

The Dead Sea scrolls

Voice of reason

A message for Jews and Christians

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patrick veale

it has long been known that the biblical texts were edited and re-edited, and that the four gospels were written from very different perspectives. i think it is a waste of time to argue about every little word or sentence. literal interpretations of the texts are just nonsense. the old and new testaments are a powerful source of spiritual inspiration for anyone in the world that takes time to read them. as for the scholars, let them have their debates, discussions and research but without seeking one-upmanship or using slight of hand or putting a spin on things. there will never come a day when such discussions can be set aside.


To a large extent, religious concerns over the authenticity of a text are based on an assumption that the texts themselves are the ultimate guarantor of authority. However, traditional Christians never believed in "sola Scriptura": the Church gives the Bible its authority, not vice-versa. So they don't need to worry that there were variant texts, since all they need to know is that Church singled out the Septuagint text as the authoritative version.

Indeed, it was not news to the Church Fathers that there were textual variants. St Matthew's Gospel, for example, in a few places cites the Old Testament in a version that was clearly not the Septuagint. It was traditionally believed that St Matthew composed his Gospel originally in Hebrew or Aramaic, only later translating it into Greek, so this would fit in with the implication of the Scrolls, that Hebrew versions of the Scriptures had already diverged from the Greek version by the time of Christ.

I'd be interested to find out from this book whether the similarities between the Masoretic text and the Scrolls are among those passages that the Fathers accused the Jews of tampering with.


A lot of the dead sea scrolls were written down around 200 B.C., but some of them have been confirmed to being written down 200 A.D. too so it is possible that some people did rewrite specific passages to continue their religious traditions. Why weren't these scrolls all from 200 B.C.?

It is like our world today. Look at how many translations there are, figure out what denomination made them, and any person can see that the denomination changed a lot of the text to support their religious tradition. The NIV has a long list of changes that not even the worst linguistic could err at, and supposedly a lot of people hold this to be the most accurate translation. I do believe that the Septuagint is an accurate translation, but we still have to watch out for the other translations made by small factions that were purposely trying to change their scripture.


Here's the voice of reason, Jews and Christians (and Muslims, etc): Give up religion permanently, this is the 21st Century. Mans progress and personal morality come from philosophy not theology. Superstition only undermines the security of the innocent. Think for yourself.


"Many believers in revealed religion" are wrong. It's man made, it's that simple. That doesn't mean the language is devoid of worth, just devoid of divinity.



Pride undermines the security of the innocent.

Do you think the motivation for Stalin to kill millions of people was because of religion? I can blame all those deaths on atheism, but even I know atheism was usually not the cause, nor is religion the cause usually in genocides, it was pride and fear which is the number one cause of genocides and security risks for the innocent.

Eulogio B.


Probably you think your comment is validated by our times, but it's not: You could change "21st century" for, say, "18th France", "the 60s" or a truly big collection of other ages and your commentary would be just as "timely". I think a much more 21st-Century-approach would be to ask profound questions about why the people who think those texts are important think they are (especially in a forum like this), and not to preach your point of view pointing at others as out-dated. By the way, why do you think superstition equals religion? On which historical ocassions theology-free morality has been decisive for man progress? Just questions for a debate.


If there is no ur-text in ancient Hebrew, then how could one explain the coincidence of the "Bible Code"? which even managed to include the surname of the man who "decoded" it, Dr. Eri Rips?



Religion requires belief in supernatural forces according to my dictionary. Superstition is specifically an irrational belief in such supernatural forces. Supernatural is defined as anything for which there is no evidence or rational explanation. It isn't necessary to go further than the dictionary to equate religion and superstition unless you accept, philosophically, that ignorance is bliss for those who are lucky enough not to own a dictionary or understand the concept of proof.

Curate's Egg

The Bible is a book written by men, the unconditional and literal acceptance of its contents has never been a requirement of the faith, as St Augustine would have asserted. Would have been a good thing if some people (primarily in the US) remembered this fact.



I think your preachy and aggressive comment calling others stupid for their faith (without providing reasons why) was unwarranted. I am sure you made ten people cling more strongly to their faith with that, and make ten more people believe that irreligious can be annoyingly pushy as the Jehovah's witnesses or the Mormons - which is what I found out a long time ago.


Blimey, I upset a few there. Let me assure all I am a very peaceful chap who does not go out of his way to offend, I'm just doing my democratic duty and making my opinions heard. It might pay for us all to continue this debate within our own communities. My comment was meant to redress the unobjective journalistic treatment of the subject matter in the article.
Some rebuttals, if I may (though I suspect the comments page is not supposed to be for debates):
Extranero/: I'm no totalitarian. Perhaps if Stalin had better grounding in Philosophy, his behaviour might have been less extreme.
Ignacio/: "On which historical ocassions theology-free morality has been decisive for man progress?". That would be a good subject for a debate, thank you. Two very significant occasions leap immediately to mind - 1. Darwins personal struggle with his wife's Christian faith when deciding whether or not to publish scientific facts in The Origin of Species. 2. The Allied stand against the AXIS powers in WW2.
Curates Egg/: "Belief is personal. Each man to his own". Except in religion, where each man must hold another mans belief?

Kim 77: "I think your preachy and aggressive comment calling others stupid for their faith (without providing reasons why)" I don't believe I did, and more, I don't believe anyone is stupid simply because they lack a scientific logical framework; in most cases they just need an open mind, experience and/or education.

Thank you to those that recommended, I wish you peace too.


I was not calling you Stalin, I was just using him as an example that even people without religion do bad things and are irrational.

The problems of the entire world are all caused by one thing; pride. This includes extreme nationalism, pride in race i.e. superiority, pride in beliefs, etc.

That is the common enemy of all people, whether someone does not believe in anything, or someone believes in a faith.

Eulogio B.


First of all, thank you for taking time to respond. I agree with you with the Darwin point and is a really good example. With WWII I´m not completely sure the Allied confronted the Axis with a religion-free sense, probably there was quite a degree of it on the majority of combatans at different levels.


So we enter on one of the oldest (or the oldest?) of debates: The fact that this highly improbable world exists as it exists (an evidence by itself) isn´t a sign that an "architect" (the base of religion) is out there? On the other side of the coin, and taking in account Popper argument: A million observations can´t prove an hypotesis definitively (famously, "all swans are white"), but a single observation can prove it completely wrong, we´re all having this debate because so far nobody has found the observation that proves that religion is dead wrong. My point in here is that "superstition" is, when looking at it closely, much more a concise term (I can prove, by a single observation, that dancing barefoot doesn´t produce rain, so the ones who believe it are definitely superstitious) than religion (whose basis so far hasn´t been proved wrong).

Cheers! Nice talk...



You do indeed misunderstand the concept of proof. Geza Vermes has made observations of the evidence that are inconsistent with the 'they came from god' theory of biblical texts. They are consistent with the 'the bible was made up by men' theory though.

Single observations prove nothing - try changing the steps of your rain dance and see how you go. Rational theories make predictions that can be tested repeatedly and as such, the best you can get is, 'not proven false yet despite trying really hard'. This is completely different to the irrational position of every known God theory: 'not proven false yet because there are no predictions made that can be tested in practice'.

Believing that god wrote the bible and that therefore we should allow our morality to be guided by it is just as superstitious as believing in rain dances - but at least we can test the rain dance theory. Believing that religious texts were written by men with occluded motives from a different age and that consequently our security is threatened because of majority denial, is rational, testable and tested with every new holy car bomb.

Curate's Egg


You argue that the Bible is written by men, not the words of God falling down from the sky.

That is true, or at least most likely to be true.

That however does not render religions useless. Countless religious authorities from centuries and centuries ago have placed the Bible on a less revered plane than some religious extremists do now.

I believe the comment made by 'jgress' illustrates this point nicely. As he puts, 'traditional Christians never believed in sola scriptura'.


'Blimey, I upset a few there'? You think? Jeez, grow some sense of propriety - your attack on the religious was totally uncalled for. Religions may not be 100% scientific, but why do humans even have to think in a scientific, empirical frame of mind all the time?

If you really want to get scientific and not believe in anything without material proof, don't talk about love from this point on.


Curate's Egg;

I'm not arguing that religion has no utility. Car bombs certainly do have utility - for those that don't love their neighbors much at least. I'm guessing that you think we should keep one and not the other. So what's utility got to do with it?

Is it just Aucklander who isn't allowed to talk about love or should we do away with Plato too?


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