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

According to artistic works of the medieval period, Christ has hung on a T shape cross, with nails driven through his palms and feet but Historians have shown that this is not how the Romans punished prisoners. The Crosses were X shaped and the nails were driven through the wrists and ankles. Stigmatics - those bearing the supposed wounds of Christ - therefore either must be faking their injuries or it is a case of mind over matter on their part (extreme hero worship).

When it comes to witness descriptions of mermaids, they show consistency in the beings having dolphin like tails, despite illustrations showing fish scales depicted instead. So much for artistic license! In both cases, nobody read witness accounts but let their imagination run riot. Thank god for the invention of photography.

http://www.expiredcomics.com/its-a-mermaid.html

"this is not how the Romans punished prisoners. The Crosses were X shaped and the nails were driven through the wrists and ankles." [Paigetheoracle]

So, the crufixion was a cruci-fiction?

In any event, Well noted! I suspect that the absence of any crucifixion images for about 500 years after the crucifixion left the early Christians with inaccurate source material once they began to create iconography. I will hazard a guess, though, about their intentions. The earliest Christians were absolutely shattered by the crucifixion. When their successors created images, maybe they wanted to make deliberate changes?

I hadn't thought of that - I had only wanted to point out the wickedness of the sinners, who strayed from the path of righteousness (brother of Eliot Ness of course)!

And of course there is the classic error of angels with wings. Nowhere in The Bible are they depicted as having these, apparently

Well, it was written before Red Bull was invented...

<BB<

Yeah, angels just sort of appear, as if they've just walked through a doorway that leads from their world to this one.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord, sitting on a throne. high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

Isaiah 6, 1-2

All those wings can't be a good omen.

...flying with wings covering face...

...justice...

Apparently each Cherub had one wheel, and was covered with eyes, and had four faces, as well as wings. It doesn't say how many wings, though, nor whether the wings were used for flying as opposed to covering faces or feet.

Here is a link to a website that argues against the idea of angels having wings
http://www.the-gospel-truth.info/do-angels-have-wings/

There are two reasons for thinking that they don't have wings:

1. Some translations indicate that God is an angel. If man was made in God's image, and man has no wings, then God doesn't have wings either. And if God is an angel, then that angel is wingless.

2. There are Biblical passages in which angels bring messages to people, who speak of them as men. Surely they would not be mistaken for men if they had wings, would they>

This doesn't settle the question of wings on Seraphim and Cherubim, though. Maybe not all angels are the same. If that is the case, then why are we worrying about this?

You might have a look at the edited guide entries on angels.

The Greek gods would occasionally appear in the guise of mortals, in Homer. The god would inspire the mortal with a certain enthusiasm.

"You might have a look at the edited guide entries on angels" [ITIWBS]

I've looked at the one edited entry. It seems that the higher orders of angels have more wings. As they descend in importance, the number of wings shrinks from 6 to 4 to 2, and finally to discretionary -- winged or not.

Perhaps these lower angels are shape-shifters. When they don't want to alarm humans, they go wingless. They are, after all, noncorporeal.

I stand corrected. I had forgotten about accounts like the one you mentioned, which is why I said 'apparently.' This is a get out clause, which if mentioned in an argument with Donald Trump by Santa, would be followed by the words "Get out Claus!

Sudden appearances? Sounds like aliens or ghosts going through Walls (personally I prefer Lyons Maid).

Non-corporal - so they are all officer class then?

Officer class?

The Bible is a book. There were many authors, of varying perspectives and credibility. That some portions of the Bible would conflict with other portions is to be expected when so many authors have contributed over a long period of time. You might also factor in the effects of stress, possible bipolar tendencies, occasional reliance on dreams (without mentioning that the incidents were dreams), schadenfreud toward one's unsuccessful enemies, and many other factors that would add to or detract from the usability of the various passages.

Imagine that you are in court, and you need to question one of the Biblical authors under oath. Well, you can't do it. In many cases you don;t *know* who the author was. In others, the testimony you seek would depend on the presence of a first-rate translator. English didn't exist when the Bible was written. Maybe our understanding of the Bible can never be as good as it would be if we understood the languages that the different passages were originally written in.

I can't highly enough recommend the book "Who wrote the Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman. Utterly fascinating, well researched and most credible (hard to contradict). Deals only with the Old Testament.

In would love to read that. I regularly seek out new perspectives on then original Biblical texts in translation. And, yes, I usually take some of the new perspectives with a grain of salt.