h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was talking to a friend the other day who had come across a newer version of the bible which started with the creation of male and female as equals. She was ecstatic.

Ah, is it one of those "gender neutral" bibles that have been springing up?
I seem to remember a book that claimed that the original undertext of the old testament was written by a woman before the priests got ahold of it, but I never lent it much credence.
I think that bias is important and should be kept, so that women will have a less-softened blow when they finally realize how cock-eyed history and society is.

I'm not sure. She and her husband are commmitted Christians, brought up as evangelist types. Apparently, they've lost some of their fire recently - well not actually fire, but they don't get as 'spirit filled', in their words.

I'd not heard of the 'written by a woman' before.

Certainly, I gather that there was a lot of picking and choosing what went into the bible, especially the New Testament, particularly in view of the gnostic/literalist split.

Yep. They kept shuffling the deck.
Actually, the Masoretic text of the Old Testament is about a hundred and fifty years younger than the last book of the New Testament.
It was about three hundred years after Christ before the Bible settled down into vaguely what we know today....except for the chapter and verse divisions, which had to wait awhile...
but...the Bible was not found in one volume until the advent of printing. You had to have a library to have all the "books" of the Bible...
So the idea of just sitting down and reading it was rather rare even for the clergy...many of whom were rather illiterate and some remain so...

I seem to remember that there was some sort of conclave about which books to include and which to exclude. Can't remember much else though.

Depends upon which country and which sect...
The Karaites and the Samaritans have never accepted any but the first few books of the Torah...
The Greek Orthodox have a few apocryphal books in both the OT and the NT that most of the "Christian" world don't touch. The Coptic church, well, let us just say that their traditions go back a bit further than the Catholics and even the Armenian church.
And the Russian Orthodox...ah, I'm not even going to try to put that in a sentence.

Those who say they understand the bible probably haven't read it.
Those who say they don't understand it, probably have.

Not heard of the Karaites? Who they?

I think you're probably right about the bible though.

If you can hear a noise, it's probably the cat snoring in the background!

A snoring cat...

The Karaites, as I said, are a Jewish sect who believe that anything beyond the first five books of the scriptures is blasphemous commentary and unnecessary. um, fiction.
They reject the trappings and theological and political and legal accretions that the Jews have taken on since, um, Moses died.
They only recognize the desert tabernacle as a temple and they are not big fans of David. Which means Jerusalem is very low on their list of useful places.

When in doubt, look in the Guide!
Here is an entry on Karaites!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A198083

Yes, he's names Kzin and he's ginger. Very much awake at the moment and yowling after my food.

The Karaites sound fascinating, but sanctimonious. How many of them are there? Do they believe in buttons?

Like "pearlies"?

Urk...a cat named Kzin...ha! I forget who wrote those.

They seem to be congregated in little clumps. They never really go away. They are a kind of apokoros(sp?) a respected part of the community fringe, who are not exactly hated but not exactly loved, kinda like family.

An apokoros(sp?) is a yeshiva student who has decided that, after studying the talmud and the midrash and the mishnah, he doesn't exactly follow the party line. So he declares himself an iconoclast and he goes his separate way within the religion.
The apokoros(sp?) have been very important in Jewish Rabbinical thought because the commentaries include many arguments and judgements and legalistic quandaries across centuries...from many points of view...

I hasten to add that *I* didn't name the cat! My friend from Oregon tells me that they're a race of super-fierce giant cats and the females are not sentient. Mine is not fierce, nor is he very smart.

Yes, (I think) - the Amish don't recognise buttons as they are not named in the bible (although for some reason, the men wear them to do up the flaps in their trousers, but the women get straight pins).

Apokoros? Anything to do with apocryphal? Are they spread over the world then?

Two words I haven't come across before - ' midrash and mishnah'. I can see I'm getting an education here!

No, apokoros(sp?) is very similar to the "christian" apostate.

The midrash and mishnah are commentaries that have taken on the weight of , oh, say, the Catechism to the Catholics.

Well, according to that entry they are found on the edge of the Ukraine and in Los Angeles. I believe there are some in Brooklyn and Israel, too. It is also possible to be a Karaite philosophically as opposed to ethnically, as I explained above.

I have been raised a "christian" but I don't swallow the whole hog.
Have a real problem with the Scientific Creationists.

Tortoises, all the way down...

Just read the Keraites entry, which I missed earlier, probably due to a simulpost. Blow me down! You certainly do come across some wonderful things in the Guide.

Tortoises? As in Disc World?

Si, senora, and chinese mythology...

Tell me more about the Chinese mythology! I know about the tortoise being a symbol of earth and stability.

Don't know nothing about the Chinese mythology. That's what Bob down at the Bookcellar said when we were talking about it.

I know something of quite a few creation myths, but Chinese is not one of them. Maybe something to follow up - later.

One of sites for the Isle of Wight talked about their newish female head Archeologist. They said she had helped dig and 3000 year old temple on Malta. I'll have to remember to check that out.

If it's that old, it may have been put up in matriarchal times (but then, maybe not).

I'll definitely have to have a look at the IOW sites before going. I don't think you can get to see the dinosaurs though - the sites are difficult to get to and will have been covered over by now, I think.