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Apostastic! Part 1: Methodist Madness

August 11th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

There have been a couple of bible stories (about, not from) in the news in the last few weeks. One was about the “Jefferson Bible,” a version of the four canonical Gospels that Thomas Jefferson worked over with a pair of scissors. He cut out all of the miracles (including the big reveal resurrection) and inconsistencies that he could find, and pasted it into a book he called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

The other was about the planned online publication of the Codex Sinaiticus. The Codex is a Christian Bible, written in Greek and dated from the Fourth Century CE. It contains the oldest surviving complete copy of the New Testament, including books that were later eliminated from the canon, and is missing verses that are included in the current version. The most notable omission is in this early version of the Gospel of Mark, which ends 12 verses earlier than later versions, without mentioning the zombie resurrected Jesus.

Because I am that kind of solipsist, reading these stories got me thinking about my deconversion. I didn’t have a sudden epiphany. It was more a long slide away from my childhood faith. But it was studying the bible seriously that turned on the boosters and sent me careening toward apostasy.

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