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)"

Comments

This is just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dan Brown just had his next idea for a book...

Re:This is just in...

[vsprintf]

Works for Roland...

Whoa, it sounds like we need the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[mrRay720]

'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?

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Denyer]

What's the betting that the one that reads "'The Bible' copyright 134AD

Or the Red Dwarf version:

Newsreader: Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of Geldof. Archeologists near Mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon-dated in Bonne. If genuine, it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read, "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[venicebeach]

If we cannot perceive well enough to read something, does the phrase "in existence" really apply to it?

Yes.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[aussie_a]

Just because my computer can't render kanji, doesn't mean the website's content doesn't exist ;)

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[digitalchinky]

Why is it that every scrap of paper or stone tablet that happens to be dug up must always be attributed to religion?

In a thousand years time from now will people still claim similar recognition for recovered hard drive data (Web Logs)

Some redneck bitching that his truck caught fire on the I95 - might be a funeral pire for some exalted leader.... While not only limited to one group, religious people do tend to have wide interpretations.

Where are all the shopping lists, doodling, drawings of children... In Australia we have aboriginal art dating back 30 odd thousand years, grafiti, animals, hand outlines of children, all kinds of stuff. Not all of it could be considered religious, but is still precious none the less!

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Hungus]

So all of those external references to these characters were also false? The Bible is one of teh most criticly attested documents ever studied. Archaelogy continuously affirms it and when it seems to contradict it it is usually only a few years before better studies (better meaning better documentation, archaelogical evidence, scholarship, acceptance in scholarly circles etc) show the Bible correct again.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[STrinity]

For a very interesting read, and a very thought provoking read, try:

Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

It really shows how much the Roman Catholic church has lied, cheated and killed to remain in power.

Too bad it's a work of fiction.

Look, I'm a hard-core atheist who believes organized religion is the biggest scam ever created, but that doesn't mean I have to accept every crazy depredation laid against a church. HBHG belongs in the same category with books about J. Edgar Hoover being on the Grassy Knoll, and Elvis living in Peoria under an alias created for him by the Federal Witness Protection Program.

And while we're at it, the Catholics didn't burn witches in the dark ages; it was a heresy to even believe in them until the High Middle Ages, and it was the Protestants who made witch hunting an organized sport.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that every scrap of paper or stone tablet that happens to be dug up must always be attributed to religion?

Because they generally were religious in nature. Remember that way back in the early days of writing that very few people could read and write. Usually on the religious and ruling classes could do so. Comparing what we find from 2000 years ago to what we have on our hard drives now is comparing apples to oranges.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[hellings]

Realize that by the time of the Roman empire quite a large number of people could read and write. There ARE shopping lists, personal letters and so forth in great abundance all over the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. You can find graffiti on buildings, etc. True, it may be hard to find modern scholarly copies of them because more people are interested in reading the old copies of the religious texts than they are someone's shopping list, but they do exist. Also, what do you do with your shopping list when you're done with it? Probably not try to save it, as the ancient world did with its literature. So thus more of those small, petty writings would have been lost, but some did survive.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[kilodelta]

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.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Thomas Miconi]

Crackpot alert !

It's highly likely that Jesus had a wife. There's strong evidence to show that Jesus had Rabbii training, and strong evidence that his wife was Mary Magdelene, aka Mary of Bethany (yes, the one and same person). During that era, it was extremely unusual for a jewish male to not be married, and a Rabbii had to be married. It was basically a 'law'.

Voodoo theology. See the wikipedia article for a level-headed description of the matter.

The Roman Catholic church has long sought to hide the line of Jesus, spread by Mary Magdelene when she moved to the area of Marseilles.

Actually, in the area of Arles, in a locality which is now known as the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (I should know, I'm from there). Together with Martha, Mary of Bethany, Salome, and Lazarus, among others. Then Lazarus went on to become bishop of Marseilles, Martha went to kill a monster that wreaked havoc in Tarascon, and Magdalene ended her life in the Sainte-Baume moutains.

This happens to be one of the many popular legends that flourished in medieval folk christianism. One of the early bishops of Marseilles was actually called Lazarus, but there is no relation with the resurrected one. Similar stuff occured all over Europe, e.g. Saint-Denis, patron saint of France, has been wrongly identified with Denys the Areopagite. In my own city, Arles, the legendary first bishop Trophimus has been identified with the homonymous disciple of Paul mentioned in the New Testament.

While many such confusions may have arisen out of sincere self-delusion, one should keep in mind that holy relics (which attracted pilgrims in droves) were extremely important at the time, both in terms of prestige and of plain commercial interest. Exposing the relic of a Father of the Church was much more profitable, in any sense, than some obscure 3rd century bishop.

The deal with Clovis was renegged less than 100 years after his death, removing the line of the Menengoverians by the assassination of Dagobert II.

You are an ignorant ass. The Merovingians faded into irrelevance out of sheer incompetence. They were replaced by the descendents of Charles Martel (then a kind of "prime minister", in charge of the actual work of running the empire), not by cunning or assassination, but simply because the guy saved the country and the rest of Europe from Arab domination - which brings us to your next point...

Add to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is highly intolerant of other religions - the murder and war against the Saracens in the 11th century

Look, man, I have no particular sympathy for Catholicism, but you should remember that the relationship between Christian Europe and the Moslem world has been one of constant invasions and counter-invasions - and the Saracens called the first shots in the 7th-8th centuries, until they got their arses kicked big time by Charles Martel, and were driven out by his successors, the Carolingians - eponymous to Martel's grandson, a certain Charlemagne.

When you add up aggressions and atrocities from both sides, all you can say is that there's no winner - only a few million losers.

Thomas-

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Luxviaest]

That is not exactly true. The inquisition was a wholly Catholic affair that effected peoples of varied faiths, and assigned to them the role of heretic and firewood. That is not to say that the Protestants did not do their own fair share of mass-murder in the name of religious faith, but, try and find a religion that can wash its hands of that sort of claim. I doubt you will find many.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Ieshan]

You're right - modern scholarly copies of them are hard to find. But so too are ancient scholarly copies.

Most of our classical work today survives in manuscripts from the middle ages and slightly before. Texts that you buy in the store are not of the form that they were found; they're pieced together from extant copies, changes are made where scribes made mistakes, etc.

I've no idea how much classical studies you've done, but if you read latin or greek, look to the bottom of a scholarly text [e.g., OCT] and look down to the App. Crit., which is a good place to find exactly which manuscripts were used to compile the text.

Most of the issues in finding classical work today isn't that there weren't very many writers, but there were very few copies made of things that were written. Our entire corups of catullus, for example, comes from one - *one* - single manuscript. This was, for all we know, quite a popular libellum, but we're stuck with one copy because of the way it was viewed during the 2000 or so years of history between then and now.

The issue is in the copying, not the writing itself.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[BlueFashoo]

And while we're at it, the Catholics didn't burn witches in the dark ages; it was a heresy to even believe in them until the High Middle Ages, and it was the Protestants who made witch hunting an organized sport.

First, the high middle ages lasted from 1000-1200 or 1050-1400, depending on your source. Either way, they started just before the time period given by the GP.

Second, the most famous witch hunting manuel is the Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, on orders of the Pope Innocent VIII, a Catholic. 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.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[MemoryDragon]

Actually no real witch hunting occurred in the so called dark middle ages, which mostly were more civilized than the so codern era.

Most of the witch hunting over here in Europe occured after 1600 and endured sort of until around 1750.

The funny thing is, that mostly the catholics are blamed for the witch hunting, but in fact, the catholic church is to blame for many things, but not for being the most evil witch hunters. In fact witch hunting was sort of moderate in catholic countries, while in many protestantic parts it became sort of a plaque, which was even more fueled after the 30 years war, which left a thinned and devastated and basically frightened population.

If the americans speak of Salem, believe me, that is nothing compared to what happened over here, and in the end triggered the age of enlightment.

It in my opinion was the main mistake (besides his later day stance towards jews) of Marthin Luther, that he was bound by his times and could not see in how bogus the whole witch idea is, thus he enforced witch hunting in the long run, in the protestantic areas. (The whole witch idea came originally from greece btw. but never was really that important until the 15 hundreds)

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Stephan Schulz]

Add to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is highly intolerant of other religions - the murder and war against the Saracens in the 11th century, the purge of 'witches' (six million deaths at least) in the 14th century.

Not to defend the Catholic church (they have enough real dirty big secrets), but by far most of the witch hunts were conducted after the reformation and under protestant churches...

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[PsiPsiStar]

>>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?

Those are called "gnostic gospels".

That's all well and good, but..

[ShaunC]

..can it decipher doctors' handwriting on prescription pads? That would be a momentous scientific advance!

Re:That's all well and good, but..

[mrRay720]

..can it decipher doctors' handwriting on prescription pads? That would be a momentous scientific advance!

I certainly hope not!! That would take all of the fun out of it. I quite like getting random medication every month - makes life really worth living.

Obligatory...

[Attaturk]

Euripides papyri you pay for 'em.

Re:Obligatory...

[jimhill]

Unless, of course, you can find a trained restorer, in which case Eumenides.

Re:rawr

[FidelCatsro]

Anciant pornography is less likely to show in literary work and far more likely to be done in paint as often has been the case .

We have plenty of examples of this, we do have a fair bit of background from many already avaiable anciant greek and roman works as to the culture of morality revolving around sexual attitudes back then.

These works are more likely to be a boon to the study of the more esoteric areas of the cultures , not that i dont doubt we will find some works relating to the sexuality of the cultures , This is by far in a way not a main area of study.

Though you are right that eroticism has driven many technoligies , but this is more of particular note in more represed cultures, as the current theorys go the anciant Greek and (earlyer) anciant Roman society were far less prudish about their bodys then we tend to be nowadays so pornography would be far less prolific as it tends to thrive where sexuality is less open.

Classicist 3 Scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Classicist 3 Scientists

[kfg]

"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

Re:Classicist 3 Scientists

[MtViewGuy]

Once they decode these papyrus rolls, it will be very interesting to see who will publish them. G** help us all in terms of copyrights, especially if we are able to "re-discover" a large number of the plays by ancient Greek playwrights!

But the thing of major interest is the discovery that there may be more than just Theogeny and Works and Days by Hesiod. What does Hesiod's other writings say?

twenty + comments

[Daengbo]

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!

Re:twenty + comments

[Denyer]

I hate the elitists who seek to tear down instead of build!

That's actually the criticism many people have of Christianity, you realise? As pertaining to trying to fit findings to a theory rather than theory to available evidence.

Reading the article (which is a form of heresy in itself...) this is an exciting development, though it does make you wonder how many previous archaelogical finds got discarded over the years because no-one had an inkling as to their possible value.

Re:twenty + comments

[Daengbo]

Hey, you know what? My comment wasn't defending Christianity (though I do think that, as long as people keep it out of my life, they can do what they want) -- just lamenting the lack of real discussion of this interesting issue. OTOH, there was a nice comment above me, made while I was commenting, which negates my post somewhat. I just don't like to see hate spewed out so much on a tech website about a science story.

OTs to the lot of them, I say!

Re:twenty + comments

[ScentCone]

mostly just bashes on Christians

Well, you can imagine why people in the sciences might be a little snarky on this subject. 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. So, must of the comments in that tone about this article are made in the context of a more-secular-than-usual audience, and presume a certain world-weariness on this subject.

Re:twenty + comments

[bubbha]

bashing people who try to point out the actual reality of the universe

Didn't scientists believe that the sun went around the earth about that time?

Re:twenty + comments

[Casca]

Possibly, but for a long time scientists believed (at least publicly) a lot of silly things because the church told them to.

Re:twenty + comments

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Well, anyone who expressed anything else then the 'sure' fact that the sun was going around the earth was excommunicated by the church and burned.

So it was not really much of a choice.

Re:twenty + comments

[novakyu]

Well, you can imagine why people in the sciences might be a little snarky on this subject.

The problem is, while religions do not make it a secret that they have a particular worldview and a set of beliefs (and thus, sometimes violent and not-so-righteous acts to enforce those beliefs), science is supposed to be objective, fact-based, and experimentally-verified. I'm not here to say that scientists should be completely free of bias or any personal prejudices, but they definitely shouldn't let those things guide nor hinder their work in science---not anything more than initial inspiration, anyway. Religion-bashing does not belong to the "people in sciences". Religion, as far as science is concerned, should be irrelevant---personally significant (either in a positive way or negative way) to a particular scientist, maybe; but it should in no way influence (either positively or negatively) his work in science.

Is this a double-standard? Yes. But I put forward this double-standard as a double believer in scientific principles and Christ. And, as much as I don't like fundamentalists standing in the way of scientific progress, I am appalled by atheists exploiting success of science (which neither presumes nor denies existence of God, so far, at least) to bash religion. I would even go as far as to say that such coattailing is more cowardly act than oppressing minority beliefs under the authority of a powerful Church (a couple centuries back, anyway).

Re:twenty + comments

[luna69]

The problem with your argument that science (and scientists) ought not be concerned with religion at allis that religion, and people who are religious, have very real, measurable impacts on the world and society.

Many (if not most or all, depending on how you measure) of those impacts are negative - and it makes perfect sense for science (and scientists) to analyze, and comment on, religion.

I am an atheist recisely because I am a scientist. If I were to, say, go into my lab and decide to believe that the electron had a positive charge, without any evidence whatsoever, and certainly no evidence that was verifiable & repeatable, I would be ignorant and stupid. Worse, if I got other people to believe this 'fact' that had no evidence to support it, I would be guilty of something worse: intentionally misleading people.

I apply the same standards to everything, because a world (and human society) in which what is is more important than what we might wish is better than one in which we tell ourselves stories and them call them truth.

Re:twenty + comments

[physicsphairy]

Well, you can imagine why people in the sciences might be a little snarky on this subject.

Woah! Woah! Hold up!

Since when are comment posters intrinsically "people in the sciences"? You might note that the actual scientists quoted in the article didn't find it necessary at all to take any potshots, and most of the comments I've read here from people who claim to be in the field recognize Christian artifacts as a great archeological find, not an opportunity to slip in a few snide comments.

A lot of the history of Christianity revolves around bashing people who try to point out the actual reality of the universe.

No, Christianity revolves solely around the figure of Christ (hence the name) who was persecuted for violating the orthodoxy. If you want to assosciate ideology with the historical acts of those who submit to it, then I call atheists to account for the nigh-hundred million deaths assosciated with atheist governments over the past century.

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 lot of these people are Christian/Jewish/Muslim/religious in some way and would describe what you say as a load of bullock.

So, must of the comments in that tone about this article are made in the context of a more-secular-than-usual audience, and presume a certain world-weariness on this subject.

Actually, it's called trolling.

Re:twenty + comments

[localman]

I am appalled by atheists exploiting success of science (which neither presumes nor denies existence of God, so far, at least) to bash religion.

As an athiest, I don't think science puts the nail in religion's coffin. All the scientific explanations for the universe and it's functioning can be accepted as the design of God. And any contradictory passages in the bible can be labled as metaphor.

If anything puts the nail in religion's coffin, it's history.

Religions (at least the popular ones) have failed to help society on the grand scale. They fail to guide. And if they fail to guide then what is their use? Even if the bible really was the word of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God, it has shown itself to be useless.

Blame it on man's free will or whatever but what's the point? Why should I allow a destructive philosophy to go on without criticism? I don't care what the author's original intent was -- I care only about the fruits of the followers. And by that measure I'd very much like to see most religions questioned and criticized until they adapt or disappear.

Cheers.

Re:twenty + comments

[Thomas Miconi]

I am appalled by atheists exploiting success of science (which neither presumes nor denies existence of God, so far, at least)

Science does not and cannot disprove God (i.e. the idea of a supernatural Creator): such a concept is beyond science altogether. It is not possible to prove or disprove the fact that the world was initially created by a sentient being.

However science, or even plain common sense, puts a lot of strain on religions, that is, particular teachings based on sacred revelations.

Religion consists in switching off your brain and believing the unbelievable. Not only that, but believing in one particular set of unbelievable things, to the exclusion of any other. Hint: What is the difference between a religion and a cult, except for size and political impact ?

I would even go as far as to say that such coattailing is more cowardly act than oppressing minority beliefs under the authority of a powerful Church

Show me a preacher burnt at the stake (as in real fire and real charred flesh, not metaphorically) by a council of scientists and I'll agree with you.

Thomas-

Re:twenty + comments

[killjoe]

As long as scientists turn the other cheek while the christians are hitting them in the face with shovels the christians will continue to win.

Right now the christians talibans control the US govt at the highest levels, the presidency, leadership of both houses of congress, the attorney generals office and even a good portion of the supreme court. There is a reason for that, they know how to figh and win.

It's time the atheists and the people who believe in science get active. We all know what happens when the religious fundamentalist tighten thier control on society. Look up "taliban" on google for an example.

Ahh, those silly lost gospels

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> ...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.

Re:Ahh, those silly lost gospels

[mopslik]

"And Jesus wept down on the meaty cook [who] brough[t] the glor[ious (sic.)] mole."

Sounds like Jesus had a terrific, Mexican-themed last supper. I'm sure people south of the border will be thrilled with this news.

This is exciting but not particularly new...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm writing a dissertation on the use of digital imaging technology applied to archaeological artefacts, so have been researching this sort of thing recently.

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...

CSI style

[LiquidCoooled]

How much are we betting that the scientists got their ideas by watching CSI?

Now don't let them in on this...

[gt_swagger]

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

Re:Now don't let them in on this...

[ggvaidya]

Yes, this is verily the first evidence for the lost civilization of the Ancient Geeks.

Copyright?

[MarkByers]

I hope these works are not going to be reprinted without fully compensating the original authors, and their descendants.

Re:Copyright?

[cpuffer_hammer]

Or more likely the new text will be copyright as an image of the original. Much like many pictures of old paintings are copyright. So it will be the institution that will benefit. Not the authors long dead or even the creative scientists that did the work.

i'm waiting

[Rageon]

Until it's capable of decoding Ogg Vorbis, I'm not buying it.

Re:Bibles

[Vellmont]

I hope one of the new gospels has something that will really get the Bible-thumpers in a rage.


Doubtfull. It's well known among biblical scholars that there are works in Christianity that have been rejected from 'the cannon" of works that is the bible. These books are refered to as Apocrypha Rejecting alternative texts as authoritative is old hat at far as Christianity is concerned.

When they find it ...

[cablepokerface]

'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.

Re:God willing...

[Fished]

It's already been written: Matthew 5-7. You might want to take a read sometime.

Non-Ecumenical Gospels

[TheMediaWrangler]

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.

Re:Non-Ecumenical Gospels

[Anonymous Coward]

On the very page you link to, which I certainly would not agree with in whole, it estimates the time of writing of the Gospel of Thomas at around 200-300 AD, whereas say the Gospel of Mark (included in the Bible) the site estimates was written between 65-80 AD. It's clear to see which is more reliable. It's worth noting also that the so called "lost gospels" like the Gospel of Thomas have never been lost, were known to the Christian church at the time of their writing, and were condemned at the time of their writing for being heretical- the most prominent heresy being gnosticism (which you can also read about on the site you linked to). If you do any sort of overview of Paul's writings you'll see arguments against gnosticism. 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. Mainstream versions of the Bible, such as the NIV (Zondervan publishing) were not translated from a translation or passed down through the church or anything like that, they were translated directly from the Greek text, like the same writing you link to. I agree that we should be looking into these things and examining the evidence, but try to not let what you want to believe about God influence what you believe about God, and I'll do the same.

Tech where?

[mattr]

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?

The significance of "new" gospels...

[Fished]

As a student of the New Testament and early Christianity, I have to say that discoveries of "new" gospels are rarely very interesting. There was an explosion of gospel narratives starting in the late 2nd century (say 175). Most of these narratives are quite fantastic and have virtually no historical vallue. (Think of a 50 foot tall cross walking out of Jesus tomb, shouting imprecations upon Jerusalem.) More imporantly than their content, they are so late that any trace of historical content is purely derivative of the four canonical gospels.

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.

Re:The significance of "new" gospels...

[eddy]

>Think of a 50 foot tall cross walking out of Jesus tomb, shouting imprecations upon Jerusalem.

Yeah, because that's just sooo much more fantastic than floating axes and talking bushes.

Re:The significance of "new" gospels...

[Anonymous Coward]

Early gospels have virtually no historical value? What the hell? That's like claiming that the Federalist Papers or the Declaration of Independence are of little historical value.

I'm guessing you're referring to 'historical' in the sense of the gospels recording historical events. What about the rest of the world? People used the rhetoric and ideas of Christianity to address problems outside the usual scope of the religion, or tried to mold the religion to fit personal or political objectives. These lost gospels tell us how people use religion, whether or not the religion has any sort of cosmic truth to it.

And, as scholars are the people who write the history books, they are the ones who determin what has historical value.

Your post reminds me of the religion students who used to take Greek with me at university. "Why are we reading Attic Greek?" they would ask, "We only need Koine to read the Bible!" There's far more to the ancient world than the 50-something (depending on denomination) books of the Bible, and even the Bible doesn't represent a self-contained system of information.

So who said space research

[Bayleaf]

does not benifit mankind.

Re:Bibles

[MrHanky]

I think you mean the canon. Cannonization wasn't done before the 14th century, and then mostly to heretics. Canonization, however, is never done to heretics, because a person or text that has been canonized by the church is by definition sacred.

This might seem very confusing, but it isn't, really.

Re:Bibles

[wnknisely]

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).

70-some messages so far...

[Dot.Com.CEO]

and I find it amazing that there are people speaking of the possibility of discovering lost gospels as if something like that would be extraordinary. There is a series of lost gospels, otherwise called the "Nag Hamadi library" (google for it) that gave rise to a modern revival of the gnostic church, a set of believes that have deeply influenced popular culture (the Matrix is full of gnostic elements, for example.

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.

Re:70-some messages so far...

[MemoryDragon]

The problem with gnosticism is, that it was there way before christianity and influenced lots of other religions as well.

One of the reasons the early church dismissed many of those "gospels" was that they had a dubious heritage and they basically just should pave an inroad for gnosticism.

In reading for instance Thomas, you can clearly see the gnostic roots and also some greek influences which are totally in opposite of what you can gather about the personality of jesus in the other gospels.

Re:Bibles

[October_30th]

It looks like there already is a Gospel of Judas.

Re:Bibles

[Black Parrot]

> 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.

Re:Nature of faith

[BenjyD]

It's not open to debate. It's a personal choice and should be respected.

A few counter-examples:

• I have faith that everybody I run over in my car goes immediately to heaven.
• I have faith that all people with blonde hair are stupid.
• I have faith that if I strap explosives around my waist and blow myself up on a crowded bus I will go to heaven.
• I have faith that if I climb a tall enough tree I will get to the moon (from Dawkins)

Faith can be used to justify appaling acts and discrimination or can limit development of society, and is not something to be respected.

Re:Nature of faith

[Vellmont]

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?".

A re-renaissance?

[sellin'papes]

Ancient roman and greek text were lost to the persian/ottoman empires. Western civilization (coincidentaly?) fell into the dark ages for centuries before the texts were rediscovered. This discovery let to renaissance of scientific and political thought.

I wonder what discoveries will be made that could cause a re-renaissance in our modern civilization.

Re:A re-renaissance?

[George Tirebuyer]

It's doubtful. The technology of the Roman empire was superior to that of the Dark Ages. I think it's safe to say that our current advancement has surpassed anything known to the Romans. We even have concrete and a loathing of all things Christian.

Re:Nature of faith

[nihilogos]

• I have faith that all people with blonde hair are stupid.
  
• have faith that if I climb a tall enough tree I will get to the moon (from Dawkins)

These two I imagine could be proved or disproved relatively easily.

Faith can be used to justify appaling acts and discrimination or can limit development of society, and is not something to be respected.

That's ridiculous. It's like saying 'physics can be used to destroy entire cities ... '

You don't find this interesting ????

[anat0010]

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.

Re:You don't find this interesting ????

[Jerf]

Yes, anat0010, that one document changes everything. One document, written by one guy somewhere, with no sanction and the general historical consensus it wasn't worth keeping, and suddenly we have a better understanding of "the 2nd century views of Christ".

By the way, have you read that Unabomber manifesto? Turns out the average American is anti-technology and bombs people through the mail system, which is apparently the primary use of the mail system in 20th century America. And the recent find of "Dianetics" provides a fascinating view into the religious beliefs of the average American of the 20th century.

No, wait a minute, that's not right.

(One of the persistent fallacies is that the humans of the past are somehow different than today, particularly in their uniformity. They aren't, and the historically-rejected writings of one guy are about as representative as the same happening today, which is to say, not necessarily useless, but you might only learn about the dominant paranoid schizophrenic fantasies of the day (like black helicopters and mind-control beams today), not the common man. You are getting one very small fragment of an image of the time, don't make the mistake of focusing on one small piece and projecting it out on the entire time period. You are the blind man examining the elephant, not a well-informed almost-omniscient observer.)

There is more than enough data to study the 2nd century church, one need not over-intepret one piece of evidence to push an agenda.

Nonsense

[Fished]

Critical scholarship (i.e. scholarship that has no a priori commitment to the historical reliability of the gospels) dates the gospels more or less as follows:

Mark - 68-75
Matthew - 80
Luke - 80-85
John - 90

Then, consider that most scholars date Thomas in its present form no earlier than 145. Any "new" gospel is likely to be much later. Further, there is good evidence to suggest that the Canonical four existed in proto-forms much earlier, with a proto-Mark dating back to the 40's.

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.

Re:rawr

[smittyoneeach]

Infidel!
Plato was an Emacs user!
<dons asbestos boxers>

Re:Nature of faith

[BenjyD]

From the original comment:

> Evidence doesn't matter.

Therefore, the fact that you can disprove the point doesn't matter. The tall-tree thing is from some Dawkins book, a belief held by a tribe with no access to space travel, telescopes etc so they couldn't disprove the point, anyway.

Faith, as the original poster puts it, is the belief in something without evidence. It is logically inconsistent: if somebody believes one thing without evidence, why not everything? How does one decide which is a 'right' faith? Is there actually some evidence required? At what point does it stop, then, being something you believe through faith and something you know through evidence?

Physics is not a belief system, it cannot be used to justify anything. It's just a collection of theories which appear, given the evidence we have, to describe our universe reasonably well. As such, you can't judge physics: it just is. E may stop equaling mc2 tomorrow, that doesn't mean physics stops.

Faith, on the other hand, as a construct of human thought, can be judged as good or bad.

Bible = 'acceptable gospels'

[seven of five]

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.

Re:Bible = 'acceptable gospels'

[demo9orgon]

Dip-shit Peckerweek mods! Let's hear it for the nerdly knee-jerk goddist who can't suffer a less than perfectly aesthetic view of their religion.

The parent-post is perfectly legitimate in that it describes just one of several methods employed by aspiring holy-men. Deprivation and seclution are still practiced, formally and informally even today by various flavors of every popular religion. Several of the gospels were the result of some really crazy bugger stumbling back into town/village/citystate and claiming they had a vision (or a revision). They'd be granted audidence and if they entertained the esoterics/priests/king their story would be written down. Stories which gained popularity would be adopted and other ascetics would pick up on what worked and embellish it and eventually one version or another of a story would be comitted to parchment and accepted as a sort of informal cannon for that particular locality. Humanity abhorrs new stories.

Just remember, that streetcorner preacher isn't just distasteful and embarrasing, he's a tradition.

Re:Nature of faith

[TapeCutter]

I was right with ya until this "Physics is not a belief system". Science is based on the belief that the universe is predictable, ie : natural laws and relationships exist. Physics really would stop if the laws were constantly changing at random.

A person without some form of "faith" might aswell give up now, I mean what's the point, you and everyone else are going to die anyway. The same can be said of those who lack "logic", God won't protect you from a car accident because of the plastic Saint Christopher or stylised fish sticker on your car. However I do agree, God is redundant if you belive the Universe, (as opposed to physics), "just is"

Re:God willing...

[Paris The Pirate]

Hey don't preach to me, I'm converted.

You should email the vatican about that one though. Maybe they should take a read? :)

Nothing to see here, move along.

[AtariAmarok]

Turns out that this was merely a grail-shaped beacon at the Egyptian rubbish dump.

Re:Nature of faith

[BenjyD]

Science is based on the *assumption* that the universe is predictable: proof by induction. It seems to be working out pretty well for us so far, but if it stopped being true tomorrow, science wouldn't be wrong.

As is inevitable in threads like these, I should mention Karl Popper.

Re:Nature of faith

[dalutong]

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.

Epure Si Mueve

[aepervius]

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.

"Canticles of Leibowitz"

[MsSmartyPants]

again

Re:God willing...

[rob_squared]

That's right after the 11th commandment:
Thou shalt not pay too much for a muffler.

Lost works

[MsWillow]

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.

ever hear of bribes and extortion? POLITICS?

[bobalu]

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.

Re:ever hear of bribes and extortion? POLITICS?

[Peter La Casse]

I think you're misunderstanding the question. It's a specific problem that the poster had with the extortion, bribery and politics scenario: why would the disciples willingly die horribly for something that they knew to be the result of extortion, bribery and politics?

If the whole thing is a simple matter of extortion, bribery and politics, then the disciples would have had to be added in later as pseudo-fictional characters as well. If that's so, then the "it's all made up" scenario trumps the "extortion, bribery and politics" scenario, I think.

Re:ever hear of bribes and extortion? POLITICS?

[smittyoneeach]

Jews refers to the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve rolling out of Egypt.
The concept of being chosen by God refers to Abram (later, Abraham) rolling out of Mesopotamia and being given everything he could see from the top of Mount ... and knowing that through his seed, all nations should be blest.
Moses on Sinai comes later, after Egypt, and the organizational behavior lesson that real change takes two generations.

Lost Christian Gospel Translated!

[hey!]

Always look on the bright side of life,
doo-doo, doo-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo!

-- Gospel of Terry

Re:The Floating Axe Gospel

[novakyu]

The Lost Axe Head (2 Kings 6:1-7)

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).

Re:God willing...

[Lady Jazzica]

Just because it isn't for sale doesn't mean it's worthless.

Yes it is worthless if you have no intention of ever selling it. Imagine someone who keeps his father's ashes in a vase in his house. He could probably sell the ashes for fertilizer or something like that, but he doesn't intend to, so the ashes aren't worth anything to him.

As far as the Vatican's art is concerned, it isn't a "stockpile", it is considered something held in trust for all of humanity. If it were sold, then only the rich people who bought it could see it; but now anyone can see the art, or will be able to for generations to come.

Think of the medieval cathedrals. Back in those days, hardly anyone owned art. But there was plenty of beautiful art in the churches that anyone, even the poorest, could enjoy. And we can still see that art today.

Besides, the beauty of the art in churches (including the gilding) is meant to help us think of higher things, more spiritual things. "Man does not live by bread alone," as someone once said. If all the art in churches were sold, we'd have to start getting more, because it does serve a purpose.

Finally, the Bible says it's okay (actually, it's a command to the Israelites) to have beautiful and even valuable art in religious buildings and for religious uses: Exodus 25:8-39, Exodus 28:2-3,6,13-27.

New Gospels Doubtful...

[drumsetdrummer]

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.

Floating axes.Re:The significance of "new" gospel.

[3seas]

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?????

Armaments, Chapter Two, Verses Nine to Twenty-One

[Sevnn]

"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.."

Less gospel stuff please...

[posternutbaguk]

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.

We have no original texts

[cquark]

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.

Re:Bibles

[bluGill]

That would be an interesting situation, but it is unlikely. Christans of the time were mostly also Jews, any deviation from Jewish law was controversial, and therefore makes it into their writings.

Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Now christian teach on old testament law is a little complex, as the new testament replaces it. It replaces it as a continuation. It was a big deal with early Christians realized they were able to eat pigs and other "unclean animals". Several of the early books (particularly the writings of Paul, but also Acts) go into detail about this. If Homosexuality was suddenly allowed in the early teachings there would be a big deal made as many discriminated against those who practiced it and the elders had to correct them.

Homosexuality was fairly common in Rome. It was clearly illegal in Jewish law. So you can't claim it is a new thing that wasn't thought of back them, nor can you claim it was only done in closets and those who had no interest didn't know it existed.

I can't think of anything that says something about elections. However Leviticus 19:36-37 apply. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteryard, in weight, or measure. Just balances, just weights a just ephah and a just hin, shall ye have.

Yes I was studying Leviticus this week.

Re:The Floating Axe Gospel

[killjoe]

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.

Re:BYU?

[zoloto]

The students and faculty of BYU are some of the most curious people when it comes to discovering old artifacts of historical significance; especially of it being closely related to religious or early symbolic representations of their culture as to identify and understand the symbolism within the cultures. Thus, better enabling them to understand the scriptures in a cultural and spiritual way since the scriptures are literally littered with symbolism. Take a look at Isaiah sometime and tell me that's not difficult without understanding symbolism.

It's not that 'Mormons' aren't happy with the teachings, writings and 'second bible'. In fact they are, quite a bit. But anything of historical value within this direction of understanding culture and history is definitely what they're after.

~zo

You misunderstand

[Lifewish]

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.

You did know Vatican contributes to hard science?

[AHumbleOpinion]

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 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/va tican_observe_000716.html

FWIW, the dean of my chemistry department (at a state university) was a Catholic priest.

You need to read more carefully

[Fished]

Note that I said, "in its present form."

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.