What scriptures did those christians in Persia, India, China and other Asian countries use during the early christian years? Have heard about lost Christianities, and Christianity in Asia Minor, and points east and was wondering if they had manuscripts and holy writings they used.
books of the bible
by ssn587 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Terry
No TV.
No Radio.
No Internet.
No daily newspaper.
How did a pre-technology world get information?
Word-of-mouth.
Rumor.
Visiting strangers.
Commerce.
The stories of Jesus were oral urban legends that probably began this way:
"Hey did you hear about that Rabbi in Jerusalem who could walk on top of water?"
Sort of like telling about a UFO sighting or an encounter with Bigfoot in our own day and time.
The credulous and the uneducated would be the first to listen and retell (with embellishments) what they'd heard.
Ask yourself how we all know what space aliens look like if it weren't for the trope of storytelling over decades.
The ACTUAL WRITTEN books of the bible are another matter.
NOBODY thought they were writing a book under inspiration! They were just writing a story!
Even Paul's letters (which preceded the Gospels) were just encouraging letters and nothing much more than that by reputation!
The status of HOLY or INSPIRED was a gradual affectation. As the stories were written down and recopied an aura of importance EVENTUALLY became attached to the original.
Hello? There may have never been an ORIGINAL!
Here is a thought experiment for you. Think about the origin of jokes. Sure, we know where George Carlin's jokes came from--he wrote them. But, the "a guy walks into a bar.." jokes---where do they come from?
Some anonymous Joe somewhere thinks one up and tells it.
Another person polishes it and makes it punchy.
Another teller makes it more colorful and tells it with an accent or adds an animal to it.....
The "final" joke is just a work in progress.
The Bible was a series of urban stories not unlike jokes for the next guy to tell and make a little more colorful and exciting!
Deciding which books were "holy" or "inspired" was a fool's errand. They ASSUMED their premise and then set out to prove it!
Want proof?
Where are the ORIGINAL manuscripts to any bible book??
If any were actually HOLY----do you think they wouldn't be preserved and revered like the Shroud of Turin?
No, canonicity and inspiration are conceptual labels eventually attached to stories that were passed around, "improved" and retold until they got written down and edited.
At that point the cycle started all over. Redactors kept on "improving" and harmonizing until the "canon" got frozen.
Today, walk into any bookstore and see how much of the original Gospel isn't STILL BEING CHANGED AND RETOLD for modern audiences!
The beat goes on.......and on.......
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ssn587
Terry agree totally with your analysis, but just wondered which of the myth written manuscripts they used. I think that the tales were something like barracks no BS stories that got verbally adjusted to fit particular situations. The only thing missing in the texts is the start of this "Now this is no BS," that is what strikes me about the Bible after reading many books about the supposed origins of the bible. Bart Ehrman's books have definitely been educational and enlightening and a confirmation. Tks so much for you input.
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ssn587
Another thought is that all the Bible should have been retitled as something on the lime of Aseops Tales (spelling?)
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PSacramento
Here is the thing, we all have inherant biasis, so we like to focus on the things that conform to said baisis and the ancients were no different.
In the parts where a certain view was favoured, Paul's for example, his works were widley circulated and in those were a more Gnostic view was favored ( decades and centuires AFTER Paul), those were circulated.
The most ancient of codexs tended to be rather uniform as it was.
Codex vacticanus
Codex sinaiticus
Codex Alexandrinus
Codex Ephraemi
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wobble
I read an account a while ago of a Bishop in the early church visiting a congregation that used a Gospel of Peter, he was inclined to believe it was genuine, and so gave them his blessing, and left.
It was later pointed out to him that this Gospel denied the full divinity of Christ, so he returned to the congregation, took the gospel and destroyed it.
I think this tells us much as to how and why we have ended up with the books we have.
Of course, even a "genuine" gospel was a story cobbled together in a smokey room, some time after 70 C.E with the motive of building a myth about the preacher Jesus, who met his death some 37 years before. A myth that would appeal to the world at large.
So, even if we had an autograph copy of each gospel, we would not have the genuine history, much less the genuine words of Jesus.
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GromitSK
I might be wrong here but I have a dim recollection that in the NT very little is actually even alleged to be the spoken word of JC? Is my recall correct?
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wobble
Certainly a lot of the gospel content contain words supposedly spoken by Jesus.
These are believed to have come from a document scholars call "Q". (Some scholars dispute its very existence, or its use in certain gospels)
This would have been a collection of sayings and parables rather than a history and written down with the motive of preserving the words.
The somewhat Gnostic, and late, "Gospel of Thomas" follows this pattern, but is not to be relied upon.
What would be fantastic would be for a very early copy of "Q" to be found, we may then have a clear view as to what the teachings of Jesus were that inspired such loyalty and service, and moved some to create a myth.
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GromitSK
so if Christians just took JCs word how thick do u think the book wud be? :)
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wobble
If Jesus preached solidly for three years, there could be thousands of profound sayings and parables, if you believe in prayer, pray that we find them !