MarkT

How should we view the bible?

{ 11:05 AM, 20/9/2008 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

HOW SHOULD WE VIEW THE BIBLE?

Accordingh to Jung , 'God stands, omnipotent and free, above his Bible." p.131

... the Fundamentalsit will never ask what lies beyond the Bible, or what sort of religious experience was possible before there was a Bible. He speaks and behaves as it is was impossible to be a Christian before there was a New Testament. He may be too self-conscious to state that he believes the Bible to have been divinely dictated, but that is really what he does believe. pp 131-132

... the Fundamentalist will forbid you to ask certain questions about the Bible ... p. 132

It is therefore much mopre honest (though it may well make life more difficult) to see the Bible as result rather than beginning. ... as a matter of historical reality the Bible is the end orf a process. First, viewed as a whole, the list of books which form the Bible was finally agreed upon only in the fourth century AD, more than two hundred years after the latest book in the New Testament was written. And, second, viewed in its component parts, each book of the Bible - or in many cases each part of a book - is
the result of a human creartive process akin to, or even identical with, the production of a work of art. ... Each has his own language, and it is his language, though the thoughts may be divine. pp. 132-133

But one of the characteristics of rthe fundamentalist is that he doesn't attach very much importance to the humanity of Christ: he is much more anxious to make it clear that Christ is God. p. 133

In fact, then, the Bible is a collection, a human collection, of very human response to the divine ... If it were literally the word of God it would be unintelligible to us, just as divine music would be meaningless to human ears. To speak or behave, therefore, as the Fundamentalist does, as if Christianity is a question of responding to the Bible, is to fail to do justice to what the Bible is - it is itself response. What the Christin is invited to do is to make his own response to what the biblical writers were responding to ... we only do justice to it, rather than simply obeyiong it or imitating the responses which it contains, we allow it to form in us the capacity to make our own unique responses. p. 134

... the Bible may be the initial impetus in the religious life of a believer, and it may be the source to which the believer constantly returns. But equally it may not: it is not necessarily so. There is no reason -
other than convention or Fundamentalist propaganda - why the Bible should have a monopoly in the area of religious experience, so that 'if it's in the Bible it must be so, and if it's not in the Bible it can't be so'. There are other sources of revelation. p. 134

... the process of establishing which books actually belonged in the bible was a human process: over a period of centuries the church gradually brought itself to regard some books as having authoritative or canonical status and to exclude others. .... There is therefore no reason in principle why flesh and blood cannot continue the process and add new sources of revelation or take away old ones (as Luther came very near doing when he dismissed the letter of James as 'an epistle of straw'). p. 135

... the Fundamentalist is more or less obliged by his own presuppositions to take a closed view of the Bible. If the Bible were not the final word then he would have to review the whole basis of his religion. ... to insist that God was behind the formation of the cana is both to assume what you are trying to prove and to legislate on God's subsequent freedom to act and reveal himself in any way he choses. p. 135

... if the Bible is the necessary and exclusive precondition for a Christian's religious experience, it must logically follow that none of the New Testament writers were themselves Christians, since by definition the canonical Bible was not available to them. p. 135

We are entirely free, therefore, to explore the possibility that there are indeed ways of approaching or understanding or questioning God which are alternative to those contained in the Bible and which may have nothing at all to do with the Bible and may even contradict it. p. 136

The Bible was something like 1500 years in the making .... the Bible throughout its development was constantly changing its character, widening its repertoire, breaking its own bounds. p. 136

... a religion which considers itself bound exclusively and finally by an arbitrary collection of documents, abruptly and artificially sealed up in the fourth century AD, is misunderstanding its own essence and indeed closing itself off from the God whom it professes to reveal. p. 137

... for many people music provides the nearest thing to religious experience, or rather for many people religious experience takes the form of music. p.139

... an approach which seeks to legislate on what can and cannot be called religious experience or revelation, according to whether or not it takes its point of departure from the Bible, is simply closing its eyes to what actually happens. pp. 139-140

The Bible in fact, if it is approached in accordance with the spirit which permeates it, cries out to us to use our imagination, free from all constraints, in our search for, or response to, God. p. 140

From Peter Cameron's "Fundamentalism and Freedom" (Doubleday; Sydney: 1995.)

How We Got Our Bible

{ 10:59 AM, 20/9/2008 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

HOW WE GOT TODAY'S BIBLE
- FROM 3000 BCE TO NOW

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3000 BCE
- Egyptian songs written that were the source of many of the Psalms

2000 BCE
- Eclessiastes written

1900 BCE
- Abraham comes to Palestine
- Beginning of oral tradition later recorded in the bible

1375 - 1358 BCE
- Reign of Egyptian Pharoah Amenhotep IV ( later called Ikhnaton)
inspiration of much of Moses' writing.

1000 BCE
- Bible begins to be written with Job (fiction)

960 BCE - The YAHWIST editor

850 BCE - The ELOHIST editor

621 BCE - The DEUTERONOMIST editor

596 BCE - The PRIESTLY editors

200 BCE
- Daniel written (fiction)

275 - 100 BCE
- Septuagint Greek Manuscripts

50 - 60 CE
- 1 Thessalonians (Paul)
- Philippians (Paul)
- Galatians (Paul)
- 1 Corinthians (Paul)
- 2 Corinthians (Paul)
- Romans (Paul)
- Philemon (Paul)

50 - 80 CE
- Colossians (May not be Paul)

50 - 95 CE
- Hebrews (Not Paul)

65 - 80 CE
- Mark's gospel

70 - 100 CE
- James

80 -100 CE
- 2 Thessalonians (May not be Paul)
- Ephesians (May not be Paul)
- Matthew's gospel

80 -110 CE
- 1 Peter

80 CE - 130 CE
- Luke's gospel, Acts

90 - 95 CE
- Revelation of John (Not the apostle John)

90 -120 CE.
- I John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude
- John's Gospel

100 -150 CE
-1 Timothy (Not Paul)
- 2 Timothy (Not Paul)
- Titus (Not Paul)

100 -160 CE
- 2 Peter (Not Peter)

382 CE: Jerome's Latin Vulgate Manuscripts

397 CE: Athanasius heads a council to canonize the Bible.

600 CE: Latin the only language allowed for scripture.

995 CE: Anglo-Saxon translations of the New Testament.

1384 CE: Wycliffe hand-written manuscript of Bible

1455 CE: Gutenberg invents the printing press. Bible in Latin.

1516 CE: Erasmus produces a Greek/Latin Parallel New Testament.

1522 CE: Martin Luther's German New Testament.

1526 CE: William Tyndale's New Testament in English.

1535 CE: Myles Coverdale's Bible in English.

1539 CE: The "Great Bible". First English language Bible authorized for public use.

1560 CE: Geneva Bible. First English language Bible to add numbered verses to each chapter.

1568 CE: Bishops Bible

1582 CE: Rheims New Testament

1609 CE: Douay Old Testament is added to the Rheims New Testament. First complete English Catholic Bible. Translated from the Latin Vulgate.

1611 CE: King James Bible. Originally with all 80 books. The Apocrypha was officially removed in 1885 leaving only 66 books.

1841 CE: English Hexapla New Testament. Early textual comparison showing the Greek and 6 famous English translations in parallel columns.

1885 CE: English Revised Version. First major English revision of the KJV.

1901 CE: American Standard Version. First major American revision of the KJV.

1973 CE: New International Version

1982 CE: New King James Version

2002 CE: English Standard Version

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
VERSIONS

a.. The Targums

After the return from the Captivity, the Jews, no longer familiar with the old Hebrew, required that their Scriptures should be translated for them into the Chaldaic or Aramaic language and interpreted. These translations and paraphrases were at first oral, but they were afterwards reduced to writing, and thus targums, i.e., "versions" or "translations", have come down to us. The chief of these are,

    a.. (1.) The Onkelos Targum, ...
    b.. (2.) The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel

The Greek Versions

    a.. (1.) The oldest of these is the Septuagint, usually quoted as the
LXX. ...

This version, with all its defects, must be of the greatest interest:

(a) as preserving evidence for the text far more ancient than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts;
(b) as the means by which the Greek Language was wedded to Hebrew thought;
(c) as the source of the great majority of quotations from the Old Testament by writers of the New Testament.

(2.) Aquila, called Aquila of Pontus (flourished about 130), translated the Old Testament into Greek. ...

(3.) The New Testament manuscripts fall into two divisions,

a.. Uncials, written in Greek capitals, with no distinction at all between the different words, and very little even between the different lines; and

b.. Cursives, in small Greek letters, were a "running hand" script form where the letters were connected as in our longhand. This script was continuous scriptio continua, without breaks for words or lines or verses. Also called Minuscule writing.

The change between the two kinds of Greek writing took place about the tenth century AD.

Only five manuscripts of the New Testament approaching to completeness are more ancient than this dividing date.

a.. The first, numbered A, is the Alexandrian manuscript. ... dated in the fifth century A.D. Also called Codex Alexandrinus. It contains almost the entire Bible.

b.. The second, known as B, is the Vatican manuscript. ...

c.. The Third, C, or the Ephraem manuscript, ....belongs to the fifth century, and perhaps a slightly earlier period of it than the manuscript A. Also called Codex Ephraemi. ...

d.. The fourth, D, or the manuscript of Beza, ... belonged to the reformer Beza, who found it in the monastery of St. Irenaeus at Lyons in 1562 A.D. It is imperfect, and is dated in the sixth century. Also called Codex Bezae.

e.. The fifth (called Aleph) is the Sinaitic manuscrip...

The Syriac Versions

    a.. Old Syriac Version. ... the fourth century.
    b.. Syriac Peshitta. ... created about 150-250 AD.
    c.. Palestinian Syriac. About 400-450 AD.
    d.. Philoxenian. 508 AD.
    e.. Harkleian Syriac. 616 AD

from
http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/Research%20History%20and%20Great%20Links/History_of_the_bible.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Although the "New Testament" contains the same twenty-seven books for almost all Christians, there are some major and important differences between the "Hebrew Bible" (HB) used by Jews and various versions of the "Old Testament" (OT) used by different Christian churches and denominations:

The foundational texts are different:

a.. Jewish Bibles are based on the HB;

b.. the OT section in Christian Bibles is arranged according to the order of books in the "Septuagint" (LXX), the ancient Greek version of the Jewish scriptures;

c.. however, the translations of individual OT books in Christian Bibles are now usually based on the texts of the HB.

The total number of biblical books is different:

a.. Jews count 24, Protestants 39, Catholics 46, Orthodox Christians up to 53;

b.. certain books of the HB are subdivided in the LXX e.g., "The Twelve" minor prophets are considered one book in the HB, while the LXX and Christian Bibles count these as twelve separate books;

c.. the LXX contains several additional books not found in the HB; Orthodox and Catholic Christians regard these additional books as part of the OT canon (calling them the "Deuterocanonical Books"), while Jews and most Protestant Christians do not (calling them the "Apocrypha").

The arrangement of the categories of books is different:

e.g. the "Latter Prophets" come before the "Writings" in the HB, but all the "Prophets" come after the "Wisdom" literature in the Christian OT. The order of the "Prophets" is also different between the LXX and the Catholic and Protestant OT.

The titles of some of the books are different:

e.g. "Samuel" of the HB is split up into "1 Kingdoms" and "2 Kingdoms" in the LXX, which are renamed "1 Samuel" and "2 Samuel" in most Christian Bibles.

The categorization of some books is different:

e.g. several of the books categorized as "Writings" in the HB are placed among the "Historical Books" or the "Prophets" in LXX and the Christian OT

from
http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/Research%20History%20and%20Great%20Links/Comparison_of_Jewish_and_Christian_Bibles.htm

The search for the authentic words of Jesus

{ 9:48 AM, 20/9/2008 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

"SEVEN PILLARS" OF CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARLY WISDOM

1. The distinction between the historical Jesus (uncovered by historical excavation) and the Christ of Faith (encapsulated in the first creeds).

2. Recognising that the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew & Luke) are much closer to the historical Jesus than John's gospel which presents a "spiritual" Jesus.

3. The recogintion of Mark's gospel as prior to Matthew's and Luke's and their basis.

4. The identification of the hypothetical source Q as the explanation for the "double tradition" (The material Matthew & Luke have in common beyond their dependence on Mark.)

5. The liberation of the non-eschatological Jesus of the aphorisms and parables from Albert Schweitzer's eschatological Jesus

6. Recognition of the fundamental contrast between the oral culture (in which Jesus was at home) and a print culture (like our own). (The Jesus whom historians seek will be found in those fragments of tradition that bear the imprint of orality: short, provocative, memorable, oft-repeated phrases,
sentences, and stories.)

7. The reversal regarding who bears the burden of proof. The gospels are now assumed to be narratives in which the memory of Jesus is embellished by mythic elements that express the church's faith in him, and by plausible fictions that enhance the telling of the gospel for 1st century listeners
who knew about divine men and miracle woprkers first hand. Supposedly historical elements in these narratives must be proved so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TWO DIFFERING PORTRAITS OF JESUS:

1. The Synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew & Luke)
- Jesus speaks in parables and aphorisms
- God's imperial rule is the theme of Jesus' teaching

2. John's Gospel
- Jesus speaks in long, involved discourses
- Jesus is the theme of his own teaching

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE FOUR SOURCE THEORY:

Matthew used Mark, Q, and is own special source called M.

Luke also used Mark and Q, but had another source called L, which Mathew did not have.

The material in M & L probably comes from oral tradition.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RULES OF WRITTEN EVIDENCE:

CLUSTERING & CONTEXTING

1. The evangelists frequently group sayings and parables in clusters and complexes that did not originate with Jesus.

2. The evangelists frequently relocate sayings and parables or invent new narrative contexts for them.

REVISION & COMMENTARY

3. The evangelists frequently expand sayings or parables, or provide them with an interpretive overlay or comment.

4. The evangelists often revide or edit sayigs to make them conform to their own individual language, styleor viewpoint.

FALSE ATTRIBUTION

5. Words borrowed from the fund of common lore or the Greek sriptures are often put on the lips of Jesus.

DIFFICULT SAYINGS

6. Hard sayings are frequently softened in the process of transmission to adapt them to the conditions of daily living.

7. Variations in difficult sayings often betray the struggle of the early Christian community to interpret or adpat sayings to its own situation.

CHRISTIANISING JESUS

8. Sayings and parables expressed in "Christian" language are the creation of the evangelists or their Christian predecessors.

9. Saying or parables that contrast with the language or viewpoint of the gospel in which they are embedded reflect older tradition (but not necessarily tradition that originated with Jesus).

10. The Christian community develops apologetic statements to defend its claims and sometimes attributes such statements to Jesus.

11. Sayings and narratives that reflect knowledge of events that took place after Jesus' death are the creation of the evangelists or the oral tradition before them.

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS: THE RULES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

12. Only sayings and parables that can be traced back to the oral period, 30-50 CE, can possibly have orginated with Jesus.

13. Sayings or parables that are attested to in two or more independent sources are older than the sources in which they are embedded.

14. Sayings or parables that are attested in two different contexts probably circulated independently at an earlier time.

15. The same or similar content attested in two or more different forms has had a life of its own and therefore may stem from old tradition.

16. Unwritten tradition that is captured by the written gospels relatively late may preserve very old memories.

ORALITY & MEMORY (STORY TELLER'S LICENSE)

17. The oral memory best retains sayings and anecdotes that are short, provocative, memorable - and oft-repeated.

18. The most frequently recorded words of Jesus in the surving gospels take the form of aphorisms and parables.

19. The earliest layer of teh gospel tradition is made up of single aphorisms and parables that circulated by word of mouth prior to the written gospels.

20. Jesus' disciples remembered the core or gist of his sayings and parables, not his precise words, except in rare cases.

DISTINCTIVE DISCOURSE

21. Jesus' characteristic talk was distinctive - it can usually be distinguished from common lore. otherwise it is futuile to search for the authentic words of Jesus.

22. Jesus' sayings and parables cut against the social and religious grain.

23. Jesus' sayings and parables surprise and shock: they characteristically call for a reversal of roles or frustrate ordinary, everyday expectations.

24. Jesus' sayings and prables are often characterised by exaggeration, humour, and paradox.

25. Jesus' images are concrete nd vivid, his sayings and parables customarily metaphorical and without explicit application.

THE LACONIC SAGE

26. Jesus does not as a rule initiate dialogue or debate, nor does he offer to cure people.

27. Jesus rarely makes pronouncements or speaks about himself in the first person.

28. Jesus makes no claim to be the Anointed, the messiah.

AGENDA

29. Canonical boundaries are irrelevant in critical assessments of the various sources of information about Jesus.

Adapted from Funk et al's "Five Gospels: The search for the authentic words of Jesus" (Polebridge:1993) pp. 1-38, Introduction.

Jesus never stated John 3:16

{ 10:16 AM, 29/8/2008 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

John 3: 16 (Scholars Version) - This is how God loved the world: God gave up an only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not be lost but have real life.

....

The fourth evangelist's style of speech and comment is exemplified by the remarks in 3:31-36. These remarks are the creation of the evangelist. There is no suggestion that they should be attributed to Jesus. John 13:14-21 is written in the same style and with comparable content. Had these verse been included in quotation marks as words allegedly spoken by Jesus, the fellows would have course have labeled them black. *[Meaning "Jesus did not say this, it represents the perspective or content of a later
or different tradition."]

It should be recalled that quotation marks do not appear in the original Greek manuscripts of any of the gospels; most punctuation marks have been provided by modern editors and translators.

John 3:14-21, in the judgement of the fellows, should not be enclosed in quotation marks. The Scholars Version places closing quotation marks at the end of v. 13, although some modern translations incorrectly include vv.14-21 in Jesus' quoted speech.

From Funk, Hoover and the Jesus Seminar "The Five Gospels" (Macmillan: 1993) pp. 408-409

DATES FOR EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS

{ 11:41 AM, 25/2/2007 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

Obviously some NT books cannot be written by their claimed authors. It is very difficult to write when you are dead!

Earliest to latest dates CE of when written ......

from http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

30-60 Passion Narrative
40-80 Lost Sayings Gospel Q
50-60 1 Thessalonians
50-60 Philippians
50-60 Galatians
50-60 1 Corinthians
50-60 2 Corinthians
50-60 Romans
50-60 Philemon
50-80 Colossians
50-90 Signs Gospel
50-95 Book of Hebrews
50-120 Didache
50-140 Gospel of Thomas
50-140 Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel
50-200 Sophia of Jesus Christ
65-80 Gospel of Mark
70-100 Epistle of James
70-120 Egerton Gospel
70-160 Gospel of Peter
70-160 Secret Mark
70-200 Fayyum Fragment
70-200 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
73-200 Mara Bar Serapion
80-100 2 Thessalonians
80-100 Ephesians
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-110 1 Peter
80-120 Epistle of Barnabas
80-130 Gospel of Luke
80-130 Acts of the Apostles
80-140 1 Clement
80-150 Gospel of the Egyptians
80-150 Gospel of the Hebrews
80-250 Christian Sibyllines
90-95 Apocalypse of John
90-120 Gospel of John
90-120 1 John
90-120 2 John
90-120 3 John
90-120 Epistle of Jude
93 Flavius Josephus
100-150 1 Timothy
100-150 2 Timothy
100-150 Titus
100-150 Apocalypse of Peter
100-150 Secret Book of James
100-150 Preaching of Peter
100-160 Gospel of the Ebionites
100-160 Gospel of the Nazoreans
100-160 Shepherd of Hermas
100-160 2 Peter
100-200 Odes of Solomon
101-220 Book of Elchasai
105-115 Ignatius of Antioch
110-140 Polycarp to the Philippians
110-140 Papias
110-160 Oxyrhynchus 840 Gospel
110-160 Traditions of Matthias
111-112 Pliny the Younger
115 Suetonius
115 Tacitus
120-130 Quadratus of Athens
120-130 Apology of Aristides
120-140 Basilides
120-140 Naassene Fragment
120-160 Valentinus
120-180 Apocryphon of John
120-180 Gospel of Mary
120-180 Dialogue of the Savior
120-180 Gospel of the Savior
120-180 2nd Apocalypse of James
120-180 Trimorphic Protennoia
130-140 Marcion
130-150 Aristo of Pella
130-160 Epiphanes On Righteousness
130-160 Ophite Diagrams
130-160 2 Clement
130-170 Gospel of Judas
130-200 Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus
140-150 Epistula Apostolorum
140-160 Ptolemy
140-160 Isidore
140-170 Fronto
140-170 Infancy Gospel of James
140-170 Infancy Gospel of Thomas
140-180 Gospel of Truth
150-160 Martyrdom of Polycarp
150-160 Justin Martyr
150-180 Excerpts of Theodotus
150-180 Heracleon
150-200 Ascension of Isaiah
150-200 Acts of Peter
150-200 Acts of John
150-200 Acts of Paul
150-200 Acts of Andrew
150-225 Acts of Peter and the Twelve
150-225 Book of Thomas the Contender
150-250 Fifth and Sixth Books of Esra
150-300 Authoritative Teaching
150-300 Coptic Apocalypse of Paul
150-300 Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth
150-300 Melchizedek
150-400 Acts of Pilate
150-400 Anti-Marcionite Prologues
160-170 Tatian's Address to the Greeks
160-180 Claudius Apollinaris
160-180 Apelles
160-180 Julius Cassianus
160-250 Octavius of Minucius Felix
161-180 Acts of Carpus
165-175 Melito of Sardis
165-175 Hegesippus
165-175 Dionysius of Corinth
165-175 Lucian of Samosata
167 Marcus Aurelius
170-175 Diatessaron
170-200 Dura-Europos Gospel Harmony
170-200 Muratorian Canon
170-200 Treatise on the Resurrection
170-220 Letter of Peter to Philip
175-180 Athenagoras of Athens
175-185 Irenaeus of Lyons
175-185 Rhodon
175-185 Theophilus of Caesarea
175-190 Galen
178 Celsus
178 Letter from Vienna and Lyons
180 Passion of the Scillitan Martyrs
180-185 Theophilus of Antioch
180-185 Acts of Apollonius
180-220 Bardesanes
180-220 Kerygmata Petrou
180-230 Hippolytus of Rome
180-250 1st Apocalypse of James
180-250 Gospel of Philip
182-202 Clement of Alexandria
185-195 Maximus of Jerusalem
185-195 Polycrates of Ephesus
188-217 Talmud
189-199 Victor I
190-210 Pantaenus
193 Anonymous Anti-Montanist
193-216 Inscription of Abercius
197-220 Tertullian
200-210 Serapion of Antioch
200-210 Apollonius
200-220 Caius
200-220 Philostratus
200-225 Acts of Thomas
200-250 Didascalia
200-250 Books of Jeu
200-300 Pistis Sophia
200-300 Coptic Apocalypse of Peter
203 Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas
203-250 Origen

Quoting the Bible Is NOT quoting God

{ 1:27 PM, 23/2/2007 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

Quoting multiple Bible verse and thinking you have actually proved something is NOT quoting God.

It is a Bible Verse Vomit.

Definition ....................

An offering to the porcelain God
Arguing with the worms
Barf
Barffalo Bill
Barking at the ants
Belch the Bile By-product
Bile Geyser
Blow a hole in the bowl
Blow Chunks
Blowing Groceries
Calling Earl
Calling Huey on the big white telephone
The Call of the Walrus
Calling the Buffalos
Chorkle
Chow shower
Chuck

Chuck a Veggie
Chumming
Chunder
Chunk eruption
Cleaning the pipes
Colon Explosion in Reverse
Delivering Street Pizza
Disembarking dinner
Downloading dinner
Driving the Porcelain Bus
Esophogeal Eruption
Evacuate all you ate
Feeding the fish
Fertilize the bushes
Five finger spray
Flash the hash
Gastro Geyser
Going for the 2nd chew
Go the Nostril Sauce
Goulash gush
Having an up and under
Heave
Honk
Hoark
Hurl
Hurley-Barf!
Hwark
Involuntary personal protein spill
Jazz up the carpet
Jettisoning the chunky cargo
Kerbside quiche
Laughing at the ground
Launching lunch
Leggo my Eggo
Liquid burp
Liquid laugh
Liquid scream
Look for aardvarks
Lose your load
Make a map
Making your Big Toes go flat
Mouth crying
My cousin ralph
Oral diahorrea
Salad shooter
Sing a rainbow
Smucking your yuck
Spew
Spitting the furry lifesaver
Spray the weeds
Parking a tiger
Parking your groceries
Pavement pizza
Playing fire fighter
Puke
Rainbow sneeze
Ralph
Reverse Defication
Reviewing your lunch
Review the menu
Ride the regurgitron
Rooping
Round-trip meal ticket
Selling a Buick
Shout at Your Shoes
Sicky
Singing New York
Snot the hotdog
Spew
Spill your Breakkie
Spraying a jet
Spray Puree
Taking the shortcut out
Technicolor chunderspew
Technicolour Yawn
3-D Burp
Throwing it into reverse
Throwing your cookies
Throw the Brown Cow
Toss the Slack-Mac's
Tossing your cookies
Turn on the tap
Ughp
Unswallowing
Upchuck
Vom
Vommie
Vurp = a burp with a little vomit
Woof your Cookies
Worshipping the Porcelain God
Yacking
Yark
Yawn a big bright chunky rainbow
Yelling at the ants
Yellin rainbows
Yodelling

BIBLE - the Fundamentalist Golden Calf which comes in a Trew Kristyun version that you can supersize with added fries (in Hell).

We luv you Bible
Oh yes we doooooooooooooooooooooooo
We luv you Bible
And we'll be Troooooooooooooooooooooo Kristyuns!

Biblical Absurdities

{ 9:22 AM, 19/2/2007 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

Compiled by Donald Morgan

....

GE 1:3-5, 14-19 There was light ("night and day") before there was a sun.
(Note: If there were no sun, there would be no night or day. Also, light
from the newly created heavenly bodies seems to have reached the earth
instantaneously though it now takes thousands or millions of years.)

GE 1:12, 16 Plants began to grow before there was sunlight.

GE 1:29 Every plant and tree which yield seed are given to us by God as good
to eat. (Note: This would include poisonous plants such as hemlock, buckeye
pod, nightshade, oleander.)

....

GE 6:4 There were giants on the earth at one time. (Note: No evidence exists
to supports this assertion.)

GE 6:5 God is unhappy with the wickedness of man and decides to flood the
earth to eliminate mankind. All living things including plants, animals,
women and innocent children are also exterminated. (Note: This is like
burning down a house to rid it of mice.)

GE 6:15 The size of Noah's Ark was such that there would be about one and a
half cubic feet for each pair of the 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 species to be
taken aboard.

...

GE 9:12-16 God first creates the rainbow. (Note: Apparently the laws having
to do with refraction of light were null and void prior to this time.)

...

EX 28:34-35 Entering the holy place without wearing bells can result in
death.

...

LE 11:6 (States, incorrectly, that the rabbit, or hare, chews its cud.)

...

NU 22:21-30 A donkey sees an angel, recognizes it as such, and then speaks
in human language (presumably Hebrew) to his master.

...

JS 10:12-14 God obliges Joshua by making the sun and moon stand still (so
that he can finish his battle by daylight).

...

JG 16:17-22 Samson loses his strength as a result of having his head shaved.
(Note: This is not psychosomatic since he began to lose his strength while
he was still asleep.)

...

2KI 6:5-7 An iron axe head "swims" (or floats).

...

2KI 16:2, 20, 18:1-2 Ahaz was thirty-six years old when he died. His
twenty-five year old son Hezekiah succeeded him. Thus Ahaz was a ten or
eleven year old father.

...

2KI 20:11 The shadow on a sun dial moves backwards.

...

ES 6:6, JB 19:27, PS 7:9, 16:7, 73:21, PR 23:7, 16, IS 10:7, JE 11:20,
17:10, 20:12, MT 9:4, LK 2:19, 9:47, AC 8:22, RO 10:9-10, HE 4:12, RE 2:23
(See KJV especially.) Thought occurs in the heart. The kidneys ("reins") are
the seat of conscience.(Note: This is not merely a poetic use of these
terms, as is now claimed. In early times, it was actually believed that
various body organs other than the brain were responsible for our thoughts,
feelings, actions and the like. The heart was believed to be the seat of
thought processes and beliefs, while the kidneys were thought to be the seat
of conscience.)

JB 9:6 (KJV) God shakes the earth out of its place and makes its pillars
tremble.

JB 9:7 God can make the sun not rise and seal up the stars.

...

PS 58:8 Slugs and/or snails melt as they move.

PS 121:6 It is apparently possible to suffer moonstroke as well as
sunstroke.

...

IS 30:26 The moon will someday be as bright as the sun now is. (Note: Until
relatively recent times, the moon and the planets were thought to give off
their own light.)

IS 38:8 The shadow of the Sun is made to move backwards.

IS 40:22 The earth is a circle. (Note: The earth is really a sphere, not a
circle, and this verse does not imply a sphere as some believers like to
infer.)

JE 20:7, EZ 14:9 Jeremiah says that the Lord deceived his own prophet. God
himself says that he deceives his own prophets in order to get rid of them.

....

AM 8:9 The Sun will be made to set at noon in "clear day."

MT 4:8 There is a high mountain from which all the kingdoms of the world can
be seen. (Note: This implies a flat earth.)

MT 4:23-24, 9:32-33, 12:22, 17:14-18, MK 1:23-26, 32-34, 5:2-16, 9:17-29,
16:9, LK 11:14, 4:33-35, 8:2, 27-36, 9:38-42, AC 8:7, 16:16-18 Both physical
and mental Illness are caused by demon possession and can be cured by
exorcism.

...

MT 24:29-30 Although the sun and the moon have been darkened and the stars
have fallen from heaven, there is still enough light to see.

...

MK 11:12-14, 20-21 Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of
season. (Note: Rather than cause the fig tree to wither and to bear fruit
never again, he could have performed a miracle and made it bear fruit even
out of season.)

MK 16:17-18 Those who believe are able to handle snakes and drink any deadly
poison without suffering harm.

...

LK 22:28-30 Jesus assigns each of his twelve disciples (including Judas, his
betrayer) a place (or throne) in his kingdom.

...

RO 10:17-18, CN 1:23 The gospel had already been preached to every living
creature even in Paul's time.

2CO 12:2 There are at least three heavens.

...

TS 1:12 "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians
are alway liars ...." (Figure the logic of this verse.)

HE 7:1-3 Melchizedek had no mother or father, no beginning or end.

.....

RE 21:16 The city of New Jerusalem (where the residents of heaven reside) is
only about 1500 miles square.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/absurd.html

Quoting the Bible is NOT quoting God.

{ 4:15 PM, 18/2/2007 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

Quoting any of the following is NOT quoting God.

- Revelation of John: 90 - 95 CE (Not the apostle John)
- I John: 90 -120 CE. (Not the apostle John)

- 2 John: 90 -120 CE. (Not the apostle John)

- 3 John: 90 -120 CE. (Not the apostle John)

- Jude: 90 -120 CE. (Not the apostle John)
- John's Gospel: 90 -120 CE. (Not the apostle John)
-1 Timothy: 100 -150 CE (Not Paul)
- 2 Timothy: 100 -150 CE (Not Paul)
- Titus: 100 -150 CE (Not Paul)

- 2 Peter: 100 - 160 CE (Not Peter)

Quoting a forgery written by an imposter is NOT quoting God.

God is not an imposter who writes forgeries.

BIBLICAL FORGERIES / IMPERSONATIONS / GHOST WRITING

{ 10:34 AM, 15/2/2007 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

Not all the red letter words of Jesus on the Bible carry equal weight.

EXAMPLE:

Martin Luther King wrote many books and therefore we can say that we have his authentic ideas recorded in these books.

Suppose I wrote a book called "My Ideas", filled it with my own ideas in the style of Martin Luther King (whom I've never met) and signed it "Martin Luther King" (so that people would falsely believe that the writer of the book was Martin Luther King).

Would the words in my book be equal to the words of the authentic Martin Luther King?

If you quoted the words of my book would you be quoting the historic time / space Martin Luther King or just quoting myself?

Would a quote from my book stand up in court as valid testimony to anything the real time / space Martin Luther King ever believed?

NOW ...............

POSSIBLE BIBLICAL FORGERIES / IMPERSONATIONS / GHOST WRITING INCLUDE:

80 -100 CE
- 2 Thessalonians (May not be Paul)
- Ephesians (May not be Paul)

90 - 95 CE
- Revelation of John (Not the apostle John)
- Apocalyptic genre

90 -120 CE.
- John's Gospel (Not the apostle John)
- Written in Ephesus
- Centred in Judea / Jerusalem not synoptic Gallilee
- Actions over 3-4 years instead of synoptics 1 year
- Symbolic narrative
- Focus on Wisdom and Word
- Focus on self rather than kingdom of God
- No Ascension or Pentecost

100 -150 CE
-1 Timothy (Not Paul)
- 2 Timothy (Not Paul)
- Titus (Not Paul)

100 -160 CE
- 2 Peter (Not Peter)

All this poses HUGE problems for anyone thinking that the Bible is "inerrant" or "the Word of God" and claiming that quoting these books is REALLY quoting the historical time / space Paul / Jophn / Jesus / Peter. Can 2 Peter possibly be inerrant and the word of God if it is written 130 years after Jesus' death (and after Peter's death in the 1st century) by a person claiming to be the apostle Peter???? Can "all scripture is inspired by God" really be God's revelation to us through Paul when written in 2 Tim. 3:16-17 by someone impersonating
Paul?????

Read http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

THEREFORE .....

One needs to discern which are the authentic words of Jesus of Nazareth and which are the writer's "creative additions to beef up the story".

Just because the Bible states "Jesus said ..." does NOT give authoritative approval that Jesus of Nazareth actual DID say what follows in time / space history.

THIS MEANS ....

One must use one's God-given mind to engage the text, looking at it through the eyes of 1st (and 2nd) century Jews and Christians.

One must learn how to interpret ANE texts.

Quoting the Bible is NOT quoting God.

Christmas story ERRORS in Mathew's Gospel

{ 5:51 AM, 4/12/2006 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

#22
Matthew 1: (KJV)

20."for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."

.... There is no "the" before "Holy Ghost" in the Greek. Of the major translations only Darby acknowledges this, "for that which is begotten in her is of [the] Holy Spirit".

#23
Matthew 1: (KJV)

20."for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."

In the Greek "spirit"(ghost) comes before "holy" and is separated by the verb "to be". A literal translation is "for that which is conceived in her from spirit is holy".

No mention of this in the major Christian translations. Again, Christian translators are creating support for their idea of the holy ghost as a separate person in their translations.

.....

#25
Matthew 1: (KJV)

22 "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."

If you're trying to make a list of 1001 errors in the Christian Bible then Matthew 1:22-23 is, as Banta said to Jerry Seinfeld, "Gold, Jerry! Gold!". The "prophecy fulfillment" of sentences 22 and 23 is out of place as the fulfillment happens in the following sentences 24 and 25. Joseph is just dreaming in sentences 20 and 21 and wakes up from this dream in sentence 24. It's likely that sentences 22 and 23 were later additions to the original text. Since the time of Irenaeus Christian commentators have "explained" that the formula citation was spoken by the angel of sentence 21.

#26
Matthew 1: (KJV)

23 "Behold, a virgin shall be with child,"

It's undisputed that the Hebrew text has the definite article "the" instead of "a" before "young woman" (KJV's "virgin"). A slim majority of major Christian translations now have "the" here instead of "a". The use of the definite article "the" means that the woman in question was known to the speaker of the prophecy, Isaiah, and could not be referring to someone who
lived about 700 years later.

#27
Matthew 1: (KJV)

22 "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23 Behold, a virgin"

Matthew 1:23 uses the Greek word "parthenos" which has a primary meaning of "virgin". The Hebrew word from Isaiah 7:14 that Matthew is referring to is "almah" which has a primary meaning of "young woman" according to all Jewish Bible scholars, virtually all Hebrew/English
dictionaries, most Christian Bible scholars and the majority of modern Christian Bible translations. The Greek word "neanis" has a primary meaning of "young woman". When the RSV first translated Isaiah 7:14 as "young woman" it was burned in several parts of the country by Christian fundamentalists.

On a humorous note, even though the Catholic translators of the NAB had decided to translate Isaiah 7:14 as "young woman", the American Bishops voted to use "virgin" instead. I guess they thought "it was the Christian thing to do."

#28
Matthew 1: (KJV)

23 "Behold, a virgin shall be with child"

In the Hebrew, the verb for "shall be with child", "harah", is in the present tense. The proper translation of Isaiah 7:14 from Hebrew should be, "Look, the young woman is with child".

from http://1001errors.com/files/Err22-28.html

Erasmus and the Textus Receptus

{ 10:15 AM, 21/10/2006 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

In fact our attitudes to the Bible are probably the best evidence of the continuing vitality and irrationality of this sin of idolatry. One of the most absurd examples concerns the history of the Greek New Testament. The first printed edition of the Greek Testament was produced in Spain in 1514, but for some reason it wasn't circulated to the public until 1522. And in the interval, the great humanist Erasmus managed to get his own edition both printed and circulated. It was a rushed job, clearly intended to beat the Spanish edition to the post, and Erasmus himself described it as 'precipitated rather than edited'. It contained hundreds of errors, and someone else described it much later as the most faulty book ever produced. Most significantly, the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament which Erasmus used in precipitating this edition were both late and inferior - indeed for the Book of Revelation he had only one manuscript available, dating from the twelfth century, and from this manuscript the final page was missing. So when he got to that point he simply translated the accepted Latin text into Greek.

But throughout the rest of the sixteenth century practically every printed edition of the Greek New Testament was based on that haphazard edition of Erasmus. It represents the text used by the translators of our Authorised or King James Version, and it was regarded with ever-increasing respect until, by 1633, it could be described in the preface to a new edition as 'the text which is now received by all'. And thereafter, for the next two hundred years, it was referred to as the Textus Receptus, the received text.

During those two hundred years, of course, scholars made enormous strides in the discovery and collation of ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, so that the flaws in Erasmus's edition became more and more apparent. But because of the extraordinary and totally misplaced reverence paid to the Received Text, no new printed edition was allowed to tamper with it. All the newly discovered manuscript evidence had to be relegated to footnotes. At least one theologian was hounded from his university post for threatening to publish a new and more scholarly text. And right up to the end of the nineteenth century people were prepared to fight, slander and condemn on the basis of an edition of the Greek text whose origins were entirely fortuitous and whose quality was patently inferior.

This is idolatry at its worst: in the name of religion putting on a pedestal something so obviously man-made and so obviously full of errors, and using the authority of God both to bolster it up and to stifle the voice of truth.

Peter Cameron "Necessary Heresies" (NSW Uni Press: 1993) pp. 70 - 17

BIBLE QUOTING

{ 9:50 AM, 12/10/2006 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

Quoting the Bible is NOT quoting God.

"De t'ings dat yo li'ble to read in de Bible - It ain't necessarily so."

- Porgy and Bess (George Gershwin)

"It's Time To Rewrite The Bible" - Bernard Boas

{ 12:40 PM, 2/10/2006 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

From Bernard Boas (Jewish psychologist) "It's Time To Rewrite The Bible"
(Hudson; Hawthorn: 1994)

I also hold sacred the principles of knowledge and wisdom: they too are holy; they too are worthy of respect and reverence. p. 3

I hear my father's deep voice saying, "Read everything that comes to hand. Read and learn and then make up your own mind. This interpretation may not be the correct one; try others too and keep asking questions. Some of the things in there I think nobody will ever understand". Mother gently adds, "You can find all sorts of good things in the Bible, all sorts of things that will help you. We all have to learn to love others and to sort out the truth from the other things. Always think kindly about people and you won't go far wrong. At least, you will feel better about them, even if they don't always treat you fairly." ... Hear the echo - echo - echo of study and make up your own mind. p.10

The less conformist ways of expressing religious ideas encourage individual freedom, but may weaken the powers of the institutions in the society. p.14

The Hebrew used is ancient, is written without vowels, and has neither full stops not capital initial letters. the breaks between words are sometimes uncertain. Some sounds are not differentiated, such as S and SH, P and PH. If we write a short essay in this form in modern English, it might look like this:

t s{h}ntsy trd ncn brw js{h}{t rdng t s{h)qt hrd ngh p(h)ttngt nt ngls(h) s(h) mch hrdr fw trns(h)ltns(h) r nthng lk ccrt.

The original of this piece of gibberish was ....

It is not easy to read ancient Hebrew. Just reading it is quiote hard enough. Putting into English is much harder. Few translations are anything like accurate. p.32

In summary: the stories of the Torah were originally told in languages that may have been the dialects that Abraham and Moses spoke. p.34

Genesis 4:19-21, where we hear about the descendents of Cain. They include Jabal, the ancestor of all those who dwell in tents or amidst herds, and Jubal, who was the ancestor of all who play the lyre and the pipe. But the only survivors of the Great Flood were Noah and his family, the descendents of Seth, not of Cain. Yet there were clearly many herdsmen and musicians after the flood. p.40-41

The polar bear, the penguin and the platypus would not have been happy in Mesopotamia, and what were Adam's names for them? Did the wombat turn up at the roll-call and then make his ungainly way to Australia? p.45

God gave the Israelites detailed instructions on how to deal with the Canaanites, but not with the Babylonians, the Romans or the Nazis. p. 48

Laws which were described as 'for all time' had already been changed within the Biblical period. Are we to believe that the evolutionary process was supposed to stop then? p.48-49

In the earliest days (as the story of Cain and able tells us) God took sacrifices very seriously. ... By the end of the Biblical period the practice had been more or less abandoned. ... There is nothing in the text to suggest that this system[*of sacrifices] would ever be altered. There is constant repetition of the phrase 'This shall be the law for you for all
time'. p.51-52

Numbers 21 contains a weird treatment for snake bite ... It seems strange that the divine Creator would instruct Moses to make the copper serpent and trust it to be the healer, after all the warnings He had delivered about making likenesses and idols. Some five centuries later, Hezekiah organised a campaign against idolatry, and amongst other things: ... broke into pieces the copper serpent that Moses had made, for until that time the Israelites had been making sacrifices to it; it was called Nehushtan. (2 Kings 18:4) Hezekiah rejected direct but ancient instructions from the Lord. Can we do the same? p.58

When we read something like 'The Lord said', must we believe that the Creator spoke as a human speaks? ... Ask yourself, "Who said that? Who told the tale?" p.63

How nearly literally true does a story have to be in order to be The Truth? p.64

To give the Eternal a voice that speaks in our words and in human language, apparently emerging from some imaginary larynx, is to degrade God to just a large and mighty human. p.72

Chapter 3 of Exodus ..."Thus you shall say to the Israelites 'Eyeh sent me to you'. This shall be My name for ever; this my appellation for all eternity." ... Eyeh as a name for God does not appear again. p.79

People had a very limited idea of what a God who was not like a human would be like, so they made God very humanlike in word and deed. Anthropomorphism made the incomprehensible easier to grasp. Perhaps we are not much wiser today. p.80

In the days of the King James version, it would not have been proper to translate correctly the relationship of Adam and eve as 'man and woman'. The translated the word 'ishah' (meaning 'woman') as 'wife', with no justification excepting their own standards of propriety. There was no word for wife that far back in mankind's history and, of course, no weddings. Biblical Hebrew has no word for 'wife'. p.97

[* Regarding marriage of Leah and Rachel] There is no mention of the girls being consulted at any stage. Other than Laban getting Jacob drunk (I think), there is no mention of ceremony for either wedding. p.98

... the word translated as 'husband is 'ish', which means just 'man'. p.101

Complete Jewish Bible

{ 12:33 PM, 2/10/2006 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

I am gaining much from reading the following translation ... though the Jewish words and phrases take some getting used to.

Read the Tanakh at http://www.breslov.com/bible/ (Jewish Bible 1917)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Complete Jewish Bible : An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'Rit Hadashah (New Testament)

By: David H. Stern(Editor)

ISBN: 9653590154 Publisher: Messianic Jewish Resources International - 1998-06

Why is this Bible different from all other Bibles? Because it is the only English version fully Jewish in style and presentation. It includes Dr. Stern's new version of the "Tanakh" ("Old Testament") and his highly acclaimed "Jewish New Testament."

The Complete Jewish Bible:

- follows the Hebrew Bible order of the Tanakh's books, the order with which Yeshua (Jesus) was familiar
- makes no separation between "Old" and "New" Testaments
- corrects misinterpretations in the New Testament resulting from anti-Jewish theological bias
- offers the original Hebrew names for people, places, and concepts, using easy-to-read English transliterations
- focuses on Messianic prophecy
- gives the traditional weekly and holiday synagogue readings, plus relevant readings from the "B'rit Hadashah" (New Testament)

The Complete Jewish Bible:

- reconnects Christians with their Jewish roots and the Jewish people
- connects Jews with the Jewishness of Messiah Yeshua and Messianic faith

Other features of this Bible: a comprehensive introduction, a pronouncing explanatory glossary, a reverse glossary, and special maps to aid Bible understanding.

from http://www.bookfinder4u.com/detail/9653590154.html

"The Bible Unearthed" By Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman

{ 10:30 AM, 27/7/2006 } { Posted in Bible Authorship } { 0 comments } { Link }

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

Authors argue no compelling archaeological evidence exists for many biblical stories.

By Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman

The Bible Unearthed is our attempt to formulate a new archaeological vision of ancient Israel in which the Bible is one of the most important artifacts and cultural achievements-not the unquestioned narrative framework into which every archaeological find must be fit. As readers will see, we are deeply interested in what the historical books of the Bible have to say, how they say it, and how they relate to the archaeologically indicated history of the land of Israel.

Our main contention is that the historical narratives of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History can be convincingly linked to the ideological and political program of the Judean kingdom in the 7th century BCE. That seems, from archaeological, sociological, and historical perspectives to be the likeliest era in which the biblical epic crystallized in recognizable form. Readers will see how we lay out the argument for this contention by examining how weak is the archaeological evidence for the patriarchs, Exodus, conquest of Canaan, and United Monarchy of David and Solomon.

Yet in asserting that there was no single exodus, no unified conquest of Canaan, and no glorious, vast kingdom of David and Solomon, we certainly do not intend to dismiss the Bible as a fact-less fairy tale, a late ideological confection whose unmasking is meant to serve some "hidden" political agenda. We join generations of biblical archaeologists and scholars in the belief that the Bible provides an important testimony for early Israel; it is not just another ancient literary source about ancient heroes, kingdoms, and adventures. It is neither an Israelite Mahabarata, nor a Judean Avesta, nor a Jerusalemite Iliad or Odyssey.

....

The Bible is everybody's concern. It contains our story of creation, our founding principles of monotheistic religion, and some of our western civilization's most powerful prophecy, poetry, and religious laws. In a word, it contains our spiritual legacy. And that legacy has a thousand shades of meaning and wealth of insight to give. But is it history? Is it an accurate chronicle of a sequence of events, arranged in chronological order? Is that where its power lies?

.......

For the last two centuries archaeologists and biblical scholars have been engaged in a continuous struggle to separate the purely theological or mythic narratives of the Bible from those that contain what might be regarded as reliable history.

....

Sixty years ago, many leading scholars-the legendary W.F. Albright among them-argued forcefully that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were historical characters who lived in the Middle Bronze Age. Today, most scholars deal with the patriarchal traditions as powerful and influential literary creations; and they consider them no less powerful or influential in the absence of conclusive proof of their historicity. Long gone also are the serious scholarly attempts to trace archaeologically the progress of the Exodus of 600,000 Israelites across Sinai toward Canaan. The Bible offers us a powerful expression of liberation, peoplehood, and covenant painted in the most searing Hebrew prose and poetry the world has ever known.

Forty years ago, reliable biblical history was said to begin with Joshua. The blackened destruction levels of Late Bronze Age tells across the Land of Israel, were confidently believed to be evidence of the military action of the massed Israelite tribes. But here too a battle was waged and the frontline of history shifted. The extensive surveys carried out in the
West Bank by Israeli archaeologists during the 1970s and 1980s showed that the settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Canaan was not a lightning invasion but a complex process of social transformation. And it was a process in which population groups both inside Canaan and outside were deeply and not only violently involved.

....

In The Bible Unearthed, we invite you to follow our line of argumentation, first an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives, showing that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE
context. We then go on to propose an archaeological reconstruction of the distinct histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, differing dramatically in environment, population, economy, and religious forms. We highlight the largely neglected history of the Omride Dynasty and attempt to show how the influence of Assyrian imperialism in the region set in motion a chain of events that would eventually make the poorer, more remote, and more religiously conservative kingdom of Judah the belated center of the cultic and national hopes of all Israel.

This occurred in the 7th-century BCE and reached a culmination, we argue, during the reign of King Josiah (639-609 BCE)-and the primary history of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History are the greatest achievements of this complex historical process. But they are not "history" in the modern sense.

So where is the boundary between biblical past and present, between biblical history and myth? Archaeology-the study of fragments of past societies-inevitably takes us into the realm of interpretation, and when it comes to the conquest of Canaan and the Kingdom of David and Solomon, the archaeological facts are not as unequivocal as they once seemed.

...

It is our hope that The Bible Unearthed will provide an opportunity to debate and intelligently discuss new directions in the archaeology of the lands of the Bible-and to see past archaeological theories about biblical history as valuable foundations and the starting points for future research, not confrontational lines drawn in the sand.

from http://www.bibleinterp.com/commentary/Finkelstein_Silberman022001.htm

MarkT

How should we view the bible?

How We Got Our Bible

The search for the authentic words of Jesus

Jesus never stated John 3:16

DATES FOR EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS

Quoting the Bible Is NOT quoting God

Biblical Absurdities

Quoting the Bible is NOT quoting God.

BIBLICAL FORGERIES / IMPERSONATIONS / GHOST WRITING

Christmas story ERRORS in Mathew's Gospel

Erasmus and the Textus Receptus

BIBLE QUOTING

"It's Time To Rewrite The Bible" - Bernard Boas

Complete Jewish Bible

"The Bible Unearthed" By Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman

About Me

Links

Categories

Recent Entries

Friends