Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on March 30, 2011 at 6:45pm

It is the single oldest whole bible in existence and possibly one of the most interesting manuscripts as far as scholarship is concerned. Like many older manuscripts it lacks the Pericope Adulterae, the Comma Johanneum, and you can see where a theta and epsilon were added to the word οσ thus making it read θεοσ in 1 Timothy 3:16.

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on March 30, 2011 at 6:49pm

If you think G/A 001 is interesting, check out this site: http://www.csntm.org/manuscript

 

Though it lacks the transcriptions and translations that the Codex Sinaiticus Project has, if you are interested in critical biblical scholarship I can't stress enough how important (and helpful) learning Koine Greek is.

Comment by Walter Maki on March 30, 2011 at 6:52pm

Thank you Kenneth I'll check and bookmark the link.

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on March 30, 2011 at 7:03pm

You're welcome. I have a ton of useful links. Like this one: http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/index.html#page=home It is an open online peer-reviewed journal on biblical criticism. Bart D. Ehrman is one of the editors.

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 30, 2011 at 7:05pm

On the audio player on the entry page there is currently a track of Christopher Hitchens reading a lengthy passage.  In part of it he references the 'dead sea scrolls' and the forgery/improvisation of the Pericope Adulterae.

The first time I heard about "super old bibles" that contradicted "the true bible" I was actually horrified, LOL! (I was Christian then, in case you are wondering)

 

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on March 30, 2011 at 7:19pm

I know if I were a Christian these manuscripts would scare the crap out of me. One of my favourite manuscripts is the Codex Bezae. You want to talk about strange textual variants, check out Mark 1:40-45.

 

Also, I love the people who are all about the KJV being completely inerrant. We now know that the KJV is based on what is considered one of the worst sources, an incredibly flawed 12th century manuscript tradition.

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 30, 2011 at 7:29pm

I love the fable of the Texas school director who, when asked about offering classes in Spanish, said, "If English was good enough for Jesus then it's good enough for Texas school children."

I have to say, that when I started really digging into the history of the bible it was really scary. With each step I felt like I was 'killing God'. [capitalized to reflect the reverence with which I regarded the word at that time]

25 years ago, especially in a small town, intense literary analysis of the Bible was truly sacrilege. There were only a handful of books at the local library, all written by atheists, and I didn't even have the courage to check them out - I just sat on the floor in an aisle at the back of the library and read them there. I can't imagine how I would have felt to deal with the sorts of information available today.

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on March 30, 2011 at 7:34pm

I find it so strange that laity consider literary and historical criticism of the bible to be so horrible when it is taught in just about every seminary and divinity school in America.

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 30, 2011 at 7:45pm

Well, there are those destined to put money in the collection plate, and those destined to pass the collection plate.  Class jumping is seriously frowned upon.

Comment by Walter Maki on March 30, 2011 at 8:03pm

With all this (old school) reading material has my interest peeked. Thank you again for the info.

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