pharmakeia: Drug Dealers and the NT.

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Einstuck, Nov 24, 2005.

  1. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    Drug Dealers Condemned in the New Testament

    Drug Dealers In the Bible? Where?

    Drug dealing is treated gravely and severely condemned in the New Testament: 5 times. (Gal.5:20, Rev.9:21, 18:23, 21:8, 22:15, original Greek)

    Paul Speaks out against Drugs:

    John also Speaks out against Drugs:

    Why Should we translate 'pharmakoi' as Drug Dealers?

    The Greek word ‘pharmakeia’ has been used since 500 years before Jesus’ time to refer to the buying and selling of drugs for both recreational and medical purposes, and also to refer to quacks selling ‘miracle cures’ etc. This is the very word we get our modern English word ‘Pharmacy’ from, to refer to a dealer or supplier of drugs, a drug store.

    Why isn't this in my English Translation?

    It has been known since ancient times that the word means ‘drug dealing’. Abundant references in Classical literature show this beyond dispute. In English bibles the term ‘drug dealing’ was deliberately avoided and a completely different word, ‘sorcery’ put in its place. This is was not just due to superstitious ignorance.

    To this day, the Western Church not only makes its own wine for religious use, but also sells it commercially through various monasteries and companies. There may have been some 'excuse' for this sorry state of affairs in the 16th century, before drug dealing was widely understood and formally criminalized. However, in the 21st century there really is no excuse for failing to properly translate the original Greek, and make the truth plain.

    Are Drug Dealers Really Going to be Destroyed?

    This is the million dollar question! In recent times, some Universalists have tried to re-interpret the bible to support the idea that all people are ultimately saved. When Revelation says,

    ...the Universalists would have us believe it should be rendered,

    "...their PART will be in the Lake of Fire, ..."

    In this interpretation, a person's 'part' or 'portion' refers to his works and/or collected earnings for good and bad deeds. From this idea they want you to believe that only their 'bad works' will pass through a kind of testing fire, but the drug dealers themselves (and other extreme criminals) and their souls will be saved, thus 'fulfilling the scriptures' in a humane way.

    But can this interpretation hold up? Sadly, NO. For safeguarding the meaning here and removing any ambiguity, the action of the Lake of Fire is plainly identified by the following phrase:

    "...the Lake of Fire, which is the Second Death!"

    Now ordinary death is horrifying enough: it is often inconvenient, humiliating, slow, painful, and terrifying, especially if the death is a crime being perpetrated upon an innocent victim. We may hope in an afterlife, but death is quite serious, even for sincerely spiritual people. And the New Testament doesn't avoid the issue, or flower it up with euphemisms. Instead it warns seekers of God that bad things can happen.

    Of course we shouldn't be surprised. The very existance of 'sin' can mean that innocent or at least undeserving people can suffer. By definition, murder is killing someone who shouldn't be killed. Experience shows that even children can be victimised, and even good people can still make mistakes that cause injury or cost lives.

    Yet we should not exaggerate ordinary death: there are things more terrible than death:

    This is clearly the Second Death, and is to be feared far more than death. According to Revelation it is applied against criminals, and evil men. And yet it is also clear from all the warnings, that all men are at risk: that any man could find himself facing the Second Death, if he committed a serious enough sin.

    Even John, the Apostle of Love warns us of the gravity of certain sins. He says there is a 'sin that leads to Death', and actually tells Christians NOT to pray for those who commit such sins!

    Wow, not only are some people going to be destroyed, but we aren't even supposed to pray for them.

    How could the Universalists get it so wrong? Simple: what they are talking about is the common Judgement that everyone faces. All people will have their works, good and bad, judged by God on Judgement Day. Of all the works and deeds, whatever is built upon sand will pass away. (James 5:1-4).

    But every sincere Christian or seeker of God believes in God's fair judgement, and certainly doesn't need to fear it. (1 John 4:18) Even if my earthly deeds may turn out to be of little value, I will certainly be grateful to at least be judged fairly, and I'll be happy to make it to heaven, even if I am not much of a hero.

    But ordinary judgement simply CAN'T be what every Apostle was frantically warning us about! What they are talking about can only be the ultimate penalty for evil works: Pain, self-pity and horror, ending in utter destruction without appeal, as God hands out His Final Devastating Judgement. It makes sense to fear this!

    Obviously what these apostles are talking about is NOT ordinary Judgement of men and their works, where the chaff is burnt off, and the wheat remains, or the slag is removed, from true gold through a cleansing fire. Instead, here we are warned of a dire consequence worse than death, an irreversible and violent destruction.

    Revelation is supported by every apostle and leader of the New Testament, although its detailed description of God's Final Judgement is unique. Some who suffer the Wrath of God clearly do NOT repent, and so are NOT saved, but are cast into God's garbage can:

    This makes it clear that the doctrine of Universal Salvation is bankrupt, and is not supported by the New Testament as a whole.

    Anyone can be saved, but not everyone will be.

    Of course God doesn't wish anyone to perish, but wishes that all might have Eternal Life.

    But according to the New Testament view, God's Divine nature, which gives men everywhere ample opportunity to repent, has a complimentary side which ultimately requires justice and fairness, and results in a Final Judgement for some.

    God won't force people to repent, but He will certainly destroy them if they refuse to.

    No Hope for Drug Dealers?

    We have seen that some people are not saved but are thrown into the Lake of Fire, and some of those who are thrown into the Lake of Fire are DRUG DEALERS. But is God referring to ALL drug dealers, or just some of them?


    Jesus made it clear that there are 'small' sins and 'large' sins (Matthew 23:23). We have already seen that some sins lead to death, or worse. (1 John 5:16, Heb.10:28-29), and horrific punishments are prophesied in Revelation. Now please note again that Paul doesn't hesitate grouping DRUG DEALING alongside the worst sins that lead certainly to death and exclude Eternal Life also.

    And Paul is not just talking about a handful of ringleaders, or some international drug lords only: He warns ordinary church goers that committing these sins leads to death and disqualifies you for Eternal Life! That's pretty much EVERY DRUG DEALER, since it even includes backsliding Christians!

    But wait, there may still be hope for a repentant DRUG DEALER: God is not an unjust Judge. We can hope He will make some allowance for ignorance, poverty, deception, or unreasonable circumstances. And indeed, Jesus gives us some hope here:

    A DRUG DEALER who is STILL ALIVE, and capable of repenting and stopping his crimes, could receive forgiveness and be saved:

    On the other hand, a Christian who falls away from his faithfulness and commits crimes like DRUG DEALING and murder is in danger of the severest Judgement:

    So this includes, but is not limited to, the CIA, FBI, Mafia, Bikers, US military, the Government, and probably 60% of law enforcement worldwide.
    Unless they repent, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire for deceiving the Nations.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2005
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  3. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    what a tale hey? how dya like to hear THIS round the campfire in the woods..?
    would it make you feel ecstatic, liberated?
    it is aliteralist reading of a book written by the patriarchy.

    A website i found a wile back----i am sure i have noted it somewhere makes a strong argument that specifically te Book of Revealations is 'secretly'/etymologicall and symbplically pointing not to the patriarcal invective but to a more loiberating one....only read a small bit. it is pges long

    if you are serious about researching about te Pharmakon and ancient religion, you need to defiately read John Allegro, Wasson, Graves etc....when you get te hint you can read man other s and read between the lines. 'drugs' ,psychedelics and solanacious vegetation is CENTRAl to mythology, including the Judaic Christian myth. But really only for te religions and cults elite.......In pre-patriarchal, agraian andIdigenous traditions it was mre open, especially Agraian, where a GODDESS not a sky-slar god is prominent , as it is for the patriarchal religions and cults

    As you can see by that abve porpaganda----nothin has changed. HE it was threats of the 'second death, lake of fire' and other frigteners. NOW , in the cotinuance of the long long 'war on [SOME] drugs'!, we have severe punishment, and threats/warnings of'mental illness'. same social controlling tactice, different terms and meanings. Whenpeple begandoubting all about hell and damantion etc, te rules changed.

    te actual acceptance of some sky-god dictator who--like anydictatorship will not tolerate 'drug dealers' and users--is really sad. who the hell would even want to live in a universe like that. where your love--which should be the most natural feeling in te world, is savagly coerced for fear of being trashed and torttured for eternity---even surpassing Hitler and Stalin etc in utter barbarity?
     
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  5. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    LOL John Allegro is to Judaism = Carlos Castenada to Mexican religious practice.

    That ass-clown was discredited pretty much the day after his popular pseudo-archaeology hit the stands.

    The 'John Allegro Tragedy' or tragicomedy/fiasco centred around John Allegro writing pulp fiction and thinly veiled anti-Semitism and passing it off as 'science' to "feed his family" or some crap. In comparison with Allegro, Arthur Koestler's "Thirteenth Tribe" looks like scholarly research.

    Of course there's no surprises here. Once you start recycling 19th century German Criticism of the scriptures, you might as well hit the Holocaust Revisionism websites as well. Recently I saw someone try to claim that the Zionists were co-conspirators with the Nazis, working together to turn Jewish opinion in favour of Emmigration to Palestine.

    Pop some more of those magic mushrooms of Allegro's, and you can convince yourself of just about anything, as long as you don't have to face any historical evidence regarding plain old boring Christianity.

    Yeah, it really sucks that God would pick on poor drug dealers: the guys who finance all modern covert wars of terrorism and torture by trafficking heroine and cocaine for fat Americans. Freedom of religion yeah, but don't threaten our drug stash.

    Poor me: my 60s 'Love In' philosophy which was manufactured for me by Western Covert Ops to derail the Viet Nam protests has turned out to be a conspiratorial farce perpretrated against American teens. Only instead of wising up and shaking off the stupor, the entire baby boom embraced acid and pot and made the ex-military Hells Angels millions of dollars as they drugged up your 14 year old daughters and forced them into prostitution for rich American politicians.

    Poor you. If there is a God, he's not on the side of America. oops.
     
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  7. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    *************
    M*W: This is the biggest load of bullshit I have seen on this forum in a long time. You're one fucking idiot. Sure, the human race has used plants for various reasons since YOUR GOD created them. That makes YOUR GOD the biggest drug dealer of them all.

    Next time you post, don't use returns at the ends of the lines. The format has a wrap-around feature. Use it.

    Secondly, preaching is not allowed. Read the fucking rules dickwad. And while you're at it, fuck god.
     
  8. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    169
    Nobody cares about using a few herbs for analgesics, antiseptics, vitamins, or tonics.

    Its not about trying to prevent farmers from growing hemp.

    Its about the largest wholesale International Murder Inc. Covert Op ever perpetrated.

    Against who? Innocent women and children who are being napalmed by US 'liberators'.

    Wake up. When in Revelation it says that DRUG DEALERS deceived the nations,
    God isn't talking about herbalists or natives gathering spices.

    This is the most amazing and accurate prophecy ever penned by any prophet true or false since the beginning of time. NOBODY could have forseen that the three biggest industries in the world would be GUNS, DRUGS, and PROSTITUTION, at a time when they didn't even know the earth was round.

    Revelation is SPOT ON. The world is being deceived by huge international cartels of DRUG DEALERS, GUN RUNNERS, and PIMPS. And the biggest gang is the PENTAGON. Gee what a coincidence that the PENTAGRAM is the symbol of SATAN, enemy of humankind.

    Next you'll be telling me that Oliver North and the Ku Klux Klan are a swell bunch of sweet guys, who'd never hurt a fly, let alone arrest thousands of people without charges or trials, and torture them in secret offshore locations away from the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention.

    And who cares if God makes herbs? Who would you rather buy your drugs from? God, or the Hells Angels who lace everything with speed to turn you into a zombie? Bikers are worse than cigarette companies. They'd put dogshit in your pot if made the stuff seem stronger, even if it killed you. Oh, and what a coincidence: the Hells Angels all happen to be ex-army (or rather 'x'-army). The same guys who experimented on thousands of kids by handing out LSD like chicklets. MK-ULTRA.

    Maybe 'medicine woman' here will wake up when she sees that women are by far the majority of victims in every war since 1917.

    Women, Children and Civilian Casualties:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2005
  9. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    6,585
    instuk...what a mixed up mind yo has.....
    you are not fit to clean Allegro's soes. never mind call him the disrespectful names you have. i cannot find you intelligent enough to even discuss wit to be quite frank. yor entrance is not......desirable whatsoever, BUT...i do wanna ask you a question. answer it or dont answer it

    have YOU efver had psychedelic experience?

    if so, what with?

    if so, what was your last experience like?

    what do you think psychedelic experience inspires when humans take them?...oh, make itinto one answer

    and for goodness sake, leave the hostility. why u so angry?
     
  10. c20H25N3o Shiny Heart of a Shiny Child Registered Senior Member

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    2,017
    I'm sure there is something in the forum rules about getting personal like that. How can you seriously ask someone to take notice of rules that you have no intention of paying attention to yourself? Hypocrisy.

    c20
     
  11. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    169
    Well said. I agree.
     
  12. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    M*W: You're preaching to the choir, dickwad. You're telling Noah about the flood. I am well aware of how women and children have been treated SINCE RECORDED HISTORY BEGAN!

    Your's is just another wild and wacky conspiracy theory. There are more lies and deceit in the bible than published anywhere else in the world. You're reading something Machiavellian into extreme allegorical poetry. In other words, you're a nutcase. Seems like sciforums is a magnet for xian nutcases.

    Go take a quaalude and call me in the morning.
     
  13. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    169
    Its not a conspiracy when the people in power don't even bother to make credible denials. Its just bullying, rubbing the faces of the oppressed in the evidence of bullies' crimes.

    There's nothing 'wacky' about the industrial military complex. Its pretty real since its budget is in the trillions. You don't need to 'read' Machiavellian philosophies into the actions of the power elite. They are self-confessed Machiavellians.

    There is no doubt that the 'bible' is largely allegorical poetry. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, it contains much of value for the cultivation of ethical standards. That is precisely what good poetry is for.

    As written works go, the bible (even a 'modern' translation) is relatively free of lies and deceit, compared to any modern piece of political speech or media news reportage.

    Although in places the bible has been crudely edited, and kludged together from borrowed older material, and cross-pollinated by neighboring cultures, compared to any modern piece of writing it appears virtually pure as the fallen snow.

    If the bible has any systemic or rampant fault, it would be the 'fault' of naive honesty, and inadvertant reportage of inconvenient facts.

    Even the translators and editors who sought to influence the bible largely failed, because they could not overcome or control cultural and historical forces, and their little notes and scribbles are hopelessly transparent to any intelligent reader.

    There is no danger of any normal reader of moderate intelligence being 'deceived' or brainwashed by reading a bible.

    The whole notion of 'cult brainwashing' has been thoroughly discredited in the research literature. It has about the same status as 'false memory' syndromes and the false charges stemming from them.

    People join cults because they want to, and they usually benefit from the experience in the long run, if their plans are not obstructed or interfered with.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2005
  14. Paraclete Banned Banned

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    207
    Interesting observation Einstuck - the bible has suffered a lot from translation from Hebrew to Greek to English ......
    However I did not like your pictures - we all know what drugs and drugdealing do -
    no need to show these pictures - then again MW probably had it coming , she is not ladylike to put it mildly ..... but please spare the rest of us next time, OK !!
    Some of the profiles here are children ........
     
  15. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    6,585
    she is WOman...and shit, we are all of a udden good wholesome family entertainment??? fukin hope not. you know thw worst times i simply hate. Easter, etc when teTV schedules go all 'family enterttainment' meaning sentimentalist diarrorhea.... why is it we underestimate kids ? beliee we hafe to patronize them, hide them away from passion, ralness etc. it suks//Einstuk hit this thread very disrespectfully, and opiniated, and desrved the reaction he got from MW
     
  16. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    ...and yet in spite of this process, it remains surprisingly intact.
    Why? Because the books of the New Testament spread so quickly in a single generation and penetrated so many languages that no person or group alive even a hundred years afterward could have any real impact on the text itself, once it was issued and spread.

    All the variations between manuscripts and lines of transmission (other languages/isolated churches in the Roman Empire) of any impact were introduced early into the genealogical manuscript tree. A variant had to be introduced into the copying stream early in order to be copied and escape the natural correction process when copies were compared and re-copied.

    If someone wanted to severely tamper with the bible, they would have to have done it at the source, the copying factory for the very first issues of each book. The bible itself is just a collection of 60 odd books from a span of nearly 2000 years, and no person or power on earth had the ability to control it or significantly tamper with it,

    Except perhaps the Jews at certain times, who were the sole producers of some of the documents in ancient days. But this group and their editing habits can hardly be separated from the purpose of the contents of the books themselves. That is, since early scribes were 'on the side' of the bible, they were hardly going to tamper with it in an anarchistic manner! They were conformists if anything, correcting small abberations and anomalies according to their limited historical and doctrinal knowledge.

    In recent times, with the invention of printing and the scheme of actually de-throning the bible, attempts are still being made to corrupt and tamper with the text, but the most that has been accomplished has been the proliferation of 'modern versions' following a mutilated New Testament text, artificially kludged together by non-Christian 'scholars'. The result, shoddy modern texts, have remained unconvincing, and most Christians return to traditional texts that only possess a naive 'Christian' bias in translation, rather than the 'secular' inspired mutilation being foisted on the public.

    Good luck trying to change the text of the bible.

    The majority of corrections and questions surrounding the bible text hinge upon interpretation and the world-view of the translators, which is usually well known and expressed in the introduction to most translations.

    There is more controversy in what books should actually be included in the bible than in their contents. The Greek Orthodox bible has the most books, with the Catholic Bible second, and the Protestant bible third. The Jewish bible of course is the smallest, because it excludes the entire New Testament.

    The Koran, written several hundred years later, apparently borrows heavily from both the Jewish and Christian scriptures in places, but does not actually include biblical books.

    On the other side of the coin, one might rather ask what has been LEFT OUT of the bible. In this case, you might have a convincing case for books such as the Book of Enoch, and the Sayings of Thomas.

    Enoch is quoted authoritatively by the Letter of Jude which is actually in the bible. The Book of Enoch is also referred to indirectly perhaps a hundred times in other New Testament books, and the authors of the NT including Paul reveal a clear familiarity and approval of this book. \

    The Book of Thomas appears to be a secondary copy of the Sayngs Source, or "Q" which both Luke and Matthew relied upon heavily for the original sayings and teachings of Jesus.

    Other sources were also used by both Luke and Matthew. Matthew relies heavily upon the Letter of James in rewriting Luke's Sermon on the Plain and transforming it into the Sermon on the Mount. A look at the marginal cross-references makes this obvious. But since James is included in the New Testament and is one of the earliest Christian documents, it is no surprise that it was used by Matthew. It is hardly a conspiracy that NT writers quote each other, although modern ideas of scientific writing might put some brakes on Matthew's methods.

    Luke also clearly uses material (and admits it in his introduction) such as must have been the base of the extant gospel (sayings) of Thomas. Since Luke has unique material not in Matthew, one might wonder what Luke may have left out of his sources, and Thomas might help to answer that question. However, Thomas in the form we have it is actually quite late, (not as old as Luke) so it can't be relied upon without careful qualification.

    In all, both Enoch and Thomas have been edited and have suffered from transmission losses from translation and neglect. They are probably not fit to include in the bible in the condition they are in at the moment.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2005
  17. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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  18. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    Where to start?

    Perhaps Medicine Woman secretly hopes for a scenario like this:
    An M*W Adventure

    What nonsense. Although it may be true that we don't have pristine complete copies of every NT book or letter dating from the 1st century, no modern scholar (atheists included) denies the existance of the books in essentially the form we have them as early as 50 A.D. for the letters of Paul, and 80-90 A.D. for the rest. The reason is simple: you don't need perfect fascimiles of whole books just to prove their existance and the extent of their circulation.

    There are literally thousands of fragments of almost all the NT books which have been found in Egyptian garbage dumps and archaelogical sites all over the Mediterranean from the period. One could almost reconstruct the entire NT from the these fragments alone, and the meticulous uncovering and dating of the layers at these sites satisfies the most ardent skeptics as to the essential facts. The only thing in serious dispute is the relative merit and originality of the variant readings. ALL readings are old. The books in the NT Canon all date from the late 1st century to the early 2nd for some pseudonymous letters, like Polycarp, the Sheperd of Hermas, and Clement.

    To give you just a brief glimpse of the actual evidence for the existance of the books, you can simply look at quotations of the NT from various of its enemies alone, which in a typical catalog or collation of such, amount to tens of thousands of instances.

    Keep in mind that it only takes ONE demonstrable quote to prove the prior existance of a work. It only took 18 minutes of missing tape to impeach President Nixon. And it would only take one authentic piece of written, video, or audio evidence to impeach Bush, if that evidence showed he knew of, allowed, or helped plan the 9/11 attacks. One 30 second sound-byte like "..okay, so after we ground our air-defense and let the plane hit the 2nd tower.." dated ten days previous to the attacks would be clinching and damning.

    Even orthodox Jews, who utterly reject Paul as a traitor to Judaism don't doubt the authenticity of most of his letters. They are too obviously real. Those that are known or suspected to be pseudonymous, like 2nd Timothy, or Hebrews, or 2nd Peter, are just as obviously known to be 'fakes' of a certain kind, and historical period. You can't transplant them into the 4th or 5th century any more than you can claim Moses really lived in 200 b.c.! And most Christians readily admit a few letters or marginal notes may have crept into the text in the gathering and canonization of the New Testament. But these facts have no real significance for religious doctrine or practice.

    Again, sloppy pseudo-history.
    The early church fathers almost to a man weren't Romans at all, but Jewish converts. It should be obvious, but apparently needs to be stated again that for the first two centuries the majority of 'Christians' were Jews, not Gentiles, and even among the far-flung churches across the Roman empire and founded by Paul, the majority were still Jews.

    Paul and his followers went from SYNAGOGUE to SYNAGOGUE converting Jews who were already familiar with the Old Testament. All of his arguments were Rabbinical. What is hardly appreciated here is that the great majority of Jews were NOT in Palestine at the time of Christ, and only a remnant even returned yearly for the feasts. The majority of Jews were actually GREEKS. Many had ceased to even speak Hebrew/Aramaic at all, and the Gospel was deliberately written in Greek to reach the Jewish Exiles, or Diaspora.

    Leaders especially in the early Christian movement were Jews, who could read and interpret Hebrew and Aramaic, and could speak fluent Greek. All the apostles, Paul, and even Timothy (whose mother was Jewish), including the majority of 'early fathers' right up to the 3rd century and beyond. It wouldn't be surprising to find that the majority of Catholic Priests and Cardinals today were Jewish or partly Jewish in heritage. But obviously these people renounced their Judaism in the early centuries after repeated disputes with non-converting Jews.

    The Romans hated the Jews, and it is an absurd thesis to propose that they cleverly hijacked a whole foreign religion in order to 'control the slave population'. After the (well documented by Josephus, a JEWISH Roman general) WAR between the Romans and Jews, a very uneasy truce remained, which was partly glued together by Nepotism and intermarriage of Jew and Gentile royal lines.

    If Christianity was some 'Roman conspiracy',then it was perpetrated mostly on Jews by Jews for the first two centuries! What crap. It would be far better to characterize it as a 'family quarrel' than a conspiracy to drug up Roman slaves. On the contrary, documents show that the Romans viewed Christianity as a minor 'Jewish superstition', and after trying to stomp it out in Alexandria tried to ignore it, hoping it would go away. You give the moronic Romans far too much credit. They were barely more advanced than the neighboring barbarians.

    What is surprising, is what a good job the later fathers did in sorting out the authentic Christian documents from various forgeries and tampered editions. It would be absurd to think they should or could have done a perfect job, but they did manage to preserve the majority of the early documents in a very crude and primitive form, and only included a few items now considered 'fake' or late in origin.

    This is the kind of 'ivory tower' tripe that drifts down from university backwaters where no one involved has ever had a real life or a clue about how the world works. Good luck on the 'Paul as mythical Sun God' theory. Hope you get your thesis. Or at least a flakey but popular paperback out of it, that sits next to Van Danken's UFO theories.


    Actually, the Romans already had a far better way, and one that was clearly and repeatedly proven effective: An army of foreign legions willing to crucify any troublemakers.

    It seems apparent you don't know how textual transmission and reconstruction works at all, even as practised by atheistic secular university professors who hate the bible and Christianity in particular.

    Everybody knows that individual hand-copies will be full of errors. On average about one serious or significant lapse per five verses minimum. That is why in a scriptorium, copyists typically use two or more texts as a reference when copying, and their work is proof-read by overseers. The reason is simple: most such work is commissioned by private buyers and wealthy sponsors within the church, and monasteries compete for such lucrative sources of income. There is no room in such a milleu for religious conspiracies.

    But what happens is this: On the first pass, the majority of errors in the exemplars are noted and corrected on the spot in the text or margin. The new copy will of course have its own set of errors, mostly accidental, rather than from a process of theologically or politically guided editing. This is how it has to be just to get the job of copying done.

    As a result, although the mean average number of errors in any given manuscript will go up an down with the quality and supervision of the copyists, this average will comprise of 90% accidental errors which actually don't even affect the translation of the text at all in another language. Things like minor spelling errors, grammatical word order reversals and mistaken inflections and case, or verb voicing/tense all come out in the wash with the translation anyway. No one cares if 'John' is spelt Joannes in one manuscript and Joanes in another.

    Of all the errors, only a small percentage (probably less than 10%) affect the meaning of the text substantially, and the majority of these are caught and corrected by simple comparison with older copies.

    Another VERY small percentage of errors have the appearance of not being errors, because they make grammatical sense, or because they don't stray from ordinary interpretation too much, or because they seem to suggest novel and interesting doctrinal points.

    These 'suspicious' readings sometimes make their way into the text or margin in some branch of transmission or other, especially if that reading seems to favour a particular doctrine in one way or another. An example might be the 'three witnesses in heaven and on earth' passage, where it seems an over-enthusiastic marginal note crept into the text of John quite early in the copying process.

    But the point is, that the whole process of transmission is quite mindless and organic, and completely outside the control of individuals or even powerful groups who might wish to rewrite or alter the bible texts. The whole thing is just too sprauling and unorganized to impose anyone's political will over. It is more like the blind process of 'evolution' or the creation of macroscopic 'laws of physics' via the accumulation of small local effects and processes. Underneath the hood, there is no 'conspiracy': just the natural result of tiny but complicated local processes.
     
  19. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

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    Lets examine your thesis here:
    What books were left out of the Greek Orthodox Bible by the Romans?

    3 letters: 1 and 2 Clement, and the Sheperd of Hermas. (all NT).

    Well, is there anything in the content of these books that would advance any Roman cause if they were removed, or hinder any Roman political goal if they remained?

    No.

    They were left out of the canon by the early church fathers for a much simpler reason. Clement's letters are semi-literate and his doctrines are a bit suspect in comparison to the quality and content of say Paul's letters, or John's. In other words, they were clearly recognizable as a LATE, INFERIOR product, similar to various forgeries, and even though the letters of Clement are believed to be real, the fact is Clement himself is not considered that great an early father, that his letters should be part of the canon.

    The sheperd of Hermas is even flakier, and the Western (Latin) branch of the church did us a favour by dropping these three embarassing books, which opponents could point to and mock.

    Perhaps you are confusing this with the Protestant Bible, which leaves out the Apochrypha (intertestament books) because they weren't found in the Jewish Canon by Martin Luther.

    As a matter of fact, because the canon was assessed by commitee centuries afterward, they weren't at all unwilling to include letters which at the time were part of hot controversies inside the church itself. For instance, alongside Paul's rather libertarian letters you will find the letter of James, which was clearly composed by the opposing faction inside the church who resisted Paul.

    In other words, rather than editing out, or sweeping under the carpet the problems inside the early church, the later fathers preserved all the documents they could authenticate and passed them on to us, warts and all.
    They even included syncretic documents like Matthew, deliberately composed to make peace among the factions, and heal the earlier divisions.

    As a result, we know far more about the early church than we would have if any individual with an opinion or axe to grind were able to assert his view over the canon. Operation by commitee effectively produced the most inclusive and least interfering canon possible. It's low quality, but all the ingredients have been duly passed on to us to sort out for ourselves. Who could ask for more?
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2005
  20. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    169
    This could only have been penned by someone who has never sat down and read Luke, or looked at the contents of the book or John.

    Luke is a two-part epic describing the beginnings and spread of Christianity, including the main reasons for its success, the actual teachings of Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. This is a story written in the highest literary Greek style, of the same or better caliber than the three volumes of Josephus. The only thing like it from the period is Jospehus' Wars. But of course it is so superior to any other contemporary historian's account, of any period of history, that scholars spend lifetimes just plumbing its depths.

    Luke would make a far better movie than Lord of the Rings.

    John, of course is not a gospel at all but a deeply mystical interpretation of the gospel in the form of a supernatural or aetheral play. Of this one can truly say that there is nothing even remotely like it that has been written before or since. It is as though it fell out of the sky. The Greek of John is so carefully constructed and compacted with deep spiritual meanings and complex levels of entailment that it boggles the mind how even a genius could have put it together. On top of that, its poetic structure would rival the intricacy of a Celtic weaving.

    The Greek language of John itself is self-unpacking, virtually redefining every important word and concept as it unfolds, another superhuman feat, with the result being that John has written his own language on the fly. Even in the worst English translation, bits of the depth and beauty crack through and take away one's breath.

    Anyone who dismisses John as an ordinary piece of literature either has never seen it, or is illiterate or brain-dead.

    Even to a master of Classical and Koine Greek, reading John is like listening to Patsy Kline, the Irish Rovers, and the Monkees for 30 years, then having Led Zepplin's Immigrant Song blast through the radio from Mars.

    Its as though you watched an entire parade in Texas in the 60s,
    but somehow didn't know Kennedy just had his head blown off before your eyes.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2005
  21. duendy Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,585
    St John's Gospel 'falling from te sky' my arrrrse. it is gnosticm thru and through!
     
  22. Einstuck Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    169
    ...and yet classified as an anti-gnostic polemic by most (secular) scholars.
     
  23. duendy Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,585
    i am professor emiritus of the univerisity of the land of sharp conical structures and want to test you:
    you say you know bible in 10 different languages?
    your just the goyim i've been lookin for

    what does the 'Word' actually mean?........you can answer this in levels if youwish.
     

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