Zone1 When Was The Very First Bible Published?

[BreezeWood]

We were talking about the middle ages. What I see is that humanity is doing better than we did in the middle ages, but that era back then was an improvement over what we had a thousand years earlier.

not for any reason -

rather for those that fought against evil - than an ex-pan placating the crucifiers.

Long story short, the Bible is not a book at all. It is a heavily edited tiny collection of writings written by only a handful of people. It is not ordained by God ...

there is little to no difference between the 3 desert religions and the makeup of their congregations.

the corruption and selfishness of monogamy, paterfamilias as one example in lite of a free and sociable society as intended by the initial mythological pursuit of a&e and their remission to paradise by means of their own self determination as the reason for their participation than servitude to the unknown.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

not for any reason -

View attachment 750055

rather for those that fought against evil - than an ex-pan placating the crucifiers.



there is little to no difference between the 3 desert religions and the makeup of their congregations.

the corruption and selfishness of monogamy, paterfamilias as one example in lite of a free and sociable society as intended by the initial mythological pursuit of a&e and their remission to paradise by means of their own self determination as the reason for their participation than servitude to the unknown.

Well that is a leap.

 

[Stann]

You didn't tell me if you shared my assumptions --like whether people are good or not, and my take is that otoh u seem to care about the well-being of humankind and then u turn right around and condemn what people do. Thomas Paine said that to argue w/ someone who holds humanity in contempt is like giving medicine to the dead.

People do 3 basic things, they form governments, they trade, and they form religions. Understand that I'm not talking about God --that's a theological sticking point that not all religions go w/. Virtually all of humankind gathers and works together on an understanding of good/bad, right/wrong, and true/false. Most humans go further and consider the essence of all that's good, right and true to be supremely worthy and many call that God.

Yet you call that a lie. If you want to talk about and expand I'm willing to listen some.

People are far too easily influenced. People are social animals therefore the good generally outweighs the bad. The more emotional, the more irrational. Religion is an emotional belief. Look at today's world and all the strife between people that is based on religious beliefs. Most hatred comes from it.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

People are far too easily influenced. People are social animals therefore the good generally outweighs the bad. The more emotional, the more irrational. Religion is an emotional belief. Look at today's world and all the strife between people that is based on religious beliefs. Most hatred comes from it.

Actually not true.
Religions brought people together waaay more than the minor number of wars created over it.
Religious beliefs created allies between nations consistently throughout Europe and Muslim as well.
In Asia the various religions there did not promote expansionism and war, and due to that, especially East Asia, had very long periods of peace. The serious battles in Asia were tribal wars over power and land.

 

[Stann]

Actually not true.
Religions brought people together waaay more than the minor number of wars created over it.
Religious beliefs created allies between nations consistently throughout Europe and Muslim as well.
In Asia the various religions there did not promote expansionism and war, and due to that, especially East Asia, had very long periods of peace. The serious battles in Asia were tribal wars over power and land.

Brought people together to condemn others outside of their group. Brought people together to believe they are better than others and have the right to judge others. Correct, the Asian religions are more constructive, they promote self improvement not group dynamics which are often manipulated in the west. The " judgemental " religions created words like infidel, heathen and goyim.
Minorities have been treated especially cruel. The world would be better off if the pagan religions remained in place. They gave us our most important and reasonable values, freedom and democracy.

 

[LibertyKid]

I had this question because I wondered when people from the past hundred years or so started learning about creation/Jesus/Heaven and all that I know so far from Googling is when it was written before it became a book.

There were attempts well before the printing press and the RCC got involved. Marcion of Sinope attempted to collect and canonize scripture. However Marcion was excommunicated due to his beliefs about the nature of Christ being a new God, separate from the angry Jewish god. Marcion only accepted Paul as a true apostle.

Wikipedia has a nice summary of the process of canonization.

Biblical canon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What you will soon realize is that the "The Holy Bible" wasn't something that was handed to the church by Christ or God in complete infallible form. If God had only done so, and given "His Word" in complete totality, with no explanation of its origin, but by the Divine God, then there would be no debate. Why didn't Jesus, just before his ascension, lay down a complete book? Who knows, but He didn't. So here we are. 2 thousand years later, with many scholars still debating what should be in the "Bible".

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Brought people together to condemn others outside of their group. Brought people together to believe they are better than others and have the right to judge others. Correct, the Asian religions are more constructive, they promote self improvement not group dynamics which are often manipulated in the west. The " judgemental " religions created words like infidel, heathen and goyim.
Minorities have been treated especially cruel. The world would be better off if the pagan religions remained in place. They gave us our most important and reasonable values, freedom and democracy.

Yeah and?
Religion prevented uncalculatable number of wars and stabilized kingdoms that eventually became modern day governments.
Without religions, we may very well still be running around in warring tribes fighting over hillsides.

 

[Foxfyre]

My first inclination was to mention that I never commented on whether u commented on anybody being good or evil, but then you'd probably have tell me that you never commented on whether I commented on if you commented on-- This is getting a bit silly. We need to get back to the Planted Earth.

OK, I will comment again that I think the vast majority of people are good and that in general people are doing well, better than before. (You don't have to mention that you haven't commented on this before.) It's also my take that it's more healthy to focus on the good and positive, we should not dwell on the evil and bad. Let's get into a disscussion of what we want and not what we don't want.

We were talking about the middle ages. What I see is that humanity is doing better than we did in the middle ages, but that era back then was an improvement over what we had a thousand years earlier. Improvement is a good thing. Let's work w/ that.

For me, 'working with it' is understanding history for what it is. Not sugar coating the bad nor exacerbating it for sociopolitical purposes, but understanding what it was, why it was, and the consequences good and bad of it. Do I think religion in the Middle Ages superior to that before Constantine? No I do not. The earlier Christians erred of course and sometimes savaged each other in their zeal to be right in their theology, but they contributed a great deal to Christian thought and finalized what we now know as "The New Testament" though it would not be until mid 4th Century before it was decided which texts would be included in that collection of manuscripts.

Constantine's politicization of the Church gave it a new freedom to expand, teach, grow, have influence throughout the Roman Empire, but it also made of the Church a tyranny of sorts with power to dictate to the people what they must believe in order to be worthy of salvation. To be excommunicated from the Church was to be damned to hell. It was a terrible power affecting not only religious beliefs but education, science, government.

All church denominations--Roman Catholic and Protestant and those who claim to be neither--seek to be the true representation of the faith. They intend good. And I'm pretty confident they all err in their attempts. I also think God sometimes shakes his head at our foolishness, but doesn't care all that much about our theology and is more interested in the integrity of our relationship with Him and how we present Him to others who need Him.

So for me, I am fascinated by the history and the struggles over the millenia to 'get it right' and continue to try to learn about all that, but I allow people their theology as what comforts and sustains them even if I cannot accept it as my truth. And I hope that is good.

 

[LibertyKid]

I personally subscribe to beliefs of some of the Gnostics.
In that, the Bible is not nearly as relevant or important as Christianity places it.
The only thing that matters is your personal actions, how you led your own life and your own personal relationship with God. PERIOD.
Jesus left no instructions. Nothing. Remarkably odd. But did not. So after he left - an army of men seeking personal gain went about to set up churches all over the place. Each one claiming to be the expert on what people need to do to gain Gods grace.

Long story short, the Bible is not a book at all. It is a heavily edited tiny collection of writings written by only a handful of people. It is not ordained by God. It is not the word of God. It is the word of mostly completely unknown people whose biggest motive was to set themselves up to live like kings and control the masses. Not really a debatable point.

You are very correct. The "Bible" really is a library of texts. However, those in charge of the library were very selective in what should be included, right or wrong, we really don't know. I'm not sure how much I can trust the infallible RCC to tell me what should be in the library. And for 1500 years, theologians and church leaders debated and argued over what should be in the library.
And you are also correct. The bible never says of itself what many Christians say they should be doing to be a "Christian". The Bible never says of itself that it is infallible, that you should read it and memorize it everyday. The Bible is not some magic wand when read can cure cancer, predict the future, or other spiritual non-sense. If the Bible was so important, than what in the world did the early first century church do without it? How did they ever manage to survive and be a good Christian? Think about that for a minute. Let that sink in.
The first century church didn't have one. In fact, many during that time, were probably illiterate anyways. That's why Christ said hearing is believing and why Oral Tradition was so important. But this also lead to the need to eventually write it all down.

 

[LibertyKid]

For me, 'working with it' is understanding history for what it is. Not sugar coating the bad nor exacerbating it for sociopolitical purposes, but understanding what it was, why it was, and the consequences good and bad of it. Do I think religion in the Middle Ages superior to that before Constantine? No I do not. The earlier Christians erred of course and sometimes savaged each other in their zeal to be right in their theology, but they contributed a great deal to Christian thought and finalized what we now know as "The New Testament" though it would not be until mid 4th Century before it was decided which texts would be included in that collection of manuscripts.

Constantine's politicization of the Church gave it a new freedom to expand, teach, grow, have influence throughout the Roman Empire, but it also made of the Church a tyranny of sorts with power to dictate to the people what they must believe in order to be worthy of salvation. To be excommunicated from the Church was to be damned to hell. It was a terrible power affecting not only religious beliefs but education, science, government.

All church denominations--Roman Catholic and Protestant and those who claim to be neither--seek to be the true representation of the faith. They intend good. And I'm pretty confident they all err in their attempts. I also think God sometimes shakes his head at our foolishness, but doesn't care all that much about our theology and is more interested in the integrity of our relationship with Him and how we present Him to others who need Him.

So for me, I am fascinated by the history and the struggles over the millenia to 'get it right' and continue to try to learn about all that, but I allow people their theology as what comforts and sustains them even if I cannot accept it as my truth. And I hope that is good.

Heresy!!!! Heresy I tell you. We will find you, tar and feather, and then like John Calvin did to Michael Servetus, we shall have you burned at the stake for such remarks because that's WWJD!

 

[Foxfyre]

Heresy!!!! Heresy I tell you. We will find you, tar and feather, and then like John Calvin did to Michael Servetus, we shall have you burned at the stake for such remarks because that's WWJD!

LOL. Get in line.

 

[Stann]

There were attempts well before the printing press and the RCC got involved. Marcion of Sinope attempted to collect and canonize scripture. However Marcion was excommunicated due to his beliefs about the nature of Christ being a new God, separate from the angry Jewish god. Marcion only accepted Paul as a true apostle.

Wikipedia has a nice summary of the process of canonization.

Biblical canon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What you will soon realize is that the "The Holy Bible" wasn't something that was handed to the church by Christ or God in complete infallible form. If God had only done so, and given "His Word" in complete totality, with no explanation of its origin, but by the Divine God, then there would be no debate. Why didn't Jesus, just before his ascension, lay down a complete book? Who knows, but He didn't. So here we are. 2 thousand years later, with many scholars still debating what should be in the "Bible".

" Men " , that is the key word. They decided the " correct " books to include to make a good, cohesive, convincing story line.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

There were attempts well before the printing press and the RCC got involved. Marcion of Sinope attempted to collect and canonize scripture. However Marcion was excommunicated due to his beliefs about the nature of Christ being a new God, separate from the angry Jewish god. Marcion only accepted Paul as a true apostle.

Wikipedia has a nice summary of the process of canonization.

Biblical canon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What you will soon realize is that the "The Holy Bible" wasn't something that was handed to the church by Christ or God in complete infallible form. If God had only done so, and given "His Word" in complete totality, with no explanation of its origin, but by the Divine God, then there would be no debate. Why didn't Jesus, just before his ascension, lay down a complete book? Who knows, but He didn't. So here we are. 2 thousand years later, with many scholars still debating what should be in the "Bible".

As well as the Gnostics were mass murdered and driven out of lands for even suggesting that the OT God and the NT God were not the same.
Gnostics generally believe that the OT God is a lower, inferior God that created Earth for his own adulation. And then the true God, the God of the NT, saw what he did and sent Jesus, a high God that the true God trusted and found council with, as a symbol that man would no longer be held under the rule and unrealistic demands of the lower God.
That is a MAJOR condensed version.

 

[Stann]

As well as the Gnostics were mass murdered and driven out of lands for even suggesting that the OT God and the NT God were not the same.
Gnostics generally believe that the OT God is a lower, inferior God that created Earth for his own adulation. And then the true God, the God of the NT, saw what he did and sent Jesus, a high God that the true God trusted and found council with, as a symbol that man would no longer be held under the rule and unrealistic demands of the lower God.
That is a MAJOR condensed version.

And everyone believes the god they made and worship is the " true " god.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

And everyone believes the god they made and worship is the " true " god.

Gnostic don't believe that "God" is a singular being in a way that we can understand.
But that he is the leading force within a body of beings called the Aeon.
It is an enormously complicated belief system. But, as they said, that is because the living God and the Aeon is equally complicated.

 

[LibertyKid]

Gnostic don't believe that "God" is a singular being in a way that we can understand.
But that he is the leading force within a body of beings called the Aeon.
It is an enormously complicated belief system. But, as they said, that is because the living God and the Aeon is equally complicated.

Which is why man has tried to anthropomorphize "god" in ways we can understand. Unfortunately, man has always fallen short and missed the mark of who and what God is. For some reason, as humans, we have this desire to know god in totality when, in this plane of existence, we can't possible know all. It's okay for mankind to discuss, debate, and try to understand God, but we don't have to go down the road that man usually does. It's okay to not know it all and it's okay to not have to be always right.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Which is why man has tried to anthropomorphize "god" in ways we can understand. Unfortunately, man has always fallen short and missed the mark of who and what God is. For some reason, as humans, we have this desire to know god in totality when, in this plane of existence, we can't possible know all. It's okay for mankind to discuss, debate, and try to understand God, but we don't have to go down the road that man usually does. It's okay to not know it all and it's okay to not have to be always right.

We like nice neat boxes.
And we allow ourselves to be controlled and sooooooo easily manipulated it is staggering.

 

[Stann]

Gnostic don't believe that "God" is a singular being in a way that we can understand.
But that he is the leading force within a body of beings called the Aeon.
It is an enormously complicated belief system. But, as they said, that is because the living God and the Aeon is equally complicated.

Which is why man has tried to anthropomorphize "god" in ways we can understand. Unfortunately, man has always fallen short and missed the mark of who and what God is. For some reason, as humans, we have this desire to know god in totality when, in this plane of existence, we can't possible know all. It's okay for mankind to discuss, debate, and try to understand God, but we don't have to go down the road that man usually does. It's okay to not know it all and it's okay to not have to be always right.

The methodology of how we experience this world is equally beyond the grasp of most humans.

 

[Likkmee]

The first published Bible was the Gutenberg Bible printed in 1455. 180 copies were printed, most on paper, some on a writing surface made of calfskin. I think there are something like 48 of these Bibles still in existence and some of those are fragments of the original.

Gutenberg also invented the printing press with the first operational one put to use in 1440. This was the catalyst of the Renaissance as for the first time most people were able to read classical literature like the Bible for themselves without having to go through an intermediary who too often 'edited' the contents.

The Renaissance freed minds making the Reformation possible in the 16th Century changing the traditions of Christianity, even in the Roman Catholic Church, forever.

Trivia: It is estimated that a Gutenberg Bible would sell for more than $5 million today.

If it were a Johnson or McLendon it would only be worth $65... It's a chosen official(self chosenstein) add 6,000,000 percent.

 

[BreezeWood]

That's why Christ said hearing is believing and why Oral Tradition was so important. But this also lead to the need to eventually write it all down.

write what down ... that was not jewish.

for the same reason jesus did not leave in script their beliefs were the same why there are no 1st century beliefs recorded in stone or tablet - their beliefs of liberation theology, self determination received the same fate as their followers - crucifixion ...

or the so called 4th century christians have etched tablets or reliefs of what truly were the 1st century events those people were willing to - die for. no timely records of the 1st century were saved / exist.

... and try not to bring laughter for what is actually in the c-bible was what anyone was ever killed for.