Hurrah, the world isn't coming to an end

**Crimman** · August 07, 2006, 10:52 PM

Newfound Book of Psalms Doesn't Predict Doom, Experts Say
Blake de Pastino
National Geographic News

July 27, 2006
It's not the end of the world, experts announced today. The opening passage of a thousand-year-old Christian prayer book discovered in Ireland does not say that doomsday is near.

When the medieval text—a Book of Psalms dated to about A.D.1000—was unearthed by a construction worker in a bog last week, archaeologists described the find as a miracle. But the discovery has since met with some nervous speculation about its possible religious significance.

Doomsayers have focused on the passage that the 20-page text, written in Latin, was opened to when it was first uncovered: Psalm 83.

In the King James Bible, the psalm is a lament to God describing the attempts of nations to wipe out the name of Israel.

"Thine enemies … have said, Come, and let us cut [thy people] off from being a nation," the psalm reads, "that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.'"

Given the current conflict in Lebanon between Israeli troops and Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas, this detail struck some observers as particularly ominous.

"Mention of Psalm 83 has led to misconceptions about the revealed wording and may be a source of concern for people who believe Psalm 83 deals with 'the wiping out of Israel,'" officials at the National Museum of Ireland, where the manuscript is being kept, said in a statement today.

The true meaning of what the text reveals, they say, has been quite literally lost in translation.

"[We] would like to highlight that the text visible on the manuscript does NOT refer to wiping out Israel but to the 'vale of tears,'" the officials said.

Continues Here

Fantastic!

What do some of the Christians out there think about this?

**Sétanta** · August 07, 2006, 10:54 PM

The end is nigh!

Repent now or burn until Judgement Day!

**HorseArcher** · August 07, 2006, 10:57 PM

The true meaning of what the text reveals, they say, has been quite literally lost in translation.

I'm confused now..

**Richard the Lionheart** · August 11, 2006, 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by Archer

I'm confused now..

Read up on the history of the Bible. Just about everything is lost in translation or purposely edited.

**I Have a Clever Name** · August 08, 2006, 02:31 AM

"It is hoped that this clarification will serve comfort to anyone worried by earlier reports of the content of the text," they said.

And will also serve to prove that Biblical translation is not trustworthy. The King James version is very naughty, it makes some outright omissions when compared with Greek manuscripts.

Still, I don't see why anybody would worry. Even God couldn't force Israel to go anywhere.

**Zenith Darksea** · August 08, 2006, 03:04 AM

Originally Posted by I Have Clever Name

The King James version is very naughty, it makes some outright omissions when compared with Greek manuscripts.

That's why it's a good idea to use the New International Version, the Revised King James Version, et al.

**Zuwxiv** · August 08, 2006, 03:15 AM

Maybe retranslations lost even more than most are willing to accept.

Still, I believe the basics of God's words are in the bible. Taking it so literally is a folly, you have to see the message within the general idea to understand the meaning of the religious work.

**I Have a Clever Name** · August 08, 2006, 04:00 AM

That's why it's a good idea to use the New International Version

Agreed, but I'm sure so much meaning is lost in translation. All I'm aware of is that a few omissions in the Gospels are again present in the NIV, as for the actual teachings, I have no idea if they're accurately portrayed or not. I can only review what I can read.

**The Lacedaemonian** · August 08, 2006, 08:43 AM

and then they found the book of Judas. comon.
i already know it wont be judgement day. if it was to happen the best was on 6/6/06.
so who knows? next century? next millenium?

**Zenith Darksea** · August 08, 2006, 09:08 AM

Originally Posted by The Lacedaemonian

and then they found the book of Judas. comon.

They did, but it's pretty generally accepted to be a third centry gnostic text with very little (if any) link to the traditional four Gospels.

**Richard** · August 10, 2006, 03:57 AM

I'm interested to know what would happen in God's view if we swapped the 'land' of Israel with say a similar sized nation such as Belgium or California. It wouldn't be destroying Israel, just moving it. Does 'the land of Israel' refer to the location, the dirt, or the people? Only one way to find out...

**carl-the-conqueror** · August 11, 2006, 05:17 AM

not long now

**LSJ** · August 11, 2006, 02:19 PM

You cannot trust biblical texts. There are many variations of the bible. The bible was written by many people over many hundreds of years. A lot of what they say never happened or was never part of any religion until they added it. There are parts that are original, but all the editing over the years means you don't know what was original and what was some guy's editing job to modify the teachings to his liking.

**Zenith Darksea** · August 11, 2006, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Honor & Glory

Read up on the history of the Bible. Just about everything is lost in translation or purposely edited.

Look, this is the very last time that I'm going to point this out to you - that statement of yours is completely, absolutely and comprehensively false! It rests on deeply flawed misconceptions and assumptions with no basis in fact whatsoever.

The manuscript evidence (from 125 AD until the present day) shows that the original text of the Bible has not been edited once in its entire history, save for the odd spelling mistake on the part of a scribe. It has the best pedigree of any manuscript of which I know - there are 22,000 manuscripts of the New Testament spread out over two thousand years, and they are 99.5% consistent. This is significantly better than, say, the Iliad, for which there are 645 manuscripts with 95% consistency.

Please, stop saying this rubbish!.

**rez** · August 11, 2006, 03:12 PM

"Read up on the history of the Bible. Just about everything is lost in translation or purposely edited."

On another note, as a Christian with all the answers, how in God's name to propose to have faith in a document that you YOURSELF dennounce as an utter sham of human error?

**Richard the Lionheart** · August 11, 2006, 03:42 PM

I don't want to take this thread off-topic, but I'll post a quick response here.

Originally Posted by Zenith Darksea

Look, this is the very last time that I'm going to point this out to you - that statement of yours is completely, absolutely and comprehensively false! It rests on deeply flawed misconceptions and assumptions with no basis in fact whatsoever.

The manuscript evidence (from 125 AD until the present day) shows that the original text of the Bible has not been edited once in its entire history, save for the odd spelling mistake on the part of a scribe. It has the best pedigree of any manuscript of which I know - there are 22,000 manuscripts of the New Testament spread out over two thousand years, and they are 99.5% consistent. This is significantly better than, say, the Iliad, for which there are 645 manuscripts with 95% consistency.

Please, stop saying this rubbish!.

For your reference, here's something I've posted before regarding the subject matter. I assure you that it is not "rubbish".

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

Regarding the canonization of the Bible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Canon

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/canon.html

http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/bible/cea.stm

Regarding "outside" or "excluded" books:

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/Bible/outside.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#....22.29_Gospels

There's plenty more if you do a little bit of research.

Originally Posted by rez

On another note, as a Christian with all the answers, how in God's name to propose to have faith in a document that you YOURSELF dennounce as an utter sham of human error?

I'm not a Christian.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...7&postcount=72

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...0&postcount=74

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...6&postcount=76

**rez** · August 11, 2006, 05:08 PM

Ok so your not a christian but you believe in the abrahamic god.

So just out of curiosity, a wild sense of danger if you will...

exactly where do you get all your faith, religiuos information and justification from?

all the apocrypha?

**I Have a Clever Name** · August 11, 2006, 10:31 PM

The manuscript evidence (from 125 AD until the present day) shows that the original text of the Bible has not been edited once in its entire history, save for the odd spelling mistake on the part of a scribe. It has the best pedigree of any manuscript of which I know - there are 22,000 manuscripts of the New Testament spread out over two thousand years, and they are 99.5% consistent. This is significantly better than, say, the Iliad, for which there are 645 manuscripts with 95% consistency.

I for the most part agree. However, some versions are more trustworthy than others. The King James version is my personal pet hate - it makes several omissions of absurdities present within the Gospels - absurdities which provide the grounding for debunking their alleged authorship. Although on the whole the Bible can be trusted, the alterations that have occured are subtle and hence all the more lethal. We must therefore be cautious.

Also Zenith I'd be interested as to where you derive these statistics. Calling H&G's claims unsubstantiated and then proceeding to spew some percentages with no source.. it doesn't bode well! How precisely are these figures produced anyway? I'm interested as to the method.

H&G - to save us all time, do any of those sites compare modern day Biblical translations to their ancient counterparts via textual criticism? If not, then they aren't relevant at all.

**Zenith Darksea** · August 12, 2006, 02:39 AM

I don't want to go further off-topic, but here's a very good source for those statistics:

http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/bibmanu.htm

In short, there are a number of copies of the New Testament. Almost all of it can be reconstructed from quotations in the Church Fathers. Furthermore, there are several thousand lectionaries used in Orthodox and Latin services over the years, not to mention of course the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and so forth.

Having read some (but not all) of those sources H&G, what I saw was highly speculative and made biased assumptions. However, perhaps I'll start another thread to debate that some time.