big pile of dirt

moving around a pile of dirt into ridges, leaving the trenches the dirt came from next to the ridges…well, even to the most ardent archaeological student, the said formations are about as exciting as watching toast burn.

…and this is an important cultural site for a pre-Columbian people group? Random ridges some people imagine are shaped like a figure or ring or….I mean, you have to really, really stretch the imagination to believe this dirt pile was an important site to any civilization.

but that is what the people at Newark Earthworks would tell you.

sure it is one of the largest piles of organized dirt in America…but really, who cares? any group of people can put together an endless stream of ridges…just for fun, or out of boredom. remember, they did not have Netflix, selfie sticks, or smartphones to mindlessly tap…they had to find something to do, after a hard  day of sitting around making sharp pieces of flint.

I can imagine….

“Hey, let’s build a bunch of wiggly ridges over the next ten years. everybody who comes through here will leave us alone because they will think we are super-geniuses.”

and if you throw in some chipped pottery, some jewelry that looks like it was made in China… what have you got? a civilization? sadly, theories of civilizations have stood the test of time on such fodder.

meanwhile, there are other archaeologists who have found piles of treasure in old garbage dumps, in caves, and tombs throughout the world. the question for my friends in Newark is this- how much material does one need in order to constitute a sizable enough number of artifacts to say we have the “authority” to call  anything a historic site of this people and that culture during this time?

it is a question for the layman, enthusiast, and professional all to ask. especially when the people of the future are presented with random ridges of dirt.  

 

 

Rightly dividing The Word Of Truth: Back to a verse-less Bible

Hey, I wrote this for people to read. So..here it is again.

things your pastor never told you: in the original- no chapters, no verses

The first New Testament had no chapter and no verse, that was added much later. if the Word itself states that nothing should be added to the Word, doesn’t that mean we should have Bibles without chapter and verse?

the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known copy of the New Testament, clearly shows a whole different format. One needed to “rightly divide the word of truth” in order to understand the flow of the letters across the page. For example, in the Greek for the beginning of Acts 1, the scholar of Biblical Greek can plainly pick out the words from the letters, which are shown separated for you on the insert at the right of the webpage. Below, you can have it translated into some languages, including English. 

See http://www.codexsinaiticus.org

With no chapter and verse, the reader has to rightly divide it to understand it. Once that is accomplished, the reader can determine when a section of the Word ends. If I read John 3 for example, it is obvious that in the English that John 3:1-3:21 is a section. It is much easier to understand then. So, why were chapters and verses added? 

If you go to the Codex Vaticanus, the younger of the two pieces, you will see where someone scribbled in verse numbers at particular intervals at the side of the page. The format is exactly the same as Codex Sinaiticus in how it was written without chapter and verse with Greek letters all lined up next to each other in a visually clean and ordered format to a length of a column, much like old newspapers that published in multiple columns on a page. Again, the type of utensil used to jot in verse numbers out to the side is very obviously of inferior type and origin to the original Greek, definitely from a different time period altogether. 

There is another site loaded with Bible fragments, mainly on pieces of papyrus. Looking through them, I have not found one that differs – they all do not have chapters, nor verses, and all have letters lined up- the same as the Codex Sinaiticus. The length of the line of letters may be different, and in latter centuries, some capitals were added and spaces left between words- but that was in the 10th century. So, according to these records, there were no chapters nor verses in the Bible through the first ten centuries! 

See http://www.csntm.org/manuscript

You might also be surprised that there are some verses that were not put in some. Both texts, for example, deleted a phrase where Jesus spoke about cursing something…

If you are a follower of Christ or interested in such things, visit the websites and see for yourself.

climbing the steps of history

the steps to Thornhill hug the side of a steep hill, peopled with seasoned and scrawny trees, and blanketed by a healthy dose of autumn leaves…

…remarkable for digging into the soil and staying for over 130 years…

with a little help…

and an occasional big tree to make sure it doesn’t roll downhill someday…

but it is at the top that the stones sit in patterns, telling their story without words, cleared from heavy brush that obscured most of it for many years. now, the offbeat traveler can find the archaeological surprise at the top of a steep climb overlooking what was once the boomtown of Volcano.

it was the three story mansion of J.C. Stiles, oil and gas baron of the late 1800’s.

now telling stories of the past from the remaining stones…as it weathers the storms and basks in the sunshine, hidden from most tourists off a wild little drive through tanglely wood…

and pieces of a past too far back to catch…with no witnesses but the stones themselves and the interpretative signs.

and a few mysteries still…

you won’t likely find a brochure…but if you are ever in West Virginia, look for the welcome center and ask about Thornhill. Not only is it an interesting archaeological site, accessing it can be a fine walk on a brisk Fall day.