The Role of Religious Bigotry in the Erosion of Truth.

By Timothy Casey

The ultimate discredit to scriptural omniscience is incompleteness. Within Christianity, there are at least five biblical canons (Egyptian, Slavic, Greek, Roman, English). Humanity has a long history of religious intolerance. The ritualistic acts of book-burning we see performed by fundamentalists today reflects only a fraction of the animosity that difference of belief was used to manipulate in the mobs of former times. While it is quite possible that many or even all of these scrolls and books were simply lost to the ravages of time within various civilisations, one has to wonder how such a colossal waste of valuable material escaped the attention of the ever-needy peasants and ever-greedy nobles.

Parchment was such a valuable material that undesirable text would be carefully scraped off to allow it to be reused. Books were not something that could be purchased by everyone. A Bible produced before the employment of printing presses was worth more than US$500,000 in today's money as the materials were exorbitantly expensive and what was skilled labour in those times added an enormous cost. Such books were in reality a target of theft, and as such there is little wonder that they had to be chained to the pulpit. It should be remembered, that unlike many modern churches, the churches of old were public places and open to the public throughout the year.

One has to wonder if apathy to preservation and/or acquisition of such enormously valuable items is a believable explanation for their loss. Surely such expensive things would be sold by invading armies, and looked after by each new owner, given the high price. It would take an enormous amount of prejudice to cause someone to neglect a book worth enough to feed 10 families for a year. The Bible itself records internal references to a surprising number of missing books. Although this is not certain, some of these books may have been amalgamated into others still in the Bible (Eg. Speculation suggests that Jashar may now be part of Joshua), and some may go by different names (Eg. The "Story of Iddo" may be the same book as the "Chronicles of Iddo"). The orphaned references are as follows:

Consider:

If human beings can happily burn/censor the inconvenient books, nonchalantly fabricate others, and offer biased translation without marginal notes detailing all ambiguities and margins for error, one has to face the fact that people do impress their own beliefs over scripture by the very act of "sifting" or choosing a canon, "refining" (Eg. adding vowels to texts that had none to begin with) and selectively translating into a language with a far, far greater vocabulary - without adequate footnotes. Credible translations of ancient material comprise at least 50% footnotes. What is most telling of this tale in the Bible are all the cross-references to missing portions of the Bible not to mention the five different canons that of themselves record the local and sometimes national disappearance of previously accepted texts every time there was a major schism. One has to wonder how it comes to be that such spiritual works as the Wisdom of Solomon, acceptable before the Reformation; came to be rejected from Protestant consideration. How did the Fourth Book of Macabees, a book of profound truth concerning human nature; come to be rejected from the Catholic canon after the Great Schism? How is it that the Rabbi dominated Council of Jamnia (circa. 80 A.D.) came to reject the previously acceptable first three books of Macabees (when they happened to lend scriptural support to Levitical Temple rights)?

It is important to remember that history does not record academic impartiality nearly so much as it does record human bigotry, and intense religious persecution. Human nature as it is recorded by history, lends itself to the destruction of whatever it cannot understand, and it is only in recent centuries that such barbarism has been curbed by the separation of church and state.

Orphaned internal references within the bible are another example of how truth can and does exist outside what is perceived as scripture. This in turn necessitates, the regular appearance of "Divine Educators" or "Manifestations of God". After all, if we tend to progressively ignore or even censor inconvenient ethical truth with time, then it is necessary to have our perspective refreshed and modernised, if not rattled repeatedly. This is possibly one mechanism behind the Baha'i theory of "Progressive Revelation". Progressive revelation is used to explain how so many diverse religions can coexist in the oneness of truth. In short, progressive revelation suggests a historical progression of religious adaptation to contemporary social needs. It is likely that while religious purpose always remains unchanged, the specific rules, laws and ordinances of religion change to best serve religious purpose in historical and cultural context.