The Dead Sea scrolls: was there a cover up?.

The Jewish state of Israel delegated approval to the RCC?

check your history.
It was only after the 68 war that Israel gained control of the area and finds.
prior to that they belonged to either syria or lebanon.

Out of the scholars the RCC chose to translate the scrolls, only one of them fought to publicize their findings when they were done. The rest agreed to keep the information private. None of them were Jewish? Odd to my way of thinking. But considering the group in charge was the 'Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith', which is the modern name for the office of the Inquisition, not surprising.

Interesting responses, all.
What I remember about the scrolls is seeing a fragment in the British Museum in the 60's. I also remember that one of the independent, non church-related, scholars was Hugh Schonefeld. I believe one of his areas of expertise was in relating Aramaic to Hebrew. He subsequently wrote a book based upon his reading of the fragments titled, "The Passover Plot" explaining how he supposed the followers of a carismatic figure such as Jesus, for example, might fake his death.
I also remember the considerable effort by the World Council of Churches, who agree on very little, to prevent the available fragments being published. One can assume their objection was Twofold, one, the scrolls were, with some exceptions greatly fragmented and two, no mention of either Jesus or his discipiles is to be found.
On the Psalms attributed to David, also almost certainly apocryphal, one might visit the Natural History Museum in Denver and read the poem Carbon dated to 200 years before the clamied birth of David which reads
"Yeah, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death..." but you know the rest.
This poem is attributed to a Baal poet, no less, written about 200 years before the claimed birth of David.
Boy when the writers or redactors of the Jewish bible plagiarized this poem (and no doubt others) and attributed it or them to David, the discovery of archaeologists and something called Carbon dating had to hurt those defending the theft.
skep

World council of churches= NWO one world conspiracy ngo. Thankyou so much for blowing away your own conspiracy.

One of the Dead Sea Scroll Scholars was a man named John Allegro, he had some pretty interesting interpretations which were quickly stamped out of the mainstream.

www.freedomdomain.com...
John Allegro was one of a team of researchers hired by the
State of Israel and the British government to decipher the "Dead Sea Scrolls" when they were discovered in the 1950's. Allegro was hired because he was a biblical scholar and was familiar with ALMOST EVERY SINGLE MAJOR LANGUAGE including SUMERIAN, EGYPTIAN, HEBREW, CUNIEFORM. His ultimate conclusion (and he was kicked off the team for his opinions) was that Jesus was a Mushroom consumed by the Essenes and covered up to keep the Roman authorities in the dark about the fertility cult of the Essenes.

In my opinion, hell yes there was a cover up, a big one spanning at least two thousand years.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Mod Edit: New External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 29/1/2006 by Mirthful Me]

Originally posted by skep

On the Psalms attributed to David, also almost certainly apocryphal, one might visit the Natural History Museum in Denver and read the poem Carbon dated to 200 years before the clamied birth of David which reads
"Yeah, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death..." but you know the rest.
This poem is attributed to a Baal poet, no less, written about 200 years before the claimed birth of David.

They aren't taking into account that the earth revolved around the sun every 360 days in David's day, as opposed to 365 since Joshua's long day.

Also:

www.biblicalhorizons.com...

"Last month we began a survey and review of Centuries of Darkness by Peter James (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, [1991] 1993)."

[...]

"Creationists are accustomed to criticisms of Carbon-14 dating, but it is interesting to read such criticisms in a secular work. Carbon-14 is an unstable radioactive isotope and it constantly changes back into nitrogen by the emission of an electron. Half the Carbon-14 in a block of carbon will revert to nitrogen in about 5730 years. By measuring this, scientists can determine when the carbon was produced, supposedly. Since, however, this method is not very accurate, Carbon-14 dates are always quoted with a Standard Deviation, which represents the degree of accuracy.

"The first problem James points to is that 'in practice the vast majority of results have a Standard Deviation greater than fifty years' (p. 323). This means that there is less than a 68% chance that the date assigned to the carbon piece is within 50 years of being accurate on either side. It may be as much as 200 years off on either side."



[edit on 29-1-2006 by Paul of Nisbis]

Originally posted by Paul of Nisbis

They aren't taking into account that the earth revolved around the sun every 360 days in David's day, as opposed to 365 since Joshua's long day.

Just curious where I can find out more about this 360 day year?

Hello Nakash,

Originally posted by Nakash
Another reason why I don't use an encyclopaedia in which Jeffrey Dahmer could edit the section on Christianity.

This specific Wikipedia entry has not been edited in a long time, suggesting that both sides agree with its information. Try and edit it, and you will see it will quickly be reverted to the original.

We have a series of complete first century texts such as the codex Vaticanus and several pieces of John (as well as some gospels whose carbon dating even suggest they could be originals, though I HIGHLY doubt that), yet we find copies of this gospel of Thomas at usually the 4th and 3rd centuries (correct me on this one Roger, do we have any copy dating before the third century A.D. ? ). That alone suggests it is of a dubious nature.

Strawman.

The lack of early texts is only evidence to the kind of attacks against certain Gnostic sects which used the text. It is not evidence pointing to the original being written at a later date. Virtually every single scholar who has applied higher criticism to the Gospel of Thomas has found the original text to have been written prior to 160 AD. If you wish to disagree with the large amount of research that has been and is continuing to be done by all the scholars in this field, that is your choice.

FYI the earliest fragment of the Gospel of Thomas is a Greek fragment dated 200 CE.

The Gospel of Thomas was always considered a forgery

Nakash, if you would kindly tell me your definition of a forgery, and why the Gospel of Thomas fits that definition, we could have a much easier time talking about this.

If you consider the Gospel of Thomas to be a forgery because it was not written by the Apostle Thomas, then I would agree with you.

If you consider the Gospel of Thomas to be a forgery because it is not consistent with the current beliefs of Mainstream Christianity, then I would agree with you.

If you consider the Gospel of Thomas to be a forgery because it is not a copy of an original 1st or 2nd century Gnostic text, then I would disagree with you.

Find me a copy before 160 A.D. PLEASE. We can find plenty of first century copies of the other gospels, it should be no problem for you.

Same strawman argument. I'm not claiming that the text was written before 160 AD, the entire scholar community is. If you wish to disagree with them, quite frankly you'd be the one who should have to present evidence.

Once again, this goes back to the fallacious reasoning on Q.

Only the scholars from the early camp use Q as evidence for a first century date. The rest of scholars who believe it was written after 50 AD, but prior to 160 AD do not agree with Q reasoning.

Do you want to know what Q was?

Yes I do.

The concept of salvation through Gnosis itself suggests a late compostion. Salvation through secret codes, knowledge, and ritualism was a concept originating with Valentinus

Gnosis is knowledge gained through direct experience; knowledge that transcends theory, dogma or belief. It has nothing to do with secret codes, intellectualism, or ritualism.

The Gospel of Thomas portrays salvation as something gained through self-knowledge, or self-gnosis. This concept is common in the early works of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in texts like the Philokalia. Have you actually read the whole Gospel of Thomas?

Of course- Thomas plagiarizes sections of the other Gospels which DO have very early fragments.

The early Greek fragments are not from other Gospels, they are fragments from the Gospel of Thomas.

Inverencial Peace,
Akashic

[edit on 29/1/2006 by AkashicWanderer]

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII

Just curious where I can find out more about this 360 day year?

www.direct.ca...

www.direct.ca...

[edit on 29-1-2006 by Paul of Nisbis]

Originally posted by stalkingwolf

The Jewish state of Israel delegated approval to the RCC?

check your history. It was only after the 68 war that Israel gained control of the area and finds. prior to that they belonged to either syria or lebanon.

Jordan, surely? But you're right: I had forgotten the Arab-Israeli war. I am told (how truthfully I do not know) that the texts ended up in the hands of a small group of scholars originally nominated by Jordanian officials.

What I do not see, though, is RCC control. If you do, why not share it with us?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I think this post has got a bit confused, and I suspect the confusion is fairly general. May I add a note?

It's really critical for us all to keep in mind clearly the distinction between a text -- such as a letter of Cicero, or a gospel -- and a manuscript containing a copy of that text. The text will have been written at one date. The manuscript will be later (there are no authorial manuscripts of any literary text whatever prior to the 13th century), perhaps much later.

We can infer nothing whatever about the date of the text from the date of the manuscripts in which it is preserved (except that the text cannot be later than those manuscripts, for obvious reasons). We cannot, for instance, presume that a text was composed shortly before the first manuscript that happens to exist in 2006. The two ideas have no connection.

Originally posted by Nakash
We have a series of complete first century texts such as the codex Vaticanus and several pieces of John

By the 'Codex Vaticanus' I presume we mean the well-known biblical manuscript, which is referred to as 'B' and is properly Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209? This is a parchment book-form manuscript (hence 'codex') and was written in the 4th century. The New Testament texts it contains were composed in the 1st century; this copy of them is 4th century.

There is a piece of a papyrus codex of a copy of John's Gospel, known as P52, dated to around 125 AD plus or minus 25 years. Like most papyri this is only a small fragment. This is the oldest portion of any of the gospels.

There are further 2nd century fragments of gospels. More complete copies start to be available from ca. 200 AD onwards.

(as well as some gospels whose carbon dating even suggest they could be originals, though I HIGHLY doubt that),

I think this is confusion with some of the Qumran texts. An attempt was made to identify one of them as containing a portion of Mark's gospel. However this identification seems doubtful to me. (The identification was hysterically rejected by various scholars in terms that would earn them a punch in the face in any bar in Britain; but that merely tells you that some NT scholars have a strange ideological interest in NOT finding early evidence for the gospels).

...yet we find copies of this gospel of Thomas at usually the 4th and 3rd centuries (correct me on this one Roger, do we have any copy dating before the third century A.D. ? ).

We have some fragments of the Greek text from the mid-second century, so very early indeed. We also have some complete copies of a Coptic translation (of a somewhat different text) from the Nag Hammadi discovery, so ca. 400 AD.

That alone suggests it is of a dubious nature.

This is an understandable inference, but it is quite mistaken. There is no connection between the date of the manuscripts, and indeed the fact that they are extant only in Coptic, and the authenticity of them.

For instance, the Roman History of Velleius Paterculus is now extant in no manuscript, and scholars are dependent on the 1520 edition for the text. The only manuscript was discovered in Germany in 1519 at the monastery of Murbach by Beatus Rhenanus, who printed it after hanging around for a while hoping to find a better one. The manuscript was 8-9th century, it seems, but vanished sometime during the 18th century. But Velleius Paterculus is nevertheless genuine.

The Gospel of Thomas was always considered a forgery, ...

The only mention of the text in antiquity is by Hippolytus, who dismisses it as a fake used in Egypt. Bear that in mind the next time someone says that it was widely used in the church!

but the "critical" scholars of the Jesus Seminar...

As far as I can tell, as an amateur, the whole thing had no scholarly content. What precisely was the data that they added to the sum of human knowledge?

What is not debatable is that virtually all scholars believe the text to be written prior to 160 AD.

Find me a copy before 160 A.D. PLEASE.

The existence of fragments from the mid-second century is evidence of this. But we would infer it anyway from the unfocused gnosticism of the text. Gnostic mythology developed a lot during the 2nd century, through the efforts of Valentinus and the like, but there is no hint of Valentinianism in the work. On the other hand, Gnosticism begins with Basilides, and since the work is gnostic it cannot well be earlier.

I should add that one of the differences between the Greek fragment and the Coptic text in the small part where they can be compared is that the former does not contain the gnostic bit. So there was clearly more than one recension in circulation. Some scholars have speculated that the original Greek text was not gnostic, and so might be quite a bit earlier. Luke tells us (1:1) that many people compiled texts on what Jesus said and did, and no doubt there were many collections of sayings in both the first and early second centuries, which were more or less accurate or useful. But we don't have any evidence to say more.

We can find plenty of first century copies of the other gospels, ...

I wish. Frankly contemporary copies of texts are very rare until the 5th century. There is a good reason for this; technology.

In the 1st century, books were written on papyrus in roll format. Papyrus seldom lasts more than a century. In the 3rd century the parchment book-form became popular, and took over. All our more or less complete ancient manuscripts are in codex form, and usually on parchment which is more or less indestructible. Naturally they are all later than this.

Attempts at doing codices on papyrus were tried, and some have been retrieved from Egypt. But they are incredibly fragile; whereas I have handled a 5th century parchment codex of Jerome's Chronicle myself (after convincing its owners to let me by producing some fairly compelling reasons).

One interesting feature of books is that the Christians took up the codex much earlier than the pagan world for literature. Businessmen had used sheets of papyrus folded into a notebook from the 1st century, but it was not used seriously because of the technical problems. No-one knows why; it has been speculated that one of the gospels may have been written on such a primitive papyrus codex. Indeed since the end of Mark is lost -- and the end is usually well-protected inside a roll -- it has been suggested that this is precisely what happened to the original manuscript of this gospel -- the last leaf fell off. But this again is speculation, although interesting.

C.H.Roberts, "The birth of the codex" is interesting on all this.

The Gospel of Thomas contains very few elements of Classical Gnosticism.

ONE drop of gnosticism is enough. Gnosticism is Pagan Neoplatonism and has absolutely no place in Christianity. The concept of salvation through Gnosis itself suggests a late compostion.

You are both right.

Tertullian in De praescriptione haereticorum goes through various gnostic ideas and points out the philosopher from whom they had been swiped. Remember that philosophy functioned as a sort of pop-paganism in antiquity.

Salvation through secret codes, knowledge, and ritualism was a concept originating with Valentinus- it was his novel contribution in the so called "Gospel of truth" (an assured influence on Thomas).

We see it in Valentinus, but it precedes him. Basilides is the father of gnosticism.

Indeed the idea of 'secret knowledge' is pagan -- isn't this what mystery cults were about? But here we move outside the area of what I know much about.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Originally posted by roger_pearse
I am told (how truthfully I do not know) that the texts ended up in the hands of a small group of scholars originally nominated by Jordanian officials.
What I do not see, though, is RCC control. If you do, why not share it with us?
Roger Pearse

As I posted above, what I read was that, regardless of who turned them over to the RCC, the group that they put in charge was the 'Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith', which is the modern name for the office of the Inquisition. The point I recall being most interesting was that when they diviced up the scrolls and chose who would work on them, they did not assign a single Jewish scholar in the bunch. Then, they procrastinated for decades in releasing their findings. If not for the passing of the holder of a set of copies, whose heirs released them, they'd still be unknown.
I, too, must say that this is just what I have read, I have no way of knowing how accurate it is.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII

Originally posted by roger_pearse
I am told (how truthfully I do not know) that the texts ended up in the hands of a small group of scholars originally nominated by Jordanian officials.

What I do not see, though, is RCC control. If you do, why not share it with us?

As I posted above, what I read was that, regardless of who turned them over to the RCC...

I am questioning that they did. What evidence do we have of this?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Here you go, Roger. Some excerpts to start off, then a link. It is kind of a complicated timeline, but it looks like basically we're both right.


1949 - Harding authorizes Roland de Vaux of French Dominican l'Ecole Biblique to survey Cave 1 where the first 7 scrolls had been discovered.

1972 - Fr. Pierre Benoit of Dominican Ecole Biblique becomes project director, vowing to cooperate with Israeli authorities to bring scrolls to publication.

1977 - 30th anniversary of scrolls' discovery prompts Geza Vermes to warn of "academic scandal" if pace of publication of scrolls is not accelerated.


1987 - Vermes convenes London conference on 40th anniversary of discovery of the scrolls & calls for immediate publication of all photographs without transcription, commentary or editorial notes.

www.gnosis.org...