Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

In the 90's an archeologist stumbles across The Gospel of Matthew written in ancient Hebrew. At first it was thought it was simply the 'original greek version of Matt' simply written in old Hebrew, so he shelved it in a Israeli museum. He didn't even have it read. It stayed there, un-translated until last year or so. After translating it, the guy not only realized it wasn't a Heb translation of the greek, but almost certainly the original version! After reading it and studying it, I also am 100% sure it's the original version and NOT the greek I can go more deeply if you are interested but for now i'll show the biggest corrections/diffs. 1. The first shocker is it does not say Jesus was born of a virgin, it says 'A young woman shall concive'. It also says Mary wasn't a virgin her whole life because 'Joseph did not lie with her UNTIL she gave birth' 2. The 'Wise men' are called Astrologers. continued......

...cont. 3. The astrologers were not lead by a star, but by an angel. 4. John the emersing plainly says baptism means total emersing, not spinkle. 5. Jesus doesn't say that he has come to fulfill the law, but instead says he has come to obey it. 6. Instead of the famous 'If a man smites thy right cheek, offer him thy left.' He says 'He a man slaps you on your right cheek, turn your left and walk away, kept he strike your left'. 7. This is a biggy, mainly because it destroys the entire catholic church. In the Greek, after Peter pronounces jesus as messiah, jesus seems to make him the leader of the church as wall as giving him the power to forgive sins and either sentence one to hell or heaven it says 'You are peter, and what you have said will be the rock that the church will be built on.' meaning, proclaiming jesus is the messiah is the rock of the church, not Peter. When jesus says peter has the ability to lock or unlock heaven to people, this one adds 'by spreading the word of god'.

8. The Greek jesus seems to say getting a divorce for any reason is a sin, the heb Jesus says 'You have heard you must give your wife a bill of divorce but I say, he you leave your wife without a bill oh divorce, anyone the man is with he commits adultry and any man the woman marry commit adultery' He wasn't against divorce, he just says to divorce before remarrying or else it's adultery. 9. The Greek Jesus seems to say that you should never swear, but the hebrew jesus says 'you shall not swear by my name falsely, but I say swear not falsely in an matter' 10. The greek jesus seems to say you should not go an eye for an eye, but the Heb jesus says 'You have head an eye for an eye, but you have turned justice into revenge. I say do not repay evil for evil' The term eye for an eye isn't literal, it simply means to be fair in judgement. i.e don't give a murderer a day in jail and give a petty thief the death penalty. Jesus didn't do away with EFAE.

11. This one fixed the biggest contradiction in Matt. The Greek jesus seems to say that 'The pharesees sit in the seat of moses, so do what the say and not what they do.'. This makes no sense since jesus spends the entire book condemning they, but here he says to obey them. This is fixed in the Heb 'The pharisees sit in the seat of moses, so do what HE says and not what They do'. Meaning you should do what moses says and not them. That makes sense. Anyway, there are a lot more, he ya want I'll continue, but he not I won't

I'm interested in the story itself. Where did you hear about this and do you have links to any reputable sites that can verify it?

Ya I read it. Not enough boobs.

Please continue long pig

Bibical history has anyone here studied it???????????????????????

Do you have a link, Long Pig?

Looks like more Dead Sea Scrolls type of malarkey , those differ by about 50% from what is taken as canon biblical text now.

Originally posted by Robtard
Do you have a link, Long Pig?

Looks like more Dead Sea Scrolls type of malarkey , those differ by about 50% from what is taken as canon biblical text now.

I wouldn't necessarily rule any such thing out as "malarkey."

Originally posted by The Rover
I wouldn't necessarily rule any such thing out as "malarkey."

Not the way I meant, I fully believe that the Bible has changed much through the years as it's re-written over and over and over by man, who is faulty by nature.

Originally posted by Robtard
Not the way I meant, I fully believe that the Bible has changed much through the years as it's re-written over and over and over by man, who is faulty by nature.

Reading your comment again, I can see that I misinterpreted the intent - sorry!

That's all fairly inconclusive and controversial...as is the fact (not mentioned by the OP) that the "manuscript" he's referring to is a mediaeval one, and that most scholars nevertheless believe it to be a translation (although perhaps of a separate tradition).

Originally posted by The Rover
Reading your comment again, I can see that I misinterpreted the intent - sorry!

That's all fairly inconclusive and controversial...as is the fact (not mentioned by the OP) that the "manuscript" he's referring to is a mediaeval one, and that most scholars nevertheless believe it to be a translation (although perhaps of a separate tradition).

No worries, honest mistake.

Inconclusive? I'd say it isn't, simply on the fact that man is re-writing biblical scripture and not God, so it's open to human error and frailties such as arrogance, envy and hatred.

We don't have to go back thousands of years, compare a KJV with the newer NIV, NASB, NLT, CVC etc., they differ, sometimes only slighty, but I ask, if the bible is God's spoken word, why should it change even a little?

Now compound those little changes by thousands of years.

Originally posted by Robtard
No worries, honest mistake.

Inconclusive? I'd say it isn't, simply on the fact that man is re-writing biblical scripture and not God, so it's open to human error and frailties such as arrogance, envy and hatred.

We don't have to go back thousands of years, compare a KJV with the newer NIV, NASB, NLT, CVC etc., they differ, sometimes only slighty, but I ask, if the bible is God's spoken word, why should it change even a little?

Now compound those little changes by thousands of years.

When I said it was "inconclusive," I wasn't meaning to imply that there hasn't been change - but I would say, as you seem to, that it is primarily linguistic change, and that this has effected the Biblical "canon" (at least) very little, at least in terms of substantial change in meaning.

As it stands, most Biblical translations - excluding textual variants/anomalies such as the Dead Sea Scrolls - are fairly literal adaptations of their predecessors. Of course, scribal (i.e., human) error does occur, but it occurs everywhere and shouldn't result in overwhelming damnation for any text.

I suppose a more enlightened and religious person would say that the linguistic change/translation process is key to getting the message across, and any changes - which you note are slight, and which very often don't alter the meaning - are easy enough to deal with?

The word of God shouldn't have any change, even minor, this is just me talking. A mild change can also change the meaning, mild changes over and over and over will likely change the meaning.

The DSS aren't an anomaly, they're older religious text and they're a direct indication of just how faulty man is in re-writing scripture. Around 50% of the DSS vary from inconsistencies to outright different meanings with more modern translations.

Those "slight changes" can and do alter the meaning though. Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13(the homo one people always bring up) is an example of changes that can change drastically from the original Hebrew.

Also of note, the Bible wasn't written when Jesus or his prophets were alive. So there's the probably errors of someone saying something; it being told and re-told and then written down between 50 and 90 years later. If I told you a 20 word phrase and had you tell it to another so on and so forth and then the 50th person hearing it had to write it down, the text would vary greatly from my spoken words, just human error.

Originally posted by Robtard
The word of God shouldn't have any change, even minor, this is just me talking. A mild change can also change the meaning, mild changes over and over and over will likely change the meaning.

The DSS aren't an anomaly, they're older religious text and they're a direct indication of just how faulty man is in re-writing scripture. Around 50% of the DSS vary from inconsistencies to outright different meanings with more modern translations.

Those "slight changes" can and do alter the meaning though. Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13(the homo one people always bring up) is an example of changes that can change drastically from the original Hebrew.

Also of note, the Bible wasn't written when Jesus or his prophets were alive. So there's the probably errors of someone saying something; it being told and re-told and then written down between 50 and 90 years later. If I told you a 20 word phrase and had you tell it to another so on and so forth and then the 50th person hearing it had to write it down, the text would vary greatly from my spoken words, just human error.

But it's not a huge change of substantive meaning: It's minor linguistic change - which is a function of human "nature," if you will - which allows for the text to be better understood by a given people.

That there was a certain degree of fluidity about the way the texts were composed seems to be true...but to what degree is very uncertain, and all of their interrelations aren't fully understood...

And what do you mean when you bring up Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13? The ambiguities (in whether they prohibit male and female homosexuality or simply male homosexuality) seems to be in the Hebrew text itself...

There are a lot of problems with the New Testament...lol.

Originally posted by The Rover
But it's not a huge change of substantive meaning: It's minor linguistic change - which is a function of human "nature," if you will - which allows for the text to be better understood by a given people.

That there was a certain degree of fluidity about the way the texts were composed seems to be true...but to what degree is very uncertain, and all of their interrelations aren't fully understood...

And what do you mean when you bring up Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13? The ambiguities (in whether they prohibit male and female homosexuality or simply male homosexuality) seems to be in the Hebrew text itself...

There are a lot of problems with the New Testament...lol.

Human nature also allows for errors. Even if they're only "minor", as noted, what happens when minor errors are compounded century after century? Little change here, a little change there etc.

If something around 50% is different, that should raise a red flag.

Female and/or male, the exact acts that are a sin, the acts performed where etc. There's a lot of difference, depending on translation. Those differences can greatly change the meaning, which should matter, considering the penalty is noted as "death."

THAT we can agree on.

That's why the Orthodox Jewish people read from the ORIGINAL..Matthew sadly, came after

there was no freedom of the press, back then

Originally posted by The Rover
But it's not a huge change of substantive meaning: It's minor linguistic change

According to what? Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, do not believe that Jesus died on a cross, purely because their version of the translation differs from the other 99% of Christian sects out there. That's resulted in the JW's being one of the few sects to not have a cross involved anywhere in their religion. They also believe that the Jesus was not god but rather his son, and the whole thing about the trinity is considered to be false.

All of these discrepancies are due to differing translations of the same original text. So I think the changes are pretty huge.

Originally posted by long pig
In the 90's an archeologist stumbles across The Gospel of Matthew written in ancient Hebrew. At first it was thought it was simply the 'original greek version of Matt' simply written in old Hebrew, so he shelved it in a Israeli museum. He didn't even have it read. It stayed there, un-translated until last year or so. After translating it, the guy not only realized it wasn't a Heb translation of the greek, but almost certainly the original version! After reading it and studying it, I also am 100% sure it's the original version and NOT the greek I can go more deeply if you are interested but for now i'll show the biggest corrections/diffs. 1. The first shocker is it does not say Jesus was born of a virgin, it says 'A young woman shall concive'. It also says Mary wasn't a virgin her whole life because 'Joseph did not lie with her UNTIL she gave birth' 2. The 'Wise men' are called Astrologers. continued......

Just to be clear: Our Bible doesn't say that Mary was a virgin her whole life either: Jesus had brothers and sisters.

Robtard's point is a good one, and he's focusing on the written Bible more so than prior to it, where most of the changes likely occurred. Think of it like this: we've all played some variation on "telephone" where a sentence changes drastically over about a dozen tellings in the same room. Now compound that by decades of retellings of the Jesus myth before anything was written down, all while the orators of the stories were surrounded by and aware of literally dozens (hundreds?) of other religious stories and savior myths, intermingling with one another in the cultural zeitgeist.

Frankly, thinking that the Bible didn't change demonstrably from what actually happened in lunacy, imo.

Also, Mary and Joseph were married, no? Does anyone who thinks it through actually think she was a virgin? I'm not sure how that's a shocker to all but the stridently religious.

they were engaged to be married when she was found pregnant.

Ah. It's been a while. Thanks for the clarification.

I forgot about this thread. I can't necessarily post a link, but just look up Shem Tov's hebrew matthew. There is an awesome study on it by nehemiah gordon called The Greek Jesus vs The Hebrew Yeshua. He's a Karite Jew. As for the virgin thing, the old test originally doesn't say virgin, but instead says Young Woman. Which honestly is the same seeing she obviously didn't have sex before being married.

See, Digi, that's why this hebrew version is so important. The Greek was indee written decades after Jesus' death, which rightfully bugs critics. But it's very possible that the hebrew version was written way earlier. The bible itself says it was written down three years later. The original was written in Hebrew. As for this one, it's clearly not as currupted as the Greek. Hence all the corrections in logic and such.

Here's more: 1. This one is HUGE because it destroys the basis of a priest absolving sins. Instead of saying "Whatever you have bound on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven" it says "Whatever OATH you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever OATH you loosen on earth shall be loosed in heaven". 2. Instead of saying Jesus was hung on a cross it says he was on a "stick" or "pole". 3. Instead of saying Jesus was a carpenter, he is called a "smith". Tradition and Josephus say he was a tin smith. 4. This one clears up a lot: Instead of saying "From the days until John until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force" it says "From the days of john until now the kingdom of heaven has been oppressed and fools try to tear it apart". Big diff. 5. Instead of saying "All the prophets prophecied until John" Which has been taken to mean John was the last prophet "All the prophets have prophecied ABOUT John".

The whole contraversy regarding jesus being hung on a cross shouldn't be a big deal. Not once in the Greek does the word Cross appear. It always says tree or stick.

Originally posted by truejedi
Just to be clear: Our Bible doesn't say that Mary was a virgin her whole life either: Jesus had brothers and sisters. True, but it doesn't say she wasn't either. Catholics believe they were the children of Joseph from a previous marriige. This one clears it up totally.

Jesus just entered my books of awesome - mainly with that comment about eye for an eye being revenge and not justice! Preach it, Jesus!!! You da man!!

Well....that's not what he said. heh. An "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" isn't revenge, it's justice. It's a figure of speech meaning the punishment should fit the crime. It's not literal. The "Eye" referres to a major crime and the "tooth" part means a minor crime. Basically, don't punish someone who commited a minor crime like they commited a major crime and visa versa. What he said to the Pharasee is that they turned that law into revenge. Jesus' whole beef with them was thier oral torah, what we now call the talmud. I know the talmud....and it's evil.