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Re: OT, and religeous

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Sunday, December 5, 2004, 14:24
Pascal wrote:
> > Many parts of the Old Testament existed already way before the advent > > of Jesus and stuff, and were only slightly modified for inclusion. > > [...] The original bible texts were changed uncounted times by whoever > > was currently in power at the church to express just what what they wanted > > it to express, going along with intentional misinterpretation.
Actually, all the evidence suggests that in the 900 years or so separating the Dead Sea Scrolls and the first available Medieval codices, the actual texts changed almost not at all -- so little, that most of the changes are explainable in terms of occasional and slight spelling errors. So, if you mean 'church' in its normal sense, then you're flatly wrong on this point. (I just came back from seeing the real Dead Sea Scrolls at an exhibit in Houston, so I'm up on the facts.) Steg wrote:
> What's this obsession with the church? The texts commonly referred to > as the "Old Testament" had their own milieu, religion, and significance > before Christianity ever came along.
This is true. There are many people who speculate about huge changes that occurred to the documents around the time of the Babylonian Captivity, but these can be no more than speculations until someone actually unearths a codex with Bible fragments on it from the sixth or seventh centuries BC. ========================================================================= Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally, Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of 1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter. Chicago, IL 60637