Oldest Bible (4th Century New Testament) Pieced Together, to be Made Available Online | Hacker News Reader

Oldest Bible (4th Century New Testament) Pieced Together, to be Made Available Online

dsc.discovery.com

14 pointsDaniFong9 comments

Somebody should run diff on that...

Actually your every day pew bibles usually already have small footnotes explaining where some translations or manuscripts differ, like "the earliest manuscripts do not have the following verses" or "some translations also add blah"

if actually interested, the article does mention where one such difference is found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16 has more detail. Suffice to say that this isn't remotely a new development.

What, exactly, do you think biblical textual scholars spend their time doing? This isn't something newly discovered; it's been studied for decades. It's incorporated into the Nestle-Aland critical text, which most modern translations use.

"What, exactly, do you think biblical textual scholars spend their time doing?"

To be honest, I didn't even know biblical textual scholars existed, let alone what they did with their time. Now I know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism .

Really? They're only the most important of all textual critics.

Whereas the guys who peer review scientific papers are just playing games? Get some perspective. While it may be important to some it's hardly important work in the big scheme of things.

Peer review is important, but that's not the same as textual criticism. (Hint: it's an academic field, not just the act of criticizing a text.)

This is not an uncommon perception. I run into way to many fundies who believe the Bible is some sort of magical text straight from the stone tablets of God. (They, of course, pick their favorite translation, or worse, paraphrase, to be this magic book).

Its closer to the truth to call the Bible a scrap-book of letters, personal accounts, advice for living, poetry, religious writings, and history spanning many centuries.

Those that have believed it have carefully assembled it over the millennia (yeah, some of it is that old!) in order to tell the story of God's relation to man.

Emptied of its religious context, (and sadly, modern connotative baggage that is has accumulated in the last few centuries), it is one of the most fascinating artifacts of ancient humans to be found anywhere. Its ubiquity belies the fact that it is well worth study in this regard.

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