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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.
There are people who do believe that the King James version is the "inspired" Word of God. I don't fully understand why would they consider a translation the "inspired" one.
From a religious point of view, if there is anything inspired, it would be the first version in its original language. So the closer you get to the original ones, theoretically would be the better.
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.
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...
What do you expect from Slashdot? Honesty? That's a laugh.
The Bible is not a book. It is a collection of books. The New Testament is a collection of what were considered the best sources available: mostly books and letters.
You might understand better if you knew what faith was and why people have it.
inspired in this case does not mean it is "over other books", or "very special" - it means, that the rough parts of translation were made in such a right sense, that it kind of reflects the original meaning.
inspired also means, it is not translated word by word. which would be very dangerous for people, reading a book that old, withouth knowing about the habits in this era, can lead to extreme one sided reading of the bible, and a lot of misunderstandings.
Warning: Religious POV ahead...
I could comment on the Catholic one, it is so true, well at least in our area (or at least with the devouts). People ( not just Catholics ) would tend to follow their religion blindly even if it contradicts with the Bible (or their religious texts)
I had encountered some that rants that they're doing this and that and that they're not doing this and that... I sometimes would ask them if what they're doing is in the Bible (or the other way around, i.e. they're not doing the things stated in the Bible) (or any other religious text)
I often get the answer that the leaders of their sect tells so. I would tell them that it is pointless to contradict or not follow your "manual" or "foundation". Well my point is moot to them most of the time.
Conclusion: Most of the religions use the Bible as a front. If it contradicts their purpose, they would ignore that part. If it is not there and they like to do it, they would still do it.
okay back to regular programming..
You say it like people don't use and extreme one sided reading of the bible when they want to justify something and don't already suffer from a lot of misunderstandings.
Having the devil cast into a fiery pit with his minions, then everyone else going to a massive city made of gold and gems to live with God and Jesus isn't a happy ending for Christians?
Have you read it?
which is totally what she said
There's no point trying to counter faith with facts. Many people have *faith* that the Catholic church, and/or Christianity in general, has all kinds of weird, sinister practises and beliefs. That faith is part of how they define themselves and how they build their worldview, and presenting facts will get the reaction you'd expect whenever facts are held up against cherished beliefs. They can always pick some weird incident or some isolated remark or some urban legend or something they think they read in the Da Vinci code or something and focus on that. Like that guy posting just down from here about how his father got caned by the Maris Brothers (sounds like a circus act, but I'm going to assume they were monks). See how this one anecdote about how his family like to be educated by loons justifies the whole belief structure?
The Real WTF (tm) is that this conflict needs to be *constantly repeated* on the internet when there might otherwise be scope for actual discussion. For example, you'd think there could be actual discussion of the interesting textual and linguistic points raised by the Codex Sinaiticus, but there isn't, because thousands of teenagers will jump in going 'LOL this book has been translaited and the translaitions vary haha' first.
Having the Codex Sinaiticus online is very useful for anyone who may be interested in being able to compare early editions of one of the world's most importand (and textually complicated) books. The fact that some bits from the end of Mark are left out (and a few extra bits added on) is hardly the only interesting point -- the whole document is a vital palaeographical record. Not everyone has a copy lying around and there are *some* people out there striving for scholarship, ya know, among the whining voices of faith.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Wow, are you right! Why, if the Codex' Gospel of Mark was written in the 4th Century BCE as the headline says, then they had three centuries to revise it before the events even happened!
As it is, I (a Christian) do not intend to get very upset about this... much of the Bible does not speak of the resurrection, though much of it does.
Even Christ had to point out some of the finer points to the Sadduccees (God is a God of the living, not the dead; but says "I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" to Moses. Therefore, they must be living.)
Aside from that, conspiracy theorists always go over the deep end, making much out of nothing. Anti-Christian conspiracy theorists are no different.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I think it is funny to see the religions getting together to get rid of Atheists. It is like George Bush and Saddam Hussein getting together to get rid of pacifists.
(And then, there are some of us who believe that, even if you had the originals and were fluent in the original language, you'd still have to read under inspiration from God to get a full and perfect understanding of the text.)
So there are almost no christians who have a perfect understanding of the text? I mean if the language requirement cuts out a huge percentage of readers, and then they would have to not only feel the inpiration to read for perfect understanding, but also have access to the text at the time of inspiration. How many christians could that possibly be?
I live in a small rural town in the midwest FULL of christians (more than two dozen churches) who think they have a true understanding of the word. So out of 9,000 people, how many could really know what they say they know? Why are the rest of them fooling themselves?
What are the odds that the ones who knock at my door have a clue?
And how can I tell the difference?
C.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
They weren't the "best sources available." They chose the books that supported a particular set of theological views. They destroyed the rest that they could find, and persecuted the sects that held different views. Historical accuracy was the objective.
All the oldest writings the find are only parts of the bible, most often in different languages ranging from greek, latin, vulgar latin, hebrew and aramaic and the like.
For anyone studying the bible from a non-religious perspective, it is obvious that the bible is a patchwork of stories written by different individuals at different times in different languages.
Some of these stories made the final cut, some did not and were forgotten, while others live on as semi-official religious works (I'm not sure of the correct term in english, but in university I studied a great work that tells about Jesus going to hell to pick up all the persons there who couldn't have known about the true belief because he did not yet spread it).
If you have been raised with a certain translation as reference and the notion that this is the word of god, I can imagine that accepting that god delivered his words piecemeal through different individuals and that some other individuals decided what was his word and what was not can be quite confronting.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Somehow, kdawson just seeks out the worst submissions with the most errors and posts them. He has an excellent track record at this.
I myself believe in GOD, I just don't believe in the bible. As I've always said. The bible is a book written by man to control man. I have no faith in churches either, they are just a conduit to try to push the "Christian belief" onto it's masses. I'm not saying that the Christian/Catholic mindset is wrong but the measures that the "Church" have used for centuries to gain it's powers go against it's very "word". How many wars have been fought due to religion in general. How many countless individuals have been killed due to "religion" I don't think GOD would be happy that people are using him as a reason to kill someone else just because they don't agree with them. One of the supposed 10 commandments are "thou shall not kill", not "thou shall not kill unless one disagrees with your religious belief"
I could go on and on but I'll stop here. This post is in no way meant to anger anyone but if it happens then well........
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
Neat! The same is true of horoscopes and fortune cookies!
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