Oldest Known Fragment of the New Testament Found

It dates from 90 AD, and was used to make a paper mache burial mask in Egypt.

Lots more at the link. Suffice it to say that as of right now, we don't know how much of the text there is, nor what it says. The text is supposed to be published later this year, but was originally scheduled to be published a couple of years ago, and was held up for some unknown reason. Nor do we know how it compares to the accepted version of Mark that we have.

In related news, they're trying an advanced imaging technology to read the scrolls uncovered at Herculaneum. I should dig around for that article, which appeared today - somewhere.

That would be this http://m.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30888767

The really interesting part is that there are large sections of the city which have yet to be excavated that could yield many more scrolls.

They might even uncover the earliest known copy of "Strangers from the Sky", in Latin.

Wow! 90AD is very close to the date Mark is believed to have been written. Mark is also thought to be the first gospel, so having the earliest possible text of it will give us an indication of how much "drift" there was in early Christian writings.

*Jesus and Mary Magdalene French kiss while explosions go off in the background*

Jesus- I'm totally gonna put a baby in your belly up through your pussy without magic, because there's nothing dirty or wrong about that at all.

Mary- Ohhh, Jesus Christ!

Peter- But...I'M in love with you, Jesus!

Jesus- Hey, it's cool bruh, even though I don't swing that way, gay is totally okay. I've got a cousin you can date.

Assuming its ever published.

There's bound to be a lot. I can barely understand the earliest texts of Mark.

And on ðam dagum, come se Hælend fram Nazareth Galilee, and wæs gefullod on Iordane fram Iohanne. And sona of ðam wætere, he geseah opene heofonas, and Haligne Gast swa culfran astigende, and on him wunigende. And ðam wæs stefn of heofenum geworden, Ðu eart min gelufoda suna, on ðe ic gelicode.

Our oldest sources of Mark are young, but they aren't as ridiculously young as that. Kindergarten!

Who even cares? The bible is a novel, a work of fuckin' fiction. Who even cares how old it is, how young it is, or who found a piece of it?

Are you not even interested from the archaeology anthropology aspect? This is the ancient Egyptian equivalent to bird cage liner. Imagine 2,000 years from now someone discovering a treatise on vaping (whatever the hell that is) while digging up an ancient parrot grave?

Because it's a piece of history and as Indy would say, "it belongs in a musuem."

A lot of it is not actually fiction, since much of it is based on real events and real conversations. You could think of it more like accounts of Obama in the mainstream press, describing his many miraculous achievements. Those are all fiction, but there was a President named Obama who did travel and meet world leaders, and who did say a whole lot of things that got recorded. It's just the parts about healing the planet, stopping the oceans, bringing world peace, and curing millions of sick people that are bullshit.

Whoa, slow the train down! Are you saying that this old fragment of a manuscript that I found in the remains of an old tree-fort in the woods is fiction?
This is game changer of biblical proportions to say the least!

The context of the times could prove interesting.

That would put it nicely between two of the major Jewish rebellions.

If Old English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me.

I can picture that! I've seen a couple of roofers in my neighborhood named Jesus drinking it! But they weren't smoking menthols.

This is a very interesting find. Hopefully the first of many!

If anything in this discovery, or future ones like it, outright contradicts Christian dogma, I guess they'll have to have The Council of Nicea II to edit, if not delete, what they don't like in it.

Proof?

Well, there's the stunning lack of historical evidence for some really big events that it claims happened.

Not to mention, as we've discussed before, there was no global flood.

Oh, and while we're at it, standard practice for the Romans was to let crucified people rot off the cross, not pull them down and stick them in a tomb. So, if Jesus lived, and was crucified, it would have been almost impossible for his family to have gotten back his body for burial. Not to mention, given that the dead are supposed to have walked the streets after the Big J got nailed up, you'd think we'd have found records of that. For more fun-filled facts on why you can't trust the Bible to be historically accurate, I suggest you check out this site.

None of that shit is anything to live your life by.

Exactly. It's bullshit. It's all bullshit. Wasn't any fuckin' psychokinetic zombie Jew walkin' about, ever.

But there was a Jew named Jesus walking around, possibly one of the heirs to the old throne, or at least very highly ranked based on places his brother was allowed to go in the temple. There's also some thoughts that he wasn't a 'carpenter', he worked in 'construction' for his father, kind of like being Donald Trump Jr, except the business was designing and building temples and public buildings.

This is pretty cool, but I'd like archeologists to find some ancient scroll that explains who the fuck Melchizedek was.

Holy fuck, I had to google that. Obscure reference gets you a like, not that you care.

I figured Melchizedek skated for Vancouver or Montreal.

He's like the biblical version of Tom Bombadil.

Actually, there's evidence that 'carpenter' was a colloquialism for a Rabbi who was especially skilled in interpreting the Torah.

Some claim that the stories of Jesus are merely a reinterpretation of a Jewish figure who lived about 100 years before Jesus is said to have been born.

Its an interesting theory.

As the saying goes:

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

And there is more evidence for events of the Bible than for the existence of the Oort Cloud.

Nothing can substitute for the original Klingon:

http://www.kli.org/stuff/projects.html#KBTP