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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.'"
But is it wiki'd so that people can make corrections to it?
1 In the begining was the psot. And it was frist.
2 And yea, I faileth it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm really interested to see what different translators come up with. Now that it's been made available, there is going to be a wonderful opportunity to compare translations and interpretations from a much more 'original' source.
Though, I have this nagging feeling that "And it was Good" might also be interpreted as "Sorry for the inconvenience."
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
..... and the old priest looked at the original copy, and came out crying.
When asked why, he looked at the young novice and said "the word is CELEBRATE not CELIBATE"
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
a good use for technology instead of just another way to twitter/facebook/blog what you had for lunch.
1600 years old, from earlier manuscripts that pre-date Constantine's adoption of Christianity as a state religion.
It has no mention of a resurrection.
For example, St Mark's Gospel ends 12 verses before later, revised, versions - omitting the appearance of the resurrected Jesus Christ.
The incorporation of Osiris/Attys/Adonis/Mithras cultism, which dominated the eastern empire with it's symbolic resurrection theology was key to the success of Constantine's venture. It was so deeply held a belief, the bishops under Constantine may not even have realized they were fabricating and innovating.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Sinaiticus is arguably one of the most important discoveries in the history of the textual transmission of the New Testament. Add an exciting controversy involving either idiot Greek monks who had quite literally dumped it in the wastepaper bin or a conniving Russian manuscript hunter-turned-thief making up lies to cover his crimes and you've got a great story that never fails to turn up fundraising dollars.
That said, I wish they could produce software for the examination of the codex that doesn't suck. But because they refuse to release the database of manuscript photos for public download (even though, at least in the United States, those images are uncopyrightable and therefore in the public domain) enterprising folks like me can't build a better system and give it away to people. So you have to suffer with their terrible system if you want to examine the manuscript. It's typical conservator behavior, building unnecessary walls against access to information that should be free.
We really really need to start making sure that digital copies of the ancient literary patrimony are available for free with no conditions -- i.e., in the public domain, but apparently everyone is too interested in fighting for scarce research grant dollars to produce something that all of their academic competitors could use.
How do you calculate "life of author" if the author exists outside of time? Should we just assume that the clock starts ticking in 1882?
This work should be helpful in the translation issues that some scholars and theologians have faced, or worse, perpetuate.
IMO, the most difficult problems in Bible translations is (1) bias based on a reader's idea of what things say and (2) literallist POVs that don't consider that idiom and metaphors in the text shouldn't be taken (ahem) as gospel. One example from a Catholic apologist is the modern statement "it's raining cats and dogs." We today know that means "it's raining very heavily." Write that down in a book, bury it for 2,000 years. What would people then think that phrase means. A literalist will honestly think that cats and dogs fell from the sky. A person skilled not only in translation but in the culture of the time knows it to be a figure of speech--and will NOT change the wording despite that understanding.
And that, in an oversimplified example, is why humankind went from one Christian church to over 23,000. It's become a matter of bad translation and/or interpretation.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
From the images they have of the document, it gives "its all Greek to me" a whole new meaning, and it prompts important questions, spiritally meaningful questions, like: What year did we invent the spacebar anyhow?
stuff |
If there's a substantial OT manuscript dating to the 4th cent. BCE on consensus then I'd love to see it.
The reason why Sinaiticus is so important is because it substantially a transcript of what is agreed to be the most accurate record of the original text of the New Testament. It's called the "Alexandrian text-type." Almost all of the tiny fragments that predate the fourth century (and they are very scanty indeed) agree with the text of Sinaiticus extensively. As a result, Bible scholars believe that the alterations we find in later manuscripts are untrustworthy corruptions rather than viable alternate readings.
As to the textual corruption that took place in the late first and second centuries AD we have very little evidence and therefore no remedy. Christians believe that God would not have permitted His word to be corrupted beyond our ability to understand it. I am an atheist and work extensively on ancient Greek textual criticism so you can imagine I do not have much patience for this point of view, but the fact is that the New Testament is the most well-attested ancient Greek or Latin text still in existence. Even Vergil's Aeneid, for which we have three manuscripts predating the fifth century CE, is not supported so well, and in the cases like the tragedies of Sophocles we are on much shakier footing.
1. Author: God
2. Lifespan: Eternal
3. Copyright: Eternity + 50 years
4. ???
5. Profit!
The Qu'ran is over 500 years younger than much of the New Testament, and well over a thousand years younger than the Old Testament. That's like bragging that Macbeth is better than the Norse Sagas because we have a much better textual history for Shakespeare's plays than for Nordic mythology. In other words, it's a moronic, childish argument.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It is one more reason why the true followers of God look down on all other competing theologies.
Which is very nice, except everyone else also believes themselves to be true followers of God, has their own reasons for believing this and doesn't really care too much that the Koran hasn't changed.
(On a side note - the Koran may not have been translated but it must have been transcribed back in the days before printing presses. Further, I wonder if some words in Arabic have acquired slightly different meanings over the years....)
The oldest complete Old Testment dates to the medieval period. The oldest complete manuscripts of a single book are part of the Dead Sea Scrolls which date to the second or third century AD. There are pieces of OT books in artifacts that are from the BC period, but not much.
We, honestly, know a lot more about the NT than we do the OT because of the larger manuscript collection.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
If you look into 1 Timothy, chapter 3 -
"2: A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3: Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
4: One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
5: (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)"
you will see that it was not the intention of the church founders that priests should be celibate.
You also need to understand the world view of the people who were writing it. Understanding NT Greek is a lot more than just a reading knowledge. It's the "lifetime study" category of things, which is why this document is of very little use to so many people. (And no, I know just enough to have an idea of the sheer amount I don't know.) It's a bit like putting the data from the LHC on line for anybody to look at; very few if any people who don't currently have access will be able to draw any meaningful conclusions from it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Missing references? Here's your reference, straight from the Codex Sinaiticus itself.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
...Mock all you want...
--------
Not that I need your permission, but I mock the Qur'an and any other religious text any chance I get, as they are all based on the same absurd premise, namely omnipotence.
You are comparing ONE work of ONE person in "completeness" to the bible, of which the youngest parts are a few centuries older, by several authors, originally in several languages.
But that's not your point. You bizarrely agree that chopping off hands is fair, in the same post where you claim that your god is the "truest" :)
I live in Denmark, and I'm extremely proud that the gov'ment didn't bow to the pressure and apologise for what a private newspaper printed, or even punished them. This was after massive
protests and demands from countries that didn't quite understand the idea that freedom of expression isn't up for discussion, and the government was indeed powerless to punish something
that wasn't illegal.
I've seen religion destroy so much it pains me. /end rant
Actually, the "corruptions" appear in every new Bible. They are listed in the footnotes. The King James text actually contains all of them in the text itself. This dynamic is well understood and nobody is freaking out over it.
Also, Papyrus fragments predating Siniaticus contain most of the New Testament if you look at all of them as a whole. There is far more agreement than disagreement between the mass, which is to be expected if you understand copying and textual criticism.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I would think that the Bono Act would have ensured that this work was still under copyright.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Tried finding it, didn't. Did find this but that's only a few days shy of a year ago.
But the wiki mentions:
In June 2005, a team of experts from the UK, Europe, Egypt, Russia and USA undertook a joint project to produce a new digital edition of the manuscript (involving all four holding libraries), and a series of other studies was announced.
No, what they reveal is the tremendous accuracy of today's modern translations compared to the papyrii and codeces of antiquity. After all, consider the state of Christianity in the first few centuries A.D. - a bunch of "heretics", hated by the Jews, persecuted by the Romans, and driven underground. It was in that environment that the gospels and letters of Paul, Peter, John, etc. were copied, distributed, re-copied, distributed some more, etc.
Were there transcription errors? Sure. You try copying something the size of the Bible in secret, by hand, while fearing for your life! But we can reconstruct the original readings of the books of the NT with tremendous accuracy.
Your insistence that Christians must equate "the literal word of God" with "infallible transcriptions, every single time a book of the Bible is copied" is just plain wrong. That's not what most Christians believe. They believe that the method God used to preserve the text was to have it copied quickly and widely before any single organization could control the process and make "secret" alterations to the Scripture. (Conspiracy theorists who hint darkly about secret councils that burned books or suppressed certain ancient Christian beliefs tend to forget that, even if that was possible, there were no such organizations or counsels like that for many, many centuries . Compare that with Uthman Ibn Affan, who decided which copy of the Qur'an would be canonical, then gathered together and burning all other copies that differed from the official version. Christianity has nothing like that.
Actually, the "corruptions" appear in every new Bible. They are listed in the footnotes. The King James text actually contains all of them in the text itself. This dynamic is well understood and nobody is freaking out over it.
Well, nobody who practices Christianity. It's an example of deliberate blindness to textual defects that would cause infinitely more doubt and discussion if their context was not as emotionally felt as one's relationship with one's God. These variants were never problems in the early church and they are not not in Catholicism and the Orthodox churches because there is a very long tradition among them that church fathers, even today, can transmit to their followers the ultimate meaning of God's message and effectively channel God's will through themselves. Protestants are long since severed from that tradition, and their dependence on the determinacy of the text destroys the power of their message. I'm convinced that you cannot have a good knowledge of the history of the textual transmission of the Bible and be a Protestant.
Papyrus fragments predating Siniaticus contain most of the New Testament if you look at all of them as a whole.
That's possibly true but totally irrelevant. The intrinsic reliability of a papyrus fragment is not determined by its age, and if you try to piece together a text based on nothing but papyri of completely different provenances and values you're going to get a Frankentext that looks far worse than even a comparatively late but integral and complete exemplar. I am extremely well-trained in textual criticism and I don't appreciate your snarky comments. If you want to whip out your degrees I'd be happy to compare, but don't think that passive-aggressive appeals to what you think is my lack of understanding will help you.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, "First Post!".
I can't read either form of archaic Greek, you insensitive clod!
Conspiracy theorists who hint darkly about secret councils that burned books or suppressed certain ancient Christian beliefs tend to forget that, even if that was possible, there were no such organizations or counsels like that for many, many centuries .
Um... What about the Apocrypha
No seriously. What about it? It is there and it is real. This isn't a conspiracy theory. Why isn't that in the Bible? Why are the dead sea scrolls different from what we have today?
And why does the Orthodox and Western Bibles differ slightly since the schism?
Secondly what remains of other religions of the time that we still have records of? Like Druidism which the Romans persecuted as much as the Christians. Of course they weren't destroyed on purpose, it is just that 2,000 has a toll on ancient documents (including fires of libraries) and that most people at the time didn't have a need to keep documents that weren't deemed official by the Church.
Most people couldn't read bad then so they didn't know... The few people who could read and write started copying the official versions when they came out in 400AD and from there the old copies were simply lost because of time problems.
Not to mention that for Europeans owning any non-approved paper work in the 1500 to 1600s were put to the stake so if they had any ancient heretical texts they most likely burned them at that time as well. Every now and then we find something like the dead seas scrolls and we find out differences.
It isn't a conspiracy, but Europe in general was a great place to store non-official religious texts long term for 2,000 years.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
It survived because : [Source - http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/charter1.html%5D In 628 C.E. Prophet Muhammad (s) granted a Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai. It consisted of several clauses covering all aspects of human rights including such topics as the protection of Christians, freedom of worship and movement, freedom to appoint their own judges and to own and maintain their property, exemption from military service, and the right to protection in war. An English translation of that document is presented below. This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).
Compare that with Uthman Ibn Affan, who decided which copy of the Qur'an would be canonical, then gathered together and burning all other copies that differed from the official version. Christianity has nothing like that.
You were doing great up until this point, friend. You make it sound like Uthman moved unilaterally and without consulting anyone, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. Even before Uthman, in the time of Abu Bakr's caliphate, there were complete copies of the Qur'an. The order of the chapters, however, differed from copy to copy. What Uthman did was gather those who'd learned the Qur'an from the Prophet himself into a committee and ask them to come up with a standardized order. The committee consulted with other people who'd memorized the Qur'an, as well as with other copies of the text, to make sure there was no discrepancy, and then created the authoritative text of the Qur'an.
You'll note that unlike the Bible, there are no alternate versions or editions of the Qur'an, and no amount of research has produced noteworthy differences between copies. In fact, most scholars, western and eastern, believe that the Qur'an contains the exact words as spoken by the Prophet with little variation at all. I doubt the same can be said for the Bible.
Ne Cede Malis.
True, religion has destroyed so much; however, much much more has been destroyed by the anti- or non-religious (e.g., Stalin's Communism or Nazism {even though Nazis called themselves Christians, the atrocities of the Nazis were not done "in the name of religion" other than trying to eliminate those of particular belief sets and/or religions [most prominently Jewish]}).
Modern democracy is based on Judeo-Christian principles. I'll quote from an insightful essay on the matter:
"It is this point that I wish to make, and it is also one of the points made by Nietzsche in his Master-Slave morality, that the concept of equality, of legal, political and social equality is derived from Judeo-Christian morality. As Nietzsche puts it in Section 202 of his book Beyond Good and Evil, 'the Democratic movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement.'" (http://quantumleap42.blogspot.com/2009/06/religious-origins-of-our-democratic.html)
For every bad thing done in the name of religion, I can counter with many more good things done in the name of religion. We shouldn't resort to straw man arguments.
I do not live in Denmark but I too am glad that the Danish government did not bow to pressure from extremist Muslims. Besides, Islamic terrorists hold a very twisted view of Islam that very few other Muslims hold. What the few do that's negative in the name of religion should not reflect on broader religious beliefs. That's like focusing only on what America "destroys" while completely ignoring all the good that comes from America (this example holds true for Denmark as well).
True, religion has destroyed so much; however, much much more has been destroyed by the anti- or non-religious (e.g., Stalin's Communism or Nazism {even though Nazis called themselves Christians, the atrocities of the Nazis were not done "in the name of religion" other than trying to eliminate those of particular belief sets and/or religions [most prominently Jewish]}).
Bullshit. It's amazing how hard christians try to hide the fact that Hitler was a lifelong catholic and so were his followers. Hitler sought -- and received -- support from the catholic church. Later on that proved to be quite an embarrassment for which the church had to apologize.
Stalin is an interesting case. He was educated in a religious primary school and then in a seminary. He gave up his christian faith only to create a state-based religion with him as some sort of demi-god. [Similar examples can be seen in ancient Egypt (pharao was "god"), imperial China, modern North Korea, etc.]
Modern democracy is based on Judeo-Christian principles. I'll quote from an insightful essay on the matter:
Bullshit again. Show me where the bible or torah or whatever advocates a democratic system of government. Don't quote what some guy said about some other guy who wrote some book you never read. You are a christian -- go directly to the supposed source of your values, the bible. The bible I'm familiar with advocates slavery, genocide, torture, rape, collective punishment, human sacrifice, etc.
For every bad thing done in the name of religion, I can counter with many more good things done in the name of religion. We shouldn't resort to straw man arguments.
I would argue that there are far more bad things than good that are done in the name of religion. The chief problem with it is that it requires you to surrender critical thinking. It values unquestioning obedience, even when someone tells you to do something clearly immoral.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Hey, do you mind if I ask you a tangential question since it seems like you know what you're talking about? A while back I ran across some discussion over whether Jesus was an actual historical figure or a mythical one. There's a Wikipedia article with a summary and a much longer article with some more detailed arguments, for instance. Have you heard of any of this, and if so, do you have an opinion on it? I've been hoping to find another point of view, but most of what I've run across is from Christians who seem more interested in defending their faith than anything else.
Visit the
Modern democracy may be based on Judeo-Christian principles. But so were monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, feudal states, slave states, apartheid states, genocidal states, etc.
As much as I dislike religion (I don't think I need to go into why), it is a powerful force for good as well as evil. Just as any human institution can be a powerful force for good or evil. Equal amounts of good and evil are done by the religious and non-religious alike.