Slashdot Mirror
World's Oldest Bible Going Online
99luftballon writes "The British Museum is putting online the remaining fragments of the world's oldest Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus dates to the fourth century BCE and was discovered in the 19th century. Very few people have seen it due to its fragile state — that and the fact that parts of it are in collections scattered across the globe. It'll give scholars and those interested their first chance to take a look. However, I've got a feeling that some people won't be happy to see it online, since it makes no mention of the resurrection, which is a central part of Christian belief."On Thursday the Book of Psalms and the Gospel According to Mark will go live at the Codex Sinaiticus site. The plan is to have all the material up, with translations and commentaries, a year from now.
It would be a neat trick to have a gospel of Matthew from the fourth century BCE. It should be CE (or AD).
This text is NOT the same text as what was compiled during the Council of Nicaea in 325. Nor is it the same as the Vatican bible. It is a third text written/compiled between 330-350. T
Where to start, where to start...
First of all, there's some dispute as to whether Sinaiticus is indeed the oldest -- a cursory Google will show that Codex Vaticanus is believed by some to be older.
Second, it's patently untrue that Sinaiticus "makes no mention of the resurrection". The version of the gospel of Mark in it omits the last passage where Jesus appears to his disciples, but other post-resurrection appearances occur in the other gospels -- and even the Sinaiticus Mark version ends with an angel's pronouncement that he has risen. You can read an English translation for yourself here.
First, as others have pointed out, the Codex is from the 4th century CE (i.e. "AD") rather than BCE (or "BC").
Second, saying "it makes no mention of the resurrection" is inaccurate. It doesn't contain the final 8 verses from Mark's Gospel, which have been considered to be a late addition for years and are usually square-bracketed in modern Bible editions.
However, if you actually *read* Mark's Gospel, it has plenty of references to the resurrection of Jesus earlier in the text. Plus the Codex Sinaiticus also includes the other three Gospels, all of which include post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
But apart from misdating the document by 800 years, misstating the impact of putting it online and misrepresenting the likely attitude of Christians to its publication, the summary is fine...
This is a misleading statement by the poster and the article itself. The post-resurrection text in Mark (which is the only text the article seems to mention is in contention) has always been recognized by the modern Christian church as not appearing in the earliest manuscripts. Don't take my word for it; pick up the latest NIV Bible and look at Mark 16:9-20. It most likely mentions this very fact.
The article only mentions the text in Mark missing. From the article:
Unfortunately, you still need to deal with the resurrection stories in the other three gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) as well as the Old Testament references such as Psalms 16:10.
However Mark 16:6, which is included, still declares the resurection:
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him."
Additionally, the article only refers to the book of Mark as making no reference to the resurection. No mention is made of the other three gospels.
See Mark 16 in the Wikipedia
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
I think the grandfather comment was a reminder of how the Catholic Church has been known to react toward "open sourcing" their knowledges. One of the big differences between Catholics and Protestants was that Catholics were not allowed to read the bible. In fact it was illegal to own a Bible at home (in XVIIth century France at least)
The Index (of forbidden books) was updated until the Vatican II council (1966) and is still considered by the Holy See to have a moral value as a list of the books one should prevent oneself from reading.
The general feeling is that the Roman Catholic Church's main dogma is the "the doctrine is the truth" so if something seems to be the truth outside of the doctrine, it is dangerous and should be fought. The Church is not known for its research centers trying to find archaeological proofs of the Bible or to correct its versions with the many manuscript fragments that are found regularly.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Muslims don't have a problem with dogs, they have a problem with *pet* dogs.
You can own a dog to protect your property or yourself, but it shouldn't be allowed into the house.
This will probably never get seen and not get modded up, but while you are correct in one sense you are not in another; as a Muslim let me explain:
A fundamental belief in Islam is that through the ages, the uncorrupted Bible became rife with revisions and mistakes - the resurrection of Jesus being a prime example (the other big one being the trinity). For Muslims then, this version of the Bible bolsters the belief that Christianity during the time when Islam was beginning, was corrupted - not the word of God, but the word of man, if you will.
Without these changes there isn't a need for Islam because Islam (like Christianity) and Muslims perceive Islam as a correction to faiths before it.
I say all this as a Muslim and you are right - most Muslims do and all should respect the other people of the book (and other faiths as well - I was born in the West and other people's religions are none of my business). Moreover, there is an overlap in the views of people of faith especially extremists): Muslim-Americans voted in droves for George W. Bush in droves the first time around because they saw the Christian's right family/conservative values issues as overlapping with their own (as a small L liberal I found that particularly disgusting and as a result refuse to have anything to do with CAIR, who endorsed Bush).
Some Muslims may see a "hierarchy of infidels" but I think calling anyone an infidel, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, is pretty blasphemous myself.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
The slashdot article is wrong. The codexsinaiticus website says it's 1600 years old, which would put it at about 400AD (or 400CE for the politcally correct crowd), not 400BC.
-- Soruk
Actually it is both in Latin and in Greek, and arameic, and hebrew, and ... The versions that were accepted as bible were initally spread with greek and latin versions of the same text on facing pages, or only the latin text.
You are correct that greek is the original language of the bible (well actually a syrian arameic dialect for most of the bible, but most of the new testament was indeed originally written down in greek), but the versions that were actually used were latin, not greek.
Latin is certainly the language of the bible, despite the book being originally written in greek. And the bible and the church were the main motivation, and the main people for the renaissense to push latin as a language.
For comparison, muslims use an arabic quran. However the quran was written in kufic script of a southern arameic dialect, which has long been a dead language that noone has understood for more than a millenium, and even an arabic linguist would not be able to read the few orignal verses that remain, nor can you learn either arameic or kufic anywhere in the islamic world (google "christopher luxenberg" for the description of someone who actually tries to understand it). Arameic and arabic are of the same family, but then again so are English and Parsi (example farsi site)
So, if it was dated to 4 BCE (thats BC for you christians who havn't adopted the new format for dates) ... how does it have the gospel of mark (which was written after christ?)
Because whoever wrote the summary has trouble with dates. The article makes it clear:
Handwritten in Greek more than 1,600 years ago
...or the very first line:
The oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, a 4th century version that had its Gospels and epistles spread across the world, is being made whole again â" online.
How sad is it that neither the editor nor the first poster bothered to check the article for errors, especially one involving 800 years?
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
This news is great, we could actually see one of the oldest copies around. Part of me truly wonders how many more manuscripts (religious or not) would have been available today if people back then don't have the habit of burning every piece of paper they dislike.
Religious book burnings are only part of it. Try to imagine what went up in smoke when the great library of Alexandria burned (mostly as a result of warfare). Modern archeologists and historians find it hard to even contemplate that loss. Fortunately, once in a while we do get very, very, lucky:
The Oxyrhynchus papyri, not religious texts and much of the material was mundane public and private stuff like invoices, edicts and tax records but valuable to archeologists.
The Villa of the Papyri, IMHO by far one of the most spectacular discoveries yet. Much of it seems to consist of Epicurean texts but who knows what else is in there. The lost works of some of the great ancient historians and scientists? One can hope...
There are probably quite a few more such finds that deserve mention. Book burning and generally all efforts to suppress and destroy written material, be it religious or secular, are among of the worst manifestations of ignorance. We are fortunate that once in a while the efforts of these zealots and vandals are undone.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I believe that nobody has a perfect understanding... not myself, not the pastor of my church, nobody. That's not the point, as far as I can tell.
Most prophecy in the Bible is written so that it isn't obvious exactly when or how it will be fulfilled, until it has been fulfilled. For instance, the birth of the Messiah (or Christ) did not have a date, and nobody knew that he would be born in a feeding trough. The point is so that God can show the world that He has a plan, and that He has the power to fulfill it after it has been stated (in other words, he knows the future).
The unfulfilled prophecies, including those in the book of Revelation, are similar for us today. We don't know exactly when it will happen, or how. So, nobody has a perfect knowledge of it.
He's God... if He wants you to know a certain amount of the Bible, He can and will give you the insight to make it happen.
(For those who don't believe in God, please... please, spare me the comments on how I am stupid for my beliefs and how anyone living in a modern world who believes in God is insane... those comments are getting quite old, and prove nothing.)
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
1. The Codex Sinaiticus has been corrected by so many hands that it affords a most interesting and intricate problem to the palaeographer who wishes to disentangle the various stages by which it has reached its present condition...
2. Tischendorf identified four different scribes who were involved writing the original text. However, as many as ten scribes tampered with the codex throughout the centuries. Tischendorf said he "counted 14,800 alterations and corrections in Sinaiticus." Alterations, more alterations, and more alterations were made, and in fact, most of them are believed to be made in the 6th and 7th centuries.
3. There are glaring examples where one scribe had copied verses up to the end of the first, but when he looked up to his example again to continue copying, his eye fell upon the second occurrence of the phrase, from which he continued, omitting all of those words between the two occurrences of the phrase.
4. If you are not acquainted with the Greek, you can study the alterations and changes that have come into the New Testament by Sinaiticus and Vaticanus through Westcott and Hort by getting "The Doctored New Testament"
Google is your friend, not Wikipedia, nor Slashdot. Seek and ye shall find - Anonymous Coward 5:1
1. It was perverted from the start.
There's a lack of evidence to support that claim. There's no good reason to believe than any of the New Testament books were written after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. And we can see the full gospel message - resurrection for our sins all over the NT e.g. in books as early as 1 Corinthians written between AD 53 and 57 - less than 30 years after Jesus death. You want to say that both the NT and the OT have been changed by New Testament believers. The former is unlikely - there's an abundance of ancient NT manuscripts (20,000 by some counts) which are identical by and large, no evidence for this process of accretions and deletions. The latter is impossible, because we have access to books of the OT from before the time of Jesus out of the dead sea scrolls. The eternal virginity of mary is not something that I'm concerned about. Clearly Jesus did have brothers - we hear about them in the NT. This is a late Roman Catholic thing. I'd like to hear more about Ebionites. Perhaps you can give me some credible references. It surprises that they're so small on the academic radar.
2. That wouldn't even be the end of massaging it into a different shape.
Fortunately because the sources for Christians today are so very good e.g. the Syniaticus, modern Christians can go back to the text and work out what the truth of the matter is. So we can make conclusions about things which are true for ourselves, and detect the things we've missunderstood. The good news as well is that new fragments are turning up all the time which take us back earlier toward the events, all giving greater support to the later codices that we have.
3. Which brings me to the point, they had no problem dealing with the Ebionites or with the Syriac churches which were a lot closer to where it all happened. They just proclaimed them heretics. I'm guessing it will be the same today. People will just proclaim this manuscript as some gnostic heresy, and continue as if nothing happened.
People claim things are gnostic heresies when there's *evidence* to suggest that they're heresies. e.g Muslims sometimes claim the 16th c. Gospel of Barnabus is in fact a true gospel account that the church has surpressed. But we know that this can't be true for all sorts of reasons. e.g. some soldiers are recorded rolling out barrels to be refilled with wine. But we know this impossible because there were no barrels until much later in the near east. This is an example of the application straight-forward tools that historians use every day.
Hope that helps. Joel
Sinaiticus has complete resurrection accounts in Matthew, Luke, and John and the entirety of Paul's resurrection theology (e.g. Romans). It doesn't have the post-resurrection appearences in Mark (the Gospel ends right when the disciples find the empty tomb), although it does have the pre-resurrection foretellings. It's also one of the four key texts behind the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, which is the basis behind nearly every modern Bible translation and what ministry candidates study in most North American seminaries. The problem with many of you atheists is that you assume Christians don't do any of their own textual criticism or historical research, therefore you don't do it, either.
The discovery of extant and reliable manuscripts does not invalidate the belief that the Christian Scriptures are God's words. If you carefully study the statements of faith of various conservative Christian groups, they will, almost invariably, note that they believe that [paraphrasing] "the Bible, God's word, is inspired and without error in its original languages and was written by men who were moved by God to do so". Most of their biblical study focuses on exegesis and hermeneutics, the former being an attempt for critical understanding of the text based on its original context and intended audience, and the latter being an attempt to find practical application of those texts to modern living.
As to the "evolution over time" argument, a careful study of the earliest manuscripts or their transcripts (there are tens of thousands of extant copies of the various gospels and epistles, and a significant number of these can even be traced into the first century AD) will show that none of the central tenets of Christianity undewent any modification since the earliest manuscripts. Portions that have been found to have been appended by other writers at other times (most likely well-meaning scribes or monks) have never been found in sections of the text that deal with the core beliefs of Christianity (e.g., virgin birth, miracles, death, resurrection--others have already addressed the issue of the recent Mark text not invalidating other internal references to resurrection). One of the most well-known examples of such an embelishment is the end of the "Lord's Prayer" [I'm typing from memory here]:
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our tresspasses
As we forgive those who tresspass against us
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil
For Thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
Forever and ever. Amen!
The final section (those lines in bold italics ) does not appear in the earliest and most trustworthy manuscripts. Modern translations that hold to high standards to scholarship omit those verses, or at least print them following a note the explains that they do not appear in the best manuscripts. If you take away those lines, no critical teachings of the Christian gospel have been compromised. In fact, they are sentiments expressed of God elsewhere in the Chritian Scriptures, including in the book of Psalms and in the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John.
Yes, while church leaders came together in the fourth century to formalize the official canon that is accepted today, history shows us that there were lists of accepted writings as early as the second century AD. Most scholars agree that no such list was needed during the first century, because many of the original witnesses, or the people who had received their direct accounts, were still living. The modern "conservative" or "fundamentalist" Christian sees the canonization of Scripture as a divinely sanctioned act that preserved only those texts that were necessary for the advancement of the Gospel. I find myself in a slightly different camp. While I believe God used canonization to preserve those writings that were passed on to this day, I believe there were likely other writings that were lost, either temporarily (yet to be discovered) or permanently (destroyed). The teachings of the Christian Scriptures encourage believers to critically examine all teachings to see if they align with the truth of the previously recognized Scriptures (the Old Testament--the Hebrew Law and Prophets, plust the Poems). In the letters of Peter, he places Paul's writings on the same level as Scripture in that day (during the first century), so there was an early acceptance that Paul's teachings of Christ's death and resurrection aligned with the Old Testament's prophecies of a suffering messiah who would
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Sigh. atheism is just the absence of believe in Gods. That's all. No rituals. No leaders. Belief in anything else, such as proper science, not required. Ergo. Not a religion.