Baha'i Rants - Latest Comments in Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

SunWALKer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:21:10 -0000

Q. Where is the Revelation of Baha'u'llah?

Ans: Manifestly in the consciousness of Baha'is and Baha'i-like souls and potentially in the challenges of becoming.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

peyamb — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:09:16 -0000

Oh THIS is really funny. So individual letters to recipients from the handwriting of the founder of the religion are insignificant. BUT, letters written on behalf of the great-grandson of the founder of the religion are consider law by the misinformed people inside the Bahai community who either run the show or have mindless followers. Which one are you?

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

frankwinters — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:49:38 -0000

What a lot of fuzzy thinking from one apparently brain washed individual. Scanning doesn't take decades. Nor should translation. "The vast majority of Bahaullah's writings ... don't contain significant teachings?" I guess that leaves "The vast majority of Bahaullah's significant works..." Is that where his teachings are? So the rest of the volumes of his works are insignificant, I suppose. But isn't that actually the vast majority of his writing? "God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions" wrote Emerson. The vast majority of what passes for the Bahai faith today supports that idea.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

NJ — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:48:43 -0000

What a lot of angst from what a lot of misinformed people. The vast majority of Baha'u'llah's writings are individual letters that don't contain significant teachings in themselves. They are for the spiritual benefit of the recipient. The vast majority of Baha'u'llah's significant works have been translated already and the ones that haven't are in the process of being translated, as fast as accuracy and faithfulness to the texts will allow.

The originals are not available due to a combination of factors: lack of resources (it takes a long time to scan or transcribe thousands of tablets), plus the need to maintain an accurate portrayal of the Faith (many texts require commentary) and the need to ensure textual accuracy (there are several manuscripts of some of the Bab's writings which would need detailed comparison to come up with an accurate copy). Just uploading everything indiscriminately is not the aim of the Baha'i World Centre.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

Frank Winters — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:51:49 -0000

The Bahai texts we have were carefully chosen to create a religion that I suspect is very different than the one that would grow out of the entirety of what Bahaullah wrote. And for the life of me I don't know if that's good or bad....

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

sonjavank — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:16:02 -0000

There is quite a lot available online.
http://reference.bahai.org/en/

in Persian, Arabic and English with an excellent search facility.

H-Bahai hosted on the Michican University system was started as an open academic resource for all to use. There are scans of originals of manuscripts. There are provisional translations and there is discussion.

http://www.h-net.org/~bahai/

In response to "intellectuallycurious"'s comments, on the front page of the Baha Reference website is a quotation from Baha'u'llah,

"Knowledge is as wings to man's life, and a ladder for his ascent."
(Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 51)

Surely that means trying to read the source/s of things where possible and not using the excuse of 'miss - interpretation' to put off a diversity of interpretation which surely must happen where there is open discourse. A diversity of interpretation is what makes life worth while I would argue. We should engage for its own sake and not dis-engage because we fear that this would be or could be seen as "disunity", whereever that means :)

Baquia, it would be great if Haifa could one day put up originals of manuscripts so more people could have access but these days this is becoming less of a bottle neck as various initiatives such as h-bahai make material available.
In my view having originals of Shoghi Effendi's typescripts would be important, given that later editions of his books have variations in them and these are in English. Now if someone could put these online ? Currently these are hidden away in Wilmette. This would be, not to criticize as later editions might be closer to the originals, but to see the changes for ourselves and hence gain more knowledge on the context. That's the point of seeing originals, in order to try and gain a better understanding. Afterall any reading by anyone is always just an (mis)interpretation.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

intellectuallycurious — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:53:35 -0000

Whatever the reason, I am certain it isn't about maintaining authority.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

fubar — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:40:59 -0000

people misinterpret existing "official/published" bahai scripture all the time, so i guess maybe it should be withdrawn? lol. maybe people should be told to forget everything they have ever read in case thinking about it might lead to "disunity" ?!?!?

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

intellectuallycurious — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:22:23 -0000

If misinterpretation occurs, then there will be discussion. I wonder which will be more problematic.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

Craig Parke — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:23:49 -0000

I would estimate that with the incredible power of communication of INTERNET TIME, everybody else in the world who is a FREE THINKER will have implemented the incredible Power of the World Age in the affairs of mankind within 100 more years under their own initiative and inner spiritual guidance right out of the "thin air" of the Cosmic Spirit.

But since the BAO has to slowly check EVERY breath in and every breath out of every card carrying Baha'i on Earth 24/7/365/1000 and additionally check everyone's personal thoughts on ANY subject on Earth (at least twice) for sanctioned orthodoxy in a hyper mental orgy of organizational OCD, I estimate it is going to take the widely mentioned 500,000 years (the planet EARTH once through the ENTIRE Zodiac) before the Baha'i Faith can open a can of beans with a sanctioned and approved can opener to feed someone anywhere on Earth. It is going to take 500,000 years before any level of the organization can actually do anything competent or useful for any human being. By then everyone else will be spread through out the Galaxy and will be informed of the spiritual teachings of other planets and other planetary civilizations and other creatures.

In Ruhi speak I will repeat this:

By _____ everyone ____ will __ ____ ______ the _______ and ____ __ ________ of the _______ _________ of ________ _______ and _______ ________ ________ and _______ ___________.

Please fill in the blanks correctly with the properly pre-approved and pre-authorized answers or you may be thrown out of my coming secret spiritual esoteric Sufi order of the Faith called "Baha'is Under the Provisions of Common Sense".

No one knows who may or may not subscribes to the radical new "secret doctrine" called "Common Sense". Sometimes it's presence is completely undetectable!

It is lightning in a bottle!

500,000 years and counting...because everyone's every single public and private thought and how they personally wipe their behind in life must be approved by a Baha'i committee somewhere. The Baha'i Committee On How Everyone Is To Think From The Cradle To The Grave and How Everyone Is To Wipe Their behind In The Proper Pre-Authorized and Pre-Approved Way.

Meanwhile, everyone have a nice weekend!

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Study up on Ruhi Book 1929 because the way things are going all of human civilization may have about six more months until we are completely broke or hyper Weimar Style inflation starts.

So it goes.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

Baquia — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:09:01 -0000

alonso, I was afraid someone would say something like that. Doesn't really surprise me, given the culture of the Baha'i community today but still, I was hoping that we had actually understood what it means to be a Baha'i. Oh well, I suppose it will take 1000 years.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

alonso — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:12:35 -0000

The reason not to make the primary Baha'i texts public could be that the responsible persons are afraid of miss interpretation. Because the texts from Baha’u'llah are not plain and logical. There is such an amount of words and structure needs to be recognized, I guess.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

intellectuallycurious — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:15:42 -0000

What reason could Possibly justify the fact that every primary source is not available, right now, to everyone who wishes to see it?

Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

Baquia — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:01:13 -0000

Steve, by "has no mention of a resurrected Jesus" I meant that the Codex Sinaiticus version of Mark does not contain the account of Jesus after the resurrection:

The two versions of Mark
Just for an instance, an example: Mark's Gospel. There are two traditions, one of which ends quite abruptly where the three women go to the tomb, find it empty, encounter the angel, and the short ending ends with them going away afraid. You don't get the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, it just ends there. So that ending is actually in the Codex, and it's one of the earliest witnesses of that shorter ending. That's a very dramatic difference between the longer ending tradition. But that's quite exceptional, and that's quite a large portion of text that's not there, and it's not as though critics haven't talked about that for a long time. It's always been a big point of dispute as to where Mark's Gospel actually ended and where the story came to an end as far as Mark is concerned.
source

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

stevemcr — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:47:39 -0000

Thanks. But the article your link references discusses the dispute over Mark 16:9-20. Codex Sinaiticus includes Mark 16:6, which references the resurrection.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

Baquia — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:34:13 -0000

Steve, take a look at this. It should explain it. If you're interested in the changes in the Bible over time, read Ehrman's books.

Re: Oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) Now Online

stevemcr — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:08:56 -0000

Not sure why the article says there are no references to the resurrection. The manuscript includes Mark 16:6:

"And he said to them,(A) "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him."