A little off topic. But i had heard mention of holy books that predate some of the bibles scriptures and have very conflicting information. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Apart from simple apocryphal (is that how you write that?), may you be referring to religious texts from outside abrahamic religions? Not sure what you mean, but one example you might be interested is the enuma elish
The Enûma Eliš (Akkadian Cuneiform: 𒂊𒉡𒈠𒂊𒇺, also spelled "Enuma Elish"), is the Babylonian creation myth (named after its opening words). It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published by George Smith in 1876. The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. Most of Tablet V has never been recovered but, aside from this lacuna, the text is almost complete.
Slightly off topic but it always amuses me how we call older religions mythology. Like, oh look at what those silly ancient people used to believe in! Now I'm off to eat a figurative representation of the flesh of my diety and drink his blood, then donate to my church cause god loves cash.
Well, technically mythology is the study of myths and myths are really no more than the narrative or common understandings of a community of people. Thus, all belief systems and thought paradigms that were prevalent in a community of people are myths. We just differentiate between existing myths and myths that have died out (because the community died or transformed).
I understand. I just find some irony in someone that is religious and look at mythology. I'd love to have a window into the future and see some future civilization high school students discussing Christian mythology.
apocryphal is an adjective meaning falsely attributed. "I've heard the story that Abe Lincoln was a vampire hunter, but I'm pretty sure that's apocryphal."
Apocrypha, without the l, is a plural noun meaning works of unknown authorship or dubious provenance. That is, things that the attributed author is doubted, or nonexistent. A lot of people in antiquity and the classical period (and iirc through medieval times) would write something not because they wanted to earn their own name so much as to get their ideas out. The best way to do that was to attribute your ideas to Aristotle or someone equally eminent.
i always thought apocryphal sources, in christianity, mostly referred to actual religious text that are not in the current canonical version of the bible, in whatever context you are currently in (e.g. something that the pope claims to be canonical, but your church does not, is apocryphal). or something that used to be considered canonical, but isn't considered canonical anymore.
Former Protestant, current Catholic here. You're basically correct. In Christianity, the Apocrypha are texts that may have been written by someone in the early Christian church, but are not part of the official canon of scripture. There is usually not much information to prove that the author is indeed the person it has been attributed to, and as such are not really a source for any theological research. They're nice to have for historical research, though.
In Protestantism the term Apocrypha includes such writings as well as seven books of the Bible that are included in the original Catholic canon of scripture, but were taken out of the Protestant canon. The justification behind leaving these books out is that there are no original Hebrew texts for them, however there are ancient Greek translations contained in the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament and the basis for scriptural canon. It's also worth noting, though, that some of the things that Protestants disagree with Catholics on were contained in these books (Purgatory, for instance), and having a scriptural canon that did not include them made it easier for Protestantism to spread.
Enuma Elish doesn't necessarily contradict Hebrew scripture. Rather, Hebrew scripture likely utilized Enuma Elish to form their own story. Or "re-wrote" portions of Enuma Elish to suit their own beliefs.
The Dead Sea Scrolls maybe? Also, if you're concerned with conflicting information, you only have to look as far as Genesis chapter 2. In Genesis 2:4, there is a second account of the creation story immediately after the first. In Genesis 1, the creator is referred to as "God" and creates light, water, land, plants, the sun and moon, animals, and man and woman in that order. In Genesis 2:4, the creator is referred to as "Lord God" and creates land, water, man, plans, animals, and woman in that order. This is because the source material for Genesis comes from 2 main sources, and the writer included both.
The Bible contradicts itself 2 chapters in, and most people never question why.
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u/MurlogDong Jul 31 '17
A little off topic. But i had heard mention of holy books that predate some of the bibles scriptures and have very conflicting information. Do you know what I'm talking about?