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

Interestingly, John 8:1-11, one of the most famous sections in the NT, is a later addition to the Bible, and not part of the original text.

Gif

You trouble maker, Gif!

No wonder the god got his son crucified after the brat started going against and changing his teachings.

You provocative so and so, 3dots

Gif:

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You say the worst book in the bible, but looking at it I think there's a lot of good stuff in Leviticus:

"The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: 'Be holy because I, the LORD you God, am holy.
"'Each of you must respect his mother and father, [not a bad idea, surely] and you must observe my Sabbaths [have a break, don't work every day like a crazy - sensible]


What about these decrees, all in chapter 19:

"'Do not steal.
"'Do not lie.
"'Do not deceive one another
"'Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
"'Do not defraud your neighbour or rob him.
"'Do not hold back the wages of a man overnight.
"'Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling-block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD.
"'Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly.
"'Do not go about spreading slander among your people.
"'Do not do anything that endangers your neighbour's life. I am the LORD.
"'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so that you will not share in his guilt.
"'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.
"'Keep my decrees.'"


I'm sure everyone (unless they are a pschopath I suppose) would agree that most, if not all, of these decrees were very good. Do not steal, do not lie. I like the bit about not cursing a deaf person and not putting a stumbling-block in front of a blind person: I think they show behaviour that displeases God and probably most people here, too.

'Do not do anything that endangers your neighbour's life. I am the LORD.' It's good stuff: Care for each other, look after each other.

Just read this from Effers:
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Yeah, I know what you mean.

Hi WG,

All good stuff, granted. But I think that 'my' verse is the single best one all round

As for 'worst book' - this thread is about favourite bits and I don't want to derail it, but I think we can both agree that there is more than enough to dislike in Leviticus also, from slavery to genocide.

Gif

So you are, in fact, Moses? Wow! Impressed.

"This is what happened during the time of Xerxes, the Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush: At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa, and in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials..."

Hello WG

A good reminder about the contents of Leviticus. Thanks

mikey2

'But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.'

Mathew 5:39


This has to be the most wimpish thing in the whole bible. Give me the jealous God and pillars of salt, any day

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Ah, we'll have to agree to disagree here, Effers... I love this ideal! (Although as has been pointed out, I am so *not* a shining example of it! )

Vicky

Hello Mikey.
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I think that is one of the points of a thread like this.
It's interesting to see what other people are reading, and what is inspiring them. By sharing it here we can encourage each other.

And I think Vicky is definitly right in her adherence to 'cheek turning' as an ideal. If you are Christian you have to take onboard the whole shebang. It would be like me saying I believe in the scientific method, and not accepting that all of the facts in scientific knowledge are *potentially* 'falsifiable', ie not true.

I like this one-"You shall recieve power when the holy spirit comes on you.And you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth."(acts 1:8 shortened).

<< If you are Christian you have to take onboard the whole shebang. >>

Yes, you do really. And it is so difficult! (Well, I find it so)

Hi Gif

How's things? I've been away from this entry for awhile (family bereavement).

<...John 8:1-11...is a later addition to the Bible...>

It depends on whether or not one accepts the Alexandrian manuscripts as faithful to the original text ( Codex Sinaiticus et al ) or the majority text group i.e. Byzantine, (which does contain that section)as being correct.

Alas, the true manuscript source grouping is not provable; that due to the original autographs having disappeared.


Rick

Could you run me that by me again royalrcrompton. I got a little lost.....

I know you were principally addressing Gif, but I'd be quite interested to know what you are actually driving at..(I can be a little dense sometimes )

Hi Effers

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding certain portions of the New Testament ( Mark 16:9 f and John 8:1-11 are two key sections )and whether or not they are part of the original autographs.

The original gospels,letters and epistles have not survived to this day -- indeed, they were long-gone by the 4th century.

The omission of John 8:1-11 occurs chiefly within a group of extant manuscripts that are sourced from the Alexandrian Catechetical School (influential through the leadership of Origen and Eusebius in the 3rd and 4th C.). It is out of this school that we have our earliest known manuscripts : the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These two manuscripts and others of the same school omit the two aforementioned portions of Mark's and John's gospels.

The question is this : did the originals contain them or omit them? an unprovable point because, of course, they do not exist for present-day examination. The controversy centres around the argument advanced by many that because the earliest known manuscripts do not show them, then likely neither did the original autographs. But that cannot be presupposed as true or false. It is just speculation. The Majority Text group ( roughly 90% of all the surviving manuscripts of antiquity ) do show them.

Now, were these Scripture portions added later as Gif and other scholars suppose or were they deleted by the Catechetical School scribes? The fact that from out of the the Catechetical School some heresy arose (mainly concerning the Deity of Christ) gives balance to the argument i.e. can these two earliest manuscripts be trusted?

RC

Hi RC,

Welcome back, and I'm sorry to hear your sad news. I'm sure I'm not the only h2g2 Researcher whose thoughts are with you.

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The situation is that we have two versions of the text here; one that includes the story of the woman taken in adultery and one that does not. You're absolutely correct that we cannot say for certain which is the original; however, there are several methods we can use to make a judgement, and in this instance it's pretty clear-cut.

Firstly, this is obviously not an accidental slip of a scribe's pen. We are dealing with a large, deliberate alteration to the text. So we can ask which is more likely; that a (Christian) scribe would add in this moving story about a wise, caring, fair Jesus, or that he would delete it? To most scholars, the former makes more sense.

Then we can look at the manuscript tradition it comes from. The Alexandrian texts are older, which is helpful but not conclusive. More to the point, there is much less variation among the Alexandrian texts, implying that they are more accurate copies (this would fit with Alexandria being a major centre of learning with skilled scribes). The Alexandrian texts are therefore widely regarded as more accurate than the Latin ones. Latin texts are more common, since Christianity later became the official religion of the Roman Empire; however, it is widely accepted that the manuscripts that were copied were inferior - the greater number of them doesn't imply greater accuracy.

There is some argument over the style of this verse. I'm told that the word usage in untypical of John, though I'm no Greek scholar and can't vouch for this myself.

Then there's the fact that in the manuscripts where the story is found, it is often found in different places. This suggests it may have started out as a marginal note that various scribes moved into the main text in different places.

And finally, none of the early Church fathers refer to this story until the late 4th Century - which, of course, is when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, with a seizmic shift in the accuracy of copies.

(I'm fairly sure there's more, but that's all I can remember off the top of my head.)

So by almost every criterion we can judge by, it seems more likely that this is a late addition than a late deletion.

Gif