Ok..few things to point out..
Although parts of the new testament consist of
historical accounts of the life of Jesus and the early
apostles (Paul, for example), the new testament is
mostly made up of letters that were sent by early
Christians to other churches in an effort to help them
get started and stay the course.
Ill assume that your referring to the gospel..as the historical account in
the New Testament. I don't think anyone..except maybe a fundamentalist,
would consider this a historical work. Noting both the marked
inconsitincies between Matthew Mark Luke and John, most of what has been
accepted by Christians comes from John, with parts of Matthew Mark and Luke
mixed in. Second..even Paul, the epileptic ephianier of Jesus Christ..was
at most only an adolescent at the time of Christ..and most likely not even
born. Read Howard Zinn's a people's history of the United States, and
you'll see how time, even when events are recorded maticulously, can warp
history.
But you are correct in saying that some of it is scrambled because, as
with the old testament, a lot of it is lost in the
translation. The old testament was written in Hebrew
originally, and the new testament in Greek. And in
trying to convert the bible to the first standardized
English translation (i.e. the original King James
Version), some words used by the Hebrews simply have
no parallel correlation in English, and words had to
be substituted or redefined. This is where some
scholars argue that the bible is inadequate or
inaccurate in some ways. So make of that what you
will.
Though translation might account for some discrepacny in the bible, its
probably not that large. What is significant however is that whole books of
the acient Hewbrew bible were simply dropped from the King James version.
Also significant is the editing done to the bible by the scribes who
transcribed the bible, its not like these people were under some scholarly
pursuit to make a verbatim english standard. The bible was a tool in the
subjugation of the public, and was commanded as such. Take some time to
read the bible(start to finish) and you'll definately get a flavor of the
difference voices involved. It's not just different books that show sharp
contrast in tone, rythm meter and message, but switches occur in the middle
of books with almost no rationale attached(the death of a scribe, perhaps).
All right..thats enough..I'm too fascinated by the bible to talk about it
anymore..
Mark
