Genesis 6:

[Et in Arcadia ego]

I'm looking for the most reliable/oldest/purest translations available to this if anyone can help out. Corruption whether deliberate or not is very obvious between different Bibles, and I want to get as close to the original source as I can.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Asta]

for your question, I do have a link to a website that I have found to be most entertaining in terms of biblical contradictions, errors, outrageousness, etc.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm">www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Perhaps you will find a source in the site's many links and references. In the meantime, some of the commentaries are a real hoot. <br><br>Seems Jesus talked a lot about gouging out eyes and lopping off hands. And how everyone was going to hell. All these years I thought he was more optimistic than that, the Lamb of God, but now I think he would fit in with the WWF crowd just fine.<br><br>My entire belief system has just be wrecked. <p></p><i></i>

[sunny]

for Jehovah's Witnesses was translated directly from the original texts, and is written in modern, easy to understand language.Here is an online source:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.watchtower.org/bible/">www.watchtower.org/bible/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Sepka]

You might want to try the Anchor Bible Commentary series. It's a series of commentaries on the books of the bible that examines authorship, translations, meaning, etc, from a variety of viewpoints. They make a solid effort to include all competing scholarly views, without favouring any. Any large city bookstore or religious bookstore will be able to order these for you.<br><br>I'm wondering if what you're actually interested in (since you're speaking about corruption, and the way the text may have changed over time) is what's called the "Documentary Hypothesis" of biblical authorship. It's a way of examining the probable age and authorship of various parts of the bible based on internal clues. <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc...hypothesis</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> has enough information to get you started, if this is what you're really searching for.<br><br>-Sepka the Space Weasel <p></p><i></i>

[Dreams End]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>or Jehovah's Witnesses was translated directly from the original texts,<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>We don't have any original texts. There are later copies of all the books, even the Bible, but we don't have anything like original letters from Paul or a briefcase with "Property of Luke" stamped on it or the "Moses Collection" at a local library. The texts we have passed through many hands before versions employed today by translators ever got established.<br><br> And, of course, there were conferences to decide which texts to keep and which to jettison in the first place. The council of Nicea (whence comes the "Nicene creed") was an early such council and was, in my view, based entirely on politics. There was no reason Emperors needed to be mucking about with biblical canon.<br><br>The "Jesus project" (I think that's the name) is the bane of many fundamentalists. Within that, scholars try to sort out which of the sayings of Jesus are likely to have been SAID by Jesus and which have been added on later. Remember, telling the Gospel story would not have been about preserving historical details, it would have been about conveying a message and would have been orally conveyed oftentimes.<br><br>There is a speculative "Book of Q" which may never have been a book at all but is a theoretical collection of sayings of Jesus to which the later Gospel writers may all have had access. This would be an "original text" should it ever be found. <br><br>Here's a site explaining the sources and processed used for one translation of the Old Testament. <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.ibs.org/niv/mct/3.php">www.ibs.org/niv/mct/3.php</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>excerpt about the "Masoretic text" commonly employed by translators.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The Masoretic Text has a fluid history. It had its beginnings among scholars (called sopherim in Hebrew) in pre-Christian days, but textual materials were sparse in those days in comparison with those of early Christian and later periods. Because of the loss of their nationhood and their land in the sixth centuryb.c., the Hebrews fell back on their literary sources for continuing their identity and their character as God’s people. From the time of Ezra they established certain of their “books” as authentic Scriptures and began the process of interpretation, transcription, and publication. This is not to say that there was no copying of the “books” that they held sacred before this time, but it is to say that attention to the Scriptures and to their study and publication (or copying) increased greatly. Before the advent of Christ, the translation of these “books” into Greek appeared, and Aramaic interpretations called Targums illuminated the Hebrew texts. The rise of Christianity gave impetus to the Jewish scribes (sopherim) to standardize their texts. Many variations in these texts had already appeared, as is evident from the differences between Greek, Samaritan, and Hebrew manuscripts—and even more evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[Floyd Smoots]

Either the Holy Bible is the true, inspired Word of God, or it isn't. If you believe it is, then live by it. If it isn't, then, why do you bother to bloviate about it? In the latter case, it was written down by a bunch of old, dead, lying Jews, and a few Gentile madmen.<br><br>It is a bunch of lies about a crazy personna who dared to reveal himself to these dead, stupid old Jews as God Amighty. From a certain point of view, this was nothing but an ungoldy LIE! Don't even mention the latter day mental case who dared to call himself Jesus the Christ!! He got what he so richly deserved by being nailed up on a cross and ridiculed for the next 2,000 years as the maniac he was.<br><br>I still can't figure out how a worthless LOSER like this is even thought about or mentioned in speech or print after Two Millennia! You would think we'd learn, wouldn't you? Get a clue, people!!! Don't want to buy into the "Jesus Myth"? THEN DON'T!<br><br>What makes you really look so stupid to the whole world is that you don't wan't to believe it, but you want to spend "pages and pages" in print trying to explain why you don't believe it. Just let it go, and try to explain YOUR true beliefs about "Life, the Universe, and Everything". Leave Jesus alone! We get it. He was a fool, a madman, a liar, and doomed to be executed for the evil criminal he was adjuged to be!!!<br><br>Or Maybe Not???<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Sepka]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Either the Holy Bible is the true, inspired Word of God, or it isn't. If you believe it is, then live by it. If it isn't, then, why do you bother to bloviate about it? In the latter case, it was written down by a bunch of old, dead, lying Jews, and a few Gentile madmen.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>There's plenty of room between the two extremes, though. Assume for the sake of argument that the Bible we have today is in fact the unaltered Word of God. Now imagine that I'm copying it out, and change one single word. The work as a whole is obviously no longer the true Word of God, since I've altered it. Is that change of a single word enough to turn the whole thing to lies and madness, or does it remain mostly true, with an error in it?<br><br>-Sepka the Space Weasel <p></p><i></i>

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

I see a parallel between Christianity and the CIA.<br><br>Time twists something once considered a moral necessity into exactly its opposite in secrecy.<br><br>The archetypal human moral imperative deduced from biological families, 'the strong must protect the weak,' institutionalized by the powerful in secrecy becomes instead a weapon the strong uses against the weak.<br><br>'Let Us Prey.' <p></p><i></i>

[maggrwaggr]

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.EvilBible.com/">www.EvilBible.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>a quote:<br><br> This web site is designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible.  For far too long priests and preachers have completely ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes.  The so called “God” of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy Scout.  This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children.  I have included references to the Biblical passages, so grab your Bible and follow along. <br> <p></p><i></i>

[Benway]

It's also worth looking at the Sumerian texts available on-line (you'll have to Google, sorry... "Suma creation -sitchen" may be a good start), as they are older than any known version of genesis, but are clearly related. <p></p><i></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Benway, thanks, as this is the kind of thing I'm after. Thanks also to the others that posted links; I intend to look at them all. What I'm trying to do is authenticate discussions like the one that can be found here:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/nephilim.html">www.mystae.com/restricted...hilim.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Floyd, this is not a faith issue. For me, it's literary and historic, or as much historic as can be retained over the distortion of the millenia between that time and ours.<br><br>I'm not going to get into what I feel or believe as it's not relevent to the discussion here, but it's not neccessary for you to constantly attempt force feedings of your own belief systems unto unwilling participants. <p></p><i></i>