15 April 2008

The community I was in had several exegetes and one recognized Biblical linguist. For the first three years I was there, this fellow was at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, where the Dead Sea scrolls were then kept under very tight security. His mission at the École was to be one of the scholars to add his expertise to the then new (1963) translation, “The Jerusalem Bible.” His particular bailiwick was his fluency in eight ancient Semitic dialects including Aramaic, plus the Septuagint Greek and the spoken Greek of the New Testament era. Fr. Cyril (sorry, I can’t remember the fellow’s last name) would read us a passage from Isaiah in the RSV, for example, and then sight-translate it back into ancient Hebrew and then into Canaanite so we could hear the poetic cadence of the galloping horses. But I digress.

Upon his return from Jerusalem, he gradually shared with us his own and the other translators’ disappointment and frustration when their input was repeatedly overruled by ecclesiastical censors on the grounds that their understanding of many passages rendered them unfit to print, because they failed to support established doctrines. In one very memorable instance, I recall him discussing the Hebrew word which has always been rendered as “commandment,” which from the usage in other writings of that time should be more accurately translated as “maxim” or “truism.”

Now I didn’t know Cyril prior to his sojourn in Jerusalem. but suffice it to say that was a man who was both deeply pious and obviously troubled by something much more threatening than a snub from his superiors. Nor do I believe he would have been much bothered by John Marco Allegro’s take on it all. Whatever was bothering Fr. Cyril, with his incredible fluency in those dialects was whatever he had read for himself in those texts.

That was my introduction to the smoke-filled room, if you will, of scripture translation and authentication. Sadly, Fr. Cyril and two other monks were killed instantly in 1967 when their car collided with a Greyhound bus on U.S, Rte. 7 between Berryville and Winchester, VA.

Somewhere down the line you need to look at Caesar’s Messiah, a book that lists how Jesus could not have existed, since his life story is so very closely based on the story of Titus, the Roman Caesar Vespasian’s elder son. Titus was literally “sent by his father” to subdue the messianic Jews. He started his campaign against them at the Lake (called Sea) of Gallillee, where Roman soldiers in boats hunted down fleeing Jewish rebels in the water. They would catch these men like fish, bring them on board, and kill them. They joked that this was like “fishing for men”. “Fishing for men” at the sea of Gallillee is how Jesus begins his ministry. See the parallel?

There are many more parallels which occur in Titus’ and Jesus’ life in the same sequence, and the chance that thses parallels occur randomly, in the same sequence, is next to 0.

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/main.html

There is a “summary” provided on the page linked above..

More fascinating–to an extent alarming–is the subject itself. As for the Chronology issue, please wait for my next post on the subject. I believe that post should stimulate more discussion. BTW, I sent you a couple of emails on guest blogging here. Didn’t you get them? If you didn’t here’s my offer: I invite you to guest blog on Seriously Sandeep, the same way you do on Secular Right.

Fascinating post.

I also refer you to the school of textual criticism that re-examines the chronology and traditions of the Bible – both old and new testaments. Textual criticism is now part and parcel of biblical studies in the curriculum of divinity schools linked to mainstream Protestant churches.

Best