I got turned on to this article earlier. Any of you folks read it. Some interesting fun stuff, some old, but lots new.
The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin
BY Kurt Eichenwald / Dec 23, 2014
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html
Playing Telephone with the Word of God
No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.
About 400 years passed between the writing of the first Christian manuscripts and their compilation into the New Testament. ...
"Take one of the most famous tales from the New Testament, which starts in John 7:53. A group of Pharisees and others bring a woman caught committing adultery to Jesus. ... Jesus replies, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.’’ The group leaves, and Jesus tells the woman to sin no more.
...Unfortunately, John didn’t write it. Scribes made it up sometime in the Middle Ages. It does not appear in any of the three other Gospels or in any of the early Greek versions of John. Even if the Gospel of John is an infallible telling of the history of Jesus’s ministry, the event simply never happened. Moreover, according to Ehrman, the writing style for that story is different from the rest of John, and the section includes phrases that do not appear anywhere else in the Bible. ..."
Fauxnew | December 30th
Hit Piece on the Bible?! Newsweek Slammed for 'Open Attack' on Christians
But Newsweek‘s cover story... is an irresponsible screed of post-Christian invective leveled against the Bible and, even more to the point, against evangelical Christianity. It is one of the most irresponsible articles ever to appear in a journalistic guise.
The author of the massive essay is Kurt Eichenwald, who boasts an impressive reputation as a writer and reporter for newspapers like The New York Times and magazines including Vanity Fair. A two-time winner of the George Polk Award, he was also a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Eichenwald, however, has been primarily known for reporting and writing in a very different area of expertise. Most of his writing has been on business and financial matters, including business scandals.
When it comes to Newsweek‘s cover story, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin," Eichenwald appears to be far outside his area of expertise and knowledge. More to the point, he really does not address the subject of the Bible like a reporter at all. ...
Let’s be accurate about this, the earliest fragments of the gospels, the Rylands Library Papyrus P52, the front contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38, dates somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE.
As far as the ‘Woman taken in adultery’, John 7.53-8.11, is concerned, although not in the original gospel, the first surviving Greek manuscript to contain it is the Latin/Greek diglot Codex Bezae of the late 4th or early 5th century, a little earlier than the Middle Ages!
Umm, this is a big issue to me, but I don’t hear it mentioned much. The Pharisees were pretty much marginal characters in AD 30. The way they are depicted in the NT is more like they were at an earlier time. (sorry no dates). There are no names of Pharisees that can be connected to anyone historically, so they aren’t even comparable to Pilate or Herod. It is one of the stronger indicators that the NT is political writing using composite characters. AmIRight?
Umm, this is a big issue to me, but I don't hear it mentioned much. The Pharisees were pretty much marginal characters in AD 30. The way they are depicted in the NT is more like they were at an earlier time. (sorry no dates). There are no names of Pharisees that can be connected to anyone historically, so they aren't even comparable to Pilate or Herod. It is one of the stronger indicators that the NT is political writing using composite characters. AmIRight?
As far as I know they were around.
The Wikipedia article on Pharisees states
The Pharisees (/ˈfærəˌsiz/) were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought in the Holy Land during the Second Temple period, beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE) in the wake of the Maccabean Revolt. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the liturgical and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism (commonly known as simply Judaism).
Although they get a bad press in the NT they were a reformist group in Second Temple Judaism - against the more traditional Sadducees. Another group at about the same time were the Essenes who don't get a mention in the NT.
Very well written and researched article. I read Christ’s Ventriloquists a couple of years ago. The book goes into much more detail about the contradictions and forgeries in the Bible. Regarding the Faux News take on Eichanwald’s article, I think this quote from the middle of the article sums it up pretty well:
None of this is meant to demean the Bible, but all of it is fact. Christians angered by these facts should be angry with the Bible, not the messenger.
Fauxnew | December 30th
Hit Piece on the Bible?! Newsweek Slammed for 'Open Attack' on Christians
But Newsweek‘s cover story... is an irresponsible screed of post-Christian invective leveled against the Bible and, even more to the point, against evangelical Christianity. It is one of the most irresponsible articles ever to appear in a journalistic guise.
The author of the massive essay is Kurt Eichenwald, who boasts an impressive reputation as a writer and reporter for newspapers like The New York Times and magazines including Vanity Fair. A two-time winner of the George Polk Award, he was also a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Eichenwald, however, has been primarily known for reporting and writing in a very different area of expertise. Most of his writing has been on business and financial matters, including business scandals.
When it comes to Newsweek‘s cover story, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin," Eichenwald appears to be far outside his area of expertise and knowledge. More to the point, he really does not address the subject of the Bible like a reporter at all. ...
Methinks thou protesteth too much. :) This reminds me of an SNL skit where Martin Short is being interviewed as his cigarette burns. He protests so much because he knows he's completely guilty of what he's being accused of. If Christians had any real confidence in their beliefs, stuff like this wouldn't phase them. Just like when someone says the earth is flat, scientists don't get into an uproar about it.