Neo-Nazi Propaganda

Dad came to get Mom

Eternal Love. There is nothing more beautiful.  When America was Free, White and Christian, being married unto death was the norm, not the exception.  For this couple, even in death they could not stay apart. 

Couple married 76 years die three days apart

Richard and Mabel Bromley married 76 years ago. They were both 98 years old when they died this week.


The Kentwood couple had a large family, including seven children, 22 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and four great-great grandchildren.



When I read this story a couple of things came to mind.  One was a song that I think is appropriate for the occasion.  If you like, you can turn the volume up on the news story while playing the song below in the background. 
 

 
This is one of my favorite movies and the best scene about undying love and one day reuniting with the one you shared your heart and soul with.  Some say Rose is just dreaming in this scene, but I like to think differently.
 

 
Although it's never really worked out this way for me, I like to see couples in love.  Couples who know each other's thoughts, understand each other's hearts, mind and soul and are as one.  I know not everyone can have that, but we can appreciate those that do.  It is truly a beautiful thing.

America's Mom Passes Away At 94

When America was Free, White and Christian, Leave it to Beaver was one of its favorite shows. It was always one of my favorites and I'm very sad to hear that Barbara Billingsley has left us.

This is one of my favorite episodes. It highlights the innocence of children, the undying love and wisdom of a mother and the role a strong father plays in raising a family.

Goodbye, Mrs. Cleaver. Rest in Peace and thank you for all the memories. You may be gone but your influence as a role model will live on forever.

Contrasts

An Earthquake stronger than the one that hit Haiti and no one dies. Some people found obstacles in their way, of course.

The two-storey 1920s home of Neil and Cathy McPherson, in the suburb of Merivale, had its two brick chimneys demolished and ceilings cracked.

"You couldn't walk, it was so frightening," McPherson told NZPA.

"We've lost treasures but that is neither here nor there - ornaments and dinner sets."

She said her husband tried to rush to the nearest beam to their bed, but tripped in the dark over a heater that had fallen over and then found his path blocked by about 200 books that had fallen off their shelves.

The JewsMedia was so desperate to show that we are all equal that they reported looting in the streets!  As we all know of course, the JewsMedia loves to lie.

Civil Defence asked people to assess their home or workplace for damage; look for and extinguish small fires if safe to do so; and not overflow the phone lines with non-emergency calls. They were also asked to check on elderly neighbours.

ChristChurch, New Zealand right after the earthquake. Order among chaos. Be sure to check out the eyewitness report on "looting".



Haiti moments after the earthquake.



Well, at least they are both speaking European languages, no?

When Whites Run the Show

This is what happens when you have a City and County that is overwhemingly white and Republican. The Repubs on the local level at least, are good for something.

O'Fallon, Mo., to reduce property tax

O'FALLON, MO. - On Thursday night, city council members will vote on a proposed 22 percent cut in the city's property tax rate for this year...

Boschert said the city plans to cut the 2010 rate because it has, in recent years, reduced a chunk of its outstanding debt by refinancing loans and paying down bonds for improvements to parks, streets and stormwater projects.

Now compare that to neighboring St. Louis County, which is over 50% African and "other".

Here is the St. Louis County Exec:

Here's O'fallon's City Government.  All White, Alright!  Ya'll come!

Celebrate Diversity!

The real kind, not the fake, forced variety.  Europe and White folks in general are the most diverse people on earth. 

Story here.

ST. LOUIS • This weekend's Serbfest celebrates Serbian traditions and Eastern Orthodox beliefs. But the priest at Holy Trinity Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church, which was established a century ago, also made a point Saturday to express his love of the United States.

Think I'll stop by and dance with the cute girls!  Hope no Serbian guys get jealous and beat me up.

According to a 2007 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, about 73,000 of more than 300 million Americans identified themselves as Serbian.

Dancers from Serbian Folklore Ensemble Kolo from Hamilton, Ontario, took the stage several times Saturday, each time with a different costume and dance.

Wow, only 73k? That's a pretty small community. Bet we have a lot more of the brown, muslim Bosnians here than we do Serbs. Disgusting.

The Masoretic Text of the Old Testament

Another fine lecture from Pastor V.S. Herrell of the Christian Separatist Church Society. Since we have been reading both The History of the Bible and The Sixth Law of God, I thought we might let Pastor give us some background on the Masoretic Text, which the KJV bible is translated from. While the KJV is still a useful translation, the corruption from the texts it is based on simply compounds the errors contained within, and gives our enemies the opportunity to attack Christianity because of it.

In the Greek, the word for virgin is parthenos, and it literally means a virgin. In the Masoretic Text, however, the word is almah which means a young girl. The usual Hebrew word for virgin, and the word in every case translated virgin in the Revised Version, is bethuwlah. This verse is quoted from Isaiah in the Christian Scriptures in Matthew 1:23. The Jews attacked the Septuagint from the beginning because they claimed that it had been corrupted by the Christians and that the Christians changed the word in the Septuagint to read virgin instead of young woman so that it would support the reading in Matthew. Of course, the Edomite Jews did not believe that Jesus was the true Messiah; this was why they were attacking the Septuagint. The Jews are the ones who changed the Hebrew, replacing the word virgin with young woman. The early motive of the Edomite Jews was to destroy Christianity, not just the Septuagint. But the Christians did not give in, so the Jews changed their strategy. They instead decided to corrupt the Old Testament and gain control of the Christians by giving them a corrupted Old Testament. By the 3rd century they began collecting every Hebrew manuscript they could, and this was easy to do because the Christians used the Greek Septuagint and cared little for the Hebrew. They then began revising the Hebrew documents to support their Jewish contentions. By the time of Jerome, they began taking the soft approach and gave Jerome their new Hebrew for him to use in his translation. But, as we said before, the Christians at first rejected the Vulgate. So the Jews continued working on their text. From the 1st century to the middle of the 5th century, they called themselves Talmudists; from the 5th century to the completion of their text in the 10th-11th centuries, they called themselves Masoretes.

You can find the rest of the essay here.

The Sixth Law of God by The Christian Separatist Church Society - Continued

With this installment, we will provide the link in order for you to read the entire book online and give you the opportunity to purchase it or make a donation to the Church if you so desire.  We hope you have enjoyed our series on the Sixth Law from the Christian Separatist Church Society!

The book and the rest of the Church Society's material can be found here:

Etymology of Moichos

Perhaps the most important thing regarding the true meaning of the Greek word moichos and related words is the etymology or origin of the word. Most lexicons say that these words are from an unknown root; the truth is, however, that there are at least three etymologies that have been proposed for the Greek word moichos, two of which can be discounted for linguistic reasons and one which can be logically established as accurate. We will look first at the two erroneous etymologies.

The first etymology that has been postulated states that moichos is derived from me+oikos. me is the Greek negative particle and oikos means house, thus giving the idea of no house, or that the house is destroyed. This is a very tenuous etymology at best, derived by some just for the sake of deriving an etymology. While in English it may sound reasonable to derive moichos from me+oikos, in Greek it is very unlikely that the Greek word moichos and all of the forms associated with it could have developed from this rather far-fetched combination. You cannot develop etymologies or relationships between words solely from how words sound. There must be some substantive proof or some definite, traceable link. This etymology was not one suggested from any ancient evidence, but rather an etymology invented by lexicographers just to fill the void of not having an etymology.

The second etymology, with an equal number of problems, though perhaps slightly more plausible, holds that moichos is derived from the verb oichomai which means to go off or away or as Symson says in his Lexicon, "to go into a strange land," implying to go after strange flesh. This origin implies also a primary connotation of deviating from the norm. The biggest question, however, with this suggested etymology is also the most obvious: where did the m- on the front of the word come from? There are no inflected forms of the word or dialectical variances to give rise to such a change and no explanation has been put forth by any who suggest this etymology.

This brings us to the third and only reasonable explanation. Not only is this third etymology plausible, but it finds independent verification in the ancient usage of the word moichos and is also suggested by more than one respected authority. This theory, by James Donnegan in his work A New Greek and English Lexicon, among others, states that the word moichos is derived from the same Sanskrit origin as the Greek verb migo, which is the same as the Greek verb meignumi which means "to mix" (LSJ). Looking at these words may make one who is unfamiliar with Greek inflection think that the previous two etymologies make more sense, but we need to remember two important things: first, the word moichos is not derived from meignumi, rather these two very ancient Greek words developed at the same time and share a common Sanskrit origin; secondly, when meignumi is inflected in its various forms, some of the inflected forms share more in common with moichos than the previous two etymologies suggested: e.g. meixo, meichthenai, meixomai, etc.

But perhaps the most important piece of evidence is the Greek verb om[e]icheo and its associated forms: meicho and micho. This is the Greek verb which means "to urinate," and this is very important for two reasons. First, most scholars agree that this verb is from the
same Sanskrit origin as meignumi, which is mih or miz and which means to pour. From this comes the Sanskrit miks, which means to mix, and the idea was that pouring things together resulted in mixing. Also from this was the Sanskrit mehas, which meant to urinate or make water. This entire etymology is in fact well documented.

The second reason that all of this is important is because moichos is directly related to omeicho, according to James Donnegan (A New Greek and English Lexicon, 1856), Franz Passow (Handwörterbuch der Griechischen Sprache, 1828), Sigmund Feist (Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Gotischen Sprache, 1939), Georg Curtius (Grundzüge der Griechischen Etymologie, 1879), Liddell-Scott Jones (A Greek-English Lexicon, 1940), Hjalmar Frisk (Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1973), and others. In fact, according to Frisk, the word moichos may have been used vulgarly for a person who urinates. This was not of course a formal definition of moichos, but the fact that the word may have been used this way strengthens the connection between moichos and the various forms of omeicho.

In any event, if 'a' is equal to 'b', and 'b' is equal to 'c', then 'a' must be equal to 'c'. What this means is that just as the Sanskrit verb for to pour gave rise to two words meaning to mix and to urinate, so too developed out of those words the Greek verb for to adulterate or mix or mingle seedlines. This etymological derivation is further confirmed by an analysis of the Latin language, which, like Greek, developed from Sanskrit, and these various etymologies have given rise to our English words mix and micturate, which means to urinate. A detailed orthographic study of each stage of development of this linguistic evolution is very tedious and far beyond the scope of this present work, but it needs only be said that this etymology, more than all of the rest, is plausible and realistic. The following chart will help to clarify this development in laymen's terms as much as possible and also serve as a guide for more in-depth study.

Other Greek Evidence

We stated earlier that in A Large Dictionary by Thomas Holyoke, Holyoke notes that the Greek word moichikos is synonymous with kibdelos. kibdelos is defined by LSJ as: "adulterated, spurious, base-born, bastard." As we have already illustrated, the word bastard is here being used synonymously with mongrel. This word is used in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 22:11 (cf. Lev. 19:19), which reads in Brenton's translation of the Septuagint:

"Thou shalt not wear a mingled garment, woollen and linen together."
Here, kibdelos is translated mingled. This of course is especially important because according to Holyoke, this word is synonymous with moichikos.

Identifying Greek words that are synonymous with one another, as in this case, is usually done by noting in Greek literature where the two words are interchanged with one another in the same piece of literature. Documents of course were preserved by being hand- copied. Often, the scribes who copied the documents would change certain words that they felt were obsolete and regionalized with another synonymous word that was perhaps better known at that time or place. This is done today with copies of English literature like Shakespeare, which is constantly updated and revised for modern English-speaking audiences, oftentimes without the reader even being aware of where a change has been made by an editor. Such is the case with a pertinent example in Josephus, The Jewish Antiquities 4:24, where the Naber manuscript of Josephus uses the verb moicheusas and the Havercamp edition uses the verb notheusas in its place. Whatever ancient editor made this substitution understood these two words to be synonymous. We will discuss notheusas, a form of notheuo, later in this present work; however, what needs to be noted here is that this verb means "to mongrelize." As we will see later in our discussion of this word, this fact is well-attested. The noun form, for example, nothos, is defined by LSJ as: "cross-bred." This word is the opposite of the word gnesios which we discussed earlier. So this verb would mean to cross-breed, and the two verbs under discussion were understood to be synonymous. This passage in Josephus reads in English:

"But in the age of marriage, marry a free virgin, good in race, but do not intend to take one not a virgin who is living and yoking with another and mongrelizing."

Here mongrelizing is the word in question, translated either for moicheusas or notheusas. In either case, the translation is the same.

The History of The Bible from The Christian Separatist Church Society - Part II

We continue with our study of Bible history from Pastor V.S. Herrell of the Christian Separatist Church Society. Pastor Herrell quotes some scripture in the chapter Was the NT written in Aramaic? to make his argument which I think readers will find very interesting. It's a shame Mel Gibson didn't read his bible more carefully.

Versions

The versions are secondary witnesses to the original text of the New Testament. A version is any translation of the Greek New Testament into another language. We, of course, are only interested in ancient versions because they were translated from very early copies of the Greek manuscripts. Although the versions are not always very useful when it comes to precise grammar or spelling, since, of course, they have been translated into another language, they are very useful in regards to interpolations of words, phrases or verses. For example, if we know that the Pericope of the Woman Taken in Adultery is absent from syrs, a 4th century Syriac translation of the Gospels, then we know that it was absent from the Greek manuscript from which this Syrian version was translated, and this Greek manuscript would be very old, certainly predating the 4th century, and it might have even been 200 years old when the translation was made. Whether it was this ancient or not is of little concern, because we can at least establish that a Greek manuscript commonly being circulated prior to the 4th century did not contain the Pericope. So in this respect, the ancient versions are invaluable. However, it should always be remembered that versions are still only translations, and as such they have all the problems associated with them that we find associated with any translation. By the time we translate one of these versions into English, we only compound its errors, whether it be word choice and the misunderstanding of definitions and usage and idiosyncrasies of the languages, or whether it is the theological prejudice of the translator.

Old Latin. Contrary to what might be assumed, the Greek texts were used for the first two centuries of this era in Rome. In fact, nearly everyone in Rome was bilingual, speaking both Greek and Latin. For this reason, it is unclear where the first Latin translations of the Scriptures were made, some believing Rome, some Pompeii, some Antioch, and some Egypt. It is also unclear when the first Latin translations were made, but if not in the latter part of the 1st century, they were certainly made in the 2nd century. At any rate, the oldest of the Old Latin texts we have today (other than papyrus fragments) dates to the 4th century. There are roughly 65 Old Latin texts that are of concern to the student of the New Testament texts, and they are signified by the letters 'it' with a superscript indicating the particular text.

Vulgate. By 382 AD, there were already a great number of Old Latin manuscripts in existence, and among them were a great number of contradictory readings. Thus, Pope Damascus asked Jerome to create a uniform text, or a common, vulgar text. Many people do not understand that the Vulgate was not an entirely new translation, but was rather a revision of the texts that already existed. What this meant to Jerome was that he was not allowed to deviate too far from the texts that already existed, even if the Greek witnesses had clearly shown him that a particular reading was not original. It is known that he completed his revision of the Gospels in 384, but some doubt whether he finished the rest of the New Testament, for in his later writings he uses a Latin text unlike the oldest Vulgate that we know of, indicating that the rest of the New Testament was done later, perhaps by another person, and then merged with Jerome's Vulgate of the Gospels and the Old Testament. Jerome's Old Testament, after consultation and education from Jew rabbis, was based upon the Hebrew, although he originally had intended just to revise the Old Latin.[1] The Vulgate was not (at first) widely accepted by the Catholics. In fact, Augustine praised Jerome's New Testament work but continued to use and preferred the Old Latin Old Testament which was based on the Septuagint. F.G. Kenyon comments:

With the Old Testament, for which, as described above, he eventually deserted the Greek of the Septuagint and made a fresh translation from the Hebrew, we have nothing here to do. When Jerome's work was completed about 404, it encountered hostile criticism, occasioned not so much by the revision of the Old Latin in the New Testament, as by the wholesale changes caused by the abandonment of the Old Latin (and the LXX from which it was translated) in the Old Testament. ... Consequently its adoption was gradual, and in the process it suffered much contamination.

Thus, the Old Latin represents a far better translation than does the Vulgate, both in substance and in style. The oldest of the Vulgate manuscripts are from the 4th and 5th centuries.

Old Syriac. There are six Syriac manuscripts which are of importance and the manuscripts themselves date from between the 4th century and the 7th century. When the original Syriac translations of the New Testament were made is unknown, but it was perhaps as early as 200 AD. This family is designated by 'syr'.

Peshitta. The Peshitta, or Vulgate Syriac, is a revision of the Old Syriac manuscripts done in much the same way as Jerome's revision of the Old Latin, hence the name. It is believed to have been done by Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, between 411-35, and some of the nearly 320 manuscripts that still exist do indeed date back to the 5th century, although it is unclear whether they are originals.

Philoxenian and Harklean. These two versions are also both in Syriac. Polycarp produced the Philoxenian Version for Bishop Philoxenus in 508. In 616, Thomas, Bishop of Harkel, either revised or re-edited the Philoxenian manuscript in light of additional Greek witnesses, and also made marginal notes.

Palestinian Syriac. The existing texts so-called by this name are no older than the 11th or 12th century, and are nothing but lectionary fragments. It is believed, however, that the manuscript was made in the 5th or 6th century, and that it shows some of the most ancient Syriac readings, since it is based on more ancient Syriac translations.

Coptic. Coptic was the language of Egypt, and was originally written in hieroglyphs, but by the 1st century it was written with upper case Greek letters (and six additional letters for the Coptic language's peculiar sounds). There are two main Coptic versions, the Sahidic and the Bohairic. The manuscripts of the Sahidic, designated by the symbol copsa, date to the 4th century AD. Those of the Bohairic (copbo) date to the 9th century AD. These are the most important of the Egyptian texts, although some fragments of the New Testament translated into the Achmimic and Fayyumic dialects do exist. In fact, nearly the entire Gospel of John exists in the Achmimic dialect, dating to the 4th century, and there exists also a nearly complete copy of John in the Fayyumic dialect from the early 4th century.

Armenian. Armenia was Christianized by the Syrians in the 3rd century AD, but it is a subject of debate whether the Armenian version is translated from Syriac, Greek, or both. The manuscripts that exist today are not as ancient as some of the other versions, but they too point to an early text type, suggesting that they were translated from an early Greek source or from an early Syriac source. For example, the oldest of the Armenian manuscripts omit the ending of Mark and the Pericope of the Woman Taken in Adultery.

Georgian. The best of the extant Georgian manuscripts date from the 10th century, but most of the New Testament had originally been translated as early as the middle of the 5th century (the Revelation was not translated until 978). Like the Armenian, it is unclear if the parent text was Syriac or Greek. Also, like the Armenian, the ending of Mark is omitted in the best manuscripts, but other curious Syriac interpolations are contained in it.

Ethiopic. The earliest Ethiopic text is from the 6th century and carries little weight in the study of the New Testament. The manuscripts themselves are no older than the 10th century.

Arabic. The Arabic texts are of little value. It is unclear when the first translations were made into Arabic, and it also unclear what the source language was; that is, whether it was translated from the Syriac, Greek, etc. All of the texts seem to have undergone a revision in the 13th century that further complicated the matter.

Gothic. The Gothic version was made in the 4th century for the Goths in Moesia by Bishop Ulfilas. Originally, the Gothic Version contained the Old Testament from the Septuagint and New Testament from the Greek, but most of the text has been lost. The oldest substantial amount is from the 5th century. This is the earliest representative of any literature in the Teutonic language.

Nubian. In the beginning of this century, a great number of papyrus fragments were found containing a few dozen verses in the Nubian dialect. Some of these fragments might be as old as the 4th century AD.

Sogdian. The manuscripts of the Sogdian are very similar in form and in discovery as the Nubian.

Others. Besides these, there are fragments and portions of the New Testament in many other languages, dating anywhere from the 4th century to the 12th and 13th centuries. The most notable are the Old Persian, Slavonic, and the Anglo-Saxon, but like the Nubian and Sogdian they are of little textual importance. They are important, however, in determining how interpolations and textual families have spread throughout the world.

Other Witnesses

The other witnesses that we have not yet discussed are neither versions nor copies, but are commentaries or documents wherein Scripture was used. The problem with this type of witness is that it is dependent on the honesty of the person who was quoting it. Often, men would slightly twist or modify their quotations to better support their theological positions. Many times, however, the men just quoted from memory or sometimes paraphrased. Still, however, where enough of a quotation exists to be tested against the known text, these witnesses are useful.

Church Fathers. What are called the "Church Fathers" or "Patristic witnesses" are usually commentaries or early sermons on the New Testament (and in many cases the Septuagint) by early writers. These witnesses exist chiefly in Greek and Latin, but also in other languages such as Syriac, and from them nearly the entire New Testament can be reconstructed.

Their value is debatable. On the one hand, the same textual issues arise with the texts of the Church Fathers as with any other manuscript. How do we know that we have the original text of the Church Father? How do we know that his text was not later corrupted? If he wrote in Latin or Syriac, how do we know how faithful his translation of the Greek New Testament was? Did the Church Father lie about a passage or misquote a passage of the New Testament to support his particular heresy? Also, did the writer intend to quote a verse verbatim or only paraphrase the passage? Still, however, if the student of the witnesses understands the circumspect nature of these texts, a great deal of information can be ascertained from them.

For example, many Church Fathers give alternate readings of a passage that they were aware of at the time of their writing. Also, depending upon who quoted a particular interpolation and when he quoted it, we can pinpoint whether an interpolation was of a Western or Byzantine nature, and when it had crept into the texts. For example, at the time of the Arian controversy, there were many ancient Church Fathers who wrote regarding the controversy and took sides on the issue. However, none of these early Church Fathers, on either side of the issue, say anything about I John 5:7, the famous trinity verse. If this interpolation had then existed in any manuscripts, it is almost certain that one side or the other of the controversy would have made use of the verse. But neither does. This allows us to state as a certainty that no version of the early Scriptures contained this verse at the time of Arius.

Lectionaries. Lectionaries were prepared texts of passages from the Bible that were meant to be read each Sunday. They are put in a specific order and collated to form a year's readings (or some other specific period of time). They are in effect another type of manuscript of the New Testament except that the passages are in a different order and are usually annotated, showing the beginning and ending of each passage.

Diatessaron. The Diatessaron does not really fall into any of the classifications already discussed. It was made somewhere around 150 AD by Tatian the Assyrian, and it was originally made in Syriac. He took the four Gospels and wove them together into a continuous stream so that the Diatessaron contained all the various tidbits that are in each separate Gospel, omitting the readings that were held in common. So it might be called the first "Parallel Gospel," for after reading the Diatessaron, one had read all the information in all four Gospels. Today, the Diatessaron exists in Greek and Syriac fragments.

Was the NT Written in Aramaic?

The Peshitta has been used by some men as a tool to claim that the New Testament was written in Aramaic. For example, some have claimed that the Peshitta dates to 200 AD, but this is known today to be entirely false. However, because men have passed it off as the oldest translation of the New Testament, even older than the oldest Greek texts, it has become quite popular recently to use the Peshitta as if it were better or even equal to the Greek New Testament. One English translation is that of James Murdock, D.D., from 1851. He writes in Appendix II of that work:

"Among the Aramaean Christians the tradition is universal, and uniform everywhere, that this version was made at the time when Christianity was first preached ... and, of course, that it was made by some one or more of the primitive Apostles and Evangelists, or by persons who were their companions and associates. Some name Mark the Evangelist; others, Thaddeus the reputed Apostle of Mesopotamia ... the English, and also the Germans before the year 1800, very generally believed, and argued, that it must have been made either near the close of the first century, or early in the second century."

Murdock then goes on to try to make the case that it was translated by one of the Apostles and even hints that Jesus and the Apostles spoke Syriac, or a close dialect, and that it might be from their original writings. Syriac is an Eastern Aramaic dialect, and of course, Aramaic is related to Hebrew, so in truth this is nothing more than a way of arguing that the New Testament was written in Aramaic. This type of totally unfounded nonsense is still being repeated today, and for this reason many people believe that the Peshitta is somehow better than the Greek New Testament. But the Aramaic spoken in the 1st century was not Syriac, and the contention that the New Testament was written in any language but Greek is easily repudiated. Murdock is lying when he implies that the bulk of scholars, even at that time, believed in an early date for the Peshitta.

However, Murdock's contentions were taken one step further by George M. Lamsa, translator of The New Testament, According to the Eastern Text. According to the title page of what is now commonly called "The Lamsa Bible," it was translated from "original Aramaic sources." The lengthy introduction explains Lamsa's contentions, which are that the New Testament was written in Aramaic, and that the Peshitta is the faithful descendant of the original Aramaic text. He makes no distinction between the Old Syriac and the Peshitta manuscripts. Through Lamsa's Bible, a great number of deceived people today believe that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic and that later, as Lamsa says, it was translated into Greek.

There are many fallacies with Lamsa's statements, and any honest scholar is aware that these contentions are blatant lies. First of all, the language of the Peshitta is Syriac, not Aramaic. It is true, as stated before, that Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, but so is Arabic. They are not the same. The Syriac of the Peshitta did not become popular until about the 3rd century AD, and it must be distinguished from the Aramaic being spoken in the 1st century. Scholars call the Aramaic of the 1st century "Early Aramaic," and the Aramaic from which Syriac is derived is called "Late Aramaic." By the differences in the languages alone, and the evolution of the Syriac dialect, it can be shown that the Peshitta was not written before the 3rd century. Furthermore, by comparing the Peshitta texts with the Old Syriac manuscripts, it can be established that the Peshitta was not produced until the 5th century. Even if Rabbula did not produce the final form of the Peshitta, it is certain that he began the intermediate editing of the Old Syriac texts that led to the Peshitta.

Lamsa several times comments on how well-preserved the Peshitta manuscripts are, and that of the more than 300 texts, there is very little deviation. This is true. However, there is great deviation between the Peshitta and the Old Syriac which predates it. This is why Rabbula sought to make a vulgar or common edition of those texts in the first place, just as Jerome did with the Old Latin. So while the Peshitta shows little variation, that does not mean that it is a faithful reproduction of anything older than the 5th century, but Lamsa tries to argue that it is a faithful reproduction of the very oldest texts. This is an easily disproved lie.

One of Lamsa's biggest points is that Jesus and His Disciples spoke Aramaic, and therefore wrote in Aramaic. There are two major fallacies involved in this statement: one is that the Syriac of the Peshitta is not the Aramaic of the 1st century, and two, it is an undeniable fact of history that the predominant language of the time in the geographical areas of the New Testament was Greek. Jesus and a great number of the Disciples were from Galilee, and Lamsa contends that the Galileans spoke Aramaic. Again, history disproves this. The historian Josephus was from Galilee; in fact, he was the governor of Galilee and was a Judean priest who spent much time in Jerusalem. Josephus spoke and wrote in Greek, and the predominant language of the entire area was Greek. We have mentioned before that Paul, a Greek-speaking Roman citizen, wrote the bulk of his letters to Greek cities and to Greek-speaking people. Furthermore, Jesus and His Apostles quoted the Greek Septuagint - of this there can be no question. In order to quote the Greek Septuagint, one must speak Greek.

The evidence is so overwhelming that the New Testament was written in Greek that I can say once again that not one shred of evidence exists that points to the New Testament being written in Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, or any other language besides Greek. The oldest Syriac manuscripts in existence date to the 3rd century; the oldest Greek manuscripts in existence date to 125 AD (although some have contended that this text dates to 90 AD). Additionally, it can be proven that the Greek texts are the source of all the Syriac manuscripts, whether Diatesseron, Old Syriac, or Peshitta.

As an example of this, let us look at the Greek New Testament where Jesus is quoted speaking Aramaic, and compare these passages to Lamsa's translation of the Peshitta. Mark 5:41 reads in the AST:

"And taking hold of the child's hand, He said to her, 'Talithe koum,' which is, being translated,
'Little girl, I say to you, rise up!'"

Now if these are the original words of Mark, then it is clear that he was writing in Greek because he found it necessary to translate the Aramaic into Greek so his reader could understand. Also, if the Peshitta were a translation made from the Greek, then it should show that these are the original words of Mark. Lamsa's translation of this passage reads:

"And he took the little girl by her hand, and said to her, Talitha, koomi, which means, Little girl, rise up."

Now if the Scriptures were written in Syriac or Aramaic originally, then a translation of the words talitha koomi would be unnecessary because the reader would naturally understand them. So if Lamsa's translation is correct, then it is impossible for the Syriac to be the original language of the New Testament. Even if the Syriac did not say that and Lamsa's translation is wrong, it still would not matter, because throughout the Syriac there is similar internal evidence that shows that it was a translation of the Greek, while the Greek shows no signs that it was a translation of the Syriac.

Knowing all of this, we need to look at why it has become a popular Jewish contention to claim that the New Testament was written in Aramaic. The first major reason is that claiming the New Testament was written in Aramaic helps the case for the Jewish Masoretic Text. Anyone can look at the Greek New Testament and see that the quotes from the Old Testament are from the Greek Septuagint. The Jews who support the Jewish Masoretic Text often resort to saying that the Greek New Testament is a corruption of the original Aramaic New Testament just as the Septuagint is a corruption of the Hebrew Old Testament. Of course, the reality is just the opposite, and the quotations as contained in the Syriac agree more with the Septuagint than the Jew-perverted Masoretic Text. For example, in Romans 3:11-18, the Apostle Paul quotes Psalms 14:1-3 from the Septuagint. Only Romans 3:11-12 are found in Psalms 14:1-3 as it reads in the Masoretic Text, but Romans 3:13-18 are found exactly, word for word, in the Septuagint and not in the Masoretic Text. This means that the Apostle Paul absolutely had to be quoting the Greek Septuagint, because these five verses only exist in the Greek Septuagint. Now the question is, are these five verses in the Peshitta? And the answer is yes. This means that the author of Romans spoke Greek because he quoted the Greek Septuagint, the only source for the quotation in existence, and then the Syriac was translated from a Greek copy of the book of Romans, because it also contains the quotation. Furthermore, this means that the Peshitta, or what Lamsa calls 'the Aramaic Bible' is a witness against the Hebrew Masoretic Text, and it is therefore ridiculous to assert that the New Testament was written in Aramaic.

The second reason that Jews like to contend that the New Testament was written in Aramaic is to support their sacred name doctrine, which states that the New Testament was written in Aramaic and that the Anointed One's real name was Yahshua, or some similarly spelled name. They get the name Yahshua from the Hebrew for Joshua, and they say that Joshua was a precursor of Jesus and that they were to have the same names. However, when we look to the oldest and most accurate copy of the Old Testament Scriptures in existence, the Greek Septuagint, we find that Joshua's name in reality was Jesus, not Joshua. When we look at the Greek New Testament, we find the name Jesus, not Joshua, for both the Anointed One and for the mentioning of the prophet in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8. So because of this evidence, the sacred name Jews contend that the New Testament was written in Aramaic and that the writers of the New Testament quoted Hebrew Scriptures and that Jesus' name was Yahshua, and that the Greek New Testament was a corrupted translation of some Hebrew or Aramaic original. Of course, we have already proven the fallacies of these blasphemous statements, but in addition to this, these stupid arguments ignore the historical references both to the name Jesus and to the Anointed One, and that such references support the name of Jesus and the title of Anointed One. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that the Jews hate the name Jesus and have hated that name so much since the 1st century that they, in the form of the Masoretes, changed the Hebrew to remove the name Jesus from it, replacing it with Joshua. This must be the position taken by any honest scholar because the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament and the Old Testament (the Septuagint) show clearly that the name is Jesus.

Thus, we can say with certainty, in the light of over 5000 Greek witnesses to the New Testament, and based upon historical evidence, that it is an absolute impossibility that the New Testament was written in any language other than Greek. Only Talmudic Jews would want to argue that the New Testament was written in Aramaic.

The Sixth Law Of God by The Christian Separatist Church Society

We Continue with our study of the Sixth Commandment, which in the Septuagint says "Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery." The study concerns the meaning of the word Adultery as written in the Greek, translated from the Paleo-Hebrew.  Perhaps if Curt Maynard had heeded the Law, he would still be writing about the enemies of our people instead of being a guest on a cold slab in the morgue right now, no? 

Some Highlights:
New Testament Greek written in Koine, or everyday Greek.
Examples from Classical Greek on the words used for adulterating
Examples of willful mistranslation in order to appease ruling powers (i.e. the homosexual King James)
Philo cited in support of the Thesis.

Moich- in Greek Literature

In order to define any word accurately, a lexicographer must examine how a word or family of words was used in all of Greek literature. One mistake that is commonly made is the false assumption that there is a special ecclesiastical or Biblical Greek, and that Greek words take on a new or different meaning just because they are used in the Bible. This theory, however, has been proven wrong time and time again. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scholars assumed that since the Greek of the New Testament did not resemble any of the great classical dialects of Greek used in ancient literature, then it was somehow different and specialized, and therefore the words could have special meanings only in the Bible. This was the basis behind the King James Version of the Bible being translated into very ornate, Elizabethan English and the Luther Bible being translated into High German, neither of which were commonly spoken in England or Germany before the translation of these Bibles. However, in the late 19th century, a very great number of papyrus scrolls began to be discovered, many of which were reflective of common writing during the 1st century. These papyri contained everyday things such as letters, lists, contracts, receipts, etc. What was also discovered was that the form of Greek used in these everyday documents matched the Greek of the New Testament, now called Koine Greek or Common Greek. So, in fact, the New Testament was written in what amounts to common street language.

In addition to this, it must be understood that the books of the New Testament, many of them letters, were being read by everyday Greek-speaking peoples who had no specialized education to understand some sort of ecclesiastical language. Thus, the vocabulary carried no special meaning to them, but was merely the vocabulary they had been schooled in and which they had read all of their lives in classical authors, such as Aristotle. So how Aristotle understood a Greek word would be the same way they would understand a Greek word when they read it in an epistle from Paul.

So let us examine a few passages from Greek literature which show clearly that the popular definition of adultery does not fit the moich- family of words. First, we will read A.L. Peck's translation of Aristotle's Historia Animalium IX.32.6-10:

"Also another kind of eagle is the so-called true-bred. They say these are the only true- bred birds altogether; for the other kinds are mixed and adulterated by each other, including the eagles and hawks and the smallest birds."

Here the English word adulterated is translated for the Greek word memoicheutai, an inflected form of the word moicheuo. It could have just as easily been translated cross-bred or mongrelized. In fact, the word was translated with the phrase "spoilt by the interbreeding of different species" in a translation by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. These translators understood that the word moicheuo was in reference to adulteration or cross- breeding. It should be pointed out, especially since men's salvation depends upon a complete and saving knowledge of truth, that this is the exact same Greek word used in Exodus 20:13 in the Ten Commandments and the exact same Greek word used in Romans 13:9.
We also need to make note of some other interesting features of this passage. First, the word kind is translated for the Greek word genos, which when applied to people is translated race.

Secondly, the word true-bred is translated for the Greek word gnesios, which is defined by LSJ and by Lampe as: "belonging to the race." This word is in fact derived from genos, which as we said before, means "race." Donnegan defines this adjective gnesios as: "peculiar to a race, of pure race," and his primary definition of gnesiotes is: "purity of descent," while his primary definition of gnesios is: "purely descended." Critica Sacra records the Latin definition "germanus" which also means purely descended or of pure descent. Finally, all of the lexical authorities agree that gnesios is the opposite of the word nothos, which means mongrel and which we will discuss later. Thus, it is agreed upon by all of these scholarly authorities and by the translator of this passage in Aristotle that the word gnesios means pure-bred, pure race, pure descent or racially pure. Furthermore, we find innumerable examples in Greek literature where this word is used as and must be translated as pure-bred or racially pure to make sense.

What is interesting is that the King James Version translates this same Greek word as the possessive pronoun own in I Timothy 1:2 and Titus 1:4.4 There is absolutely no justification for this absurd translation. In the KJV, I Timothy reads: "Unto Timothy, my own son..." And Titus reads: "To Titus, mine own son..." The Anointed Standard Translation correctly renders these two phrases as, "To Timothy, a racially pure child..." and, "To Titus, a racially pure child..." This is an example of open and willful deception on the part of the KJV translators who knew the one and only definition of the word gnesios and decided not to use it. Their deception is now perpetuated in the Judeo school of theology. Even the Old Latin translated gnesios with the Latin germanus, which again means of pure descent. It should be remembered, however, that this type of dishonesty was quite common among the KJV translators. Another notable example is the occurrence of the Greek word meaning homosexual in I Corinthians 6:9 and Timothy 1:10. Bowing to the pressures of the homosexual King James, the KJV translators translated this word ambiguously as "abusers of themselves with mankind" instead of homosexual so they would not offend King James.

Let us now look at another passage in Aristotle, using the translation of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson:

"While children mostly resemble their parents or their ancestors, it sometimes happens that no such resemblance is to be traced. But parents may pass on resemblance after several generations, as in the case of the woman in Ellis, who committed adultery with a negro; in this case it was not the woman's own daughter but the daughter's child that was a blackamoor" (Historia Animalium VII.5).

Here we have a clear cut case of a white Sicilian woman who mongrelized with an Ethiopian negro. Aristotle is commenting on the fact that the first generation offspring was rather light-skinned, especially when compared to the second-generation. Both, of course were mongrels, but due to genetic shuffling, the second generation mongrel was so dark that it actually resembled a pure Ethiopian negro. This was what Aristotle was discussing and once again he used the verb moicheuo, the exact same Greek verb used in the Ten Commandments. This same story is also told in four other places in ancient literature,5 and no where is the idea of marital infidelity brought up. In fact, it is clear from the other accounts and the contradictions between some of the information, that it would have been impossible for any of the ancient authors to have known whether the woman was married. Most of the authors, including the other occurrence of this story in Aristotle's own writings, simply say that the woman had sex with the negro. For example, in Aristotle's Generation of the Animals, 722a 10, he says that the woman had sex with the negro, using the Greek word sungignomai, which means "to have intercourse."

In the present passage, however, Aristotle has simply been more specific. If the translator had said who adulterated herself with a negro instead of who committed adultery with a negro, then the passage would be much clearer, but as we shall see later, the phrase commit adultery and adulterate were in fact equivalent terms at the time of the translation of the first Bibles into English.

Let us now read a passage from Aelian, On Animals, VII.39-40, where he discusses a questionable reading from Anacreon:

"Those who falsify the reading and go so far as to say that we should write [eroesses] (for [keroesses]) are soundly refuted by Aristophanes of Byzantium; and I am convinced by his refutation."

Here, A.F. Scholfield, not to be confused with C.I. Scolfield, editor ofthe Scolfield Bible, has translated the verb moichao as falsify. Again, the clear connotation is to change, corrupt, alter from one form to another, adulterate, confuse or change the form of something. Dishonest translators should try to explain how it is possible to commit adultery with a word.

Thus far we have looked at examples in Classical Greek from Greek literature with which the writers of the New Testament and the translators of the Greek Septuagint would have been familiar, as well as the early Christians who read the Greek Septuagint and the New Testament. Let us now look at an example from an early patristic author, Methodius. Reading from the translation of Herbert Musurillo in Methodius' Symposium 3.2:

"Rather, He probably had in mind those who adulterate the truth, who corrupt the Scriptures with pseudo-scientific doctrine and begat an imperfect sort of wisdom, mixing in error with religion."

Here Musurillo has translated the Greek verb moichaomai as adulterate. We note that this adulteration results in an imperfect product and that the adulteration corresponds to mixing two things together. A similar idea was expressed by Synesius Cyrenesius in Epistulae 5.C, where, with the same Greek verb, he states that the Church or Body Politic was being adulterated with false-teachings, which, he says, places a trap for those who are described with the Greek word akeraios, which we have already defined as racially pure.

The emphasis in all of these quotes and throughout all of Greek literature is upon mixing two opposing elements together, whether that be truth and untruth as in the last two quotes or a white woman with a negro in the quote before those. It is true that the word can be and is used for illicit sex between people of the same race, but still the word does not primarily imply that one of the participants is breaking a marriage vow, but rather that confusion is being created in the seed-line of the man whose wife is being violated, for it will be unclear whether a resulting child is the husband's or the other man's. The emphasis is clearly upon mixing things up or causing confusion. In a predominately white, homogenous society, we would expect that when moichos or a related word is used, then the emphasis would be upon corrupting the seedline within the race. But more often than not, it is clear from the study of every occurrence in the Bible that the emphasis is upon race-mixing, except in cases where the context makes it perfectly clear that race is not an issue.

Finally, let us examine an occurrence of the word moicheia in the renowned Israelite scholar Philo's The Worse Attacks the Better 102:

"And because, with a view to the persistence of the race, you were endowed with generative organs, do not run after mongrelization and mongrelization and other non- pure forms of mixing, but only that which is a lawful means of propagating the race of man."

This passage is very interesting. Philo uses two different Greek words, both of which have been translated mongrelization, in describing the "non-pure forms of mixing." One of these Greek words is phthora which has been discussed extensively in other literature.6 The second word is moicheia, the subject word herein. Because Philo used two words with basically the same meaning, the translation of the passage seems redundant in English, but not in Greek, where this technique of using synonymous words in close proximity was quite common, especially in Philo's writings. We should also keep in mind that these two Greek words would have conveyed a slightly different spectrum of meaning to the Greek reader, but both are best translated as mongrelization in English. So redundancy is not an issue in the original Greek. What is important is that Philo specifically says that both of these acts, including moicheia, are forms of "mixing," which is translated for the Greek word mixeis and which is defined by LSJ as "mixing, mingling."

There are other interesting things to note in this passage also. First, it must be understood that Philo was commenting on the Greek Septuagint when writing, so when he refers to the law, he is speaking of the Pentateuch. And when he says "the race of man," he uses the term anthropos, the Greek term used in the Septuagint almost exclusively for the White, Adamic race. It is clear from the passage that Philo is concerned with the issue of race because he specifically uses the term twice, and when he says "persistence of the race," he means so that the race will survive in its pure form. It is also clear that the issue of race- mixing is what Philo is writing about because he specifically uses the terms "non-pure" and "mixing." So Philo has defined very specifically what the Greek word moicheia means, and he also stated very clearly that race-mixing is forbidden in the Pentateuch, that is the first five books of what is commonly called the Old Testament. Philo, an Israelite in dispersion, was of course writing about the Greek Septuagint, the Old Testament used by millions of Israelites during the 1st century AD, including the over 1,000,000 Israelites who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Philo was a representative of these Alexandrian Israelites.



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4 This word also occurs in II Corinthians 8:8, Philippians 4:3, Sirach 7:18 and III Maccabees 3:19. Gnesios, the adverb form, occurs in Philippians 2:20 and II Maccabees 14:8 and III Maccabbees 3:23. All of these other occurences are dealt with in detail in The Truth Unveiled.

5 Aristotle, GA I 722a9, Antig. 122, Arist. Byz. epit. II 272, and Pliny VII 12.51.

6 The reader is encouraged to consult The Truth Unveiled by Pastor V.S. Herrell, pg. 156, and especially Appendix 10 of the Anointed Standard Translation of the New Testament for more information on this word and its related words.

Jesus Is a Straight Shooter

God I love Missouri.  Yeah, the weather sucks and the women ain't California girls, but God bless 'em! 

On the wall is a map of the Exodus from Egypt. On nearby folding tables is an arsenal of shotguns, rifles, revolvers and pistols and books like "Armed and Female."


Welcome to First Baptist Church, in Wentzville.

Missouri Style Church Pot Luck

Jill McClelland, 67, who owns the New Melle Gun Shop, teaches the seminar with gun-shop employee Ann Layton, 53. Both are members of the church.

"Ann and I are here to talk about firearms and what a blessing they are and how much fun they can be if used correctly," McClelland says. She recommends a revolver for beginners.

"It is so simple," she says.

Awww, so precious! Don't you just want to hug 'em to pieces?!

Free, White and Christian. The only way to be.

The History of The Bible from The Christian Separatist Church Society

Today's Sunday School lesson is From the Book The History of the Bible by Pastor V.S. Herrell. We hope you enjoy it.

Introduction

Today, many people who claim to know something about the Bible, especially in the Judeo, so-called Identity movement, have little or no knowledge about the history and development of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

The trademark signs of this type of people who are Biblically ignorant include the following: they believe that the King James Version is divinely inspired or that it is the best available translation; they believe that the New Testament was written in Aramaic; they believe in the so-called "sacred names"; they build doctrines on textual interpolations, such as the trinity doctrine; they accept pseudepigraphal writings such as the 29th Chapter of Acts, Jasher, and Enoch as books of the Bible, and build false teachings upon these false books; they believe that the Old Testament has been preserved in the Hebrew Masoretic Text; they believe that Esther should not be in the Bible; etc.

Such are the misconceptions that are, in truth, Jewish fables. Thus, the study of what is called the history of the Bible is of great importance to the true Bible student. Only through a thorough knowledge of how the Bible has come to be can the Bible student see through the Jewish propaganda and lies regarding the Bible. For this reason, the information that follows is very important. Each of the misconceptions mentioned above and many more are answered and exposed in the following pages. Only when the Bible student is aware of these facts can he truly begin to study the Bible. The antichrist Jew would seek to hide this information from the white Christian, and thus I would admonish you to study it carefully.

The New Testament

We need to start our exploration of the New Testament by examining and understanding how the New Testament texts have come to be transmitted down to us. Before the invention of the printing press and modern-type paper, all ancient books were written by hand, thus the word manuscript, and were periodically recopied for preservation and circulation.

The New Testament was written originally in Greek; of this there can be no question. Some men have tried to claim that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew, and then later translated into Greek, but all such men are incapable of presenting a single shred of evidence that points to their contention. If any evidence existed, even fragmentary, we might offer some repudiation, but the fact of the matter is that not one piece of evidence exists. All evidence points to the contrary: Paul wrote letters to believers in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse and Thessalonika, and only a fool would think that any of these people spoke Aramaic or Hebrew. He wrote to men with Greek names, such as Timothy (Timotheus) and Titus. Alexander the Great had conquered the known world three hundred years earlier and had introduced the Greek language throughout the world. Jesus and His students traveled throughout Greek-speaking areas, and the New Testament records that Jesus was able to speak Aramaic and did so when it was necessary, but Greek was still His primary language. Galilee was a Greek-speaking region in the 1st century, and men like Mark and Luke show this in their Greek names. We will look at more of these contentions later in the section entitled Was the New Testament Written in Aramaic?

Thus, the men whom the Mentality of Separation used to write the New Covenant spoke Greek and wrote in Greek, although many of them were certainly fluent in other languages as well. The original manuscripts are not extant today, for reasons we will see later, but a great body of witnesses does exist that points to the original words of the original manuscripts, and through the science of Textual Criticism we shall see how today we can come closer than ever before to knowing with certainty the original words of the New Testament.

With this in mind, let us look at the many different ways the New Testament has been transmitted down to us over the last 1900 years.

Uncials

Today, the uncial manuscripts are the most important of the Greek witnesses to the original text of the New Testament. They date from the 4th to the 9th centuries AD, and they are written entirely in large capital letters on vellum manuscripts or parchment. Because vellum was always at a premium, a number of conventions were taken to save space when preparing a manuscript on it. There are no spaces between the words, no punctuation, and often-used words, such as Jesus, Christ, and God, are abbreviated. The abbreviation technique was further applied to many common or obvious words where the last letter or syllable could be dropped off, just as we today abbreviate many words or shorten titles. Such shortenings were usually marked by a line drawn above the letter. Many of the texts have critical annotations in the margin and show the writing of more than one scribe and oftentimes of later correctors.

Vaticanus. The Vatican Manuscript, represented by the letter B, is the oldest of the great uncial codices and dates to the early 4th century AD. Until its recent release by the Catholic Church, it was kept hidden in the Vatican Library for at least 600 years. The manuscript was known by scholars to exist in 1475 when it was listed in a catalogue of manuscripts in the Vatican Library, and the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) portion of the manuscript was published in 1587 under the papacy of Pope Sixtus V. However, its New Testament contents were kept a guarded secret. This portion was not seen by scholars until 1815 when Napoleon captured Rome and brought the manuscript back to Paris, where it was studied for a short time. If not for this, it is certain that its contents would still be locked up secure in the Vatican Library today. The Catholic Church considers the manuscript dangerous because it shows so clearly how corrupt their Vulgate is and has become; for this reason it literally took a war before it was seen by scholars.

Codex Vaticanus Ga. 6:12-19, Ep. 1:1-16

Dr. Samuel Tregelles, one of the important figures in Textual Criticism in the 19th century, was two-years-old when the Vatican Manuscript was brought to Paris. Later in his life, he would make another step toward finally allowing the text to be freed from Catholic lock and key. With knowledge of the New Testament portion of the manuscript now a matter of public record, Tregelles traveled to Rome to view the manuscript. However, when he arrived, as he later said, they searched his pockets before he could look at the manuscript, allowed him no writing instruments or paper, and two priests were assigned to watch him and distract him when he spent too much time on any particular passage. They also took the book away from him when he stayed on one page too long. Still, Tregelles managed to tell the scholarly world enough of what was in the manuscript that Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) would be forced to make copies of the Vatican Manuscript available to the leading libraries of the world. This pressure was aided by Konstantin von Tischendorf. Before Tregelles ever viewed the text, Tischendorf had waited several months and was finally allowed to see it for six hours. Later, after Tregelles' visit, Tischendorf returned and was allowed to view the text under similar circumstances as was Tregelles. However, Tischendorf managed to copy 20 pages of the text. When the priests found out, the text was immediately taken from him. He published those leaves in 1867, and then in 1868 the Vatican published the entire New Testament. It was not until 1881 that the Septuagint was released. Photographs were released in 1889-90.

Today, the contents of the manuscript are well known. It contains 759 vellum sheets out of an original 820 or so, probably antelope skins, about 10 5/8 inches square, with text in three columns. It contains the entire Bible, both New Testament and Septuagint, except for Genesis 1-46, Psalms 105-137, and the New Testament after Hebrews 9:14.

Sinaiticus. The Sinaitic Manuscript, represented by the symbol(Aleph), is the second oldest of the uncial codices (early 4th century), and it too has only recently, comparatively speaking, become available. The manuscript was found in May, 1844, by the great German scholar Konstantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874) in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. In a fire-bin at the monastery, he noticed 129 sheets of a very old looking manuscript, the oldest he had ever seen. To his surprise, they were of the Greek Septuagint, and he suspected that he had found the oldest copy in existence. Tischendorf then found out that the monks had two other bins full of the text, but the monks, realizing the value, allowed him to have no more of the text. So Tischendorf returned to Germany only with the sheets that he had first found. The English government learned of Tischendorf's discovery and sent a man to try and find the rest and buy it, but he was not able to do so. Tischendorf contacted a friend in Egypt who had influence with the king to see if he could obtain the rest, but his friend soon wrote back:

"The monks of the convent have since your departure learned the value of the parchments, and now they will not part with them at any price."

Codex Sinaiticus Rom. 6:23-8:15

Tischendorf himself returned to the monastery but was able to secure only one more sheet of the text. He did, however, learn that the entire Septuagint (his chief interest at the time) was contained in the manuscript. Again, in 1859, he returned to the monastery with a commission from the Tsar of Russia, but he could not find the rest of the manuscript. One of the monks, however, invited him into his cell where he showed him his copy of the Septuagint. To Tischendorf's surprise, it was the rest of the manuscript that he had seen back in 1844, and not only did it contain the rest of the Septuagint (with Apocrypha), but also the complete New Testament. Tischendorf tried not to show his excitement this time in front of the monk, but asked if he could look over it in his room. Tischendorf later wrote:

"And there by myself, I gave way to my transports of joy. I knew that I held in my hands one of the most precious Biblical treasures in existence, a document whose age and importance exceeded that of any I had ever seen after twenty years' study of the subject."

Still, it was not for another eight years, in 1867, that Tischendorf persuaded the Tsar to do what was necessary to obtain the manuscript for the Tsar's library and public access. Although Tischendorf had published a copy five years earlier, it was based upon hand-made copies of the actual manuscript. The Tsar paid the monks nine thousand rubles and gave them an Archbishopric in exchange for the codex. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist Jews gained control of the manuscript, but the English government purchased it from the Jews in 1933 for £100,000.

This Sinaitic manuscript is also written on vellum, with four columns per page and with two columns per page in the poetic books of the Septuagint. It was originally about 720 leaves, roughly 15 x 13 1/2 inches, but a great deal of the Septuagint portion has been lost. Only about 145 leaves of the Septuagint still exist, and these contain parts or all of Genesis, Numbers, I Chronicles, Esdras, Esther, Tobit, Judith, I and IV Maccabees, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Job. Fortunately, the entire New Testament is contained in the manuscript, and also the Epistle of Barnabas and part of the Shepherd of Hermas. In total, there are 393 leaves still existing.

Alexandrinus. The third oldest of the great uncial codices is signified by the letter A, and dates from the early 5th century. This manuscript, with two columns per page, has a nearly complete Septuagint, missing only ten leaves. The New Testament, however, is missing a total of about 37 leaves, with the bulk of those (25) missing from Matthew. 773 leaves still exist (630 of the Septuagint, 143 of the New Testament), measuring 12 5/8 x 10 3/8 inches.

Codex Alexandrinus Ro. 2:26-3:21

This Alexandrine manuscript was owned in 1625 by Cyril Lucar, then Patriarch of Constantinople. A Calvinist and supporter of the Church of England, he sent the text to England as a gift to King James. It first came into the hands of George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had played a role in the translation of King James' Bible. Obviously alarmed at what he saw, he stalled the presentation of the manuscript. In fact, King James died before he ever got it, and it was finally presented two years later to King Charles I.

This particular text was written in the 5th century, and had found its way into the hands of the Athonite monks of Egypt by the 10th century. It is unclear how Lucar, who was later killed by the order of the Sultan, acquired the text. Tradition holds that the text was written for Thecla, an Egyptian noble lady in 325 AD. This date, of course, is too early, but other evidence does point to an Alexandria, Egypt, origin.

Codex Alexandrinus is particularly important to the study of New Testament Greek because it contains the best extant text of the Revelation, and for the Septuagint because it contains the oldest complete text of several Old Testament books as well.

Ephraemi. Codex Ephraem is the fourth oldest of the uncials, dating from the 5th century, and is signified by the letter C. When the King James translators made their Bible in 1611, they certainly knew of the existence of Codex Ephraem, for it had been brought to Paris by Catherine de Medici (1519-1589). However, as far as they knew, it was just a 12th century copy of the theological writings of St. Ephraem, a Syrian church father from about 350 AD.

It was not until 1834 that Tischendorf applied a chemical treatment to the text and discovered that it was a palimpsest, that is, someone, wanting to make a copy of Ephraem's works, had rubbed out the 5th century copy of the Septuagint and New Testament and then wrote his works on top of it to save from having to buy vellum. Unfortunately, many of the leaves were ruined or thrown away, and today only 64 leaves of the Septuagint and 145 of the New Testament exist. It measures 12 1/4 x 9 inches, being written in a single column. No books of the New Testament are complete and II Thessalonians and II John are entirely missing.

Tischendorf also played a key role in the final availability of this manuscript, for it was he who, in 1843, published a copy of the New Testament and two years later the Septuagint.

Bezae. This manuscript, dating from the 5th century, is the fifth of the great uncials, but it is also the least trustworthy of the five. It is typical of the Western texts, and shows its Catholic influence in the fact that it is a diaglot of Latin and Greek, that is, it parallels the Greek and Latin facing each other on the pages. It is interesting to note that frequently the Latin and Greek are in total disagreement.

Codex Bezae

It is missing a great deal of the New Testament, and has none of the Septuagint, but the passages it does contain are heavily interpolated with Catholic insertions, some of which have survived into the Textus Receptus, but none of which can be considered original. The Calvinist Theodore Beza discovered the manuscript in Lyons in St. Irenaeus in 1562, although Robert Stephanus had apparently seen the text and used it somewhat in the preparation of a Greek New Testament in 1550. Beza, however, claimed it, and in 1581 gave it to Cambridge University. There it was accessible to the King James translators. It is important to note that the Calvinists readily made available this corrupt text to the King James translators, but they sat on the more valuable and more accurate Codex Alexandrinus.

Codex Bezae is of little textual value, but it is useful for typifying the Western or Catholic expansions into the Greek texts.

Others. There are nearly 300 other uncial manuscripts. Of these, none are complete New Testaments, but some of them are very old (perhaps even older than the ones discussed above), and for the portions that do exist they are very good witnesses. Others are just later copies of the five manuscripts mentioned above or some like them, and contain a multitude of errors all their own.

Minuscules

There are literally thousands of minuscule type manuscripts of the New Testament in existence, and they are of secondary importance to the uncial type manuscripts. Minuscule texts are written in running hand or cursive, with or without spaces between the words. All date after the 9th century, when minuscule-type texts began to replace the uncial manuscripts. Even though these texts are more recent than the uncials, they are still important in that they may point to a very ancient uncial text from which they were taken.

Major Families. The minuscule manuscripts can, for the most part, be placed into families or groups. This is because the minuscules can be compared to one another and many show the same set of common errors or idiosyncrasies, showing that they have a common origin or a common source manuscript from which they were copied. The different families can then be given relative value. This makes comparing the many thousands of minuscule texts much easier, as there are nearly 2800. The different texts within a family can also be used sometimes to reconstruct an uncial text that no longer exists, but which was the basis for the minuscule copies.

Papyri

The papyrus manuscripts are certainly some of the most important tools in ascertaining the original text of the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament was originally penned down on papyrus scrolls. We have been aware for quite some time how papyrus was made by the Greeks and Romans, but until the 19th century we had no papyrus manuscripts. Papyrus becomes brittle when dry and rots when damp, and therefore very few texts have survived. Thus, this most important tool has only recently become available to us.

p46, c. 85 AD (U. of Michigan)

Papyrus was made by taking the Egyptian papyrus plant and cutting the stems into sections and removing the pith; this pith was cut into thin strips, which were laid beside each other, and then another layer laid down at right angles on top of the first; finally, the layers were beaten together to form a sheet, which could be pasted together to form a scroll. These scrolls, which were rolled out horizontally rather than vertically, were usually about 10 inches in height and no longer than 35 feet (although one scroll known to exist is 133 feet in length). The typical scroll might hold something the length of one of the Gospels. The text is written in columns 2 1/2 to 3 inches wide, about 5/8 of an inch apart from one another, and the text was usually only on one side, the side on which the fibers were placed horizontally. Sometimes both sides would be utilized, but only if the work was particularly long or papyrus was at a premium. This practice is even alluded to in the Bible in Ezekiel 2:10 and Revelation 5:1. However, the papyrus manuscripts that have come down to us are in codex form, with only four being actual scrolls. Whether this was how the books were originally written or not is a subject of debate.

Papyrus was used universally until vellum displaced it in the 4th century, and because papyrus is not durable, no complete or nearly complete copies of the Bible, Old or New Testament, predate that time. However, our oldest witnesses to the text of the New Testament are papyri. In fact, p52 dates from c. 125 AD. It is a fragment of a codex of the book of John (18:31-33, 37-38), and though not all that important regarding the reading of the text, it is very important in showing the early circulation of John's Gospel at that time. Other early important papyrus manuscripts include: p45, from the 3rd century, containing portions of all the gospels on 30 leaves; p46, from c. 200, containing on 86 leaves most of the letters of Paul and the Book of Hebrews; p75 from between 175-225 AD, containing on 102 pages most of Luke and John; and p72, from the 3rd to 4th centuries, containing parts of I and II Peter and Jude.

[Update: New dating techniques and a reevaluation of the evidence has pushed the dates of many of these papyri back even further. Also, the recently accepted identification of two new papyri of the New Testament found with the Dead Sea Scrolls in Cave 7 has provided two new very early papyri of the New Testament. The following is a summary:


p46 - 85 AD


p66 -125 AD


p32 -175 AD


p45 -150 AD


p87 - 125 AD


p90 - 150 AD


p64/67 - 60 AD


 -100 AD


7Q4 - <68 AD


7Q5 - 50-68 AD


The reader is encouraged to read Papyrology and the Dating of the New Testament (Separatist Brief 4.09) as a supplement and update to this section of The History of the Bible.]

As can be seen from this small portion of the list of nearly 100 papyrus manuscripts, a great portion of the New Testament text dating back well into the 3rd century [perhaps even 2nd century] can be obtained.

That's it for today.  Next time we visit this subject we'll get into versions and the question of what language the New Testament was written in.

Classic TV Shows - Andy Griffith

I love the old Andy Griffith shows. Although it took artistic license with the small town theme, there was once a time when America was a lot like Mayberry, especially in the South. That America is gone now, never to return, but it's nice to look back and see how it used to be. As America sinks into the third world and becomes darker, more people will appreciate this TV series, if it makes it that long.

Anyway, I figured I'd start with some scenes featuring Asa, one of my favorite guest characters on the show. This is from The Bank Job Episode,Originally broadcast on December 24, 1962. Barney has been watching Glen Ford G-Man movies and decides to tighten up security.

Asa, clean those bullets!



This is Classic Barney. The Shoplifters, originally broadcast in March 2, 1964. The mannequin scene near the end of the clip is hilarious! Asa, the Rip Van Winkle night guard!

The Evil Amongst Us

This little girl, seen here with her real father, all of 2 years and 25lbs, was beaten nearly to death by a piece of unspeakable filth near the end of Febuary of this year.  She was near death. Her leg was broken, her liver was lacerated, and they had to take a foot and a half of her intestines out. If she did survive, she would be faced with living with a colostomy bag for the rest of her life.

Here is the piece of human garbage that almost killed a little white girl. He was the boyfriend of the mother, who did nothing to stop it.

Police say Kraig A. Monroe, the boyfriend of Amanda's mother, repeatedly punched Amanda in the abdomen as she sat in an Elmo chair because she wouldn't stop crying, police say. The attack happened over four days in late February, at the trailer home they shared in St. Clair County near Belleville. The mother took her to a hospital March 1 when she was vomiting and lethargic. The girl also had a broken arm and a broken leg from previous incidents and was missing hair where it had been pulled from her head.

This was big news in the area.  It was talked about a lot.  And people prayed.  And they prayed some more, asking God to spare this little girl and heal her completely.  Guess what?

Amanda made a miraculous recovery, surprising doctors who worried early on that she might need a colostomy bag for life. Doctors had to remove 18 inches of her intestine after finding a tear in her bowel.




Instead, she needs nothing like that and should have virtually no lasting health problems from the abuse, said Dr. Tarun Kumar, the pediatric surgeon at Cardinal Glennon who performed the life-saving abdominal surgery on Amanda nearly 17 days ago.



"She did wonderful," Kumar said.

This is some of the best news I've heard in months.  There is nothing more deserving of death than to beat a child like this.  It just goes to show that we Whites still have a lot to do to clean up our own house, and by God it will be done!



Story here