Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 207 posts

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#161

Post by [deleted] »

nahill wrote: post #139
gattilorenz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that is probably true for a lot of other things that we assume as cornerstones of Western culture (e.g. Homer). Many people would be surprised at the realisation that Christianity is a eastern religion (having originated in what we call “the Middle East”).

No, they would not. Everyone knows it's an eastern religion originating from the Middle East. Next you'll be saying Christians have not been told Jesus was not white! Like, that's also something that all Christians know.

[deleted]

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#162

Post by bnralt »

Beltalowda wrote: post #98
waynecochran wrote: post #3

The book of Enoch (a non-canonical pseudopigraphal book) is a wild story that expounds on the strange events of Genesis 6:1-4 and is quoted by Jude and Peter. The fact that some of the DSS versions contain forgeries is interesting. I have always suspected there were a very ancient Enoch texts that are now lost and what we do have contains many forgeries.

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…

Interesting point. There's a whole category of writings called pseudepigrapha because scholars generally agree that they're not written by the people they're claimed to have been written by. If I wrote a play now and sold it to people as a lost play of Shakespeare, it would be considered a forgery. But you don't use the term usually if someone write a religious text and claims it came from a prophet from 400 years earlier.

Likewise, scholars generally agree that at least two of the gospels copied parts wholesale out of another (generally that Mathew and Luke copied from Mark and changed elements of his story). See the synoptic problem for more information about this. And that after they were written, others came along and changed or added elements. The ending of the gospel of Mark, for instance, is generally thought to have been a later addition, and at least some prominent scholars think the nativity story in Luke is. But again, we don't use the term "forgery."

For a more recent example, you don't see the term used to describe The Book of Mormon, which is purported to have been written two millennia before non-Mormons think it was written.

I suppose the term isn't used when matters of faith are the focus. The article uses the term to describe items created with the secular purpose of earning more money, even though they're religious in nature.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#163

Post by waynecochran »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #84
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.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

Yes .. I see Enoch is included in the version I found in Amazon. I wonder if it is just 1st Enoch?

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#164

Post by waynecochran »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #151
waynecochran wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The style of the first 11 chapters of Genesis is very different than the remainder of the book. For instance, Genesis 3 is not meant to be historical prose like chapter 12 and following. Projecting my 21st century world view on an ancient text describing deep mysteries about creation and the fall of man is pure arrogance. For instance, the author of Genesis 3 doesn't expect the reader to think the serpent was merely…

I'm not making any judgements either way. Just saying that Enoch is no more fantastic than parts of Genesis. Also, Genesis references Enoch.

Have you read Enoch 1? Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him. He is seventh from Adam and the first man to break the pattern of death.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#165

Post by chickenimprint »

lisper wrote: post #152
chickenimprint wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. This is exactly what induction means. Even your wording is almost identical to that of the Wikipedia page on "Inductive reasoning". > One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws. But science does not assume this. I'm n…

> This is exactly what induction means. No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this. > Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according…

> You got it right the first time. No, I gave an example of inductive reasoning common in science. Induction means concluding from the particular to the general. So in this case we might have observed something happening in the past, induced it happens in all of time, deduced that future time is part of all time by definition, and finally concluded that it will happen in the future. Induction is not restricted to time, it can equally be a generalization over time or any circumstance really.

We don't check each and every room in the country to see if general relativity holds there, and then fall in despair once we realize it might have randomly stopped holding in one of them yesterday.

> No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.

I'd like to see you explain how you can you observe a rule. Are you God? Can you see all of space and time and all possible dimensions? Science observes particulars and tries to formulate general rules based on these observations. If science would not use induction, any observation would be meaningless, because the exact circumstances the observation was carried out in would cease to exist the moment the observation was concluded.

Therefore, science is susceptible to the induction problem.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#166

Post by lisper »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #154
lisper wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim It certainly can. It can point out that there is no evidence that any human writing is divinely inspired, and so claims of divine inspiration are almost certainly false.

Science has no means to get at moral truths, just physical observations. It can’t even prove per definition whether moral truths exist, or why anything exists at all.

That's not true. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#167

Post by lisper »

chickenimprint wrote: post #165
lisper wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly what induction means. No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this. > Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according…

> You got it right the first time. No, I gave an example of inductive reasoning common in science. Induction means concluding from the particular to the general. So in this case we might have observed something happening in the past, induced it happens in all of time, deduced that future time is part of all time by definition, and finally concluded that it will happen in the future. Induction is not restricted to tim…

> I'd like to see you explain how you can you observe a rule.

You need to read what I say more closely. I did not say that science observes rules. I said that science seeks good explanations for observations, and it just so happens that the best explanations for how nature behaves turn out to look like rules.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#168

Post by programmer_dude »

[Unable to edit previous comment, so posting a new comment to clarify what I actually mean]

The Bible was created by the accretion of fake stories. Why do people have an objection to the addition of some fakes over others? That is why make a distinction between the original fakes vs the later ones?

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#169

Post by Mikeb85 »

waynecochran wrote: post #164
Mikeb85 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making any judgements either way. Just saying that Enoch is no more fantastic than parts of Genesis. Also, Genesis references Enoch.

Have you read Enoch 1? Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him. He is seventh from Adam and the first man to break the pattern of death.

> Have you read Enoch 1?

Yes, among many other religious texts (whole Orthodox Biblical canon + a bunch of pseudoepigraphical works, most of the Buddhist canon, Taoist and Hindu works, some ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, Quran, etc...). Got way too sidetracked in University. It's interesting though.

> Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him

Of course he was a character mentioned in Genesis but references to things from the book of Enoch (Nephilim/Giants/half-god humans) are more interesting.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#170

Post by NateEag »

lisper wrote: post #166
mensetmanusman wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science has no means to get at moral truths, just physical observations. It can’t even prove per definition whether moral truths exist, or why anything exists at all.

That's not true. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

I haven't read it, but I believe that book addresses how certain behaviors may have evolved.

That is unrelated to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good".

Post reply on HN