1500 Year Old Bible Found, nobody want's to know - Could be real deal

a reply to: Grimpachi

It won't have any implications at all...

Christianity is stuck in their belief system... We could find a text written by the hand of Jesus himself...

Signed and dated with a artist rendition of his face on the back... and Christians would still believe exactly what they do

In fact IF Jesus himself came back... they would still believe the bible over him...

its just how Christianity works... they don't question... they have faith in their book

a reply to: Akragon

Now that gave me a chuckle. I had this image of Jesus trying to set people straight even doing a few tricks with everyone still ignoring him calling him a blasphemer.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: Grimpachi

It won't have any implications at all...

Christianity is stuck in their belief system... We could find a text written by the hand of Jesus himself...

Signed and dated with a artist rendition of his face on the back... and Christians would still believe exactly what they do

In fact IF Jesus himself came back... they would still believe the bible over him...

its just how Christianity works... they don't question... they have faith in their book

They'd try to convert him.

back on topic……

I've scratched together some scholars thoughts who have seen the limited photos we all have seen.

-Uncured skin not vellum = medieval

-The gold ink is odd, first thoughts make it younger than 1000 years old (but who knows aways a chance there is an exception to the rule)

-Use of the term "year of our lord" not used in old ancient Aramaic text (actually this is Syriac and matched Cypriot Syriac not ancient Aramaic, Or another possible source of the manuscript could be the Tur-Abdin area of Turkey, where there is still a Syriac speaking community)

-Use of the term pound was not a unit of measurement in 500ad, used first in the Ottoman empire. Turkish-Cypriot region possibly?

-The Syriac writing seems to be have vowel points, making it in the East Syriac script, meaning this wasn't around until the 15th century.

Charging 2 million for photocopy of a page, give me a break.

Granted, none of the arguments scraped together from photos of limited pages means anything unless the whole thing is reviewed by unbiased scholars.

An ancient fairy tale 500 years short.

And it still is no more relevant.

originally posted by: DeadSeraph

originally posted by: dr1234

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: shauny

I'm at a loss to explain why you feel this is some sort of victory over Christianity? This bible (should it prove to be authentic) is from 500 years after the events detailed in the gospels...

How exactly would this prove that Jesus wasn't crucified? Lots of people have claimed all kinds of ridiculous things about the life of Jesus hundreds and even thousands of years after he walked the earth. That doesn't necessarily make them true. If this particular bible predated the earliest known fragments/manuscripts of the gospels (which it doesn't), you might have a case.

As it stands, this is just another gnostic writing. There have been a wealth of them discovered which make a number of spurious claims that are not supported by the oldest and most reliable documents. For instance that Jesus killed people with his powers when he was a boy, or that Judas was actually his favorite disciple and Jesus asked Judas to betray him. Even certain roman historians made mention of Jesus crucifiction, much earlier than 500 AD.

Wrong, look into your roman historians, because you're wrong here.

Explain why you feel that way.

I don't feel that way, I know it to be a fact.

I assume you're reffering to Josephus, because if not you're even more lost than I can address.

rationalwiki.org...

This should help.

a reply to: Toadmund

Alrighty Toadmund - this is what I came up with. I'm heading off to bed, chiao!

Worship - Christians worship because God is love and loves us. Jesus died for us and we are grateful and understand the suffering and humiliation he went through. He was judged by God and separated from God and now we can stand in front of God and be pure in God’s sight. Our spirits want to worship God as God is “home” and we are in awe. It is a joy within our being and we want to praise him. It’s a form of love. And he deserves all our praise. The closest example I can give is that same feeling you have when looking at a spectacular sunset and you are struck by the moment of how mighty and pure and how you connect with it more than just on a human level - you want to share it with someone to experience the profoundness of it. This is the same thing except it’s one step more, of proclaiming, “You are great, you are mighty, you are my everything”.

Belly Button - I imagine Adam and Eve didn’t have one. But their children did as they grew in Eve’s placenta and were joined by the umbilical blood for blood and nourishment purposes.

Create but kill them - God is pure and evil cannot be in his presence. God has the right to destroy evil. People in ancient days were not following God’s rules and evil grew to the point where God couldn’t look upon it anymore. He meant to wipe all people out but always spared a few that had turned to him.

Punishes those that don’t believe - God doesn’t punish people. He will allow things to happen and sometimes use bad scenarios to show his works in people’s lives. God has allowed such freewill that he will not interfere. That is why prayer is so important so that we can pray on behalf of others.

Mother Theresa (a sadist) - never heard of this before. Upon looking it up online it may have something to do with the Catholic thinking that people have to suffer in order to find peace/redemption, work towards gaining acceptance into Heaven. I don’t know enough about her but would think it stems from her Catholic roots. Unfortunately many people think they have to work their way into heaven or suffer to gain access to heaven. The only thing you have to do to gain eternal life is accept Jesus as your Savior, proclaim him as lord and repent (change your ways).

Creating people - God created people for companionship. He spoke everything into existence. He said, “Let there be light”. There is great power in the spoken word. He formed Adam from dust. He breathed life into Adam. And why not? Look at our relationship with pets and how much we love them and do everything for them and love their company, we have pets for companionship and are glad in their happiness, sad and worry when they aren’t well. I am not saying we are God’s pets but I am saying he wants our companionship.

God wiping out people - people grew sinful and deviant which is the complete opposite of what God is. Meanwhile the devil was busy infiltrating the human species which threatened the coming of Jesus. One example is King Herod. He had heard about this king that was to be born and didn’t want to lose his kingdom so he ordered all the children under 2 killed. This is one method the devil used, to taint King Herod’s thoughts so that the devil could kill baby Jesus. One has to delve deeper into the Bible than just one thought or one passage. The flood: people weren’t just filled with evil and wickedness but the nephilim were openly interacting with humans (angels who had taken women and had children with them, but these weren’t normal children, they were giants and evil). Again the nephilim had the potential to taint the human line. One has to look at the genealogy of all the people leading up to Jesus to see how God allowed people to always be one step ahead of the devil so that God could bring Jesus who was the complete answer to all the woes of humanity.

Awful people can still go to Heaven: yes, even if Hitler accepted Jesus as his saviour then he would go to Heaven. We are all human and we can’t judge someone to be worse than another. Yes their actions are evil and horrendous but the person inside - this is what God looks at. To us it is insane to think that such a person could go to heaven but God sees the true heart and maybe there are levels of Heaven where we grow more spiritually. I don’t know, but I have read some believe that. Jeffrey Dahmer: obviously mentally ill to the worst degree. Only God sees inside his heart and knows what’s going on inside this person. It’s not our place to say who gets into God’s realm or not.

John 3:16 - God did send his son to be sacrificed. People up until that point were sacrificing animals to cleanse their sins but it wasn’t enough. People kept sinning and the sacrifices had to be done over and over. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus was born human and lived as a human including his mental and spiritual side. He overcame all temptations and lived a perfect life. And God declared him worthy which is when the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus which is when he started to perform miracles. When Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God why have you forsaken me”, it was because God distanced himself from Jesus because he was judging him - was Jesus worthy to take on all of humanity’s sins? Jesus felt that separation and felt utterly abandoned in the throes of death and pain and humiliation. And God found Jesus to be a perfect sacrifice. One that now when we accept him it bridges the gap between us and God the Father. Now when God looks at us he sees us as pure because Jesus took ever sin we have ever done/ever will do and just sees us shining back at him. We can now enter Heaven because there is no evil in us, no sin. So this sacrifice was necessary because God took our place but God was here on earth in human form.

Unborn children/miscarriages/mentally ill: all go back to God when they die. They are innocent as they haven’t reached the age of accountability (knowing right from wrong).

A failure of Christianity to worship such a God: I don’t see it as a failure. I see it as God’s love being so strong for us that he made a way for us to be one with him. We don’t always understand God’s ways but this one is pretty clear. He didn’t have to do anything to allow us to have eternal life with him but he did. And he didn’t just snap his fingers and make it easy, no he sent his son Jesus who lived a perfect life but also knew what was coming and he prayed that God would remove him from this ordeal. He sweat blood his anguish was so great. And he went ahead with it. He did that for me. For you. For all humans. To me that is crazy love.

CONTINUED -

a reply to: Akragon

In fact IF Jesus himself came back... they would still believe the bible over him...

Well, and the fact that He said many would come claiming to be a Savior, or Him specifically, and to not follow them. Remember, the first one that comes is the bad one, don't follow him. lol

PART II -
Worshiping God again: I have an identity but I am part of God. I have been given the Holy Spirit, which is part of God, living in me. He is my comforter, my friend, my voice of discernment. He helps me to understand God’s voice and mind. God is absolute peace, unconditional love that surpasses our comprehension, he is in love with us, he doesn’t just love us. When I think of God I think of my spirit joining back to his mighty one in Heaven in union of love and companionship. So yes I want to worship him. Think of it like a fan. Maybe I really like an actor and I hound this person because I must be with them and see them and wonder at their greatness. But instead with God it’s even more because I’m not worshipping God because he can do something good that I admire, I am worshipping him because he is all that exemplifies love and acceptance and makes my heart sing with incomprehensible joy. My heart overflows with love. It’s like being in love for the first time - you want to see that person all the time, know everything about them, absorb everything about them but again in this case it’s more - he is our creator, he is everything. He is the great I Am.

How do we know he’s the good one? From personal experience. I have experience hauntings, evil, night terrors, witnessed evil through people. I have not had an easy life by any means but I know there are two sources of power: evil (devil), good (God). I have felt both, experienced supernatural events of both and I know who I want to be with: the one that makes me feel safe and loved and makes bad things stop and who has shown me supernaturally that he can do anything. I have called out to God and he has answered. And from reading the Bible I see what God has done to bring me back to him and provide all answers. And even today when bad things happen I just roll with the flow now. I do not enjoy the process but I know enough by now that I am going to be fine and in some magical way that I only see at the end I can follow the trail of where God has intervened each time and made a tragedy turn into a blessing. And this makes me stronger and my faith grows stronger. I have seen what evil does to people’s lives. No thanks. And by evil I mean even just the simple fact of people allowing hatred to grow in their hearts. And lives are destroyed. Hatred is evil.

Satan writing his own moral code/comes out shining: Satan is doing this already. And any Satanist I’ve ever listened to is filled with some degree of anger, their life with Satan starts off great but then bad things start to happen and eventually they are filled with despair, confusion and are held hostage. God frees us even though people want to say we are God’s slaves. We are not slaves, we are acting out of love (should be) and this doesn’t allow darkness in our lives/minds which them amplifies into other negativities. Satan will always shine at first because he’s a trickster, always mimicking God but always failing.

Cosmos/Contingency topic: The Bible says that before the earth there was nothing. God spoke everything into existence. In my own personal belief how did something come from nothing? If one believes in life staring from an amoeba then where did the amoeba come from. I think Matt isn’t open to the idea that what we know is only what we know. But that we eventually learn what we didn’t realize even existed before, i.e.: the ancient people who believed the earth was flat and you’d fall off the edge of the earth. The longer we exist the more we understand. So it is perfectly logical to me that there is a God that created all that we know.

Christmas: I agree with all that Matt says. One can celebrate it as they wish or not at all. In my opinion Christmas and Easter are every day because Jesus was born to save us and he died to save us. I don’t need a specific day to set aside to celebrate or think on them. I think about them all the time. I don’t care how anyone celebrates Christmas. I also agree with the caller - Christmas can be a gateway for people to find Christ if they are looking upon Christmas as a Christian celebration which really boils down to the purpose of Jesus’ birth for many. I understand the origins of Christmas and how Christians turned it into their own Christian celebration and I understand those who celebrate it without any Christian roots. Regardless for some they can find Christ if they are the ones focusing on the Christian focus people place on it.

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: Tangerine

"If Jesus didn't exist, his brother would probably know about it!" without reminding you that the brother of Jesus, if he ever lived, never documented the existence of Jesus!

He wrote the Book of James.

You think the brother of Jesus lived until the late first or early second century when the Book of James was written? That's hilarious. Do you consciously suspend disbelief to come up these outrageous claims?

I think you are confusing the epistle of James with the epistles of 1 and 2 John, written at the very end of the 1st century.

Authorship

The writer calls himself simply "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."[Jas 1:1] Jesus had two apostles named James, but it is unlikely that either of these wrote the letter. One apostle, James, the son of Zebedee, was martyred about 44 AD.[6] This would be very early for him to have been the writer. The other apostle James, the son of Alphaeus, is not prominent in the Scriptural record, and very little is known about him.

Rather, evidence points to James the brother of Jesus, to whom Jesus evidently had made a special appearance after his resurrection described in the New Testament. This James was prominent among the disciples. The writer of the letter of James identifies himself as "a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ", in much the same way as did Jude, who introduced the Epistle of Jude by calling himself "a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James". (Jas 1:1; Jude 1) Furthermore, the salutation of James’ letter includes the term “Greetings!” in the same way as did the letter concerning circumcision that was sent to the congregations. In this latter instance it was apparently Jesus’ brother James who spoke prominently in the assembly of "the apostles and the older men" at Jerusalem.

Epistle of James ~ Wiki

a reply to: NOTurTypical
Where can I read it. Can anyone upload it. This one can be much better than current one.

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: Akragon

In fact IF Jesus himself came back... they would still believe the bible over him...

Well, and the fact that He said many would come claiming to be a Savior, or Him specifically, and to not follow them. Remember, the first one that comes is the bad one, don't follow him. lol

Dude... even if the real one popped up... Christians would be telling him to read the bible

or start Tossin around Pauls theology.... HE would probably just throw up his hands and go home

False premise. It can be "real" and not accurate. There were many spinoffs with beliefs that went against the original message. Much like we have people today who do the same and claim to be prophets.

Don't get too excited.....

Its just a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas. They are two-a-penny. Google it on the web, and you will see it has already been translated many times in the Victorian era.

In fact, I use it quite a lot in my books, because it was in the East and outside Vatican control for 1,500 years or so. Thus it does contain some interesting differences. See the book 'King Jesus' for example.

And yes, we know that this gospel in this format is post 7th century, because it keeps mentioning Muhummad as the next prophet. However, all of those verses about Muhummad are obvious interpolations. So the text is much older, but someone amended it to keep the Muslims happy. It was probably the only reason the manuscript was allowed to survive.

So we can say with some certainty that the original this was based upon, was written between the 1st and 5th centuries. It is worth reading, as it has some interesting differences to the standard gospels.

R

originally posted by: zazzafrazz
back on topic……

I've scratched together some scholars thoughts who have seen the limited photos we all have seen.

-Uncured skin not vellum = medieval

-The gold ink is odd, first thoughts make it younger than 1000 years old (but who knows aways a chance there is an exception to the rule)

-Use of the term "year of our lord" not used in old ancient Aramaic text (actually this is Syriac and matched Cypriot Syriac not ancient Aramaic, Or another possible source of the manuscript could be the Tur-Abdin area of Turkey, where there is still a Syriac speaking community)

-Use of the term pound was not a unit of measurement in 500ad, used first in the Ottoman empire. Turkish-Cypriot region possibly?

-The Syriac writing seems to be have vowel points, making it in the East Syriac script, meaning this wasn't around until the 15th century.

Charging 2 million for photocopy of a page, give me a break.

Granted, none of the arguments scraped together from photos of limited pages means anything unless the whole thing is reviewed by unbiased scholars.

It would help if you named the scholars and provided links.

originally posted by: NOTurTypical

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: Tangerine

"If Jesus didn't exist, his brother would probably know about it!" without reminding you that the brother of Jesus, if he ever lived, never documented the existence of Jesus!

He wrote the Book of James.

You think the brother of Jesus lived until the late first or early second century when the Book of James was written? That's hilarious. Do you consciously suspend disbelief to come up these outrageous claims?

I think you are confusing the epistle of James with the epistles of 1 and 2 John, written at the very end of the 1st century.

...
Epistle of James ~ Wiki

From your own link: "Many scholars consider the epistle to be written in the late 1st or early 2nd centuries. Among the reasons for this are:[12]

the author introduces himself merely as "a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ", without invoking any special family relationship to Jesus.
the cultured Greek language of the Epistle, it is contended, could not have been written by a Jerusalemite Jew. Some scholars argue for a primitive version of the letter composed by James and then later polished by another writer.[13]
the epistle was only gradually accepted into the canon of the New Testament.
Some see parallels between James and 1 Peter, 1 Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas and take this to reflect the socio-economic situation Christians were dealing with in the late 1st or early 2nd century. It thus could have been written anywhere in the Empire where Christians spoke Greek. There are some scholars who argued for Syria.[13]"

a reply to: Akragon

Actually if he came back I suspect they would want to figuratively crucify him again, just to get him to fulfil their 2015 expectations. Sad really when reality has to be altered to fit other people's imagination just to keep them 'happy clappy'.

However, this bible's gospel is the example of the pivotal power struggle of the top brass in religion, who have been caught with either ignorance about their own dogma, not to mention the wrong reasons they murdered so many in the past and the top reason which is protecting their prestige and control in the world today.

Upset the belief and the papacy won't get nearly so much money and the papal bank is really what its about - bankers also come wearing frocks - you forget that and accept the doctrine of blind belief as a sign of faith and they have every right to sneer at their congregation's ignorance and lack of discernment.

a reply to: Grimpachi

The irony would be that the Christians would probably burn him at the stake.
If it is all real I bet he came back during the inquisition and now he thinks "not gonna bother again".

a reply to: Akragon
Yes, every single one of them. Once they DECIDED to become a Christian they simply stopped questioning. Not a one is different, they are all the same. My god man, are you serious?. After reading the Bible I had more questions than ever, I've found answers to some of those questions and am still searching for others. I could say all Athiests are afraid to question anything not confirmed by science but that would be rather stupid of me wouldn't it?.

a reply to: Akragon

Sad but true, there has been so many different takes on the belief system and they so hard pressed that theirs is the only true and right one. That they put off or attack anything that might just bring question to it.

I do hope they scan the book and post a full translation some place for people to look at. I do like looking at history from many different sides, even if I don't like some of them. It's the only way you can really find the grain a truth I feel.