World's Oldest Book is GPLed 235
figlet writes "The Diamond Sutra is the 'World's Earliest Dated Printed Book.' It was discovered in China in 1907 and now resides at the British Library." The colophon reads: "Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong. (May 11, 868 A.D.)" Apparently this was version 0.001 of the
GPL.
Re:No. (Score:1)
Note, however, that Revelations was written much later than everything else in the Bible, and not by the same author(s). Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Bible is the result of a single, internally consistent effort. What is said in Revelations, for example, may or may not fit with the intentions of the author(s) of Deuteronomy, or the Gospels, or what have you.
The Bible is not the word of God; it is the word of many, many different humans, who all believed they were writing in accordance with God's will. Whether or not they were right is an article of faith.
I could be wrong, but I believe that most Christian churches, including the Catholic Church, agree that this is true.
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:1)
zantispam,
I realize you're not flaming here. You're questioning and debating, which are good things. I'm enjoying this conversation, other than the frustration from the feeling that we're talking past each other somewhat, and that I'm not sure how to understand your point better or make myself clearer.
A few answers to your questions:
Now, what do we mean by "fact"? I take "fact" to mean simply a statement about reality that is true. It is a "fact" that water molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms plus one oxygen atom. It is not a "fact" that the moon is made of green cheese.
The Christian claim about the Bible is either true or false. If it's true, then it's a fact that the Bible is the word of God; if not, then not.
I don't think that this claim is falsifiable, in the scientific sense. That's why it requires faith (something I already admitted). But please remember that "non-falsifiable" is not the same thing as "false."
Does that clarify or muddy?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:2)
In the literal sense, the Bible is not the Word of God. God did not himself write it. God did not dictate all of the books to whomever wrote them.
Since the books were written physically by humans, and these humans believed that they were writing in accordance with God's Will, and none of them are around today to ask about the subject, it follows that to beleve that the authors were led by God to pen those words requires faith.
The above poster was simply stating a fact that is readily verifiable, as opposed to a fact that requires faith that the AC may not have (or want, for that matter).
A statement that can not be proven is not a fact. A Fact can be proven true or false. If I say to you 'God himself picked up a pen and wrote the exact words which dwell in the bible' you can not dissprove that. It is my opinion that this is true, and it would be your opinion that it is not. But since we can neither view the event, ask the participants, or check mutually agreed upon sources for confirmation or denial it is impossible to prove such a statement. Hence you can not say that the Bible is NOT the literal word of God without a leap of faith which is equal to that required to believe that the bible IS the literal word of God. Hence all of you atheists are in your own religion, the only truly unbiased are those who are truly agnostic.
Kintanon
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Sutra (Score:2)
Re:Any one notice the evil Swastika? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Hehehe (Score:1)
Re:Waiting... (Score:1)
I propose that all these "differences" are correct ways of answering the same problem from different points of view. That's why I posted in the first place. Doesn't anyone try to apply careful abstraction and meticulous analysis to what all these saints said and wrote? Or will we always be forced to "respect each others' differences" (agree to disagree)?
My heart tells me that we are one in spirit. Why not one in mind, also?
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
No (Score:3)
Translations are a whole different matter. The King James version is over 500 years old and thus in the public domain for the same reasons as the early texts. A number of other older Bibles are also in the public domain.
The NIV (the best of the contemporary English translations in my opinion) is copyrighted - every copy plainly states that it is licensed by The International Bible Society [gospelcom.net]. The terms of use are more liberal than the standard fair use provisions (see the NIV copyright statement [gospelcom.net].)
Other modern translations have different requirements, but since Bible translators tend to do so out as a missionary calling rather than a source of income, the terms are often very liberal. A good comparison would be the World English Bible copyright [gospelcom.net] or the New American Standard [gospelcom.net].
I believe there is a project to do a new, explicitly public domain translation, but I can't find their URL and I've forgotten the name.
Re:question (Score:2)
EX.
1. And the Great giant Gates strode onto the battle field followed by the damned.
2. Linus called to his people. "Verrily I say unto you his iniquity has made him lax we shall perservere over our mortal enemy".
3. And Linus stretched forth his holy staff and brought down the wrath of the one true god onto the evil one.
4. The evil one was wrought with the power of the source and was rendered onto the powers of his own hell and tormentors of his own creation.
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
Even the earliest form of copyright law didn't exist until the 15th century A.D., so it's not exactly surprising that any book published before then would be freely distributable.
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
There are certainly discourses which date to prior to the publication of this version of the Diamond Sutra, including the Bible, the Hindi scriptures, the I Ching, the Quran, but the texts we have of these works are later productions, rescriptions of previous, now lost, works.
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
Re:***?**** (Score:1)
Or, rather: If indeed The Bible is meant to be interpreted a certain way, shouldn't it be *translated* to reflect that? And if not, why not? Either accept it as accurate and take the words as face-value, or realize that it has problems and retranslate it to reflect the times and preserve the original message. And if you can't do either one, shut up. (that is to say, if you don't know what the original message is, you're in good company, and your ego isn't too big yet.
And did you think that way when you were 10 or 11 because you realized what it might imply and don't think that way now because it seems too silly or massively stupid to interpret it that way, or did you change your mind because all the plagues in that book (whatever it may be, I argue that it isn't bound as a separate book
Boy I'm glad I'm an Atheist.
But the evolution comment was cute.
Oh, and for the dude talking about statistical arguments for/against God: that was really funny! It just goes to show you never to stick an infinity sign (lemniscate, that is) into a stats problem. Or, go get a burger, decide not to believe in god, and still have a possibility of infinite happiness. That's some burger!
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Re:No (Score:1)
One trivial question: what is the common link between Peter Pan and the King James Version of the Bible?
They are the only two British books that have this privilege - Peter Pan was given this by a special act of Parliament as the profits from the sales were bequested to Great Ormand Street Hospital (a well known childerns' hospital in London)
Is the Diamond Sutra infectious? (Score:2)
Uh Oh... (Score:2)
Dan
Re:Any one notice the evil Swastika? (Score:1)
is well." Hitler adopted it for the 3rd reich.
one finds it with the spokes pointing both ways.
Waiting... (Score:1)
Re:new religions? (Score:1)
Re:Wrong book (Score:2)
You can find one at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [stanford.edu].
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:2)
I find it incongruous in the extreme that you proclaim a belief in Quantum Physics in one breath, then invalidate every previous civilizations explanation for the effects which we use Quantum physics to explain. There is NOTHING which makes the theories involved in Quantum Physics any more valid than the theories involved in Christianity, OR the roman Pantheon.
You CAN NOT prove any of what you are saying one way or the other. I do not understand how you can assert a belief in something which is equally as vacuous as what you are denouncing and then turn around and claim you are doing so on some basis other than blind faith in what the priests (scientists) are telling you. I suggest you wake up for a moment and realize that your faith is no more or less valid than mine, or anyone elses, and has an equal chance of being correct. I happen to believe that my faith is correct in essence, you can believe that your faith is correct in essence, but stop trying to denegrate my faith simply because it is not yours.
Kintanon
Re:That's "Diamond *Cutter* Sutra." (Score:1)
No, I'm sure that particular thing exists from its own side. :')
I'd never heard prajna paramita translated as heart of wisdom before, although that makes some sense. I'd thought that the translation was the ultimate wisdom, or perfection of wisdom. Sigh. So what's the word-for-word translation of Arya Bhagavati Prajnya Paramita Hirdaya? The translation I have here says "The Lady of Conquest, the Exalted Sutra on the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom."
BTW, if you're interested in english translations of the ACIP texts, you can find some of them, particularly including the Diamond Cutter Sutra, in the courses that are available at the ACI web site [world-view.org].
Re:Skillful means... (Score:1)
(BTW, my Dharma name is Kongchong Thapkay which roughly translates as "Skillfull Means Of the Triple Gem." Guess I haven't been living up to it....)
Re:***?**** (Score:1)
Is this a surprise to you ? My first language is spanish so bible->books makes sense to me since library is "biblioteca" in spanish. I guess this word (Bible) doesn't make a lot of sense in non-latin languages like english and german.
And did you think that way when you were 10 or 11 because you realized what it might imply and don't think that way now because it seems too silly or massively stupid to interpret it that way, or did you change your mind because all the plagues in that book (whatever it may be, I argue that it isn't bound as a separate book
No. When I was 10/11 I did not have enough background to understand a lot of things
Anyways, this has gone way off topic. But it was interesting !!!
Block printing before? (Score:1)
It says that it is not the earliest book, just the earliest dated book.
When was the ealiest book, approximately?
Even then ... (Score:3)
The GPL is only the current incarnation of a spirit of openness, harmony, and cooperation which has existed since the beginning of the universe.
Therefore, Linux is a fundamental element of the universe.
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:1)
This is a straw man, as Christians do not generally mean that they believe God picked up a pen and wrote out the Bible in KJV English when they say that the Bible is the "word of God."
This is an an assertion; and one that I would be interesting in how you "know" this. It happens to be precisely what many Christians believe about the origin of the books of the Bible (although the exact means of inspiration is debatable; not all Christians hold this view).
Your unbelief hardly makes it a "fact that is readily verifiable." I'll happily admit that my belief that God inspired the human authors of the Bible is faith-based. But I'm boggled trying to imagine how I could prove that God didn't speak to John on the Isle of Patmos when he wrote down his vision.
Open Source: A Documentary (Ken Burns Style) (Score:1)
The phenomon of "Hacker" is not a new.
Galileo, Newton were bona fide hackers. They could have been hackers themselves, if they were born in our ages. French mathmaticians like Pascal, Ferma et al, used to form math clubs and enjoying solve riddles together. That, is the earlist, and purest form of "hacking".
And according to Open Source historian, the idea of "Free ware" is not new. A copy of oldest freeware copyright can be found at the most unexpected place.
This buddasim bible is the earliest datable printed book. And on it's copyright notice it states: "on behalf of my parents, this book is provided for free distribution"
The link between free software movement and religion is not accidental...
Open Source: A Documentary is brought to you by:
"Microsoft, where do you want to go, today"
and Viewers like you.
Not GPL! (Score:1)
Doesn't sound like the GPL to me--translators and commentators aren't required to distribute the original with their changes. More like a BSD-style or LGPL license.
--Tim
Re:Any one notice the evil Swastika? (Score:1)
Re:No. (Score:2)
Yeah... Kind of. Many people feel that the Bible's exceptional unity (you try telling a story over two thousand years) is evidence of exceptional divine involvement in its creation. I tend to agree that this is the case.
Where I tend to disagree is that many people try to reduce the Bible to a single, monolithic, God-written textbook where God is considered to have literally written each and every word (this is called "verbal inspiration"). I disagree with this pretty stronly, mostly because there is no evidence of it.
Also, you said:
I would suggest that you take a look at Deuteronomy 4:2, and its cross-references in a good reference bible. Deut. 4:2 says, in part, "Do not go beyond what is written". I think there are enough incidents of this kind of language in the Bible that we can assume it is a general principle.Re:Sutra (Score:3)
A serious answer to a question posed in jest:
No. The Kama Sutra is an overhyped antique version of The Joy of Sex, whereas the Diamond Sutra is one of the chapters of the Prajnaparamita ("Sutras of Transcendental Wisdom"), one of the most important works in the Mahayana canon. For example, Zen thought is largely based on the Prajnaparamita sutras, with the Diamond Sutra in a special role.
The literal meaning of "sutra" is just "thread", essentially a recording of a line of thought, and not all that different from sutras on Slashdot. =)
Cheers,
-j.
Re:Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:1)
To me, "universal free distribution" would seem like as loose a GPL as you can get. Basically, you are setting absolutely no limits on it's distribution.
Actually, it's so loose it can't even be likened to the GPL. It's in the public domain, which means anyone can do any kind of derivitave work from it and copyright the results if they care to.
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
Hard to tell : there's a whole bunch of candidates.
1> The Bible. Started as a Hebraic oral tradition so hard to date accurately.
2> The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Babylonian favourite. Still as relevant today as then. You could make a film out of it.
3> The I Ching. Dates back a long way: came
to us in it's present form from the Duke of Chou.
4> The Maharabrata must be pretty old. Again, began as an oral tradition.
The fact that many ancient books begin as an
oral tradition lost in the mists of
makes accurate dating difficult, I guess.
I'm sure there's more.
What License for the Bible? (Score:5)
I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. - Revelation 22:18-19
Of course, there is no restriction at all on redistribution. :)
so if this is GPL (Score:1)
when you make a copy of the Torah (which is older than the Diamond Sutra), you have to make an IDENTICAL copy, no changes what so ever.
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
You're probably right about the Epic of Gilgamesh, but I have not seen any evidence of a still-existing early copy. The story is probably much older than the Unas text, but I believe that the existing copies are younger. Virtually all of the Sumerian and Egyptian epics had their origins in very early times.
I read the original post as "the oldest still existing," and qualified my answer as literary works. Lots of sumerian tablets are older than the unas text. It would be interesting to find out if Gilgamesh is among those we have preserved....
Re:question (Score:1)
Oops! -- Joseph Smith
Bias. (Score:2)
Re:Translations copyrighted (Score:1)
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:2)
I understand that. My point was not to point out what most Christians generally believe. I was merely stating that, IIRC, the only thing that God did write were the Ten Commandments. Him, Himself, with His hand. He didn't write the books that became the Bible.
"It happens to be precisely what many Christians believe about the origin of the books of the Bible"
Again, you read too much into what I write. I was not stating what many Christians believe.
Going by what I've read of the Bible (almost all of it, though it's been a while), I do not remeber reading in every book where the author states something to the effect that, "God is speaking to me as I write this", or "By the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit do I write this" (though I agree that some books do have this). That was my point; that there is no evidence that all of the authors were so inspired. Thus, it takes faith for an individual to believe that all of the books of the Bible were inspired by God.
Note the word `all'. It is crucial to my point.
"Your unbelief hardly makes it a "fact that is readily verifiable.""
"it [the Bible] is the word of many, many different humans"
Tell me which part of that statement is false.
all believed they were writing in accordance with God's will"
Not a fact.
"The Bible is not the word of God;"
Ahhh, the clincher. This is a fact. If the AC would have said, The Bible is not the interpreted word of God, then I would agree with you.
"But I'm boggled trying to imagine how I could prove that God didn't speak to John on the Isle of Patmos when he wrote down his vision."
Does John say, "God spoke to me", or "Thus spoke God"?
I am truly trying not to flame here. But I believe that to get at facts(what?) facts(what?) facts, one must remove what a group of people believes to be true. If you take all of my statements at face value, they are, in fact, well, facts.
Re:What License for the Bible? (Score:2)
I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. - Revelation 22:18-19
Amuzingly, it reads slightly differently (and in many cases has a different verse number) in every version of the bible I've seen.
Hey...Teacher... (Score:1)
Tradition(To the tune of "Tradition") (Score:3)
PS- yes, I do know how to spell "sutra". It's Sanskrit, I use Pali. These things happen.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:That's "Diamond *Cutter* Sutra." (Score:1)
Now THAT's "Open Source!"
The project has people at several monasteries in South India currently inputting even more texts from the Tibetan canons, and in another forty or so years (at the current rate) ALL of the Tibetan texts which have been salvaged from Tibet (hand-carried by refugees), the Mongolian National Library, and the St. Petersburg Library in Russia will be available for free to anyone with a 'net connection and a browser.
I'd ask if anyone has any spare IPO change handy, to contribute to this project. Currently there are several hundred Tibetan refugee women and children, plus the most troublesome and unruly monks from Sera Mey and Sera Je monasteries inputting this stuff. Their dirt-cheap wages for inputting these texts go to support their entire families and their monastic educations (which are phenomenal compared to Western educational standards), plus they're learning computer skills to boot.
Just this past November my teacher (who's heading this project) gave the Dalai Lama a laptop with the full ACIP release on CD. This has already taken off in a big way with many other teachers, who now routinely use their computers to search up various references.
This is about one of the most worthwhile projects in the history of humanity, if you want my unbiased opinion (full disclosure: I've been active on this project for some time, so no bias, nope, none :) ), so any extra help would be greatly appreciated. The URL is http://www.asianclassics.org
Imagine... (Score:1)
(drool)
Re:Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:1)
Something like that happeneng in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhikers" trilogy. (An essential work, if you haven't read it, you need to. And it's not a trilogy, it's really a five part series.) The authors of "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" patterned a section of it after the nutrition facts label on a box of breakfast serial. Then they sent it back in time and sued the cereal company for infringement, thus winning the money to build their huge twin-tower corporate headquarters.
Now whether or not someone can do this in real life without time travel, I don't know. I would date the book if I were you, just to be safe. They couldn't sue you if you could prove you wrote your copy before they did.
A translation of the Diamond Sutra (Score:1)
Oh, lots of them. Here's one:
http://www.io.com/~snewton/zen/diamndi x.html [io.com]
Cheers,
-j.
Actually, I'd call it a "shareware" license (Score:3)
BSD: You are encouraged to give copies to anyone and everyone. You can make any changes you like, and you can use any license you like for said changes.
Shareware: You are encouraged to give copies to anyone and everyone. DO NOT make any changes.
Since this book promises eternal damnation and hellfire if you add, subtract, or alter anything in it, I would call it the world's first piece of shareware.
--
grappler
Re:Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:1)
In other words, it's BSD-licensed.
This is truly hilarious; having a GPL vs. BSD argument over an 1100-year old book.
Priceless.
Steve 'Nephtes' Freeland | Okay, so maybe I'm a tiny itty
Re:Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:3)
If I wrote a book, and marked it as "universal free distribution", could someone make a copy it, then copyright their copy, and possibly sue me for infringment?
Actually, I think you are misunderstanding the copyright that is being applied. The information in the book, and the way that the information is being presented in the book is subject to the "universal free distribution" clause. The photographer/artist's picture of the book is in itself intellectual property, hence the copyright.
IANAL, but it follows that you are using a copyrighted photograph (regardless of what the picture is) on your website without the owner's, then you are breaking the law. If you simply were taking the text from the photograph of a non-copyrighted book, and posting that up then you would not be violating the law (both from the "universal free distribution" clause and the expiry of the copyright itself).
The board is claiming copyright of an image, not the book. (see later in the thread for postings about translations.)
"Plagiarism plain and simple" (Score:2)
Saying a translation can't enjoy a separate copyright is like saying any derivative work, like a commentary, can't have a separate copyright. That makes no sense at all.
Kopyrite (K) All Rites Reversed (Score:1)
Kallisti!
Farrell
p.s. I have no connection to Fnord.org, other than a religion.
Re:question (Score:2)
Re:Sutra (Score:2)
Sees All, Tells All (Score:1)
***?**** (Score:1)
They should have thought about that before they stuck them together and made one book out of it. After all, they did have a few meetings, and did revise the books some, and didn't allow some of them in the finished work. So they should have caught that error, right?
What error ? The statement is there to be interpreted. No "error".
And the Bible was not stuck as one book per se, it was always clear from the beginning that it was a collection books, hence the word biblia meaning books.
And you'd better consider if, by quoting that verse out of context, your immortal soul is at risk. It might be safer to just not quote the Bible, and especially don't translate it. You might be damned for your good works. I'm going to stick to Atheism, where it's safe.
Heh
Re:The story is better and worse (Score:2)
Except that the brief mention you cite exhibits evidence of being forged in later, not actually appearing in the original text. For one thing, the statement itself does not fit the 'speaking' style of the rest of the text.
...phil
No. here's a real GPL'ed book: (Score:3)
Rather, a true GPL'ed book would be... The Bible!
Think about it: at first, there was only a couple of books. Then, a lot of people made contributions. A commity (the Vatican) decides what goes in and what doesn't go into a "kernel", or approved dogma. Then they release the new version. People are free to branch the Bible, and indeed, we've seen a few kernel forks over the years. The most important was probably the "Kernel fork 1", where the Old Testament ('Torah' release) and the Old/New Testament forked and formed two separate developper's groups. A few developpers (called apocryphs) saw their contribution cut from the codebase.
Unfortunately, after the kernel fork, the source became closed and proprietary. There's been an attempt to rebuild the codebase by one Muhammed, but it was closed-source and a thousand years later, there's not even been a patch or a single Service Pack.
Oh, did I mention there's also a distro war going on?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Re:Translations copyrighted (Score:1)
Have you ever tried translating? Any real translation above Babelfish's level is not only lots of grunt work, but most definitely a creative endeavor as well. Not only do you have to preserve the meaning of the original, you have to make it sound good in the target language. This can be extremely difficult -- translating Joyce's Ulysses into Japanese took 15 years! And the Bible is even worse, as there are a number of conflicting originals with plenty of hapax legomena (words that occur exactly once and whose meaning is unknown) and similar pitfalls.
So hell yes, if I work my butt off to translate soemething, I want my copyright on the translation. It should then be my decision whether I want to GPL the document or not.
Cheers,
-j.
Re:Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:1)
Re:question (Score:1)
And the Bible has been changing and changing for a very long time now. After taking a Classics course (god what a waste of time) you can see just how things like old texts change. The KJ bible is close, but noone can say that it is a truly perfect translation of the original texts.
Re:No. (Score:1)
Why? There are some bits which get repeated. But presumably the later authors were sometimes just a bit familiar with what the previous ones had written, so maybe a hint of plagiarism crept in? At least subconsciously since they all believed roughly the same thing.
And there are lots of bits that are different too.
axolotl
[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scripture (Score:1)
Most Christians, in my experience, are quite aware that the books we now bundle as "Scripture" were composed by various human authors, at various times, and consist of various styles and genres of writing. Even the fundamentalist literalist inerrantists understand this point. :^)
[Which I've always thought had interesting implications for the "no tampering" clause at the end of Revelation. Is the scope supposed to be Revelation only, or the entire canon ... ?]
If it's such an article of faith, why do you state the negative as such a fact?
Agree that what is true? That the Bible had many different human writers? Sure, everybody knows and agrees on that point. That the Bible is not "the word of God"? I don't think so.
While the exact relationship of "word of God" and "Scripture" is ... somewhat nuanced and open to debate amongst Christians (I know, I've been in some of those debates), in general, every Christian group accepts that the Bible (with some disputes over exactly which writings make it up) is authoritative in matters of faith and morals, and is generally accurate if not inerrant/infallible/whatever.
Minor history lesson -- the Catholics did not formally define what books make up the Bible until the (post-Reformation) Council of Trent in 1546. There is no "official" Protestant list (how could there be, we're so bloody disorganized :^) but the general consensus is the list from Trent, minus the books of the "Deuterocanon/Apocrypha," for a total of 66 books. Trent was also well after the Great Schism of 1054, so it is not accepted by the Orthodox either, and I have no idea how they define the canon.
Re:What License for the Bible? (Score:2)
III:47. This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine
Now that sounds a little bit more like the GPL: you've got to redistribute the original source when you port it.
(FWIW: I'm not a Thelemite, but I play one on the Net occasionally.)
Re:question (Score:1)
Hmm, some say that Christianity and its denomination do this regularly. New testament and book of Morman and the various Apocrypha come to mind
Weird, man (Score:1)
Time for another blunt, methinks
Re:Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:2)
Copyright applies to any organised data, and is copyrighted by the person doing the organising. Thus, the photograph is copyright to the photographer, and the book to the author.
(This is notwithstanding that the author has been dead over 50/70 years, and so copyright would have expired, even if the author had not GPLed it.)
It also means that you would be on -very- shaky ground, if you were to take a photograph of the same book, under identical viewing conditions, with an identical camera, at an identical angle. My understanding is that that would be a breach of copyright, even though you did not technically copy the original photograph. Any other photograph, taken under any other condition, would almost certainly be a-ok.
flamebait (Score:1)
The story is better and worse (Score:2)
The church as it existed then bore little resemblance to modern Catholicism or any other modern sect of Christianity - blaming the Catholics isn't very accurate.
The story as I recall it is that no one could agree which books ought to be considered sacred, and which ought to be rejected. So, a whole bunch were left on a table in a closed room, and they figured God would remove those books that weren't right. Sometime later, the room was reopened and only some of the books were still on the table (the other ones being on the floor, I think) and that's how the New Testament was made.
Yeah, I have a hard time believing the story too. Certainly its remarkable how the New Testament corresponded neatly with Constantine's own theology.
But the New Testament is mostly internally consistent, and only mildly inconsistent with external information. Certainly Josephus brief mention of Christ in the Annals (although not by name) makes it hard to reject his existence outright.
As for the rest, I have no desire to debate theology on
Re:Block printing before? (Score:1)
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:2)
Got any way to prove that God did speak to John on the Isle of Patmos?
...phil
Wrong book (Score:2)
The Bible didn't exists in John's time.
This verse always get misinterpreted.
Re:question (Score:2)
Re:question (Score:2)
Thomas Jefferson [angelfire.com] did it. He extractd the moral teachings from the various Gospels and discarded what he thought were the supernatural bits. His version never really caught on, though.
come on! (Score:2)
It would be interesting if it included a GPL-like license, but while the GPL includes a great deal of verbiage to prevent others from restricting the freedom of the work, this just says it was made for free distribution.
barnes&noble? (Score:2)
#define X(x,y) x##y
Sutra (Score:3)
Re:Waiting... (Score:4)
It's origin is highly speculative. Some Buddhists believe that it (along with all other Sutras) where written during the lifetime of the Buddha and hidden by the King of the Nagas "until the world was ready." (Nagas are intelligent water-snakes.)
Western scholars put the authorship of this and other sutra to around 2-400 years after the death of the Buddha (around 2,500+ years ago), and the location in Northern India.
This type of "license" was common amongst Buddhist writting, and some books by modern monks are realeased with similar statements at the begining. (However, they have a big ol' copyright at the begining.)
Note: I _am_ Buddhist (Tibetan Drikung Kagyu), and find the Diamond Sutra to be a powerful and beautiful statement of Buddhist belief.
Re:Sutra (Score:2)
Re:Wrong book (Score:2)
No kidding about the common misinterpretation. It sort of reminds me of when I asked an old Southern Baptist neighbor of mine why she would want to use the original KJV since so much of the language is obscure and easily misunderstood. She replied "If King James English was good enough for Jesus, it was good enough for me!"
Re:question (Score:2)
i think i have to disagree with you here. how about the book of mormon? and the popularity of all those new-age, find jesus for yourself books like the power of living?
even the most popular version of the bible today (king james) is only an interpretation of a translation of the original.
LL
Re:[OT] Origins of the Christian canon of Scriptur (Score:2)
Because, I presume, it is a fact.
In the literal sense, the Bible is not the Word of God. God did not himself write it. God did not dictate all of the books to whomever wrote them.
Since the books were written physically by humans, and these humans believed that they were writing in accordance with God's Will, and none of them are around today to ask about the subject, it follows that to beleve that the authors were led by God to pen those words requires faith.
The above poster was simply stating a fact that is readily verifiable, as opposed to a fact that requires faith that the AC may not have (or want, for that matter).
Re:Waiting... (Score:2)
I was raised Catholic myself and found Buddhism about the age of 14 or so (I was never confirmed in the Catholic Church). But off the top of my head here are the differences between Catholism and Buddhism.
Catholic
God
Soul
Hell Forever
1 Life
Buddhist
No God(1)
No Soul(2)
Hell Temporary
Reincarnation
------------------------------------
(1) Buddhist are not required to believe in a God or gods (one of the big draws for me). We are explicitly told no to "take refuge" in God or gods.
(2) Anatta (no soul) is one of the central tenets of Buddhism, it states that there is no part of "Me" that abides forever, "I" am a different collection of causes and conditions then I was when I started writing this sentence.
I don't mean this as a flame or anthing, I just feel we should celebrate our diversity rather than force common ground.
More like "open content" (Score:2)
Of course, after a eleven-hundred years, it's all public domain, although with the rate at which Disney and the late Rep. Sonny Bono were conspiring to extend the duration of copyrights, such an assumption might soon be invalid.
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:2)
Copyrighted picture copy of a GPL book (Score:3)
If you follow that link, you'll find that whoever took the photo of the book (The British Library Board), has slapped a 1997 copyright on it. This in itself brings up an interesting question.
If I wrote a book, and marked it as "universal free distribution", could someone make a copy it, then copyright their copy, and possibly sue me for infringment?
To me, "universal free distribution" would seem like as loose a GPL as you can get. Basically, you are setting absolutely no limits on it's distribution.
So here come the brits (no offense), who reproduce Mr. Wang Jie's (if that's a female name, forgive me) work. And they copyright their work?
Either way this could be good or bad. If you had some copyrighted software you wanted to use, you can just copy it, and copyright your copy.
When it comes down to it, I honestly believe that the original copyright stands. Thus, the British Library Board's claim at copyright is invalid, and I can copy this picture and put it up on my homepage.
Oldest only because ... (Score:3)
Re:Waiting... (Score:2)
How was I being dogmatic? I don't understand...
All I said was that there were differences between the religions, which is true. I didn't say Christians where damned to hell or any such thing.
the Torah and quality control (Score:2)
(The Talmud is, umm, sort of like the 2,500-year-old archives of soc.culture.jewish, back when you had to be a rabbi to get on the Net.)
As I was saying, there's a story in the Talmud about a little crisis the Jewish sages faced, when there were only three Torah scrolls left in the world. (A "Torah scroll" is a single scroll containing the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy, in the original Hebrew.) All three scrolls had slight variations in the text, and the sages had no way of knowing which variation was more likely to be correct. Since the sages believed that every word of the Torah is from God, and sometimes a single word had vast legal consequences, this was a problem.
So they copied out a new scroll based on the other three, as follows: Whenever the old scrolls disagreed about a certain verse, the new scroll would follow the "majority opinion" of the old scrolls. After the transcription was complete, they declared the new scroll to be The Canonical Sacred Text, and the old scrolls were declared Unfit For Ritual Use.
That's "Diamond *Cutter* Sutra." (Score:4)
The Diamond Cutter Sutra is one of the main Buddhist teachings on Emptiness. You can get it in Tibetan, along with a lot of other Buddhist texts in Tibetan at The Asian Classics Input Project [asianclassics.org]. Yes, that's right, it's available on the web, and also in CD form. Ain't technology wonderful?
Re:question (Score:3)
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:2)