Toto

Want to see the original Dead Sea scrolls? Just search Google

stephan huller

Thank God for the Jewish people. Do you ever think that the Nag Hammadi Scrolls will ever be put online like this? Never. I saw Lawrence Schiffman give a presentation on one of the educational channels up here in Seattle (Stroum lecture series). The audience was all MOT (or pretty much). It was a joy watching a packed house (at least a thousand people) showing interest in things related to the past.

Why aren't Christians interested in the Nag Hammadi texts to the same degree? I have to accompany my wife to a Catholic Church on holidays - the roof hasn't yet fallen on my head - and it was really funny. The priest was distributing new Bibles for free owing to the fact the Church recognized that Catholics are among the least informed about their own traditions.

My wife was all proud about her new Bible. I think she uses it as a coaster now.

Roger Pearse

Multi-spectral imaging.

This is great news! And after all those years of scholarly jealousies and attempts to keep them hidden for various reasons. Few will look at them, no doubt, but at least all will be able to do so.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Minor correction: the Nag Hammadi texts are codices, not rolls. They're held in the Coptic Museum in Cairo -- effectively by the Egyptian government. The latter would doubtless put them online if enough money was raised.

They might be, if every television programme that mentioned them didn't go out of its way to insult their religion. The discovery of the sayings of Jesus -- what we now know to be fragments of the ps.Gospel of Thomas -- at Oxyrhynchus ca. 1900 was enough to stir a lot of public interest and funding.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

stephan huller

Yes Roger, you demonstrate once again that my haste makes waste. Thanks. The Jews have never experienced people saying bad things about their religion? I think there is a fundamental difference. No ecclesiastical body ever killed curiosity in the Jewish spirit. Speculation isn't necessarily equated with heresy. I think if Christianity allowed and even encouraged speculation instead of the morbid 'group think' that inevitably pervades any meaningful discussion about anything you'd end up with a better class of people engaged in research.

And Roger let's face it. You must be a part of a number of groups and boards. Why was it this group that gave you so many useful ideas for your book cover? Because they haven't killed off their imagination yet. They are willing to experiment and end up being ridiculed for it.

I can just imagine the results you would have gotten at another forum. Heretics and freethinkers are useful and indeed necessary in a healthy social body. As I said many times before, I have always argued that if we somehow managed to 'correct' dysfunctional families - where would we find all the loose women needed to make our lives worth living? If it wasn't for all the divorce, broken homelife etc I'd have married someone at sixteen and had grandkids by now.

We should thank God for everything, even the stuff that doesn't work or isn't quite perfect or 'according to spec.'

stephan huller

And for all the goys - MOT = member of (the) tribe. It's how Jews self-reference themselves in America. FYI - if you want to pass yourself off as a Jew for some pretty girl you meet in a bar (are there attractive Jewesses?). I can't help you with a parallel example for meeting a black girl in a bar. Talking about the Bible actually helps. They're generally into that. Especially after a night of debauchery. They generally like to stress how Christian they are.

You know the old comedic line - 'sweating more than a hooker in Church.' I'm dating myself again

spin

That's handy.


spin

stephan huller

Yes, a master dater.

spin

Too many dare dodied deauties videos. :Cheeky:


spin
(Dyslexia lures)

mountainman

(1) Because their publication is securely dated to the mid fourth century, and thus after the Nicaean implementation of the Constantinian version of the State Christian Orthodox Church of 325 CE

(2) Because the source language is Coptic, and the generations of Greek and Latin scholarship found itself shoved aside by Coptic experts.

(3) Because the NHC is not a "Christian series of texts": it is a mixed bag. Some of it is "pagan" - eg: Hermes to Asclepius, etc