Slashdot Mirror
British Library Puts Oldest Surviving Bible Online
Peace Corps Library writes "BBC reports that about 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible, the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript, have been recovered and put on the Internet. 'The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures,' says Dr. Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. 'This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation.' The New Testament of the Codex Sinaiticus appears in Koine Greek, the original vernacular language, and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery until it was found in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany, and Britain. It is thought to have survived because the desert air was ideal for preservation and because the monastery, on a Christian island in a Muslim sea, remained untouched, its walls unconquered. The British Library is marking the online launch of the manuscript with an exhibition which includes a range of historic items and artifacts linked to the document. 'The availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago.'"
All these revisions ought to successfully reveal the "literal word of God" to be a pile of horsecrap. The "literal word of God" was decided by many committees of fallible men many times over that originated from unoriginal tall tales passed down by oral tradition for thousands of years.
Oh dear, all the cults that have built up a belief system based on some come-back-to-life myth are going to be pissed.
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Trolling is a art,
Contrast this book with the Holy Koran, which has not changed one iota since it was written, and is still readable in its original language. When the Holy Koran says something, it *means* it. "As for the man who steals and the woman who steals, cut off their hands as punishment for what they have earned, an exemplary punishment from God" is a real command from the real God who really exists (yes it's a translation into English, now get all po-mo on it). Other holy books go through revisions, get translated, have pages lost, etc etc - they can hardly be called the True Word of God at all. Mock all you want, this is deadly serious business to millions of people who share the world you live in. It is one more reason why the true followers of God look down on all other competing theologies.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
My king James version is more accurate