Watched an interesting presentation from a bible scholar. His thing was tracking down variances in many religious writings that had crept in over the years from mis-translations and typos. They did this by going back to the oldest sources, tracking locations where they were copied, and continuing to track the errors as new scribes copied from those sources. There were several minor ones, the only real significant he found, was that the "number of the Beast", 666, was absolutely a typo (scribe-o? Write-o?) that ocurred around 400 AD, and several older documents agreed on a different number.
Then he told this joke.
Long, long ago, a monastery that was a major repository for many ancient documents, got a message from one of their training facilities. They had this new monk, very good, very smart, very dedicated, stickler for detail, kinda hard to deal with, but they were sending him to the main monastery to help with their paperwork. The abbott meets the new guy, and sets him to work verifying various old documents by checking them against the originals, stored in an old, dusty repository.
The holy father thinks he has kept the new guy busy for days, but in just an hour or so there a knocking at his door. It's the new guy. "Holy father, these papers are not the originals, I need to see the oldest documents to do this work". So the abbott takes him down a long dusty hallway, down some stairs, and into a room that hasn't been used in decades. Unlocks the door, shows him in, says "here you go", and goes back to his room, certain the new guy won't be back for a long, long time.
Only an hour or so, there is again a knocking at his door. New guy again. "Holy father, these are just not good enough, I need to see the most ancient things you have." So the holy father takes him down another long hallway, down some stairs, another hallway, more stairs,finally to a door that has not been opened in centuries, and says "here, these are the oldest documents in existence, anywhere on earth, have at it." And goes back to his room.
This time it is several hours, and then a whole bunch of people are frantically pounding on his door. "Holy, father, holy father, come quick, it's the new guy, he has completely lost it, he's going crazy, come quick." So he goes down the long way to the archive vault.
There the new guy is wailing, gnashing his teeth, tearing his hear out, rending his garments, rolling around on the floor, he keeps repeating "They left out the "R", they left out the "R", he is totally distraught. They try to calm him down, but he just keeps saying "They left out the 'R', they left out the 'R'".
Finally, the holy father holds him down, slaps him across the face, and pours some communion wine down his throat. He finally calms down enough to say ...
CONTINUED ON NEXT POST
Last edited by Nelson37; 11/18/18 08:59 AM.
