Dave wrote:Actually there has been a real effort of late to bring the bible closer to it's original form - so there have been interesting new translations from the greek bible (considered the most accurate in use) and of course everyone wants access to the dead sea scrolls which are the most accurate.
What's the deal with the dead sea scrolls?
[b]EDIT BY ADMIN[/b]
I split this topic from no topic, as it is an interesting topic.
dead sea scrolls... hmmm...
Are they where caitalism got in the way, and were torn into smaller pieces thhan when found for a bigger cut of the moolah?
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
Where were the dead sea scrolls hidden then? And how close are *they* to determining the authenticity of the bits found?
~Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.~
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" ~ Bill Watterson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea_scrolls
Any other info?
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
As far as I know the scrolls pertaining to the early Christian community are in the Vatican secret archives and nobody is allowed to see em.
I hear it's because it counters a lot of the heresies of the church.
well it cannot be that hard to just release scans ont the 'net... so they may have something to hide.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
I think that it will reveal a lot of stuff about the succession to Peter that the Church doesn't want people to know about.
It's often debated and is quite seriously the core of the Church's power.
If that falls - so does the Vatican.
I wish they'd just release the damn things so we could read them and be done with it. It's an injustice against the Lord to hold back valuable information about his revelation.
Wouldn't be the first time for the Catholic church though.
Thta is probably the reason why inIslam it is not allowed to withold information.
(Many argue that copyright is not recognised in Islam...)
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
lol it's not allowed in Christianity either - it's lying, even by the heretical Catholic Church's own Canon Law!
Doesn't stop em from doing it.
If anybody had the right to claim superiority over the other branches it would be the Greek Orthodox church.
Their biblical translation is the oldest (the Septuagint), they were the first nation to adopt Christianity, and they have done more to eliminate heresy than any other branch.
The Catholic's have a long history of flurting with Heresy - there was a time when they were so afraid of Muslim invasion they concocted "the gospel of barnabas" in an attempt to please their infidel masters in Istanbul.
Good ol Vatican - anything for a buck, and if they can't get a buck they will settle for more power, or land.
Salam
I think they hid these ancient scrolls because they confirm Islam.
These documents are 2000 years old.
Why is the Vatican so scared ?
Omrow
As much as it pains me to admit, I think you're right
~Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.~
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" ~ Bill Watterson
lol if they confirmed something about Islam we would definitely know about it. Nobody can keep a secret that big.
However if they confirm the greek orthodox bible's account that St Andrew was given the blessing from Christ and not Peter, the Vatican would instantly be irrelevant with no authority on any matter.
They would blink out of existence.
And if there is anything people love above all else - it's power.
Al-Baqara (The Cow)
146. The people of the Book know this as they know their own sons; but some of them conceal the truth which they themselves know.
http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/quran/2.htm#146
[b][i]Round and round the Ka'bah,
Like a good Sahabah,
One step, Two step,
All the way to jannah[/i][/b]
Here is some more information about the scrolls
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/Library/library.html
Apparently there is some sort of exhibit of them
Why not?
~Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.~
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" ~ Bill Watterson
It's worth too much.
And the Cardinals of the Vatican are well acquainted with worth.
Besides I was wrong, apparently the scrolls held back were released in 91
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/dssfacts.html
s much as 40% of the Scrolls, mostly fragments from Cave 4, remained unpublished and unreleased (photos), until pressure mounted in the 1980's. A breakthrough occurred in the Fall, 1991: the photos were published by the Biblical Archaeological Society in a non-official edition; a computer reconstruction, based on a concordance, was announced; the Huntington library pledged to open their microfilm files of all the scroll photographs.
To whom? Surely, regardless of how much they may gain on a monetary level, the Cardinals' positions would be negated, ney the entire base of Christianity and Judaism would be negated, if the truth is revealed. Isn't hiding them worth a whole lot more to them?
~Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.~
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" ~ Bill Watterson
Perhaps - but that is merely conjecture now that we have all the scrolls.
I don't know what would be in them that could possibly prove the Qur'an true. We have sources from the time of Jesus like Josephus that refer to him being crucified.
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/cruc-josephus.html
And the Greek Orthodox sept. has remained unchanged since the 3rd century.
But this really shouldn't be about biblical accuracy.
Does anybody have translations of the scrolls online? I can't find any that really talk about Christ, Christians or Christian practices.
The authenticity of the 'discovered' scrolls is still debated
~Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.~
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" ~ Bill Watterson
i personally think it is a load of rubbish (no offence)
What you put in the hearts of others; is what goes back into your own heart…
Why? Please elaborate Jud
~Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.~
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" ~ Bill Watterson
Well I dunno what their importance would be to the Gospels if it was written by a sect of Jews that did not follow Jesus (as I now understand is the case) but it does shed some interesting light on the Old Testament...
I dunno about calling em Rubbish -they are very valuable
I found this interesting:
http://home.flash.net/~hoselton/deadsea/caves.htm
That talks about the Son of God, Most High and Son of the Most High
I am getting the feeling from reading some of these translations (like the Damascus Document) that the Qumran Community considered the Christians heretics.
"... the converts of Israel, who left the land of Judah and lived in the Land of Damascus all of whom God called princes." (DD-VI) It also tells of a faction opposed to the sect who "... despised the covenant (of God) and the pact which they established in the land of Damascus, which is the first covenant. And neither for them nor their families shall there be a part in the house of the law.... And from the day of the gathering in (killing) of the Unique Teacher, until the destruction of all the men of war who turned back with the man of lies, there shall be about 40 years.... And in this age the wrath of God will be kindled against Israel." (DD-XX)
http://www.shareintl.org/archives/M_emergence/mem_bsteacher.htm
And it seems like a lot of scholars believe that this is a sort of transition community that died out a long time ago
Everything I'm about to say is IMO unless someone can prove me wrong I'll stand by my remarks below.
DSS = Dead Sea Scrolls
1) The DSS were arguably written by the ancient militaristic "Essenes" about 2 millenia ago.
2) They were very mystical cult and were a sect of apostate Jews. But they did write things in the DSS that help prove that the old testament versions we have today are extremely credible as the words match up after much monk copying over the years.
3) A Palestinian Beduoin shepherd boy in the Qumran province of Palestine near the Dead Sea was tending to his herd in 1947. One of his 'kids' ran up into a mountain cave. He started throwing stones in the dark cave to scare the 'kid' out. He heard something smash like pottery. He went into investigate and found 7 leather scrolls in clay pots. He brought them out to his family who brought them into town to sell them to some university people from Jerusalem. They were the FIRST sections of the DSS as there were many more yet to be discovered in more caves.
4) Sometime around 1991 an American library in California got tired of keeping this old scholarly secret discovery, so they "spilled the beans" to the unelightened UN-scholarly world - most educated people already knew about them for decades. But back in the 1950's-1960's it was evident to few people that the Israelis did not have ALL of the DSS's. The local closed-mouth Palestinian DSS researchers did as they searched the caves better and more quietly (i.e. Cave 4 - was the largest find!). This really pissed off then General Ariel Sharon of the Likud Party of Israel who thought they should have them all as the American President Truman had made it obvious to the world that they were supposed to be so-called "God's chosen people" (e.g. actually in reality not so chosen at least not this 1948 group) by giving them a "homeland" in the middle of Palestine's homeland in 1948.
5) Ariel launched a major military offensive against Palestine (i.e. Jordon) in 1967. An American spy ship (i.e. USS Liberty) was in the right place at the [wrong] time out in the Med (sea). Well, suffice it to say Ariel told his military forces that the USS Liberty was actually an enemy "Egyptian Horse Boat" NOT an American spy ship that was only in the Med spying on Russians. His instructions were to destroy the ship and his forces really tried hard to comply. Many American lives were lost to this so-called "friendly-fire" incident - still not fully resolved yet. American Naval ready-response forces were told to stand down "while actually launching fully locked & loaded sorties" as IMHO President "Texas" LBJ did not want to "piss off God" attacking His so-called atomically-equipped "chosen people" - note my sarcasm. I think it is obvious that Ariel did not want the Americans to know the true DETAILS of his 6-day secret offensive on Palestine. Who has all of the DSS now? Hmmm... now who is the head of Israel today and manipulating our so-called Texan-American "mission-from-god" President again?
6) Now ALL of the DSS's are still in Jerusalem NOT the Vatican! The Vatican story was a misinformation ploy (and I'm not pro-Catholic either). Some of the DSS's went on tour around the world. There are websites that give you access to some of them on the web. I dunno the URL. Try GOOGLE. So if you can read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek be my guest. They are available to you just not all of them as they may be greatly destroyed by age and mishandling by very incompetent zealots.
The big deal is that the DSS is another of many outside sources that help proove the Bible to be true! This is the biggest revealtion of the 20th century! Some people want to prevent that from getting out but they will fail as usual. Why do they do this? To prevent you from finding out the truth about the REAL "chosen people" and the REAL Christians of the 1st century. Maybe some of you will wake up and see whose foolin' who... some day... I hope soon...
Spooky
Constantine,
I am just curious. Are you pro- or anti- Emperor Constantine (4th century CE). As I am confounded as to why any one would venerate a man who subverted early Christianity the way he did. Also he actually opposed true Christianity until his death bed in 337 C.E when he became one (sort of) just before his death!
I also can not understand how almost everyone on this planet just totally missed the indisputable fact that he was the true first Catholic (AKA "universal") and not the apostle Peter who died in ancient Iraq (AKA Babylon) not Rome as the really confused theologians of today try and twist into reality. Peter NEVER heard of such a religion and knew that Jesus' "rock mass" speech was about Jesus himself not Peter which in Greek means "stone" not "rock mass".
Are you also aware of that Constantine the Great, the son of Constantius Chlorus, born in Naissus in Serbia about the year 275 C.E. and his mother Helena were tyrants and were guilty of hideous crimes? Then later the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church declared both Constantine and his mother, “saints.” Their festival is celebrated on June 3 or according to the church calendar, on May 21.
These two religious occult-worshipping tyrants worshiped pagan idols and practiced non-Christian things handed down from ancient Greece (Plato) and ancent Babylon. They used and twisted Jesus' version of Christianity for apostate political gain. At the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century was the true beginning of the Catholic Church which led to spin-off Protestants today who all still do immoral idol worship and pagan-based holidays of Constantine the "Great" and "Saint" Helena! The Catholic Church became the 2nd largest religion in the world today.
That's a lot of ear tickling huh?
Spooky
"Hoc Vince" - Constantine 312 CE ("By this, Conquer")
Yes conquer and murder. But from where did "this" occult symbol really come from? Not from Jesus. Remember Constantine "the butcher" was not a follower of Christ. He worshiped the Sun not the Son! The truth hurts I guess...
Constantine the Great was a complicated and interesting man - and a hero to me. He did a lot of great things for Christianity, and modern scholars in their attempts to discredit him have altered the truth.
The facts are we do not know much about Constantine except from monuments, and the church. What we know from both is that he was a brilliant military leader, and a patron of the Christian rennaisance (if one can call it that in the 3rd anf 4th centuries).
It is quite literally impossible to know what his or his mother's motives were, however what I see in his actions - ending the persecution of the Christians, creating concensus amongst Christian leaders (this nonsense about Nicaea being about marrying Christianity and Pagan practices is ridiculous - it was about Arianism and the Emperor spoke only twice), and securing Christianity's peaceful growth throughout the empire are very noble.
The only possible reproaches I have for the Emperor are:
1. Looking back, the marriage of the Roman Empire and Christianity paved the way for Christian persecution of later peoples, a digression from the tenets of the faith.
and
2. As a military leader and a soldier he compromised his faith many times.
He might be the most important Christian intellectual in early Christian heritage.
And its "In hoc signo vinces" By this sign you shall conquer - it relates to the battle of Milvian bridge and his adoption of Christianity. The symbol was the Chi Rho "X P" the monograph of Christ, with ALPHA and OMEGA on either side - that's not a pagan symbol, you should know that.
He didn't worship the sun, he replaced it. The idea of his Nova Roma was that it would be a Christian Empire, as compared to the pagan Western Empire. December 25th is an attempt (very succesful I might add) to eradicate the Roman gods.
As for this "the butcher" stuff, are you quoting somebody or are you trying to fabricate history?
Spooky what is your religious background?
Salam
God !!!
What can I say at such a statement.
Saint Andrew must be a bigger threat than Prophet Muhammad !!
Omrow
Yep.
You didn't read the rest of the post that says I was mistaken and there are no longer any scrolls withheld by the Catholic Church.
According to "spooky" even that story might have just been a rumor.
What is all this St Andrew/St Peter thing anyway?
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
The Gospel of John Chapter 21:
"Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." 16 A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." 17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go."
This has always been understood by the Catholic Church as Jesus handing over the ministry to Peter (and as Bishop of Rome he handed it to Linus I think) thus it is the scriptural grounding of the Churches authority.
However there is strong evidence that it was Andrew who carried on the Ministry - not Peter.
Thus the Orthodox Church would have the power
Salam
Not all of the ancient documents have been made public.
Professor Geza Vermes who smells something fishy says that certain important scrolls are still in hands of only a few academics who are "approved"by the religious establishment. Public is not allowed open access to any of the most important secret scrolls. I wonder why. He wrote many books on the subject of these manuscripts.
Omrow
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