Lou FCD
Posts: 5455
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Interesting historical note from the beeb:
| Quote | The world's oldest surviving Bible is in bits.
For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery, until it was found - or stolen, as the monks say - in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany and Britain.
Now these different parts are to be united online and, from next July, anyone, anywhere in the world with internet access will be able to view the complete text and read a translation.
For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, there will be some very uncomfortable questions to answer. It shows there have been thousands of alterations to today's bible.
The Codex, probably the oldest Bible we have, also has books which are missing from the Authorised Version that most Christians are familiar with today - and it does not have crucial verses relating to the Resurrection.
Anti-Semitic writings
The fact this book has survived at all is a miracle. Before its discovery in the early 19th Century by the Indiana Jones of his day, it remained hidden in St Catherine's Monastery since at least the 4th Century.
Pope at St Catherine's Monastery
The monastery at the base of Mt Sinai
It survived because the desert air is ideal for preservation and because the monastery, on a Christian island in a Muslim sea, remained untouched, its walls unconquered. |
More at the link.
I've just come across this pretty neat feature of the BBC, called "Ten things we didn't know last week" which is a sort of news roundup feature, not unlike Greg Laden's Blogospherics but for BBC news articles. This is one from a few weeks ago.
Hat tip to MadLolscientist via her FaceBook account.
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“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?
Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend
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