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An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#121

Post by Beltalowda »

verisimi wrote: post #99
Beltalowda wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This got me thinking: what exactly defines a forgery here? Ancient Jewish texts were almost certainly based on previous oral tradition and underwent all sorts of changes over the years before they came to be written down as the texts we know today, and there were probably different versions of the written texts too – the non-canonical ones just got mostly lost as they didn't get copied so much (or at all). So is a te…

Yes - there is a presumption that someone has the truth, and we can all go and check against it. When in reality it is very hard to know truth, even in the present time, even in one's own experience. So, if that is the case, why make such an outlandish claim? Well, there is value to someone if they can say 'I have the truth' and other people believe them. The initial lie, once believed, takes on a life of its own tha…

I'm not really interested in discussing the truth of religion itself, just the meaning of "forgery" and "authentic" in this context. You don't need to believe any of the religious claims to discus that.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#122

Post by Stranger43 »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #43
waynecochran wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a copy of Enoch 1, 2, 3; but I have not seen it included in any Bible. It is not part of the Apocrypha -- you don't find in the Orthodox Study Bible or a Catholic Bible. What Bible is it in? I would like to get it.

I believe that it is canonical in ethiopian christianity so I think maybe their bibles contain it.

Ethiopian Christianity is in a lot of way really really special as it predates almost any other surviving christian society, they also claim to possess the literal "ark of the covenant". not to mention claims of links between Ethiopia and Israel doing the time of king David.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#123

Post by EdwardDiego »

Minor49er wrote: post #89
waynecochran wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reference. I have read Enoch 1 and it is a wild story that in my view is pure fantasy (e.g., giants were 300 cubits tall!?). I have always just assumed that Jude and Peter were quoting some authentic version from earlier and the version I have read was the creation of an imposter.

Not to mention that the nephilim may not have even been giants to begin with. They are ambiguous

My pet theory is that the Nephilim are a folk memory of the last Neanderthals.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#124

Post by EdwardDiego »

akomtu wrote: post #96
waynecochran wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reference. I have read Enoch 1 and it is a wild story that in my view is pure fantasy (e.g., giants were 300 cubits tall!?). I have always just assumed that Jude and Peter were quoting some authentic version from earlier and the version I have read was the creation of an imposter.

Enoch is not a man. Enochion was the name of the famous third-eye that supposedly (if we believe the story in the book) existed in the pre-atlantian era of the super-giants, cyclopes, who peacefully co-existed with giant reptiles. The eye allowed them to see things thru, so it was called the eye of wisdom. As the civilization progressed and got immersed in sin, the visions that the eye saw became intolerable, and ove…

Uh.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#125

Post by EdwardDiego »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #43
waynecochran wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a copy of Enoch 1, 2, 3; but I have not seen it included in any Bible. It is not part of the Apocrypha -- you don't find in the Orthodox Study Bible or a Catholic Bible. What Bible is it in? I would like to get it.

I believe that it is canonical in ethiopian christianity so I think maybe their bibles contain it.

Yeah, it's Coptic canon.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#126

Post by ogogmad »

runesofdoom wrote: post #6
ogogmad wrote: post #4

Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.

I am not an archeologist, but to provide some relevant context to your later questions, there are at least thousands of Dead Sea Scroll fragments, located and taken by many different parties, from many different locations, over the course of a decade or more in the mid-20th Century.

So they weren't all found in the same cave. Surely, if they were, they would still all be in one place. What definition do we have for Dead Sea Scrolls? Is it any old papyrus scroll from circa 2000 years ago that's near the Dead Sea? Or does it have a more specific meaning?

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#127

Post by hef19898 »

hef19898 wrote: post #108
verisimi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - there is a presumption that someone has the truth, and we can all go and check against it. When in reality it is very hard to know truth, even in the present time, even in one's own experience. So, if that is the case, why make such an outlandish claim? Well, there is value to someone if they can say 'I have the truth' and other people believe them. The initial lie, once believed, takes on a life of its own tha…

We are talking about religion, so in all practical terms a form of propaganda. In a historical context, a text becomes truth if enough people believe it. The question of forgery is relevant to find out whom and when created said forgery.

Too late to edit, but I think this passage from the article fits here quite well:

>> Take the story of a group of fallen angels who descend to earth to seduce beautiful women. Using his new technique, Langlois discovered that earlier scholars had gotten the names of some of the angels wrong, and so had not realized the names were derived from Canaanite gods worshipped in the second millennium B.C.—a clear example of the way scriptural authors integrated elements of the cultures that surrounded them into their theologies.

The priests from the new religion wrote a text portraying the ancient gods as "evil". Sounds like an efficient use of propaganda to me. And that is something that makes historical research of religious texts very worthwhile.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#128

Post by ogogmad »

bambax wrote: post #111

The article is confusing and unclear and addresses many different topics at once. The digressions about bass-playing are frankly irrelevant. One could end up thinking all Dead Sea Scrolls are fakes. They are not. The Dead Sea Scrolls are real, but some fragments, sold as originals for millions of dollars to rich collectors, are modern forgeries. And bad fakes too. Dead Sea Scrolls are made of parchment; the fakes are…

Thank you for this comment. I myself began to doubt whether any of the DSSes were real after reading the article, and your comment has assured me that they are. Additionally, those asides about the researcher's hobbies are indeed a trope of modern science documentaries, written by people who likely think that science isn't interesting enough on its own.

Here is where I expressed my confusion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34253597

Also, you say parchment; should it not be papyrus? Parchment doesn't get cracked.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#130

Post by drewmol »

tshaddox wrote: post #75
generalizations wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim, except to note that it’s outside its purview. Burden of proof is a whole different discussion.

Sure, every supernatural claim from a religious text is “outside the purview of science” in the same way as that same exact claim appended with “and then a clown riding a unicorn flew overhead” is outside the purview of science.

Good analogy, obviously if unicorns could fly humans would never have killed them all off.
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