Video - A Comparison of Violence in the Bible and the Koran.

Israeli scholar completes mission to ‘fix’ Bible.

                                                    Leningrad Codex

Israeli scholar completes mission to ‘fix’ Bible.(AA).For the past 30 years, Israeli Judaic scholar Menachem Cohen has been on a mission of biblical proportions: Correcting all known textual errors in Jewish scripture to produce a truly definitive edition of the Old Testament. Though his edits won’t mean much to the average reader - they focus primarily on grammatical blemishes and an intricate set of biblical symbols - it marks the first major overhaul of the Hebrew Bible in nearly 500 years. Poring over thousands of medieval manuscripts, the 84-year-old Cohen identified 1,500 inaccuracies in the Hebrew language texts that have been corrected in his completed 21-volume set.
The final chapter is set to be published next year. The massive project highlights how Judaism venerates each tiny biblical calligraphic notation as a way of ensuring that communities around the world use precisely the same version of the holy book. According to Jewish law, a Torah scroll is considered void if even a single letter is incorrect or misplaced. Cohen does not call for changes in the writing of the sacred Torah scrolls used in Jewish rites, which would likely set off a firestorm of objection and criticism. Instead, he is aiming for accuracy in versions used for study by the Hebrew-reading masses.
For the people of the book, Cohen said, there was no higher calling. “The people of Israel took upon themselves, at least in theory, one version of the Bible, down to its last letter,” Cohen said, in his office at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. The last man to undertake the challenge was Jacob Ben-Hayim, who published the Mikraot Gedolot, or Great Scriptures, in Venice in 1525. His version, which unified the religion’s varying texts and commentaries under a single umbrella, has remained the standard for generations, appearing to this day on bookshelves of observant Jews the world over. Since Ben-Hayim had to rely on inferior manuscripts and commentaries, numerous inaccuracies crept in and were magnified in subsequent editions.

The errors have no bearing on the Bible’s stories and alter nothing in its meaning. Instead, for example, in some places the markers used to denote vowels in Hebrew are incorrect; or a letter in a word may be wrong, often the result of a centuries old transcription error. Some of the fixes are in the notations used for cantillation, the text's ritual chants. Almost none of the errors Cohen found are in the sacred Torah scrolls, since they do not include vowel markings or cantillation notations. 

Cohen said unity and accuracy were of particular importance to distinguish the sacred Jewish text from those sects that broke away from Judaism, namely Christians and Samaritans. To achieve his goal, Cohen relied primarily on the Aleppo Codex, the 1,000-year-old parchment text considered to be the most accurate copy of the Bible. For centuries it was guarded in a grotto in the great synagogue of Aleppo, Syria, out of reach of most scholars like Ben-Hayim. In 1947, a Syrian mob burned the synagogue, and the Codex briefly disappeared before most of it was smuggled into Israel a decade later. Now digitized, the Codex, also known as the Crown, provided Cohen with a template from which to work. But because about a third of the Codex - nearly 200 pages - remains missing, Cohen had to recreate the five books of Moses based on trends he observed in the Codex as well as from other sources, such as the 11th-century Leningrad Codex, considered the second-most authoritative version of the Jewish Bible. Cohen also included the most comprehensive commentaries available, most notably that of 11th-century Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, known as Rashi. The result is the completion of Ben-Hayim’s work. “It was amazing to me that for 500 years, people didn’t sense the errors,” said Cohen, who wears a knitted skullcap and a gray goatee. “They just assumed that everything was fine, but in practice everything was not fine.” Rafael Zer, the project’s editorial coordinator, called Cohen’s work “quasi-scientific” because it presents a final product and does not provide the reader a way of seeing how it was reached. He credits Cohen for bringing an exact biblical text to the general public but said it “comes at the expense of absolute accuracy and an absolute scientific edition.”Read the full story here.

Canada - Ban on Gideon Bible handout at Ontario public schools sparks torrent of hate mail.

Canada - Ban on Gideon Bible handout at Ontario public schools sparks torrent of hate mail.(Yahoo).TORONTO - A public school board's decision to ban distribution of Gideon Bibles to its young students has unleashed a torrent of threatening calls and hateful emails directed at trustees. Some messages to the Bluewater District School Board express racist sentiment and question trustees' patriotism. "When are you 'politically correct' idiots, with your heads buried in the sand, going to realize that every action you take to destroy Canadian heritage...?" one email began. "Allowing newcomers to Canada the ability to walk all over our heritage has got to stop before they carry us into the realm of a warring nation like the one they often left behind," another writer said. The invective has unnerved some trustees as they prepare to formalize the ban on distribution of all non-instructional religious materials prompted by a parent's complaint about the decades-old tradition of offering free Gideon Bibles to Grade 5 students. Trustee Fran Morgan called the "onslaught" of messages "really disturbing," and said it has made her uneasy about driving the 30 kilometres to board meetings at night by herself. "I really do feel threatened by it," Morgan said from Griersville, Ont. "It's been very unpleasant." The Bluewater board, with more than 18,000 students in 53 schools across a broad swath of southern Ontario territory, is expected to formalize the ban at its meeting April 17, following in the footsteps of several other boards across Canada. Ban proponents argue distribution of the Bibles has no place in a secular school system, and that it potentially violates human-rights legislation. The board nixed the idea of allowing any religion to hand out materials on the basis it would suck up scarce resources and could be legally risky. One writer blamed the decision on "a handful of non-Christian elected officials." Board chairwoman, Jan Johnstone, admits the vitriolic responses — some urging trustees to "watch your back" — are unnerving. "People do crazy things," Johnstone said. "They see Christianity as a fundamental part of their Canadian identity." Another wrote one trustee: "How is that you agree with God's 10 Commandments and yet you have broken them countless times, you hypocrite!" Gideons International, an evangelical Protestant association based in Nashville, Tenn., has been placing its Bibles _ comprising a New Testament plus the books of Psalms and Proverbs from the Old Testament _ in Canadian public schools since 1936.Although one trustee received a phone call he thought was tantamount to a death threat, the board has so far not referred the matter to police, but a spokesman said the situation was being monitored. Trustee Kevin Larson, who would have preferred all religions be allowed to distribute materials, said he was "disappointed" by some of what he's seen.Read the full story here.

Moses was a Muslim who led Muslims in Exodus from Egypt, says PA university lecturer on PA TV .

Moses was a Muslim who led Muslims in Exodus from Egypt, says PA university lecturer on PA TV.(PAW).By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik.A Palestinian university lecturer taught during a recent Palestinian Authority TV program on religion that Moses, a Muslim, brought "the Muslims of the Children of Israel out of Egypt." He refers to the subsequent Israeli conquest of the Land of Israel as the "first Palestinian liberation... of Palestine." This conquest, he taught, was led not by Joshua, as the Bible tells, but by Saul (Talut) who is also said to have slayed Goliath.

While some of this is retelling of Islamic tradition, some of it is a distortion of even the Quran for political purposes. The Quran refers to the "Children of Israel" in their land in many chapters (e.g., Sura 5), but it never refers to them or anyone else as "Palestinians." Likewise the Quran never refers to Israel's conquest as a "Palestinian" conquest. The lecturer on PA TV, however, deviates from Islamic tradition, and calls the nation of Israel's conquest of the Land of Israel "the first Palestinian liberation through armed struggle to liberate Palestine."

This is another example, among many documented by Palestinian Media Watch, of PA historical revision for political purposes, in this case, rewriting even their own Islamic traditions.The following is the interview with Dr. Omar Ja'ara, lecturer at Al-Najah University in Nablus and specialist in Israeli affairs, on PA TV religion program:

"We must make clear to the world that David in the Hebrew Bible is not connected to David in the Quran, Solomon in the Hebrew Bible is not connected to Solomon in the Quran, and neither is Saul or Joshua son of Nun [of the Bible].
We have a great leader, Saul, [in the Quran] who defeated the nation of giants and killed Goliath. This is a great Muslim victory. The Muslims of the Children of Israel went out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and unfortunately, many researchers deny the Exodus of those oppressed people who were liberated by a great leader, like Moses the Muslim, the believing leader, the great Muslim,
who was succeeded by Saul, the leader of these Muslims in liberating Palestine.
This was the first Palestinian liberation through armed struggle to liberate Palestine from the nation of giants led by Goliath. This is our logic and this is our culture."

[PA TV (Fatah), Feb. 15, 2012.

"Verbum Domini" ("The Word of God") Ancient Bibles and Torahs in rare Vatican show.

"Verbum Domini" ("The Word of God") Ancient Bibles and Torahs in rare Vatican show.(Yahoo).
Ancient Torahs and Bibles have gone on show in the Vatican in an "inter-religious exhibition" aimed at exploring the common heritage of two of the world's main monotheistic religions.
The show "Verbum Domini" ("The Word of God") in St. Peter's Square puts on display for the first time outside the United States the contents of the Green Collection -- the world's biggest archive of ancient biblical texts.
The exhibition, which runs until April 15, is organised with the support of Pope Benedict XVI who wants "a renewed passion for the word of God," organisers said, adding that it "shows the common roots of Christianity and Judaism."
Among the most precious texts is the "Codex Climaci Rescriptus" -- one of the oldest Bibles written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.
There is also the first-century Jeselsohn Stone tablet which contains 90 lines of Hebrew text and a rare Byzantine manuscript from the 11th century.
Visitors are also shown fragments of Torahs that were destroyed or damaged under the Nazi and Communist regimes in the 20th century.
The exhibits include shoe insoles made from a Torah during the Nazi occupation of France and a soldier's sack made from the binding of a Torah.Hmmmm......"Verbum Domini"Guess who's missing.“Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be,” Pope Benedict XVI .Read the full story here.

Two Bibles 'containing terror codes' found hidden in Bin Laden compound as it is demolished.

Two Bibles 'containing terror codes' found hidden in Bin Laden compound as it is demolished.(DM).Pakistani security officials have found two copies of the Bible at the house where Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was killed.
The Christian holy books were discovered this week when demolition crews were sent in to tear down the compound in Abbottabad.
They were so well hidden that security personnel had previously overlooked them.It is thought the English-print editions contain coded clues to future terror attacks, The Sun reported.
Pakistan's ISI security service also found two radio sets in a final sweep of the compound before demolition.
The English-language Bibles - a bizarre find in the home of the world's most famous Islamic fundamentalist - contained pages that are folded-over and highlighted texts.
An ISI commanding officer told The Sun: 'The Bibles were in English and we cannot be sure why they were there. These copies were found as we checked the rooms for the final time before demolishing the building.
'The radios are in working condition and will be given with the Bibles to the investigators. Some pages were folded and we will see later what was of most interest to Bin Laden.
'Maybe he was looking for teachings of jihad.'
Bin Laden was killed at the compound by U.S. Navy SEALs last May after the biggest manhunt in history.On Tuesday, reports that bin Laden had been in contact with members of Pakistan’s spy agency, according to secret emails published by Wikileaks, had been rebuffed by a Pakistani military spokesman.
An email, which was sent by an analyst at a global intelligence firm, Stratfor, suggested that up to 12 officials in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had known of the al-Qaeda leader’s hideout
But spokesman for the army, General Athar Abbas, said the allegations surrounding the ISI were baseless. “They are nonsense and not credible,”Hmmm.....Let me guess the highlighted passage was:" Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." ~ Matt 26:52.Read the full story here, more here.

Ossuaries in first century Jerusalem tomb could be a direct link to Jesus.

Ossuaries in first century Jerusalem tomb could be a direct link to Jesus.(GM)(TJD)..A team of international scholars claims to have found the first archaeological evidence dating from around the time Jesus lived, and which could be linked directly to his earliest followers.
Exploring a previously unexcavated tomb three kilometres south of Jerusalem, the researchers discovered burial boxes, or ossuaries, decorated with early Christian iconography.
Dropping a flexible, robotic camera into the cave, they found two limestone ossuaries decorated with carvings of a large fish that appears to be swallowing a man.
Until now, the earliest known Christian art, located in catacombs beneath the city of Rome and in Coptic caves in the Egyptian desert, dates from the late third or early fourth century AD.
The majority of the Rome images depict the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale, presumably because the term ‘the sign of Jonah’ is used by Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
The fish image was adopted by Jesus’ disciples to signal a belief in resurrection.
They believed that Jesus, like the prophet Jonah in the Biblical account, was miraculously reborn after three days.
The new discovery, the scholars said, would appear to move the evidentiary clock back by at least 200 years if, as the scholars suggest, they date from before 70 AD, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.
On another box in the tomb they found a Greek inscription which, translated, calls on God or Jehovah to rise up or to raise up, an apparent reference to resurrection.
The research team included Israeli archaeologist Rami Arav, of the University of Nebraska, and James Tabor, chair of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina.Read the full story here.