Thursday, August 27, 2009

Another reason why everyone should CITE SOURCES!

I don't care if you're an internet blogger or a big-name academic, please cite your sources. Otherwise people start believing all sorts of ridiculous crap. Here's an example:

Today, during a Google search, I came across this item posted on July 29 on someone's myspace blog (ok, not exactly reliable to begin with, I know):

Worlds oldest Bible found, and it contradicts modern bibles
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Read it for yourself, it's true. Just look around the internet with the word "Codex." It is now considered to be the worlds oldest written text of the Christian religion. Even though it is believed to be written in the mid 4th century, after the death of Jesus, there seems to be no mention of this Jesus person. Not just him, not his resurrection, not his "miracles", nothing. The text also contradicts scriptures in modern Bibles. On the parchment, which is derived from animal hide, there seem to be numerous corrections, including line outs among the original text. I am not a religious scholar, or Sherlock Holmes, but I am going to say that it sounds like the Christian religion had better start basing their beliefs on something else, besides the Bible.


Now, unless this person has access to some secret information, here are a couple of the examples I found that are most likely what they are talking about:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/24/online.bible/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/06/codex-sinaiticus-oldest-bible-online

Nothing at all like what the blogger describes. It's a description of Codex Sinaiticus being transferred online. Jesus is mentioned all over the place in that. It's online now, read it (learn Greek first!) What's more, anyone with a bit of knowledge about biblical history already knows about the "contradictions" and "numerous corrections" found in the many variant sections of text that have been recovered over the centuries.

My point isn't really to argue whether the Bible is reliable or not. It's simply to say that this person, and his/her blogging friends, now believe something that is patently NOT TRUE, unless they took the time to look up the sources for themselves (which some people certainly do - and kudos to them!). But PLEASE, bloggers/writers/thinkers/etc... cite your sources! Don't make us have to do your work for you. And don't make us waste our time looking for something that isn't there.

3 comments:

RC said...

CAPS & !!! > sources

Kevin said...

What's your source for the MySpace blog post? LOL!

Geoff said...

I wondered how long it would be before someone noticed that. :-)

Actually, I didn't want to give the guy any more web traffic. :-)