I just saw this as well. They have a story on CNN.com about it. I thought it was interesting that some things are missing, like the resurrection of Jesus. I'm sure there will be much ado about that.

This is great news to me.

I Have a stupid question-----Will it soon be or is it already translated to English?

I have always felt the King James version was not the whole story.

And how ignorant to think Jesus and others spoke like the people of England when King James had the Hebrew Bible translated.

This probably still will be translated to help the church and politicians get their way. The true, TRUE, bible is probably in a vault in the Vatican where the missing link in evoultion is. The true bible probably says alot of things that would make every religion agree with it. Maybe it willreveal a few truths like: maybe that psychic abilities, alchemy and magic aren`t evil, there wasn`t a god just ailens with abilities, gay is ok, the universe and earth isn`t just 6000 years old.

Whenever I hear news about "alternate" texts and stories that have either been left out or grossly changed I can only think of one thing. It's called the "telephone game" and it has answered many questions I've had over the years when certain individuals point to their favorite text and say it must be true because it says so right here and this is the word of God.....

If you are not familiar with the telephone game it goes like this:
Pick a simple story or make one up and write it down on a piece of paper. The story doesn't have to be too long but should contain a few "facts" like dates and the names of central characters and some type of plot with a beginning, middle, and an end. Now line up about 20 people and read the story to the first person. Then have that person repeat the story to the second, the second to the third, etc. Finally have the 20th person write down the story and compare his with the original.

I probably don't have to describe what the end result will be but the two stories will seldom match and quite often will be so bastardized that they don't resemble each other at all. Don't believe me? Try it. It will change the way you view any historical text that has been first handed down orally, then written down years later, then translated a few times....I think you get my drift. And we all know how history can be recorded to favor a particular view...Bush and Cheney are trying to do it now and they just left office!

For everyone who is asking: There are English translations of the text on the website itself. Just go to whatever page you want to view (it takes A LONG time to load each page, unfortunately). In the bottom right hand corner, you'll see a scrolling square that translated each fragment into English.

There is also a site somewhere when this project was first being announced a couple of years ago and they had some of the English translations posted online for a sneak peak.

Maybe it does not contain all the books or parts of the books because they did not exist at that time and were made up later?

Originally posted by The Killah29
This probably still will be translated to help the church and politicians get their way. The true, TRUE, bible is probably in a vault in the Vatican where the missing link in evoultion is. The true bible probably says alot of things that would make every religion agree with it. Maybe it willreveal a few truths like: maybe that psychic abilities, alchemy and magic aren`t evil, there wasn`t a god just ailens with abilities, gay is ok, the universe and earth isn`t just 6000 years old.

Thats abit of wild speculation there. How could you know they have such things? Plus "the" missing link? Are you serious? You do realize there would likely be like more than 1 of those?

With the kind of bias you are showing here, is it really going to matter what it says?

I just opened this up and looked at John 14, and it's the same exact words as the KJV. Even with "thee" and such in it.

Are those translations accurate? It certain doesn't seem logical at all to me that it would be so "old" and have a 16th century writing style. I thought it's been common knowledge that the KJV was translated into a more poetic version of the words - which I happen to like, but I surely wasn't expecting that to be in an older version.

There are some small differences in the verses, but it still has the "thee" and such, which throws me off a bit.

A difference:

John 14(old version)

16 And I will entreat the Father, and anther Advocate will he give you, that he may be with you for ever,

John 14(KJV)

16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Advocate and Comforter is much different.

Advocate:
1. One that argues for a cause; a supporter or defender: an advocate of civil rights.
2. One that pleads in another's behalf; an intercessor: advocates for abused children and spouses.
3. A lawyer.

Originally posted by LucidDreamer85
Maybe it does not contain all the books or parts of the books because they did not exist at that time and were made up later?

The reason I doubt that is because parts of the books not included in the codex (Exodus, II Chronicles, etc.) have been cited in other works that predate the codex. Examples: The early church fathers (New Testament), the Dead Sea Scrolls (Old Testament), etc. So we know the books themselves at least existed. Since you can see some of the books of the codex are fragmentary, it's more likely that they simply didn't preserve well.

As for the missing fragments, we'd have to have more info. Like the DSS's, we only have fragments preserved from certain books as well due to decomposition since the papyrus was organic material and they don't last forever. We can always resort to 'But what if!?!' in the case of missing fragments.

I'm sure there are some legitimate differences and changes, though, so I'm not trying to say the Bible is 100% unchanged (since it's a known fact there are discrepancies). However, that again is something Christians are already aware of but this article is trying to make it sound like it's a breaking conspiracy. There will be certain characters, words, or sentences that are different but they don't change the theology or teaching at all.

For instance, even in one of the most famous examples, Mark, it is still very obvious in the cut-off ending that Jesus arose from the tomb and it is stated 'He is risen' even though the oldest manuscripts stop at that point. So there have been changes. Or there some differences between the Vulgate's OT and the Septuagint, as another example. None of them change the theology.

Hopefully the site will get a little faster once they tweak some things so we can learn more. At first I thought all the books were included but after looking at some more pages, I see some books like Exodus were missing.

And I cannot speak for the OT but I know it has been said that something like 98% of the NT has been reproduced in the works of the ECF's that predate the codex. Not sure if those statistics are accurate though since they have been disputed, mainly due to the fact writings in antiquity were not cited by chapter and verse like they are in modern times.

At this point, it would only be relegated to a 'What if.'

So this find really doesn't unsettle a knowledgeable Christian and they appear, in my honest opinion, to have some sort of agenda here. I'm more interested in the Islamic prophecies that state the Mahdi will allegedly discover Jewish and Christian texts that prove our religions false.

[edit on 7/6/2009 by AshleyD]

Yes the Codex is incomplete, at that time bibles were pretty much pieced together from whatever work the author of that particular bible was able to get his hands on. Some had texts that no longer appear in today's bibles, some had left out entire books etc.

Then they had a meeting and decided what books were to be in the biblical cannon and deemed everything else heresy.

The Alexandrians who wrote the Codices were intentionally removing parts of the gospel that they did not believe. It is corrupted text, and should have been destroyed. However, that being said, it makes more dirt for the atheists to dig up and sling in the face of Christians. We are not responsible for the multiple accounts that were written to destroy the gospels.

Stay with the KJV, as it is based on the Textus Receptus, and has been reverified countless times as the most correct. It does not include these gnostic heresies.

[edit on 7-7-2009 by Jim Scott]

Originally posted by Jim Scott
...intentionally removing parts of the gospel that they did not believe...

Which is exactly what those at the Council of Nicea did. The only 'true' versions of the Bible would be the original texts written by the original authors in their original languages. Everything else is suspect, IMHO.