! What's the latin for "Roman"? Come on, come on !
Brian : Er, "Romanus"!
Centurion : Goes like?
Brian : Annus.
Centurion : Vocative plural of "Annus" is?
Brian : Er, er, annus, anni, anno, annum, anno, anni... "Romani"!
Centurion : (Writes "Romani" over Brian's graffiti) "Eunt"? What is "eunt"? Conjugate the verb, "to go" !
Brian : Er, "Ire". Er, "eo", "is", "it", "imus", "itis", "eunt".
Centurion : So, "eunt" is... ?
Brian : Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion : But, "Romans, go home" is an order. So you must use... ?
(He twists Brian's ear)
Brian : Aaagh ! The imperative !
Centurion : Which is... ?
Brian : Aaaagh ! Er, er, "i" !
Centurion : How many Romans?
Brian : Aaaaagh ! Plural, plural, er, "ite" !
Centurion : (Writes "ite") "Domus"? Nominative? "Go home" is motion towards, isn't it?
Brian : Dative !
(the Centurion holds a sword to his throat)
Brian : Aaagh ! Not the dative, not the dative ! Er, er, accusative, "ad domum" !
Centurion : But "Domus" takes the locative, which is... ?
Brian : Er, "Domum" !
Centurion : (Writes "Domum") Understand? Now, write it out a hundred times.
Brian : Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion : Hail Caesar ! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
How can stem cells be hateful?
You can get all you want from umbilical cords.
Given the millions of people born each year, there is a large supply of stem cells.
Some Christains object to getting them from an aborted fetus because that means an abortion clinic can abort a fetus, pack it up, and sell it for profit to a research scientist.
They object to it for two reasons:
1. They say it is a baby and killing a baby is wrong
2. They object to turning abortion into a larger money making enterprise that it already is.
Scientists, on average, are perfectly rational when at work, and are objective and unbiased at all times during the day. Religion-bashing is a hobby for when they get home at night. Consider the evolutionary biologist or palaeontologist who is automatically stigmatised by large groups of orthodox christians. On a lesser note, consider the average scientist, who sees in the attitude of religious groups a continual repeat of Caliph Omar's infamous command to burn the books of the Library of Alexandria because "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous."
At the worst, expression of these attitudes online helps to blow off steam. At best, it helps to prevent a return to the same religious totalitarianism that Europe has spent the last millennium escaping from (the Catholics who slaughtered the Cathars and 'heretics', the Protestants who burned the Catholics and 'witches', and the Inquisition who burned everyone). I agree that, in an ideal world, a scientist's beliefs would have no impact on his work. However, in the world we live in, there are large numbers of Christian pseudoscientists (as opposed to actual Christian scientists) who spend their lives attempting to bolster Christianity at the expense of the scientific method (this applies to other religions too, notably Islam). Undesirable as extreme antireligion beliefs may be, IMO they provide a necessary counterweight to extremism on 'the other side'.
I also wouldn't say that using the effectiveness of science to bash religion is as bad or as cowardly as your example of the total obliteration of entire cultures. In particular, science may be value-neutral as far as the existence of a God is concerned, but it is entirely based on the assumption that any such God is not having an effect on events down here. As such, its success provides pretty strong evidence that, whether one exists or not, a god is probably not a prerequisite for the universe as it is today.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
....under DMCA.
All characters here unto pretaining are ficticious and any resemblence to living ...
the catholic church does lots of things to milk the believers.
remember no meat but fish on friday?
Sounds like modern medical and nutritional advice. So when a doctor or nutritionist says eat fish once a week he/she is doing the right thing, but when coming from the clergy it is wrong?
Regarding past sins of the church, you confuse a church functioning as a political body not a religious body. The church got royally screwed up centuries ago when it got into the business of government. Power corrupts, even the church, even the agnostics, even the atheists. However today the church is back to its proper role.
A lot of the history of Christianity revolves around bashing people who try to point out the actual reality of the universe. Those people (scientists) do get a little tired of the unrelenting "seek to tear down" (to use your phrase) attitude from the religious side of the spectrum.
a tican_observe_000716.html
"A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona, Consolmagno sees nothing incongruous about storing chunks of interplanetary debris next to the courtyard where Pope John Paul II presides over Mass on summer mornings. Like the telescopes studding the roof of Castel Gandolfo, the 200-year-old meteorite collection is a tangible expression of the Vatican's long-standing commitment to scientific research, he said. Analyzing the space rocks, or training the Vatican Observatory's $3 million Arizona telescope on a distant galaxy, are both ways of gaining "a closer appreciation of the personality of the creator," he said in an interview."This is our way of finding God," said Consolmagno, author of Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist, published in February by McGraw-Hill. The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical institutes in the world and the only research group directly supported by the Holy See. The church funds the observatory to the tune of about $1 million a year, leaving its operation to the Jesuits, a religious order whose "charism," or special gift to the church, is scholarship. Ten Jesuit astronomers split their time between Italy and Tucson, Arizona, where the Vatican Observatory Research Group has offices at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. In collaboration with Steward, the Jesuits built the 70-inch (1.8-meter) Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) on Mount Graham, 75 miles (120 kilometers) northeast of Tucson. "
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/v
FWIW, the dean of my chemistry department (at a state university) was a Catholic priest.
[voice=in "The Fly"]Don't eat me.[/voice]
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
I'd say that the long tradition of scholarship within the Catholic church has happily spilled over some into science. They, as an institution (though not necessarily as a larger population of belivers), seem to be a little less willing to be painted into the "God of the gaps" corner that so many others do.
The Vatican's support for certain falvors of hard science strikes me more as a carefully crafted effort to disarm the more obviously damaging (to their credibility) critiques of the faith-based view of the universe. Obviously, as science approaches clear descriptions of what it means to be sentient, or deals with philosophically weighty issues of cognition, the church's structure tends to step in and draw a pretty hard dogmatic line, regardless of how much they spend on telescopes or how comfortable a given MIT grad is at finding God in a pile of rocks (no matter how interplanetary they may be).
Obviously, any organization that focuses its entire thought process (and basis for authority/reward/punishment etc) on what they say happens after you die, when the very stuff that makes "you" exist has stopped functioning - that's a way of conducting human affairs that doesn't truly embrace science. I'd say they (the Catholics, in particular) are perhaps more thoughtfully engaged in using technology towards an understanding of how the universe, in practical terms, works - but they're not necessarily ready to tackle what such research will ultimately demonstrate about the Why (which is to say, there will be an awkward moment at some point when the random, capricious nature of the universe's behavior, clearly absent any anthropomorphized bearded personality, just won't square with Sunday school Genesis lessons).
Now, all that being said, I'd much rather have the Catholic influence on culture and education than I would the fully creepy world view of the newer fundamentalist protestant crowd. Yikes, I say!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The most famous witch hunting manuel is the Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, on orders of the Pope Innocent VIII. The papal bull was issured on Dec. 9, 1484. The protestant reformation didn't kick off until 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his edicts to the door. There were earlier attempts, but none of them ignited like his did. Henry V, in 1419, prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting to kill him via witchcraft. So, what we can see is that witches and witch hunting were in vogue before the protestants were around.
Nice Marmot
As for sources, here is one that took me less than 5 minutes to find: "In the Jesus Seminar, all or most of GTh is treeated as a composition of the 50s antedating the canonical Gospels; but the majority of scholars thinks that, although GTh may have preserved some original sayings of Jesus, as a whole the work is a composition of the 2d century and reflects at time incipient gnosticism."
Raymond Brown. An Introduction to the New Testament. Doubleday, 1997.
To translate: according to exactly the same standards used to date the Canonical gospels (esp. John) later than 70, Thomas is late indeed.
This illustrates exactly the problem with treating Wikipedia as a definitive source: it tends to attract the work of talented amateurs or marginal scholars. It very often misses the mainstream in fields where there is a lot of controversy, and nearly always misses the mainstream in subjects related to the New Testament. In this case, the wikians have taken as correct a marginal view held by what most scholars would consider the radical fringe of New Testament scholarship - viz. the Jesus Seminar and especially Crossin. No serious, careful scholar of the field would have made a strong claim that the majority of critical scholarship regards Thomas as being of 1st century Provenance. On the other hand, someone who picked up a couple of the tendentious, popular treatments at Barnes and Noble certainly would.
A good, popular treatment of the Thomas controversy (and why the Jesus Seminar theories are unlikely to stand up) take a look at "Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way" by Phillip Jenkins. This book is admittedly conservative in outlook, but it's basically factually accurate and it lays out the issue in a way understandable to the lay person.
(And, for what it's worth, I'm a Doctoral Candidate in New Testament in a rather good program at a non-religious school, so I like to think I know more than some random wikipedia contributor.)
I'll trot over and edit the Thomas article later.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Do you have any IDEA how many gospels we already have? A couple more second or third century gospels just won't change much. Now ... if they were early 2nd or first century, THAT would be interesting.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
When you've got an M.Div., come talk to me. In the meantime, I won't fight with an unarmed man.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Those are consensus dates for contemporary, mainstream scholarship. Virtually no serious scholar has accepted second century dates for about 50 years. Back in the hayday of higher criticism, some very late dates were accepted. They've been almost completely debunked - unless of course you listen to Earl Doherty.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Personally I'd say that your "belief" that science will eventually be able to define "what we are" is is merely an article of faith. Science will only be able to deal with the detectable, to describe the mechanics of the universe. It will never be able to prove that there is no God, that the mechanics of the universe or our creation was random not somehow guided. Neither science nor religion have all the answer.
When discussing whether or not the church should sell its art and other valuables you have to realize that the Catholic church has witnessed the fall of civilization and preserved art and knowledge until a new civilization arose. Why should they believe someone else would be a better custodian of the history and treasures they posses?
The Apocrypha is included in the Catholic bible.
There are other books, such as the Gospel of Thomas that aren't included in anyone's bible.
The book of Enoch is quoted somewhere in the new testement, but not included in the Bible.
What you have is a willfull and playful additude that doesn't understand faith.
Faith teaches us that if we are to be free than we should not seek to enslave others.
Your use of the word faith in your counter-examples is not Faith in God, but faith in your own silly way of coming up with humourous, sophmoric attempts at philosopical humor.
You don't understand Faith.
So shut up, you sound stupid.
Egyptians are Muslim, who cares about them and their old rubbish?
Heh your comment about just randomly believing the electron has a positive charge reminds me...
Semiconductor physics class the teacher draws a diagram of current moving through a wire then says
"ok, so the current goes this way, why do the electrons go the other way?"
Everyone starts mumbling about negative charge etc etc and she all of a sudden bursts out "NO! The electrons move against the current because Benjamin Franklin was an asshole"
If Benjamin Franklin had gone into his lab and assumed things such that the electron would have had a positive charge, generations of second semester physics students would have had an easier time.
Calvinism is evil, (well, ALL RELIGIONS ARE EVIL, but Calvinism is worse than many of them, even the great Luther himself said that Zwingli is worse than the pope). Witch hunting was mainly a Calvinistic obsession although also the Chatolics and even the Greek Orthodox practiced it now and then.
Although I am an atheist myself I have a good opinion of Luther and moderate Lutherans. Growing up as a Catholic in a Communist (well Socialist) East European country Luther was my hero, although I have never forgiven him for condemning the Jews. Nevertheless he was a great man (greater than any pope or US President) and his works paved the way for secularism and atheism in Europe.Luther is the only religious figure for which I respect and admiration. Thanks to him now the life of an atheist is safe, he/she does not have to fear that he may be burned alive in order to save his/her (inexistent) immortal soul.
Remember the Lutheran theologians were the first to introduce rationalism in the 18th century. Long Live Luther's Memory!
Documents found 'in an ancient rubbish dump'?
I would imagine these include the uninteresting documents from everyday life with little historical significance -- a playwright's rejected first draft, the ideas Plato thought would never make it, Thucydides the historian's grocery list (need a dozen figs from the marketplace, 3 pomagranites, and one vessel of olive oil), and ads for aphrodisiacs (your penis will be stiffer than a mummy and taller than the pyramids!).
On second thought, forget it.
Just to be clear I am not saying that the Catholic church did all the preservation, just some of it, more than governments and individuals of the time. I am aware of the vast amounts of knowledge that Islamic scholars preserved and added to.
Luther was very moderate in many ways and even Catholics nowadays have a high opinion of him (he probably would not have any needs for going a separate route nowadays) but he had several mistakes a) his stance towards Witches, yes, Calvinism was awful, but Luther also had a very problematic opinion towards witches, he simply was a child of his times, and also was infected by witch paranoia b) his later writings against jews basically were one of the corner stones which the nazis could built upon in the long run (one of them not the main one) c) His role regarding the farmers revolts is also somewhat problematic, but that is a non issue in this discussion here
Thanks for the excellent summary. I'd been pondering whether to add an apologia for intrascience controversy but I decided a) I'd been rabbiting on for too long as it was and b) I couldn't express it nearly well enough.
:P
Of course, the argument could be made that, if scientists are biased in all different directions, then it's true that, on average, they're perfectly rational...
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
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.
Not even close. Aside from the the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has *always* acknowledge the validity of married clergy, Peter had a mother in law, clearly referred to in the Gospels.
hawk
Thanks for these details. It's a welcome relief from the noise . . .
hawk
Replace "the problem" with "a major problem" and you've got a rock-hard case there. And the word "agglomerates" really isn't used enough these days.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
interesting how the parent has been mod'ed first insightful, then flamebait (though no flames) and then overated and finally interesting... I think I messed something, cause it don't add up beginning with a value of two.
At any rate...
The Exodus is another interesting story, as its plenty clear that the landscape included volcanic activity... everything from water turning to blood (clay-silt) to the insects, hail of fire, the guiding signs of smoke in day and fire at night.... crossing the river with good timing (like old faithful in yellowstone park) to fish whatever from the sky... it all in the sequence of natural events triggering the next...
And Moses brother, a salesman that leaves a tinge of "after sleeping on it" distrust.... and Moses knew this and used it.
Egypt has a lawsuit against the jews today for massive theift, the evidence is the jews own Torah. Search google...
reading of teh time before moses, how the jews got into egypt in the first place - they were invited and given the best of the land..... when told that they would have to gather their own grass for brick making,,,, the egyptians were simply tired of collecting up grass for the jews to do the job they were hired and paid for, when the jews were taking it home to feed their livestock instead...
"*assumption* and belief are still synonyms"
This is not really true. A scientific assumption inherently is temporaly in nature. It always involves doubt and the acknowledgement that what we consider today to be a valid theory, could well prove to be utter nonsense when observation contradicts that theory.
In contrast, 'belief' (as it is meant in a religious context) accepts something as being true, regardless of observation. There is no true believer that 'assumes' there is a god - but also accepts the notion that it's perfectly possible there is no god at all. They don't 'assume' God exists, they 'know' god exist; it's not a matter of possibility, but of a certitude. Therefor, to assume something and to believe something are two different things altogether.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The value of any new text from antiquity is many-sided -- we have so little to work from -- and I find it queasying to read a series of posts from someone self-described as "a student of the New Testament" who thinks new gospels are nothing to write home about. Heck, you tell others not to be interested too. ("Move along...")
Essentially the gift of a new gospel is that it gives us that much more perspective on what Christianity was about then and what it's become. The canonical works were written partly in reaction to the stuff that got left out, so new texts help us understand them too.
New gospels also present challenges, tacit or more aggressive depending on the text, to the authoritarian use of Jesus's name and message, which can be nothing but a good in my book. You're right, the powers that be have long since gotten used to denying the importance of these texts. It's because they're threatened by those texts. Still. The Pharisees would be proud to have such stubbornly self-concerned intellectual heirs.
I don't find it necessary to shove anything that didn't make the canon into a convenient category of "Unabomber manifesto-types" in order to distance myself from it. You remind me of naturalists who demonize invasive foreign species. It seriously bends a person's conscience, doing stuff like that, and corrodes understanding.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
As I understand it... To be perfectly fair, at least some of the church-sponsored witch-hunting was a purposeful attempt to take that job away from local governments (who often used it for political purposes), and impose a more standardized and logical system. In many cases local governments coopted it anyway, and those were many of the worst, or at least broadest, abuses.
Which asian culture are you descendant from?
The only reason I read this article was because I thought it pertained to Monty Python. Now I have broken my new years resolution to not learn anything this year. Thanks Slashdot!
well, actually I think we more or less agree, seen the current clarifications. To some extend, there are definitions that could apply to assumption as wel as belief, agreed. Whether the terms are true synonims, is debatable. And whether or not the scientific principles and the principles of religion are similar, is most unlikely.
:-)
d3 and d4 are not elements of science, though they are elements of almost all religions. Also, note that I said I was looking to the definitions in the context of science vs. religion, and in that case, it doesn't only refer to dogma, but you have other (differences in) definitions, such as "The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will." Which all the major religions have in common (but not science).
But I guess we basically agree, and it's just a matter of what the context is of the definitions we use.
As for your suggestions, I fear you come to late: carl sagan has been one of my favorite authors since years. I have (and have read) both books you mention, and I thought they were exellent, as far as fiction as non-fiction goes. (I thought the movie was not as good as the book, however). In fact, I'm still searching for 'pale blue dot', which, for some reason, is difficult to find in my country.
It's good to see other people enjoying carl sagans' works.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Cheers!
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1