New "Dead Sea Scrolls"

[DomineIvimus]

Morning everyone. This is so etching I have been thinking about for some time. Do you think we might have a discovery in the future of ancient texts such as the Dead Sea Scroll discovery, but of ancient texts of the New Testament/Covenant predating the oldest manuscripts we currently have, that could be used to compare with current translations to see you accurate they have come down to us?

Apologies for the length of that question

[coccus ilicis]

Morning everyone. This is so etching I have been thinking about for some time. Do you think we might have a discovery in the future of ancient texts such as the Dead Sea Scroll discovery, but of ancient texts of the New Testament/Covenant predating the oldest manuscripts we currently have, that could be used to compare with current translations to see you accurate they have come down to us?

Apologies for the length of that question

Morning everyone. This is so etching I have been thinking about for some time. Do you think we might have a discovery in the future of ancient texts such as the Dead Sea Scroll discovery, but of ancient texts of the New Testament/Covenant predating the oldest manuscripts we currently have, that could be used to compare with current translations to see you accurate they have come down to us?

Apologies for the length of that question

Hello Go Beyond,

No matter how many manuscripts may yet be found I doubt they will reveal anything more than what we have today. The native tongue of Jesus and his listeners was 1st century Hebrew, so the four Gospel accounts are Greek translations, these may alter a bit as the understanding of Kione Greek grows. But discoveries of more manuscripts won't change that. Here's why. Jesus's teachings were passed on by word of mouth and not put into writing until much later.

The publisher's note in the book Reinventing Jesus by J. Ed Komozewski, M. James Sawyer & Daniel B Wallace says, From the worldwide phenomenon of The Da Vinci Code to the national best-seller Misquoting Jesus, popular culture is being bombarded with radical scepticism about the uniqueness of Christ and the reliability of the New Testament. Reinventing Jesus cuts through the rhetoric of extreme doubt expressed by these and several other contemporary voices to reveal the profound credibility of historic Christianity. Meticulously researched, thoroughly documented, yet eminently readable, this book invites a wide audience to take a firsthand look at the solid, reasonable, and clearly defensible evidence for Christianity's origins. Reinventing Jesus shows believers that it's okay to think hard about Christianity, and shows hard thinkers that it's okay to believe., Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture - PDF Download.
A pdf file of the book can be borrowed free at this site: Reinventing Jesus - Internet Archive. The quotes below are taken from the book.

Under the heading on p25 Why Wait? The Delay of the Written Gospels the authors say: … The Gospels by any reckoning were written some decades after Jesus lived. Sceptics consider this an embarrassment… claiming the Jesus of the Gospels is an imaginative theological construct
… Many reasons could be given for the delay of the written Gospels but even thinking about the question is looking at it from the wrong perspective. It might be better to ask, Why were the Gospels written at all?
... What was paramount in the apostle's earliest motives was oral proclamation of the gospel. They wanted to disseminate the word as quickly as possible. … in other words, the apostles and leaders of this young church were preoccupied with broadcasting the gospel orally.
… Scholars often point to two catalysts that prompted the writing of the Gospels … the apostles were dying off, and we would expect them to be written to their communities. However, at least two of the four Gospels (Mark and Luke) and probably three (John) were written to Gentile Christians, (underline mine). Paul not one of the original twelve was not in a position to write a Gospel in the first place.

On p21 it asks these questions. 'How do we know the Gospel writers got it right? Why was the writing of the gospels delayed for decades? What happened in the meantime? Isn't it likely that Gospel writers simply forgot most of the details about what Jesus said and did by the time they put pen to papyrus? Since the Gospel writers were obviously people of faith, how do we know their faith didn't get in the way of accurate historical reporting? Since they were writing to specific communities how do we know they didn't radically rework the material to meet the needs of their audiences? These and other questions are explored in the following chapter.

On p54 under the subheading, The Quantity and Quality of the Textual Variants it says, The Greek New Testament, as we know it today has approximately one hundred and thirty-eight thousand words. There are thousands upon thousands of textual variants ...the best estimate is that there are between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand textual variants among manuscripts. It then goes on to show what these variants are, how most of them are inconsequential and how they go about establishing the most accurate rendering. The oldest fragment is no bigger than a credit card and is written on on both sides, which indicates it was in book form rather than a scroll. It is dated around 150 AD.

Under the Heading Oral Tradition And A Memorizing Culture p33, it makes some good points that indicate the veracity of what eyewitnesses remembered, i.e. their recollections were not individual memories, but collective ones – confirmed by other eyewitnesses and burned into their minds by the constant retelling of the story. Thus both the repetition of the stories about Jesus and the verification of such by other eyewitnesses served as checks and balances on the apostles' accuracy.

The book is well worth reading for anyone who wants to domine ivimus, and dig below the surface.

[goghtherefore]

Hi coccus ilicis

Regarding:

"The native tongue of Jesus and his listeners was 1st century Hebrew,..."

A quote: "It is the general consensus of religious scholars and historians that Jesus and his disciples primarily spoke Aramaic, the traditional language of Judea in the first century AD."

https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus ... jesus.html


.02

goghtherefore

[Marina]

I would like to flag this - when speaking about Aramaic do be aware that this language can be used to do an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT VERSION OF THE LORD'S PRAYER. Then spin it as 'oh but Jesus could speak Aramaic so this nonsense we just made up is the real Lord's prayer.' The Jews picked up Aramaic from Babylon.

Jesus is the Word of God - he could speak Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. He could also speak in illustrations and his actions spoke volumes.

Watchtower speak in over 200 languages and their actions speak volumes too.

[coccus ilicis]

Re: Aramaic or Hebrew. It's a hot potato in scholarly circles at the moment. And the reasons given make sense, but none are conclusive. Scott Stuart makes some excellent points in this video.



Here is what he is talking about:

Compare: https://biblehub.com/acts/21-40.htm

Compare: https://biblehub.com/acts/22-2.htm

Compare: https://biblehub.com/acts/26-14.htm

My view is that as Jesus was raised and schooled in Egypt, most likely in Alexandria the hub of enlightenment, he would also have spoken Aramaic, Greek and Latin besides Hebrew, and used whatever language was required to help his listeners understand. The Rabbis at the temple were amazed at the understanding of the 12-year-old Jesus, (Lu 2:46,47). Even today children brought up in places where several languages are spoken communicate in all of them automatically. But when speaking the sayings of the Father, (Jhn 12:49), Jesus would have spoken in Hebrew. But not all that he said and did is recorded in the NT. No doubt if he were conveying what he said to someone who didn't understand Hebrew, he would have used the language of his listeners to convey the same message,(cf. Jhn21:25).

[goghtherefore]

Great post (and video) coccus ilicis.

Thank you.

goghtherefore

[Marina]

Hi CI - interesting if scholars are making a hot potato of this - this might go to the heart of a new age/one world religion. An attempt to merge all religions into one.
There is an Aramaic prayer, called the Lord's prayer - it comes from guru-type/green new-age Catholics. It is not the Lord's prayer, but if you can't understand Aramaic and someone tells you this is the Lord's Prayer as Jesus would have prayed it, you'd suddenly find out you were not approaching OUR FATHER, but a transgender. Also, you'd not be asking for your sins to be forgiven because this prayer carries no concept of sin.

[coccus ilicis]

Hi CI - interesting if scholars are making a hot potato of this - this might go to the heart of a new age/one world religion. An attempt to merge all religions into one.
There is an Aramaic prayer, called the Lord's prayer - it comes from guru-type/green new-age Catholics. It is not the Lord's prayer, but if you can't understand Aramaic and someone tells you this is the Lord's Prayer as Jesus would have prayed it, you'd suddenly find out you were not approaching OUR FATHER, but a transgender. Also, you'd not be asking for your sins to be forgiven because this prayer carries no concept of sin.

That is interesting. You don't happen to have a link where I might find a translation of it? If not, then the original Aramaic version would do.

[Marina]

I got told the information. So no, no link. BUT check out Bede Griffiths. It's all to do with him. So I am guessing he wrote the prayer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede_Griffiths

[Stranger]

That is interesting. You don't happen to have a link where I might find a translation of it? If not, then the original Aramaic version would do.

Hi Coccus,

Here's one rendition of it in English. https://readsuzette.com/lords-prayer-original-aramaic/


Stranger, (Phil 2:9-10)