Jewish Testament (Dead Sea Scrolls)
Christian Testament (Codex Sinaiticus)
Quran (Yemeni Codex)
What are your initial thoughts/reactions about the early 'fluidity' of sacred textual traditions? Does this enforce or undermine their claimed authority? Why so?
3 comments:
Reinforces the fact that, no matter what one believes, these texts were, at the very least, transcribed by humans. In the early stages of these religions, the varying and often disparate texts needed to be periodically edited to conform to the theologies that were being incrementally developed. The power of all three texts comes from their finished states and the way they inspire their readers, despite issues such as early fluidity. On a somewhat related note, thinking about this makes me interested to know more about the apocryphal gospels and the ways they succeed or fail to conform to the established Christian dogmas.
John
Both documents have shown fluidity-- although I think its important to note that just because we found an example of a document being edited or written in shorthand, does not mean that they were completely reworking the ideas of the document. For instance, I make notes in a lot of my favorite books--thoughts, additions, or connections to other books. If somebody many years from now were to look at them, the notes created as personal additions could be interpreted as "corrections" when they were not intended to be so. I'm not saying that this necessarily happened; just that there are more possibilities.
Additionally, I don't think having changes or edits to the sacred texts undermines the authority. When I read any sacred text, I read it with the understanding that it was created/revealed in a time very different from our own. As times change, our understanding of sacred texts change, but that doesn't make them any less sacred.
Valerie
John et al:
For those of you interested in Christian apocryphal texts, here's a great and reliable website:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com
pdk
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