Historical Revisionism?

[wmc1982]

I just came across this subject today and I was wondering if any of you had any thoughts/ideas/facts on it. I also found for example how some people think the accounts of the Holocaust were changed (which I have no opinion on yet).

I was first looking at how parts of quotes from the Mayflower Compact were taken out...

"We whose names are underwritten...having undertaken, a voyage to plant the first colony..."
(New School Version)

The real (original) version is...

"In the name of God, Amen.
Whose names are underwritten...having undertaken,
for the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Christian faith...,
a voyage to plant the first colony..."
(Original Version)

So God is missing and their purpose of coming to America is missing (for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith)

"If I can change your historical context. I can change the way you view the present - This is the power of historical revisionism." (unsure of source)

With all that being said, we as Christians need to be careful and pay attention to what our children are being taught in public schools.

Should we believe in Plato? Has anyone even questioned if Plato even existed? Why is it, the only book that comes under great attack if it is really correct is the Bible?

Look at some ancient works and the earliest manuscripts we have today...

Homer's Iliad - 500 years after originally written
Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars - 1000 years
Pliny's History - 750 years
Thucydides' History - 1,300 years
Herodotus' History - 1,300 years
New Testament - 25 years after written

How about the number of early manuscripts?

Homer's Iliad - 643
Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars - 10
Pliny's History - 7
Thucydides' History - 8
Herodotus' History - 8
New Testament - over 24,000 (over 5k Greek manuscripts, 19k manuscripts other than Greek)

"He who controls the past, controls the future." - George Orwell

 

[Rion]

The Bible is subject to more inspection due to what it claims (the way to salvation by God), but yes, the amount of information/copies we have should remove any logical doubt.

 

[Voegelin]

The Holocaust is a difficult subject because of who obtained the records after WWII.

The Nazi Einsatzgruppen records are beyond a doubt accurate and show conclusively there was a policy to exteminate the Jewish people. When Einstazkommados reported to Berlin they killed 12,341 Jews in this action and 9,791 in that you can be assured it was not 12,342 in the first and 9,790 in the second. The records are on the net and fascinating reading. Aside from the murders they engaged in, the Kommandos also relate what the civilians in their area thought of Jews and communists and what communists had done to people before the killer teams arrived.

Accounts from western allies are dead on right. Been to Dachua several times. Neighbor was at Buchenwald the day after it was liberated. He was a scout for Patton, a job which had a high fatality rate, but said his closest call came at the camp. Those left were so desparate for food he was almost trampled.

What happened in the east is different. Soviet propagandists such as Ilya Ehrenburg were as vicious and twisted as Nazi propagandists. Revisionists who claim the eastern camps were not factories for mass murder are flat out lying but the lies of the Russians of what they found and the lies (and murders) of the regime run by Jacob Berman in Poland after the war give the antisemitic revisionists running room.

Holocaust revisionists are small in number and rather beside the point. They recieve the publicity they do (which should be none) for political reasons. The worst revisionism of the 20th century is more sublte. It is the silence by many of the Holodomor.(which killed 7 million) and other crimes of communism. There are those who attempt to minimize the actrocities as well and some who attempt to destroy those seeking more information on what occured in the Ukraine.

An interesting case of Christian revisionism, of a sort, are changes made to The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Julia Ward Howe was a Unitarian. Her orginal lyrics were:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Most current versions read "As He Died to make men holy, let us live to make men free."

Unitarians have dropped the song entirely (athough they still claim Howe as one of their own).

More on changes to the Battle Hymn of the Republic are here:

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_howe_battle_hymn3.htm

 

[imind]

The Bible is subject to more inspection due to what it claims (the way to salvation by God), but yes, the amount of information/copies we have should remove any logical doubt.

it would remove doubt, if they were, in fact, the same. its the differences in them that cast doubt.

 

[Rion]

it would remove doubt, if they were, in fact, the same. its the differences in them that cast doubt.

My copy of the Bible lists all major textual differences between the various copies found. There's nothing that is even in the least important that is not in all texts.

 

[imind]

My copy of the Bible lists all major textual differences between the various copies found.

most conservative estimates put the amount of differences in all of the available manuscripts in the 200,000 range, with others arguing 300,000-400,000. does your copy account for all of these?

There's nothing that is even in the least important that is not in all texts.

is christ's divinity important?

j.j. wettstein examined the codex alexandrinus, now in the british library, and determined that in 1 tim. 3:16, where most later manuscripts speak of christ as "god made manifest in the flesh", this this early manuscript originally spoke, instead, of christ "who was made made manifest in the flesh". the change is very slight in greek--it is the difference between a theta and an omicron, which look very much alike (ΘΣ and Ο&#931. a later scribe had altered the original reading so that it no longer read 'who', but 'god' (made manifest in the flesh). in other words this later corrector changed changed the text in such a way as to stress christ's divinity. it is striking to realize that the same correction occurred in four of our other early manuscripts of 1timothy, all of which have had correctors change the text in the same way, so that it now explicitly calls jesus 'god'. this became the text of the vast majority of later byzantine (medieval) manuscripts--and then became the text of most of the early english translations.

our earliest and best manuscripts, however, speak of christ 'who' was made manifest in the flesh, without calling jesus, explicitly, god.

bart d. ehrman, misquoting jesus.

to summarize what wettstein had discovered...
in the early manuscripts, sacred names (nomina sacra) were abbreviated, as it is in the codex alexandrinus, where the greek word 'god' (ΘEO&#931 is abbreviated down to two letters, theta and sigma (Θ&#931, with a line drawn over the top to indicate an abbreviation. but wettstein noticed that the line over the abbreviation had been written in a different ink than the surrounding words, and the line indicating theta (&#920, as opposed to omicron (O) was rather a line from the other side of the vellum that had bled through.

in other words, what was mistaken for the greek word 'god', theta-sigma(Θ&#931, was actually the greek word 'who', omicron-sigma (O&#931.

this is also the case in other earlier manuscripts. where the word 'who' appears instead of 'god', without any corrections made to the text.

 

[Rion]

most conservative estimates put the amount of differences in all of the available manuscripts in the 200,000 range, with others arguing 300,000-400,000. does your copy account for all of these?

Major, not ALL. Huge difference. There's still a lot of * in certain parts of the Bible, especially the NT.

is christ's divinity important?

Only in question if the same problem is in Romans, Corinthians, etc.

8:9 - You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

9:5 - Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

15:27 - For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.

1:19 - For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes."

4:4 - The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

15:6 - so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3:23and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

etc. That's just from Paul's letters, not including anything John wrote, which is pretty clear.

 

[imind]

all of those passages are ambiguous, at best, and even the works from john are questionable, as the only direct reference we have to the trinity in a greek manuscript wasn't added until the sixteenth century.

the johannine comma reads...

there are three that bear witness in heaven: the father, the word, and the spirit, and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth: the spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one.

not a single greek manuscript contains anything other than...

and there are three that bear witness on earth: the spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one.

except for one, which was written at erasmus' request, again, in the sixteenth century.

it is not my intention to call into question christ's divinity. but to suggest that the bible is the innerrant word of god because we have all of these 'manuscripts' (some no larger than a credit card, mind you) is entirely mis-leading, especially considering we know they have been altered and of the many, many changes made to them in key areas.

 

[Rion]

Some are, but how is this one at all ambigious?

9:5 - Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

And this from John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

[OnTheWay]

The truth of the matter is the Rationalist cliams have been around for centuries. Yet no strong case has ever emerged for their arguments of Scirptural alteration. The vast majority of these so called "changes" relate to word order or grammar and are merely copyist's errors.

 

[imind]

Some are, but how is this one at all ambigious?


And this from John:

a textual critique finds these lines highly suspicious but, again, its not my intention to question christs divinity, but rather to point out the many differences in the manuscripts.

The truth of the matter is the Rationalist cliams have been around for centuries. Yet no strong case has ever emerged for their arguments of Scirptural alteration. The vast majority of these so called "changes" relate to word order or grammar and are merely copyist's errors.

that alterations have happened is indisputable, hence the differences in the manuscripts and, as has been already evidenced in this thread, these differences go beyond mere punctuation and grammatical anomolies.

 

[Traitor1]

As for the copies of the other texts, let's not forget that Christians have had (some still do have) no problem with burning or otherwise destroying books in the past.