Scholars Found a Bible with a Different ‘10 Commandments’: The story of the Shapira fragments
Jonathan Poletti is at it again: pushing the story that there are "alternative" Bibles or Bible fragments. He is right. There are, but which ones are canonical is the issue
His latest story below shows that he is no Bible student. He refers to fragments of a scroll that are probably ancient but which have a "different" version of the Ten Comandments (known to Anglicans as the "ten suggestions").
He seems to be unaware that there are actually three different versions of the commandments in the Torah. Ironically the version usually quoted -- in Exodus 20 -- appears to be a priestly interpolation. Though the version in Deuteronomy 5 is similar.
One wonders if Poletti has ever read Exodus 34. It reads quite similarly to the Shapira fragments and no-one has challenged its originality. The Shapira fragments could be an earlier reading of Exodus 34 and therefore need disturb no-one. I offer a more extensive discussion of the various commandment sets here
In1883, another version of the Bible’s book of Deuteronomy surfaced. A Jerusalem antiquities dealer named Moses Shapira found it, and brought it to London
This was quite an extraordinary item, and in presenting it to the British Museum he was open to getting a million pounds.
Months later, he would be broke, infamous, and dead.
In London, Shapira set up viewings of the manuscript.
A viewing on July 26, 1883, before a group of scholars, archaeologists, and journalists, is recalled in the memoir of Walter Besant, a novelist and historian. He writes of Shapira:
“He had with him, he said, a document which would simply make students of the Bible and Hebrew scholars reconsider their ways; it would throw a flood of light upon the Pentateuch; and so on. The man was a good actor; he was a man of handsome presence, tall, with fair hair and blue eyes; not the least like an ordinary Polish Jew, and with an air of modest honesty which carried one away.”
How had Shapira acquired this manuscript?
He told a strange tale. A Bedouin man had found it in a cave on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, among mummies. It was then stolen from him by another man, who’d sold it to Shapira, then disappeared.
A strange story—and a strange manuscript, these leather fragments on whose blackened surface they could just barely see letters in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.
There was a Moses story, but it was all different.
There were the Ten Commandments, but they were different too. One could only compare, in bewilderment, the differences between the ‘canonical’ Deuteronomy and this ‘Shapira Deuteronomy’.
The canonical Deuteronomy has: “You shall not murder.”
The Shapira scroll had: “You shall not slay the soul of your brother. I am Elohim, your god.”
The canonical Deuteronomy has: “You shall not steal.
The Shapira scroll had: “You shall not steal the wealth of your brother. I am Elohim, your god.”
And the Shapira scroll had, not Ten Commandments, but eleven. There was a ‘new’ one.
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart. I am Elohim, your god.”
While evaluating the Shapira fragments for purchase, the British Museum put them on exhibit.
It was a sensation. Crowds flocked to see this ‘different’ Deuteronomy.
The poet Robert Browning wrote to a friend: “You know about Mr Shapira’s pieces of leather with portions of Deuteronomy thereon?”
Browning thought they were real. “I hope!”
Many scholars were dismissive. The very idea of a manuscript surviving in Palestine was just unthinkable. Archibald H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, published a brief dismissal:
“It is really demanding too much of Western credulity to ask us to believe that in a damp climate like that of Palestine any sheepskins could have lasted for nearly 3,000 years…”
Plus, the idea of another Bible was shocking—for scholars as much as Christian laity. As the scholar Frederic G. Kenyon reflects in 1897:
“In these strips of leather there was enough to cast doubt upon the whole of the received text of the Old Testament and to discredit the whole science of textual criticism.”
https://medium.com/belover/scholars-found-a-bible-with-a-different-10-commandments-1490aa20049c
************************************************Coors Shows Bud Light How It's Done with New Commercial, Brings in 'Yellowstone' Star to Help
I've always thought Coors is way better anyway -- JR
Anheuser-Busch might quickly become a case study in marketing courses in regard to how to both alienate a well-established client base and tank profits in record-breaking time.
The household American beer company has lost billions in the weeks following its sickening endorsement of the mentally and spiritually deranged transgender social media “influencer,” Dylan Mulvaney.
Mulvaney’s stomach-turning caricature was featured on a special release of Bud Light cans in a debauched attempt to celebrate Mulvaney’s first 365 days living as a “woman” back in early April.
The majority of beer-drinking Americans have reacted to the Anheuser-Busch campaign with such disgust that even Coors has now released an ad capitalizing on the colossal failure.
According to OutKick, “The beer company debuted a brand new commercial Wednesday featuring ‘Yellowstone’ star Cole Hauser — otherwise known as Rip Wheeler — as they celebrate 150 years on this earth.”
Hauser can be heard narrating the ad itself, which starkly contrasted itself from the Mulvaney ad in regard to masculinity.
Anheuser-Busch’s ad flaunted Bud Light as the favorite beer of a mentally ill man afflicted with gender dysphoria wearing a dress and woman’s makeup.
The Coors ad associated its beer with traditionally masculine archetypes throughout the history of the 150-year-old product.
The best part of the Coors ad stated, “Because when you’re a favorite beer of rockstars, smugglers, cowboys and presidents, you don’t compromise. That’s our legacy. What do you want to go down in history for?”
The Coors ad then ended with a bottle of Coors Banquet with the words, “Start Your Legacy,” prominently displayed next to the bottle.
This marketing is brilliant as it not only glorifies the masculinity of the past, but it also pours salt in the gaping wound of the once great Anheuser-Busch, which has declared war on it.
“What do you want to go down in history for?” is a very obvious jab at Anheuser-Busch, which will most certainly go down in history as being the first beer company to destroy its image and legacy in a sad attempt to virtue signal in support of the transgender movement.
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Biden slammed for calling white supremacy ‘most dangerous terrorist threat’ during Howard graduation speech
President Biden was slammed by critics Saturday after denouncing white supremacy as the “most dangerous terrorist threat” to the nation during a graduation address to students at Howard University
“Stand up against the poison. White supremacy … is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland,” Biden declared to a heavy round of applause.
“And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU. I say this wherever I go.”
Biden said that the US is still embroiled in its long battle against racism, but said that the graduating class of 2023 would carry out the work to “redeem the soul of this nation.”
Conservative pundits quickly took to Twitter to push back against Biden’s statement, with some accusing him of pandering as a political tactic.
“The Democratic Party spent most of the 19th Century and much of the 20th using overt racism to win elections. They are doing again in the 21st century. The racism just looks a lot different than the 19th century version,” wrote Jon Miltimore, editor of the Foundation for Economic Education.
“No you’re saying it because you’re a pathological liar propped up by the media to help fuel dangerous racial division,” snapped American Greatness journalist Julie Kelly.
RNC Research’s Jake Schneider lambasted Biden as a “divider-in-chief.”
Biden also boasted that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was “brighter” than her colleagues on the high court.
“With your voices and votes, I was able to fulfill my commitment to put the first black woman on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. And by the way, she is brighter than the rest. She is one bright woman,” he said to applause from students at the historically black university. “Because of you. You turned up. You showed up when the votes counted.”
Biden nominated Jackson to the high court in February 2022 — fulfilling a controversial promise to only consider black women for the job. Her confirmation was marred by accusations that she treated child porn and “baby sex torture” cases too leniently.
Despite being the allegedly most intelligent Supreme Court justice, Jackson was famously unable to define the word “woman” when asked by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) during Jackson’s confirmation hearing.
“I’m not a biologist,” she protested at the time.
Biden’s commencement remarks offered a glimpse of the looming 2024 presidential campaign — which polls indicate could offer the country a rematch of his 2020 fight with former President Trump.
The commander in chief regaled graduating students with his first-term accomplishments and implored them to stay active and politically engaged.
“We took the most significant law on gun violence in 30 years. I got the assault weapons ban passed 30 years ago, and we’re going to pass it again,” Biden said.
“I’m keeping my promise that no one should be in jail for using or possessing marijuana. Their records should be expunged,” he added to cheers.
The blue meat continued. Biden said his administration would fight “for transgender children to be free” and “for affordable health care and housing.”
He also warned about Republicans and the “sinister” forces holding back progress.
“Hate never goes away,” he declared. “It hides under the rocks, and when it’s given oxygen, it comes out from under that rock.”
“It is still a battle for a soul of a nation,” the president added, echoing his 2020 campaign theme. “Silence is complicity.”
The campaign accomplishments come as Biden tries to shore up support among black voters, who are critical to his reelection chances.
An ABC News / Washington Post poll this week found that Biden’s approval ratings with black people stood at just 52% — down from 82% at the time he took office. A full 27% of black voters said they would definitely or probably vote for Trump in 2024 — a significant potential improvement from the 12% of black voters he netted in 2020.
Trump went unnamed in Biden’s remarks, though he alluded to the then-president’s comments after the deadly neo-Nazi riots in Charlottesville in 2017, in which he said there were good people “on both sides.”
He also brought up the deadly Jan 6 Capitol riot after his election as president.
“A violent insurrection took place, a dagger at the throat of democracy. For the first time in our history an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power in this country. They failed. Democracy held. Hope prevailed,” Biden said.
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In Zeal for Transgenderism, Washington State Muscles Parents Out, Gets Control of Their Kids
Once upon a time, it was a tragedy to become an orphan. Now, at least in two deep blue states, it’s in.
In Washington state, both the House and Senate have passed a bill that would allow the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, not the parents, to be the contacts if a child who runs away is trying to get an abortion or transgender medical procedures. The bill is currently on Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk.
In California, a bill that would let 12-year-olds leave home if a mental health professional OKs it, no parental permission required, has passed in the state Assembly and is now winding its way through the state Senate.
Is this the future?
To be clear, both states currently have legal pathways to help children who have abusive parents. These bills aren’t about situations where it is genuinely dangerous for a child to stay with his parents. As Washington state Rep. Cyndy Jacobsen, a Republican, noted in a floor speech earlier this month, “We have procedures for [Department of Children, Youth, and Families] if children are abused or neglected or their parents kick them out.”
No, what’s going on here isn’t about protecting kids. It’s about making sure that any child who wants an abortion or transgender medical procedures isn’t prevented by their parents.
Leftists’ New Dream
For today’s leftists, the importance of gender ideology and abortion on demand apparently trumps the value of parents. As activist Kaley Triller tweets about the Washington bill, “SB 5599 basically gives the state the right to kidnap your kid if you don’t play along with the gender cult.”
Is this really where blue states want to go? Is there no longer bipartisan consensus that parents, not bureaucrats, should be in charge of children?
How quickly the leftist imagination has moved.
Back in 2012, the Obama campaign set off a firestorm with its “Life of Julia” slideshow, which showed a woman depending on government welfare from childhood to retirement.
“Julia’s entire life is defined by her interactions with the state. Government is everywhere and each step of her life is tied to a government program,” wrote former Education Secretary William Bennett for CNN.
“Notably absent in her story is any relationship with a husband, family, church or community, except a ‘community’ garden where she works post-retirement. Instead, the state has taken their place and is her primary relationship.”
But in a quaint touch—how different the U.S. was in 2012—Julia doesn’t ever seem to have about losing custody of her son because she has hesitations about allowing him to pursue medical treatment involving drugs with significant side effects and/or surgeries.
Back then, the leftist dream was merely financial support for all, even if the cost was a crumbling of our personal relationships (and the health of our economy).
Now the leftist dream includes children being free to have abortions and pursue experimental medicine, even at the cost of severing their ties with the people who likely love them most: their parents. It’s not just about an economic government parent; it’s about the government actually being the parent.
Not Following the ‘Science’
What is with this obsession about allowing minor children to make permanent, life-altering medical decisions?
While Democrats like to pretend they’re the party of “science,” this isn’t about some medical consensus on transgenderism. As Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child psychiatrist and author, told The Daily Signal in a podcast interview last year, much of today’s medical procedures for children who struggle with gender identity is based on a study out of the Netherlands that provided various gender transition “treatments” to children, including puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery.
Yet American activists pick and choose how they view that study. First of all, that study involved 55 children, all of whom had struggled with gender dysphoria for a significant time period. Secondly, those children had no other mental health issues.
Meanwhile, in Europe, instead of relentless pushing of “gender-affirming care”—a term that obfuscates the brutal realities of “treatment” that can sterilize you for life and involve the same drug cancer patients use—there is now caution.
“In the past few years, European health authorities conducted systematic reviews of evidence for the benefits and risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The findings from these reviews—that the certainty of benefits is very low—guided the hand of policymakers there to restrict access to hormones,” Leor Sapir writes in City Journal.
“Currently, minors in these countries can access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones only if they meet strict eligibility requirements as set out in the Dutch protocol and only in the context of a tightly controlled research setting,” Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, adds.
So to recap: In Europe, they’re putting more guardrails on this medical treatment for kids, while in America, blue states are making it so that kids can run away from their parents and pursue these transgender treatments.
Which position is extreme again?
Some of these treatments are irreversible. They also have potentially horrific side effects. “From studies of adults we know that the risks of cross-sex hormones include, but are not limited to, cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, strokes, diabetes, and cancers,” wrote Dr. Michelle Cretella, then-executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, in a 2017 article for The Daily Signal.
Detransitioners Show Dangers of Transgender Treatment as Minor
There’s also a growing population of “detransitioners,” people who transitioned genders and then regretted it. Their stories are powerful—and they often speak about making decisions at a young age they now regret.
Consider Keira Bell, a British young woman, who wrote about her gender transition regrets in 2021 for Persuasion: “Before beginning on testosterone, I was asked if I wanted children, or if I wanted to consider freezing my eggs because of the possibility that transition would make me infertile. As a teenager, I couldn’t imagine having kids, and the procedure wouldn’t have been covered by the NHS [National Health Service]. I said I was fine if I couldn’t, and I didn’t need to freeze my eggs.”
But she felt differently later in life. “But now as a young adult, I see that I didn’t truly understand back then the implications of infertility. Having children is a basic right, and I don’t know if that has been taken from me,” she writes.
Who do you want advising kids like Keira as they consider these choices—their parents or government bureaucrats?
This is a whole new front from the Left in the war on the family—and it’s poised to wreck both parents’ and children’s lives.
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Conservative teenagers are generally happier than their liberal peers, study finds
Conservative teenagers are, in general, significantly happier than their liberal peers, according to a study conducted by Columbia University.
"The politics of depression: Diverging trends in internalizing symptoms among US adolescents by political beliefs," was published in the journal Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health in December and while its findings were striking, the reason behind the trend is unclear.
Epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and her coauthors compared depressive attitudes of 12th-graders from 2005 to 2018 between those aligned with conservatism, which was defined in the study as "support of individual liberty, right-wing social and religious values, and unregulated free markets" and liberalism, which was defined as "support of equal opportunity, free but semi-regulated markets, civil liberties, and social justice."
The research concluded that "conservatives reported lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups."
Between 2011 and 2018, female liberals had a steep increase in depressive affect, which was similar to their male liberal counterparts between 2005 and 2011, but in 2013, they started to fall behind girls.
Between 2005 and 2018, conservative males and females didn't compare to the levels of their liberal counterparts. During that time, conservative males had a slightly higher depressive affect than their female conservative who eventually took the lead in 2016. In addition, when looking at all categories surveyed, researchers found that the more educated families were, the more likely their child was to be depressed.
Researchers qualified their research, stating "conservative ideology may work as a psychological buffer by harmonizing an idealized worldview with the bleak external realities experienced by many" and that liberals faced "a series of significant political events," such as the election of a black president in 2008, the Great Recession, the student debt crisis, Republicans taking control of Congress and former President Donald Trump's 2016 victory that could be contributing to their mental state.
The study pointed to events like war, climate change, school shootings, structural racism, police violence against Black people, pervasive sexism, sexual assault and rampant socioeconomic inequality that "became unavoidable features of political discourse" that might have prompted youth movements to promote "direct action and political change emerged in the face of inaction by policymakers to address critical issues."
"This is particularly true for less privileged groups of liberals, including girls and low SES individuals, for whom both heightened awareness and experience of conservative actions to restrict their rights may have compounded emotional distress," they added.
But, Columbia University Sociologist Musa al-Gharbi reported in an article for American Affairs that conservatives don't just report higher levels of happiness, they also report having higher levels of meaning in their lives.
"Conservatives are more likely to be patriotic and religious," he wrote. "They are more likely to be (happily) married and less likely to divorce. Religiosity, in turn, correlates with greater subjective and objective well-being. So does patriotism. So does marriage."
Consequently, "conservatism itself would be largely incidental to the happiness gap," he added. So "A liberal who was similarly religious, or patriotic, or had a similarly happy marriage, would be expected to have similar levels of happiness as conservative peers."
Journalist Matthew Yglesias also pondered this question in his article "Why are young liberals so depressed," hypothesizing that people dealing with anxiety or depression aren’t usually "totally untethered from reality," but "instead of changing the things they can change and seeking the grace to accept the things they can’t, they’re dwelling unproductively as problems fester."
"Progressive institutional leaders have specifically taught young progressives that catastrophizing is a good way to get what they want," he added.
New York Times Opinion Columnist David Brooks argued that "many on the left began to suffer from what you might call maladaptive sadness," with its three main features being a "catastrophizing mentality," "extreme sensitivity to harm" and a "culture of denunciation."
"For many, America’s problems came to seem endemic: The American dream is a sham, climate change is so unstoppable, systemic racism is eternal," he wrote. "Making catastrophic pronouncements became a way to display that you were woke to the brutalities of American life."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/conservative-teenagers-generally-happier-liberal-peers-study-finds
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
1 comment:
"Conservative teenagers are generally happier than their liberal peers, study finds"
Or in other words, they have reconfirmed that conservatives are generally happier than their liberal peers. This time only using teenagers but it's true of any age.
The simple fact is the liberals are just unhappy people who are that way because they WANT to be.
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