Oldest bible being put online - what will that mean for WTS teachings?

by Simon 76 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  cameo-d

  I am sure it will be "earthshattering" when it's finally presented to the world. I am sure it will bring just that much more confusion and probably the seeds for new doctrines.

  quote:

  "Before its discovery in the early 19th Century by the Indiana Jones of his day, it remained hidden in St Catherine's Monastery since at least the 4th Century."

  This makes me think of WT ambiguity. This article does not name this person who "discovered it"; we are just supposed to accept some anonomyous "Indiana Jones" found it. And to claim that it has "been hidden in a Monastery all these centuries". Sorry I ain't buying it. Who hid it---the Pope? Housecleaning nuns misplaced it? A manuscript that old and valuable, doesn't end up hidden underneath the sofa for over a thousand years.

  A treasure like that would have to have been deliberately withheld. I don't think it would just sit innocuously on a shelf for hundreds of years. Why has it been kept secret? What...you think the Vatican doesn't take inventory? C'mon!

  I am less excietd about the new bible than I am the agenda behind it. Why has it been brought forth at this time? Is it because this book upholds Luciferian doctrine and this is the new agenda? Is this book being brought forth because too many people are too close to discovering the lies of religion and this hopes to confuse them even more?

  ..... and about that Burning Bush......do you all have any idea how many gas fissures are in that oil rich area? The first prophets were sybils who tranced from sniffing the natural gas from fissures. Of course there are burning bushes there. And there is a logical explanation---not some mysterious zapping power!
• 

  reniaa

  hi black sheep

  lol nope shem tov is a hebrew matthew translated in medieval times back to hebrew from the greek or latin so not very reliable. I meant the original hebrew matthew book but are no longer in existence the last was known in the 4th century. Again this is contraversial stuff since many scholars still say that mathew was only ever written in greek and an original hebrew written one is just a fantasy. lol so like I said this would cause aome excitement if one was found.

  Reniaa
• 

  BurnTheShips

  I started a thread on this last year.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/162687/1/1-600-year-old-version-of-Bible-goes-online

  The problem is ... the oldest bible shows that it's been changed significantly

  The changes are of little importance. And doctrinally speaking, I am not aware of anything significant at all. Although new online, the Codex has long been available for scholars and translators. The BBC article puts a bit of spin on the importance of the differences, to say the least. The article is doing more than reporting news, it is preaching.

  From Wikipedia demonstrating that the this manuscript is in general agreement with other old ones:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus

  Text-type and relationship to other manuscripts

  For most of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus is in general agreement with Codex Vaticanus and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, attesting the Alexandrian text-type. A notable example of an agreement between the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus texts is that they both omit the word εικη ('without cause', 'without reason', 'in vain') from Matthew 5:22 "But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment". [ 28 ]

  And so on, at the link.

  BTS
• 

  BurnTheShips

  lol nope shem tov is a hebrew matthew translated in medieval times back to hebrew from the greek or latin so not very reliable.

  This is pure speculation. There is no proof.

  BTS
• 

  Pistoff

  All said and done:

  Written by non-eye witnesses, in a language three or four times removed from our own, by those invested in a belief that Jesus was either god incarnate or his son.

  The Bible is wartime literature, OT and NT.

  P
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  What might rock the world is an original book of mathew in hebrew from the 1st century.

  I meant the original hebrew matthew book

  Wake up and get your head out of your Watchtower. There are no known copies of Matthew from the first century, let alone Hebrew copies.
  Throwing the word "original" around for any copy is misleading. An original book of Matthew would be written by the original author, the one who is allegedly Matthew. An "original copy" would be a copy from the original book, none of those have been proven to be found either.

  Serious debate is even beyond whether the book of Matthew (or Luke, Mark, John) even existed in the first century or were written afterward.

  Simon, real facts and evidence never stood in the way of religion and faith. It means nothing to them.
• 

  PSacramento

  The epistle of Barnabus does have the mentioning of the shape of the cross where Jesus died:9:39 - shape of a "T" ( Tau in Greek).
• 

  PSacramento

  The oldest verifiable Christian writings that we have were paul's letters to the Thessaloninas, Phillipians, Galatians, Romans and Corinthians, dtaed by some to just 50 years after the death of Christ.

  Not sure what Matthew's Gospel would give us in terms of a pciture, that Paul's letter don't, even if it was in Hebrew.
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  BurnTheShips

  Serious debate is even beyond whether the book of Matthew (or Luke, Mark, John) even existed in the first century or were written afterward.

  The majority of scholars place it in the first century. And writings of other first century authors, like Ignatius, show that they were already familiar with the book. The Didache, also dated to the first century, shows many parallels to it.

  BTS
• 

  Narkissos

  I think one of the main interests of publishing such ancient mss and codices is to help the general public realise that there has always been a lot of "Bibles," all different from one another not only in the exact wording but also in the books they included or excluded, the order of the books, titles, annotations and so on -- all of which contributed to make every one different and unique. A perspective which is lost when the variant readings extracted from all kinds of textual witnesses are put together in the critical apparatus of a heterogeneous Greek reconstruction, as if the only thing that mattered was the pursuit of an elusive "original" text.

  As one French textual criticism scholar once put it: the manuscripts, with all their variant readings, are the facts; the "original" is a hypothesis.