The Bible has been changed ( rewritten )

reply to post by The time lord

Hi Timely

You wrote

QUOTE

So when they say that there are all these other written quotes from outside the Bible that testefy the Oldest known full Bible written is that fake too? You seem to know your side of the argument. I like to know if this is fake?

UNQUOTE

Well, to start with there are 'written quotes' of e.g. the gospel material from the 'earlier bishops' that are EARLY (e.g. between 110CE and 170CE, e.g. Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch & Justin Martyr) and there are 'written quotes' of gospel material and logia sayings written by other Bishops that wrote LATER (e.g. between 170 CE and 300 CE, e.g. Iranaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian etal., ).

Please DO NOT MIX THESE TWO TYPES of BISHOPS ('Church Fathers') and their CITATIONS up. They are NOT the same.

The 'earlier' quotation/citations from the pens of the earlier Bishops such as e.g. Clement o Rome having to do with the 'logia sayings in the gospels' etc. prior to the time of Marcion (165 CE) are VERY VERY VERY different in CONTENT from the later quotation citations of the bishops AFTER Marcion was declared a heretic.

many sayings attributed to the Greek-speaking Iesous of the Greek gospels in the writings of the EARLIER Bishops (e.g. the Letter of 2 Clement,) have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT sayings placed into the greek speaking Iesous' mouth, some echoed in the 'gospel of Thomas' which ARE NOT found in the canonical New Testament.

Did you NOT know any of this?

If so, we have A LOT to talk about, it would seem, so fasten your seatbelts....!! (and read some of Dr. Bart Ehrman's 'beginner books' which are specifically toned down for the general non Koine-Greek non-paleoHebrew, non-Aramaic reading layman to understand e.g. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture etc.)

reply to post by Sigismundus


There are other ways to prove things and I say there are external non written historical accounts of events, of important rulers and kings, ancient buildings, tombs, sculpture and potery that seem to fit into the Bible so even if some things are hard to see from here I am sure there is plenty to uncover and read up on again. The dots seem to match the Bible even so, some things can not be denied, some historical events can not be rewritten.

But as a person Sigismundus do you have a faith or is it an athiest outlook on things?

__________________________________________________

The Arch of Titus is a 1st-century honorific arch[1] located on the Via Sacra, Rome, just to the south-east of the Roman Forum. It was constructed in c.82 AD by the Roman Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus' victories, including the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

The south panel depicts the spoils taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. The Golden Candlestick or Menorah (see [Exodus 25:31-40]) is the main focus and is carved in deep relief. Other sacred objects being carried in the triumphal procession are the Silver Trumpets (see [Numbers 10:1-10]) and the Table of Shewbread (see [Exodus 25:23-30]). These spoils were originally gilded with gold, with the background in blue.

upload.wikimedia.org...

This is meant to despise Jewish history and Jerusalem not help prove its existence so going by the enemies of Christianity and Judaism you find clues to the history. Jesus speaks of such events in Mathew 24 when he says all you see will destroyed and no stone left unturned, so this event must have happened.

It is like the Jews in Iran who were there before the Persians became Muslims or the Coptic Christians who were their before Egyptian Muslims came to be who have Churches buildings built before Islam became a religion.

reply to post by The time lord


Hi Timely

If you think you can 'prove what you say' about the inerrancy of 'scripture' you would first have to prove that the earliest papyri (from c. 115CE to c. 249 CE) which contain 'Greek gospel logia material' match letter for letter the later codices (from c. 250 to 550 CE).

If you study the Greek manuscript mess of the so-called 'new' Testament in any detail at all you will see at a glance that the earlier papyri containing greek 'gospel' material do NOT match the later codices exactly.

So....presumably you THINK you can prove your case using the Greek textual mess currently available to modern critical biblical scholars who make this kind of thing their life's work - but even they throw up their hands in despair when they examine all the available evidence (including the Didache and the very earliesst patristic bishop's citations of Greek sayings placed into the mouth of the originally Galilean Aramaic mouth of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Nazir (who probably lived between c. BCE 12 and the time of his execution for Armed Sedition during 'the Insurrection' of Pesach, c. 36 CE).

So....go ahead and TRY to prove your case. Anyone trying to do so will eventually be 'found out' on ATS with some very hard facts which apparently you are NOT even aware of !!!!

reply to post by Sigismundus


What is your own stance in this that Jesus never existed or there was no such thing as Christianity before the whole version of the oldest Bible was found?

Problem is even if somethings does not match word for word there are historians within 60 years who tell about Jesus as a person, usually people who are either Jewish or Roman who oppose Christ mention him like it or not, not all tell it like the Bible because they would not anyway but they admit a Jesus, a Jew a Christian people existed.

TacitusMain article: Tacitus on Christ
Tacitus (c. 56–c. 117), writing c. 116, included in his Annals a mention of Christianity and "Christus", the Latinized Greek translation of the Hebrew word "Messiah". In describing Nero's persecution of this group following the Great Fire of Rome c. 64, he wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition,
Text

So are these historical figures made up even if the Bible mentions them, that I not sure of either. It seems evidence is opening up rather than closing it off. It is like written behavour of the Koran it tries to disprove the Bible by saying the opposite to what the Jews and Christians believed meaning that a Book like the Bible must have existed with its own rules and people even if it tries hard to deny its claims.

Ares these other references fake also?

JosephusMain article: Josephus on Jesus

Flavius Josephus (c. 37–c. 100), a Jew and Roman citizen who worked under the patronage of the Flavians, wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in AD 93. In these works, Jesus is mentioned twice, though scholars debate their authenticity. The one directly concerning Jesus has come to be known as the Testimonium Flavianum.

In the first passage, called the Testimonium Flavianum, it is written:

About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.
Text

But I can not explain when it comes to the Bible the more spiritual things that go beyond the book which many other believers have experienced that go beyond coincidence, that is why it is not just a book for many as it holds many other qualities that comes with it, there are a few things that go beyond explantion that people might not be aware of when they stand off from it a few things that I know and experience.

reply to post by The time lord

hi Timely

This thread is about the text of the 'scriptures' now used by Jews and also the later writings that are used by 'christians' as 'defiling the hands' i.e. sacred holy writ, having undergone massive changes to the content of the texts over time.

This is not about proving whether R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir ever lived, or the fact that he was executed for armed sedition against the Maiestas of the divine Roman Emperor Tiberius during the Insurrection of c. 36 CE... It is about the CORRUPT state of the supposedly 'inerrant' and 'holy' hand-copied (and now mangled) texts which are anything but inerrant.

Since you seem to be in the dark about these matters, reflect that for the earliest Messianic Jewish-Christians in Palestine before the 1st failed Jewish War against Rome ground eretz Yisroel to powder by the Roman Army in 70 CE, the earliest LOGIA sayings collections circulated orally in Galilean Aramaic,and later after the war put an end to Aramaic speakers in the world (900,000 Palestinian Jews died during the War by 72 CE with only Greek speaking Jews in the Diaspora cities of the gentiles left to pass on any traditions...) these sayings were written down into Greek after the original disciples had 'died off..'

These LOGIA collections ('oracles') were later translated FROM Greek after 70 CE (already one language removed from Aramaic) into Coptic and Latin and other languages (c. 250-500 CE) , where the texts wwere further mangled in the hand copied transmission process by 'orthodox scribes' who did not like the texts they were reading. But some older passages managed to slip through the cracks anyway - betraying the LOGIA collections (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas) which PRE-DATE the gospels (at least originally !)

Here is an example from 2 Clement which quotes the Gospel of Thomas ('these are the words which Iesous spake while he was still alive among us, and which were set in writing by Yehudah ha Thomah (Gk. Judas Didymos Thomas)")
as 'gospel' truth:

2 Clement 11 ff If therefore we shalt have wrought righteousness in the sight of God, we shalt enter into His kingdom and shall receive the promises which no ear hath heard nor any eye seen, nor eye seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man. Let us therefore await the kingdom of God meanwhile in love and righteousness, since we know not the day of the Lord's appearing.

Take a very close look at the Greek text of 2Clem 12:2 -

QUOTE

"For the Lord Iesous himself, when being asked by a certain person when his Kingdom would come, spake unto him saying:

When Two shall appear as One,
When the Outside shall appear as the Inside,
When the Male shall become one with the Female
And when there shall no longer be a separation between them
Then shall appear the Kingdom of my Father..."

Also see the Greek text of 2 Clem 7:6

And as for them that have not kept the Seal [of God] , did not the Lord Iesous say regarding them that they would dwell
"Where the Worms for them shall never die, and the fire for them shall not be quenched, and they that dwell therein shall be for a spectacle of Derision unto all Flesh." ?

These 2 LOGIA sayings cited in 2 Clement (one of the EARLY BISHOPS - see my earlier post about the earlier Patristic citations being DIFFERENT from the later ones !) come from the EARLY Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas, which Clement of Rome (d. around 115 CE) quoted as Holy Scripture (as the author of JUDE quotes the 'Book of the Words of Henoch to all the Sons of Light in the Last Days' as scripture in Jude 1:14 using the Pesher method of interpretation).

Did you NOT know any of this? If not, you have some homework to do, young man !!

You guys are admitedly way out of my league with all this so I'll just bump the thread again to say I'm glad to be the host of this fine read that now becomes more interesting with every post. I am fascinated with this stuff even tho i don't understand all of it. some really great late posting.

So when you start bringing the spiritual aspects of it like prophecy it is either coincidental or a very good guess in what it says about the world before the end times, it predicts many things that have started to become true, you cannot have random authors making things up and being right about it either. No other book makes as much statements about the world that has not happened yet because for such a book to make such announcements would be abused but this book holds too many clues and prophecies, historical accounts to even think about disregarding.

There was also the oral tradition of the those times where people learned every word, the Jews do it today also by learning every word of the Old Testament even the Muslims have been influenced by this oral tradition that was known up to the first millennium if anything to go by.

-The Bible says that Israel will become a nation again- It is right
-It says many times how God saves the remnant of the Jews/Israelites who are very little in population that is the case now.
- It says Israel will be a burden to the world who tries to move it - It is right
- It predicts Israel will have enemies tribes from the Middle East when this occurs
- It predicts Gaza and the Coast region to be their enemies
- It predicts Egypt, Lybia, Syria, Jordan, Babylon/Iraq, Persia/Iran, Ethiopia/now called Sudan, Russia who is getting involved with Iran/Persia, Asia Minor/ Turkey,

Many of these nations and cities of those nations mentioned will witness some form of God's judgement and destruction and an alliance of war pointing all towards Israel and right now many of them are not exactly friendly either.

reply to post by The time lord

I believe in the prophecies of the Bible bigtime and once you bring them into the picture, the Bible becomes undeniably the greatest book every put together under the sun.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by The time lord

 

I believe in the prophecies of the Bible bigtime and once you bring them into the picture, the Bible becomes undeniably the greatest book every put together under the sun.

I have my own little spiritual coincidences when it comes to the Bible, too many things line up when I randomly read it, somethings go beyond explantion and coincidence unless there are mindreaders and people who can edit timelines, it goes a little beyond a made up book on that account alone.

reply to post by The time lord


Alright Time, you just brought something out that I've never posted to this forum before. Right in line with what you are saying and for proof that the Bible is the living word of God. I stood just one time with my girlfriend and Bible in hand. I opened a prayer the way the Lord Jesus perscribes and asked our Heavenly Father if I was actually worthy of heaven. With my girl watching I cracked the Bible open at any given page and read the first thing that my eyes focused on. I read the words " you are mine ". I almost fell to my knees . all my girl could say was, OMG OMG OMG !
To this day she is amazed by that. Not to mention my own astonishment. Now I have to ask, do you believe me ?

reply to post by The time lord

Hi Time Lord -

Have you had a chance to read my posts yet? Well, here is another example of a saying placed into the mouth of the Greek speaking Iesous found written by Clement of Rome (c. 110) which differs from the later canonical handwritten copies of the Gospel - this citiation (translated into modern English for you, below) probably came from an early LOGIA collection of sayings related in some way to the 'Ebionite Nazorean Gospel of the Hebrews', which was a longer and earlier gospel version of the later Greek gospel 'according to Matthew' whoever he was...

Clement of Rome merely mentioned that these words that he cites came 'from the Gospel' - no doubt because the modern form of what we to-day call 'the gospel according to Matthew' had not gained wide acceptance among the earlier Nazorean Bishops as early as 110 CE.

Here is the QUOTE from 2 Clement 5:2 --

"For did not the Lord Iesous say : 'Ye shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves' to which Simon Peter answered him saying, What then, if the wolves should tear the lambs?

And Iesous answered Peter saying, "Let not the Lambs have any fear of the Wolves after their deaths. And ye likewise, fear ye not them that kill you and are not able to do anything more to you; but fear Him that after your death has power over both your soul and your body, to be able to cast them both into the Firey Gehenna (i.e. Hinnom) "

As you can see, this citation from 'the gospel' in Clement's letter DOES NOT MATCH the much mucch later canonical council approved Greek gospel 'according to Matthew' or any of the other LOGIA ('sayings') found e.g. in other 'canonical gospels' (e.g. 'Mark' or 'Luke' or even the non-canonical Greek Gospel of Thomas...)

Also remember again: these EARLIER 'Christian Bishops' like Clement of Rome who died in c. 115 CE (especially those Bishops writing epistles to each other between say 90CE and 160 CE) made FREE use of much EARLIER sayings LOGIA collections that had been placed into the mouth of a Greek Speaking Iesous (some of these LOGIA saying collections e.g. the one that later became 'the Gospel of Thomas' might have been actually written in Aramaic form before being translated out of their mother tongue into Koine Greek c. 100 CE and later into Coptic etc.)

In other words, the now more familiar 'canonical' versions of the 'gospel' were not known in the 'same form' as we read them today way back before c. 140 CE - at least to judge by these earlier Bishops' citations of what THEY regarded to be 'the Gospel' sayings attributed to a Greek Speaking Iesous...

So...my question is:

Are you STILL set on thinking these texts never changed from their inception? If so, you need to take a much much much closer look at the textual evidence before jumping to Chrisitian 'orthodox' (i.e. 'apologetic') conclusions...which are not supported by these very uncomforatble (at least to 'believers') but nontheless very hard facts of the case...

reply to post by Sigismundus


Guess I am going by by second hand accounts like most people do, I have not with my own eyes seen these texts or read them but sources of information says that the case so it either supports or refers to the time period when Jesus, Romans, Jews and gentiles existed at some point.

One of the most important contributions of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the numerous Biblical manuscripts which have been discovered. Until those discoveries at Qumran, the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures were copies from the 9th and 10th centuries AD by a group of Jewish scribes called the Massoretes. Now we have manuscripts around a thousand years older than those. The amazing truth is that these manuscripts are almost identical! Here is a strong example of the tender care which the Jewish scribes down through the centuries took in an effort to accurately copy the sacred Scriptures. We can have confidence that our Old Testament Scriptures faithfully represent the words given to Moses, David and the prophets.
Text

The thing is we have ties between the time periods that are not discovered in chronological order that makes it more intruging. So we Hebrew text that is from 900 AD but something found that pre dates it has similar text styles while the oldest Bible quotes from the Old Testament and has half of Old Testament it in its collection.
Then we have the Quran that denies most things from the Bible but in doing so we know what it is trying to deny, while other verses states people should read the gospels and the Torah for guidence, so it must have existed before 900AD but then again the Oldest known Quran is also dated 200 years after the events.

Then add all the rest of the historical place names, references and tombs and we still get a picture of events described in the Bible, but Jesus him self stated that its by faith he wants us to be lead.

Gospels and Gnostic texts that does not have the elements of the references of other books or they deny Christ so that will always have been excluded anyway and never be in the whole collection. All the current books of the New Testament were written by people who met and spoke to Christ at some point, all the other external books and text about Christ are usually written by people who the Bible makes reference to as enemies anyway.

Thomas was always reffered to as the doubting Thomas so no wonder his book never made it into the collection.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by The time lord

 

Alright Time, you just brought something out that I've never posted to this forum before. Right in line with what you are saying and for proof that the Bible is the living word of God. I stood just one time with my girlfriend and Bible in hand. I opened a prayer the way the Lord Jesus perscribes and asked our Heavenly Father if I was actually worthy of heaven. With my girl watching I cracked the Bible open at any given page and read the first thing that my eyes focused on. I read the words " you are mine ". I almost fell to my knees . all my girl could say was, OMG OMG OMG !
To this day she is amazed by that. Not to mention my own astonishment. Now I have to ask, do you believe me ?

edit on 9-1-2012 by randyvs because: (no reason given)

edit on 9-1-2012 by randyvs because: (no reason given)

I've done this too many times to be surprised then not only that what I read and write on Here and in the Book I see references of it if not even the same passages used in TV programmes and other people like some spiritual connection. When I look up prophecy I see the the nations mentioned and how they fit into the todays stories is it seems too much to be a lie.

Sometimes it hard to believe and could also accuse you of making it up because somehow you probably hacked into my computer or something silly as that or you have been reading something I said years ago, but I doubt that is the case with you so at least you know for your self.
Try it again and question this thread for your self.

_____________________________________________________________

I opened it and got this:

Acts 11

22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

reply to post by The time lord

Try it again and question this thread for your self.

Not sure what you mean by this Time:
I'm familiar with your posts but I wouldn't say intimately. I just knew what you were talking about from that experience and have left well enough alone ever since.

22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

Now think what that means to someone who opened this thread. Glory to the most high.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by The time lord

 

Try it again and question this thread for your self.

I meant use your faith and open the Bible when you ask God, ask if this could be true and see what you get, it would probably be an ironic answer that fits someway.

When I had a go I got this Ironic answer that Christians first got their name from Antioch it fits well with what I said before and about the start of Christianity.

reply to post by The time lord


" I the Lord have spoken it. It shall come to pass ". Nothing to amazing but you could say it is involved ?

Same principle as an 8 ball?

Another example is the Gospel of Judas, in the Bible he was Jesus' enemy so I doubt what ever record of him stands, what ever he wrote would have been from holy point of view anyway, the Bible said he was possessed by Satan at some point so my guess is that he is not the most reliable person to take advise from, many books found today never made the final copy because they could not anyway.

What I am reading is that there are thousands of manuscripts, I have not read or translated them my self but many hold exact wording that is used in the Bible.

If that is not true then of course conspiracy on behalf of the wikipedia and lots of other Christians.

Looking for examples I find these interesting:

en.wikipedia.org...

Although Rylands 52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text,[2] the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among critical scholars. The style of the script is strongly Hadrianic, which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows a much wider range, potentially extending from before 100 CE past 150 CE.
Text

What is being said is that the Bible is fragmented in other books and works external from the Bible it self, like a second witness to what is written, it is a bit like putting the Bible together from ATS website, get all the quotes together and you may have a large chunk of the Bible in the website from Belivers to non Believers who have quoted it over time. Of course there will be other commentary in the works since they only quote and make references of Jesus and the Bible but apparently the 24,000 other manuscripts, which I admit have not read my self and not sure many others here have also on ATS say that enough quotes from them match the Bible and can re-construct it.

Parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other "ancient" work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from c. 125
Text

en.wikipedia.org...

Either it is true or a lie.

The papyrus is written on both sides, and the surviving portion also includes part of the top and inner margins of the page. The characters in bold style are the ones that can be seen in Papyrus 52.

Gospel of John 18:31-33 (recto)

ΟΙ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ ΗΜΙΝ ΟΥΚ ΕΞΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΠΟΚΤΕΙΝΑΙ
OYΔΕΝΑ ΙΝΑ Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΙΗΣΟΥ ΠΛΗΡΩΘΗ ΟΝ ΕΙ-
ΠΕΝ ΣHΜΑΙΝΩΝ ΠΟΙΩ ΘΑΝΑΤΩ ΗΜΕΛΛΕΝ ΑΠΟ-
ΘΝHΣΚΕΙΝ ΕΙΣΗΛΘΕΝ ΟΥΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩ-
ΡΙΟΝ Ο ΠIΛΑΤΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΦΩΝΗΣΕΝ ΤΟΝ ΙΗΣΟΥΝ
ΚΑΙ ΕΙΠΕΝ ΑΥΤΩ ΣΥ ΕΙ O ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥ-
ΔAΙΩN
...
the Jews, "For us it is not permitted to kill
anyone," so that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he sp-
oke signifying what kind of death he was going to
die. Entered therefore again into the Praeto-
rium Pilate and summoned Jesus
and said to him, "Thou art king of the


Jews?"
Gospel of John 18:37-38 (verso)

ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΕΙΜΙ ΕΓΩ ΕΙΣ TOΥΤΟ ΓΕΓΕΝΝΗΜΑΙ
ΚΑΙ (ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ) ΕΛΗΛΥΘΑ ΕΙΣ ΤΟΝ ΚΟΣΜΟΝ ΙΝΑ ΜΑΡΤY-
ΡΗΣΩ ΤΗ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ ΠΑΣ Ο ΩΝ EΚ ΤΗΣ ΑΛΗΘΕI-
ΑΣ ΑΚΟΥΕΙ ΜΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΦΩΝΗΣ ΛΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΩ
Ο ΠΙΛΑΤΟΣ ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ ΚAΙ ΤΟΥΤO
ΕΙΠΩΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΞΗΛΘΕΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΙΟΥ-
ΔΑΙΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΛΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΟΙΣ ΕΓΩ ΟΥΔEΜΙΑΝ
ΕΥΡΙΣΚΩ ΕΝ ΑΥΤΩ ΑΙΤΙΑΝ
...
a King I am. For this I have been born
and (for this) I have come into the world so that I would
testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth
hears of me my voice." Said to him
Pilate, "What is truth?" and this
having said, again he went out unto the Jews
and said to them, "I find not one


fault in him."

Text

The Oldest known church is the Dura-Europos church

The building consists of a house conjoined to a separate hall-like room, which functioned as the meeting room for the church. The surviving frescoes of the baptistry room are probably the most ancient Christian paintings. We can see the "Good Shepherd" (this iconography had a very long history in the Classical world), the "Healing of the paralytic" and "Christ and Peter walking on the water". These are considered the earliest depictions of Jesus Christ.

A much larger fresco depicts three women (the third mostly lost) approaching a large sarcophagus. This most likely depicts the three Marys visiting Christ's tomb. The name Salome was painted near one of the women,[citation needed] who is often considered the same person as Mary Mother of James. There were also frescoes of Adam and Eve as well as David and Goliath. The frescoes clearly followed the Hellenistic Jewish iconographic tradition, but they are more crudely done than the paintings of the nearby Dura-Europos synagogue.
Text

en.wikipedia.org...

Either it is coincidence or someone likes painting up history or it is true,
I still need to make whole references of it all when I have the time.

reply to post by The time lord


Hi Timely

You Quoted some apologetic nonsense from a disreputable source who DOES NOT KNOW THE DEAD SEA SCROLL MATERIAL up close and personal the way I do.

QUOTE

"The amazing truth is that these [Dead Sea Scroll] manuscripts are almost identical ! Here is a strong example of the tender care which the Jewish scribes down through the centuries took in an effort to accurately copy the sacred Scriptures.

We can have confidence that our Old Testament Scriptures faithfully represent the words given to Moses, David and the prophets...'

UNQUOTE

This is absolute garbage, and a BIG LIE which is often promulgated among 'believers' both Rabinnic Jews and all the various types of 'bible believing' Christians out there in the wild.

'O Blessed are the Ignorant !! For THEY DO NOT KNOW THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE' = a big joke we used to tell at University when laughing at people like the writer of the silly uneducated quote above.

The Dead Sea Scoll material is divided into TWO camps - those Manuscripts written between c. 300 BCE and 68 CE (caves 1 through 11) i.e. before the Council of Javneh (in 90 CE) IMPOSED the Babuylonian proto Masoretic Text on to worlwide Jewry (900,000 Palestinian Jews having lost their lives in the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome 66-72 CE) and the LATER outlying Dead Sea Scroll type manuscripts found at places like Wadi Muyrab'at written around 130 CE (i.e. POST JAMNIA protoMassoretic cleaned up versions of Hebrew scriptures - much closer to what modern Jews and Protestants read today in their modern Bibles) and used by the 'Daviddic Messiah' Bar-Kokhba Revolt groupies who rebelled against Rome in 136-138 CE (200 years after the invasion of the Romans into Palestine, and 100 years after 'THE INSURRECTION' which resulted in R. Yehoshua bar Yosef arming his own disciples and getting strung up himself for armed sedition against the Maiestas of the Divine Roman Emperor Tiberius in 36 CE (see Mark 15:1-7 - 'now Bar Abba was arrested for armed Sedition and Rapine DURING THE INSURRECTION..'.)

The main corpus of the Dead Sea Scroll material is found in Caves 1, 4 and 11 - i.e. texts written c. between 300 BCE and June of 68 CE when they were sealed up in TIME CAPSULES (caves 1-11 at Qumran, ancient Seccacah - which their monks called 'Damascus') i.e. LONG BEFORE The Council of Jamnia (prior to 90 CE) supressed the earlier text families and IMPOSED THE BABYLONIAN RECENSION (protoMasoretic) upon succeeding geenerations of 'believers'.

If the Javneh (Jamnia) Council Rebbes knew of the Dead Sea Scroll Time Capsule Sealed Up Scrolls in caves 1-11 they would have come in droves and taken them away and burned them SINCE THEY DID NOT MATCH the protoMASORETIC text very closely - which is exactly what DID happen in c. 190 CE acccording to Origen (who managed to get ahold of a Greek copy of the Psalms found in a jar there !) when 'certain ancient Hebrew and Greek MSS were found of the prophets and the psalms in Rock Caves near Jericho' i.e. caves 2, 3 and 5 which were known to have beeen ransacked by the time scholars found the caves in November of 1946 - and the same kind of thing happened once again in c. 790 CE when caves 7, 8, 9 and 10 were opened and ransacked by 'Jews who came in droves who took the scrolls found there away with them')

But caves 1-11 DO NOT MATCH the modern textual traditions of the various versions of the hand copied Masoretic text families by as much as 24 % when counting LETTER FOR LETTER. Jews did not start counting the MIDDLE LETTER on a column of Hebrew text until after 200 CE - and ONLY when copying out the unpointed (unvowelled) protoMasoretic or later pointed Masoretic text family !!!

For a very very BRIEF example, take a CLOSE LOOK at ALL the Hebrew consonants in the Text of Cave 1's so-called Great Isaiah Scroll (1Q-IS-a) which is 90% the same as the Masoretic text family with Cave 1's Lesser Isaiah Scroll (1Q-IS-b) - these two versions of Isaiah were found lying SIDE BY SIDE in Cave 1 in 1947 -

But (Shock & Awe !!!!) there is a 24% difference between these two ancient copies of the Scroll of Isaiah the Prophet - that is, if you count each letter for letter and word for word in a side by side comparison study- in other words, these TWO ancient copies DO NOT MATCH very closely - yet BOTH were being copied as if they were each able 'to defile the hands' (i.e. sacred Hebrew Scripture) as if the scribes did not know which one was the REAL one !!

So, to go around claiming the 'amazing truth' that the Dead Sea Scrolls PROVE the modern Hebrew Bibles have NOT changed oveer time is ABSOLUTELY PURE GARBAGE and BLATANT DIS-INFORMATION (i.e. poppycock) meant to fool those 'innocent but uneducated believers' who cannot study these texts for themselves as I have up close and personal.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK !!!

reply to post by Sigismundus


I am not saying the dead sea scrolls are 100% accurate or oldest versions of the Old Testament either, it is saying that the style of typography is the same as the oldest Old Testament meaning that there is proof of hand me downs that are accurate within that culture and people mentioned from it.

Nor am I saying all the other texts are 100% right, but there is enough to build a picture of the Bible from them.

Once you put everything together you get a large picture dipicting the Bible, which makes the idea the Bible was made up into question.

It proves that certain places and culture existed even before you can find the oldest print from it.

For example if the oldest known Old Testament is 900AD and the Koran is 650AD some say the oldest complete version is also written at 800AD because the Kufic script did not come about until circa 8th century a culture of that is from that time period, but anyway the Koran it self mentions that a Torah existed and the Gospels existed and The Book/Bible existed and yet no whole Bible can be found before then then how can it support a story or deny parts of a story if it had never existed before hand?

Why build churches and synagoues before the Oldest versions of the Books if that was not the case that predate these complete verions of these books there must have been a belief system based on the Old and New Testament at some point before hand?

Again the arguement is this, things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and other manuscripts all have some quote from the Bible it self what ever else is said is their business, no one is saying it is a Bible just that it contains a lot of Biblical stuff in there that proves at least its existence, there would be negative and positive quotations, some say whole quotations of the very scripts from the Bible, but I can not prove it but that is what is being said.

The Aleppo Codex (c. 920 CE) and Leningrad Codex (c. 1008 CE) are the oldest Hebrew language manuscripts of the Tanakh. The 1947 find at Qumran of the Dead Sea scrolls pushed the manuscript history of the Tanakh back a millennium from the two earliest complete codices (see Tanakh at Qumran). Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Out of the roughly 800 manuscripts found at Qumran, 220 are from the Tanakh. Every book of the Tanakh is represented except for the Book of Esther; however, most are fragmentary. Notably, there are two scrolls of the Book of Isaiah, one complete (1QIsa), and one around 75% complete (1QIsb). These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE to 70 CE.

Ancient Jewish scribes developed many practices to protect copies of their scriptures from error.
Text

en.wikipedia.org...

Even so you can not deny the Bible for its historical information, it has openned up history more than any other book, it has given clues to many people, places and cultures if anything to go by. What would the Dead Sea Scrolls prove without the Bible, no referece point for it makes them a bit meaningless.

Its not just the written stuff there are carvings, statues, buildings place names, place names that have discovered Biblical accounts and so on and it keeps building year by year. People use it for guidence, its new message is not that bad for us, we would do well to learn from it.