British Library Puts Oldest Surviving Bible Online 568
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.'"
Finally... (Score:3, Insightful)
Making the most of it (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Potential for translations (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I plan on pointing out the major discrepencies as a sign that the bible is in fact fallible and has been manipulated to change it's message over the centuries.
What major discrepancies? Yes, there have been a few changes over the years by different translators, typos, etc. But I don't think any of them could be considered major. There are many different ways to translate things from any language. And there weren't any copiers back when the first books first came out. Yes, we can't pretty much be guaranteed that Paul's letters that are in the bible differ slightly from those Paul himself wrote. However, the message is kept constant. If you question the bible with several old sources, you would have to put the same scrutiny in a lot of other historical texts to make sure they haven't been manipulated through the ages where we have a whole lot less evidence than with the bible.
With several additonal books that aren't in the current versions one has to wonder why the "words of god" Would be left out.
Re:Genesis I (Score:1, Insightful)
Mod not down, lest ye be metammodded.
What a self serving troll. Not even as funny as the lolcat bible [lolcatbible.com].
It's all Greek to me (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Inferior translated holy works (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Inferior translated holy works (Score:3, Insightful)
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....)
Re:Potential for translations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The validity of this manuscript ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Making the most of it (Score:3, Insightful)
It does actually and literally rain cats and dogs. A few years ago I read about a storm where it rained frogs. That, indeed, is a BAD storm, one that contains tornados that can suck small animals ito the sky, where they'll land miles away. In 2006 it rained birds here in Springfield -- at least, judging by the vast number of dead birds in my neighborhood the next day. It also rained tree limbs, insulation, cardboard, nails, garbage, corrugated steel (which I saw in the tops of trees), and everything that wasn't nailed down and quite a few things that were nailed down. Two F-2 tornados make a category 1 hurricane look like a mild shower.
And that, in an oversimplified example, is why humankind went from one Christian church to over 23,000.
No, it went from one Christian church to many because the original was corrupted by men who pretended to be pious while actually being athiests, pulling all sorts of nonsense (like selling salvation). If your church is run by corrupt men, you need a new church.
Re:Crowdsource it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:1, Insightful)
It's true that Sinaticus's version of Mark doesn't contain a narration of the resurrection, or any post-resurrection appearances. However, its text assumes and implies as an absolute certainty that the resurrection is going to happen -- Jesus predicts his death, he tells the story of the temple being torn down and built up again in three days, and so on. So while it's interesting that the shorter ending of Mark is different, even though Mark is the oldest gospel, and even though most scholars think that the non-resurrection version is closer to what the original author wrote, we still don't have a version of any of the gospels that doesn't presume the resurrection as the basis of Christianity.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
if you helped lead a lie about a resurrection would you die because of it? Or would you simply shut up when people threatened you?
Let's see....
Crusades, kill the infedels.
Spanish Inquizition, kill those that dont agree, infedels.
Catholic church rips you a new anus when you question them, damned infidels!
The holy catholic church is incredibly powerful. Anyone challenging their stance is put as a nutjob to the world. (I wish we could go back to killing infidels!)
It's not just NT Greek (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow! Logic-fail!
Why would any of the followers of Islam fly to their deaths or blow themselves up if their religion was a lie?
Why would Christian American soldiers be ready to die for God and country (and oil) if it was a lie?
Why do all the people in insane asylums believe they are Napoleon or Jesus if it's JUST A LIE?!
Why do you lie?
~AA
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
A passionate nut is still a nut.
Re:Potential for translations (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me guess: you're either posting from somewhere outside America (most likely Europe), or you're Roman Catholic. American Evangelical Christians do not accept that the Bible is fallible, nor do they recognize denominations that do as actually being Christians! (Yes, as far as a large percentage of Americans are concerned, the Catholics are no more Christian than the Latter Day Saints or the Rastafarians or the Tibetan Buddhists.)
Being Christian definitely does not mean you're a "religious nutjob" as GPP suggested, but, on the other hand, thinking that Christians are all religious nutjobs is not an entirely unreasonable position for an American. In America, those that aren't are very nearly lost in the noise (the nutjobs are very noisy), and can be dismissed as a statistical anomaly if you're not paying careful attention.
Frankly, if some of the sane and smart Christian out there (and I know they're out there) would speak out more often and more loudly against the religious nutjobs who proclaim so vehemently that they are the only true Christians, I would have a lot more respect for Christians in general.
Furthermore you reveal your own prejudices when you assume that someone who doesn't approve of the Christian nutjobs must be an atheist. I assure you that there are plenty of Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Unitarians, Pagans, just plain agnostics, and even a fair number of Christians (especially Catholics) who would be just as happy to slap these fruitcakes who claim to be the One True Christians with a common-sense fact or two.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, kill himself and convince 39 followers to commit suicide if the whole thing about the space ship following the comet was a lie? It seems certain people can't cope with reality so fantasise that they're here for some greater purpose and will go to extreme lengths to complete that delusion.
Re:Inferior translated holy works (Score:4, Insightful)
...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
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul wrote NO Gospel.
His are the epistles. Long after the four gospels.
He was already polluted with Hellenised Judeo/Roman Levantine religion: he was an enforcer of the Orthodoxy before his conversion. Christianity had no orthodoxy at his arrival on the scene - so he constructed it for his unresolved needs and the social/psychological needs of intended mission.
His epistles explicitly define and defend this new orthodoxy. Ultimately, Saul changed his name and religion - but the fundamental nature of his being remained unconverted from one thing to another. His role was the same, and his intention unchanged and unrepentant.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:5, Insightful)
But it isn't responding to a troll, PKD is correct.
They should call it Paulism instead of Christianity.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:5, Insightful)
He saw there was more money in it?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know, why don't you ask the "Heaven's Gate" cult members.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
...well-written retort to a troll post.
Really? Asking why people would go to their grave believing a lie is somehow deep? There have been a helluva lotta people that have gone to their graves believing contradicting things. Even if you believe that one subset of them had it right, most of them had it wrong. Dying for a belief does not necessarily make your belief correct, it just means that you believed it strongly or had other motivators.
Just because somebody decides to be a martyr (or in Paul's case leave an easy life for a tough one) does not mean that they were thinking critically and rationally.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the people that died here [wikipedia.org] believed in a much later resurrection and died for that belief. It doesn't make Koresh Jesus.
(And he's far from the first resurrected Jesus that has inspired his disciples to follow him unto death.)
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
My belief gives me enough reason to continue living. I don't need a fairy tale to help others and follow the same morals that have been around since before Christ was a glint in Mary's eye. You know
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Potential for translations (Score:3, Insightful)
What major discrepancies? Yes, there have been a few changes over the years by different translators, typos, etc. But I don't think any of them could be considered major. There are many different ways to translate things from any language. And there weren't any copiers back when the first books first came out. Yes, we can't pretty much be guaranteed that Paul's letters that are in the bible differ slightly from those Paul himself wrote.
Well, the debate between if the commandment is "Thou shall not kill" or "Thou shall not murder" is a pretty major discrepancy to me. Here, one word makes a huge impact on the actual message. Is killing always wrong, or is it ok in self defense? Contrary to what you think, a simple typo CAN change the message. We'd need other copies aroudn the same age to really compare, since later copies may have all "standardized" on the same message, even though that chosen standard is not what the older texts said.
Just because they aren't in everyone's Wal-Mart bibles doesn't mean that they aren't studied, just that most Christians and the early church doubted that they came from God.
So, how exactly DO you decide if the books in question are the word of god or not? You can say they are studied all you want, but if the religion doesn't accept them as word of god, then it calls into question just how they decide what is or isn't the word of god. That doesn't sound like god then, it sounds like man making the story he wants to control others.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
The disciples (all but one of which died a martyr's death) all would have KNOWN that what they were dying for were a lie if Jesus had not really risen from the dead.
Or, they thought that Jesus was right, in spite of actual solid proof. You know, faith.
Re:Bible 0.1.1-beta (Score:2, Insightful)
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. [wikipedia.org] 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.
Re:Potential for translations (Score:3, Insightful)
If you question the bible with several old sources, you would have to put the same scrutiny in a lot of other historical texts to make sure they haven't been manipulated through the ages where we have a whole lot less evidence than with the bible.
Would that be so bad? If the historical evidence for Julius Caesar is as flimsy as the historical evidence for Jesus, I'm more than willing to doubt the existence of Caesar.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:5, Insightful)
Judging Truth based on how many people believe it -- particularly when those people died 2000 years ago -- is beyond asinine.
Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED (Score:2, Insightful)
C'mon. Why is it that people who are otherwise intelligent, rational thinkers suddenly turn that part of their brains off when it is time to attack Christianity?
because its convenient. or rather, that the bible is inconvenient. it teaches that man is not the highest power in existence and that we have a moral obligation to a higher being. that goes head to head against humanism. Why do you think people get so fired up against bible believers?
its true that christians are stereotypically hot-headed as well, but i believe that behaviour is more a sign of immaturity. we believers need to learn that it is not in our interests to force people to believe the bible - thats is a worthless goal. the bible offers hope - if people dont want to listen, that is their choice.
God offers people that they can live out ~70 years pleasing themselves, or take up the offer of everlasting life serving Him. He is not a cruel, heartless being, much the opposite. but this is a life choice. The majority of people would rather 70 years of self-service. I prefer the latter option.
If you knock my beliefs, I'll knock yours...