Misquoting Jesus
Posted on: April 1, 2009 - 1:55pm
Offline
Misquoting Jesus
http://aas.uct.ac.za/media/ryan/Talks/Bart%20Ehrman%20Stanford%20Lecture%20Misquoting%20Jesus/
Just somthing interesting I found a talk from Bart Erhman called misquoting Jesus. Actually there are quite alot of interesting videos on the site. Recomended to anyone with a large cap.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
- Login to post comments
Well, that was quite interesting. More specifically for those who are interested, the guy is a biblical scholar giving a talk on how the text of the bible has changed over time, starting with the first hand written copies. One great point that he made was to ask the audience if they could make an accurate had written copy of even a single book.
From there, he goes on to discussing how Medieval scribes have changed the bible in very specific ways and for certain purposes which were often relevant to what was then a pressing issue of the time. From there, he covers some of the outright additions to the bible that only appear in much later texts than the earliest versions.
As an example of this, most of us know the bit about the adulterous woman who was to be stoned to death and which ends with god jr. saying “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Well, according to this, that story was invented out of thin air about 1,000 years ago and has never been found in any earlier version of any of the texts.
In the second half of the show, he turns to taking questions from the audience. Most of those were pretty good but a few were near face palm stupid. The most interesting parts of this were, for me, when questions come up about critical doctrines and the general accuracy of the bible.
For example, the whole conversation about being “born again” would make no sense at all in Aramaic but rather works out as a misstatement when written in Greek. Since the earliest source for that bit is in Greek, it is improbable that it even existed in any earlier source.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As a side note, internet caps don't work the same way in this part of the world. If I was bound and determined to soak up my maximum bandwidth constantly, I could. I just have crappy bandwidth. It would be stable all month no matter what but it will never get any faster than the maximum that I am paying for. In this case, not quite enough to watch that in real time, so I had to get the first two parts fully downloaded and then cue up the rest one part at a time for background downloading.
=
I wonder if we could make a presentation on something like that. Get maybe 200 people, give each of them a different book, and have them all copy it word for word in handwriting or computer or both. Then pass the reworked book onto the next person. Repeat.
Display the results to the world, of how even when not having to worry about a mistranslation from one word to another, mistakes can and are still made. Many or most of us already know how errors creep in when performing something like this, but the general populace doesn't necessarily realize just how MANY errors can be made, or just how significant they can be.
For a control measure, offer a reward for a perfect transcription to all the pieces of any book "chain" that was copied perfectly, to the letter and punctuation, even errors that already existed. That way you can ensure that the people involved are motivated to do it right, yet will still fail to do so.
Coming up with said reward wouldn't be too difficult. It would be highly improbable for any of the books to remain perfectly transcribed. The more layers you put them through the more errors will crop up.
Thoughts?
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Well, that is certainly possible. Heck but I might even be willing to start it off. Just in the general idea of what he had to say though, let's not try to make it so complicated as having a large number of people involved and several books. We could do this with a single book and as many people who are willing to participate. After all, the more people who are willing to work on a single book as possible, the greater the drift is likely to be.
One factor that he touched on was how translation across a language and/or cultural barrier can introduce changes. This being an international forum, if people who know more than one language are willing to help out, we could do that as well.
Another point that he made was to show how some parts of the text were introduced over time to show that the so called sacred text has grown and um, evolved, over time. Often to meet some perceived cultural need. So if people wanted to just stick some shit in that is not there in whatever we use as a source, that would be fine as well.
=
That cultural thing is a great point. The differences inherrant between New York, Newfoundland, Quebec, and Texas (for example) are awesome breeding grounds for cultural manipulation.
I agree it would be easier to keep it to one book, at least to start. If we were able to make a big deal out of it though, it may be useful to add others in later promotions to show how no book is safe (we all know how theist logic works after all). The last book could be the bible itself. Or another holy book. Though I think the bible is a better choice since it has a longer english history than most or all of the others do.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
OK, for my first entry, I am working on Romans chapter 1. I chose that one because it is frequently cited for a relatively minor bit about “wicked people” and gay sex. On looking it over though, it seems that it only requires very minor work to demonstrated that the bible requires the full support of christians for a modern science education.
I am not sure just yet how to work the gay thing in but hey, who doesn't like to hear about sex once in a while. I know that supposed christians are obsessed with what other people do with their naughty bits.
=