DescentBB

Get ready for some new insight into the works of ancient scholars, writers and ...gasp!...the gospels:

"Thousands of previously illegible manuscripts containing work by some of the greats of classical literature are being read for the first time using technology which experts believe will unlock the secrets of the ancient world.

Among treasures already discovered by a team from Oxford University are previously unseen writings by classical giants including Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod. Invisible under ordinary light, the faded ink comes clearly into view when placed under infra-red light, using techniques developed from satellite imaging.

The Oxford documents form part of the great papyrus hoard salvaged from an ancient rubbish dump in the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus more than a century ago. The thousands of remaining documents, which will be analysed over the next decade, are expected to include works by Ovid and Aeschylus, plus a series of Christian gospels which have been lost for up to 2,000 years."

http://tinyurl.com/9ynwv

I suspect some of you will be following the out come of this research with some interest.

Oh, I posted this in E & C as religion is mentioned and we all know what happens.

Fascinating. I would love to see the sh*tstorm that would happen if new gospels were found. Would make for some interesting reading too.

Avder wrote:Fascinating. I would love to see the sh*tstorm that would happen if new gospels were found. Would make for some interesting reading too.

I doubt much. The cannon is pretty well established by now.

The canon has been established for centuries. Those letters and gospels that were written by apostles and prophets (whose authority was established either through their being in Jesus' inner circle or through miracles), tested by the community, and widely influential (and therefore widely distributed) were put in the canon, and those that didn't meet those requirements were not (even though they might be useful historical material.)

Every so often, somebody discovers a new writing from Bible times (or from hundreds of years after) that mentions Bible characters and they get it in their head that it'll be the next big thing. But, chances are, if the early church didn't take the time to preserve and copy and pass on the teaching, it's because the early church community did not consider it to be worth passing on. There are dozens to hundreds of ancient manuscripts for every passage in the New Testament, because those writings were copied and sent from church to church. It's doubtful there are any writings the church took as seriously as these that somehow got lost along the way.

There are tons and tons of other "gospels" and other writings by early church leaders that didn't make it in to the canon. There are also many writings by outsiders whose teachings were never accepted by the church at large, and that means they probably wouldn't be accepted by the church today either. Lots of people wrote about Jesus and about the early church, but very few of those writings deserve to be called "scripture". It's doubtful any newly-discovered writing will have any significant impact on the Christian community, though there are many anti-Christian "scholars" who will seize upon anything they can to discredit the Bible. Typically, such people greatly underestimate the wealth of information we have surrounding the Bible and the early church, as evidenced by the number of people who take the Gospel of Thomas seriously. (If you're curious... read a few chapters of any of the Biblical gospels, and then read the gospel of Thomas. It should be abundantly clear why nobody in the church takes it seriously.)

My own prediction is that, unless they found a copy of "Q", nothing of great significance to Christianity will come of this. (Q is the name given to a writing many people hypothesize must have existed and been used as source material for the synoptic gospels. It would be fascinating if it was found to actually exist.)

Hey, neat! New old documents often shed new light on old puzzles, even if the documents don't even directly relate to the Bible.

In 1895, there was a guy who studied papyrus scraps from Egyptian garbage dumps--reading things like grocery lists and everyday contracts. His observation was that the language of the new testament was the language of everyday life, not that of the scholarly elite. The observation revolutionized Bible translation, as scholars started to give up high-and-mighty words like "propitiation" in favor of putting things in everyday language. True story. (Fuller explanation here.)

Even if you won't get any new scripture out of it (and you won't...), old documents that relate to the Bible are even more useful. They can clarify a lot of other things--everything from the culture of the early church to the meanings of certain words. It's cool stuff.

very interesting. i'd like to see a documentary series dedicated to this.