A Brief History of the Bible
A Human, a Pony Princess, and a Mistake
Excerpt 1: A Brief History of the Bible
“Tom, do you hate me?” It was the dead of night. The only two awake in Golden Oaks Library were Tom and Twilight. To no one’s surprise, the pair had been reading. Tom looked over at Twilight.
“I thought I made it clear I don’t hate you when we first met,” Tom replied.
“But I practice magic…” Twilight said morosely.
“What? What does that have to do with anything?” Tom asked in confusion.
“‘Suffer not the witch to live’.” Twilight quoted and Tom suddenly felt an intense desire to grovel at Twilight’s hooves. Which he did.
“I’m so sorry Twilight, I’m such an idiot. I gave you the straight King James Version. Instead of putting the Joseph Smith Translation over the verses like a semi-intelligent person, I put them in the back where I remember them being,” Tom berated himself.
“There’s more than one version?” Twilight asked.
“That requires a bit of a history lesson. Alright, so the Old Testament of the Bible was written in mostly Classical Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew. The New Testament was written in Greek and the Old Testament was translated into the same. Now, the problem with this is that Hebrew became a dead language for about 1500 years and Greek mutated so much as to be unrecognizable after the fall of the Roman Empire,” Tom started.
“Dead language?” Twilight asked.
“A language with no native born speakers. There are about 6500 languages currently spoken on Earth and there’s no way to know exactly how many languages have died over the course of history,” Tom answered.
“6500?! How- why would you need so many languages?!” Twilight shouted. There were only 5 main languages spoken on Equuis: Equestrian, Griffish, Breezian, Yakish, and Draconian. There were maybe half a dozen other less spoken languages.
“You read about the Tower of Babel, right?” Twilight nodded, “Well they were underselling just how badly that event corrupted the Human Tongue.”
“That’s a sobering thought. Suddenly not being able to understand any of my friends…” Twilight shivered.
“Anyway, we’re getting off topic. After the fall of the Roman Empire, there was a great Dark Age, where much knowledge was lost. This was also during the Great Apostasy, also known as the Long Night, which happened directly after the death of Jesus Christ. God closed the Heavens during the Long Night, so some doctrine had already become corrupted by the time the Roman Empire fell.
“During the Dark Ages, only a handful of high ranking members of the Church knew how to read and to complicate matters they translated the entire Bible into Latin. Very poorly, I might add. So the clergymen basically reworded, reinterpreted, and flat out made up entire passages as it suited them. The Church basically used the common people as tools to increase their own prestige and power. They even started entire wars, known as the Crusades, over “holy sites”.” Tom said with disgust.
“That’s awful!” Twilight exclaimed.
“You’re not the only one who thought so, but at the time, to disagree with the Church was basically asking for them to either cart you off to an insane asylum or outright murder you, either by beheading, hanging, or burning at the stake. The Church was pretty much the absolute power in much of Europe.” Twilight recoiled at this.
“That’s barbaric!” Twilight derided.
“Yes, it wasn’t until 1534 that a monk by the name of Martin Luther, using the then recent invention of the printing press, translated the Bible into German. Unfortunately, his translation contained many errors. The various languages are rarely good for one to one translations. Even among individual languages there are accents, local dialects, and unique turns of phrase. There are people who spend their whole lives learning to translate one language into another and even then there are disagreements on if their exact word choices are correct,” Tom explained.
“So where does the King James Version come in?” Twilight asked.
“King James the First came to the throne when several separate sects of Christianity were fighting for dominance. It was a troubling time to be sure, but the competition inspired many to reexamine the translations of the Bible. The extremely rough Latin, along with the original Hebrew and Greek versions were all looked over and translated into English. There were a few different versions of the Bible running around at the time, but they were almost all superior to the first Latin translation.
“King James was a holy scholar himself and had retranslated some of the Psalms. He wanted to unite all the different factions, unite his people. So he gathered a bunch of scholars in an attempt to translate the Bible one final time into a form all the sects of Christianity would accept. The work started in 1604 and was completed in 1611. When it was released, it quickly gained popularity until it achieved its goal of being the most widely accepted version of the Bible released in modern times. At the time, it was the most perfect form of the Bible since the original writing.
“However, it wasn’t entirely perfect. Certain passages were mistranslated, missing, or even corrupted. One of those passages was the one that you mentioned “suffer not the witch to live”. The correct translation would later be discovered to be “Thou shalt not suffer the murderer to live”. Quite the difference, eh? That verse in particular caused quite a lot of trouble, particularly during the mid to late 1600s, but that’s a history lesson for another time.
“The King James Version would stand as the most correct version of the Gospel until Joseph Smith Jr. was inspired by God to retranslate the entirety of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations. He started in 1830 and finished in 1833, but it wasn't published until 1867. It was when Joseph Smith Jr. was appointed as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that the Great Apostasy was officially over and God once again spoke directly to his children on Earth. With God’s direction, Joseph Smith Jr. translated the Plates of Brass, which are what the Old Testament was originally written on, the New Testament, and the Plates of Gold, which contained an account of the ancient Americas, as well as commandments and further ministry from Jesus Christ after His death and resurrection,” Tom lectured.
“The Plates of Gold?” Twilight asked. Tom pointed to the book resting beside the Bible.
“They were published as the Book of Mormon. It tells how a family fled from Jerusalem, crossed the ocean, and lived in the Americas in ancient times. It also contains an account of the descendants of that family and the commandments they received from God during their time. The Book of Mormon covers a time period from about 2500 years Before Christ’s Birth, to about 400 years After His Birth or Anno Domini, which is Latin for ‘The Year of Our Lord’. Most just shorten it to BC and AD,” Tom answered.
“I guess I should reread the Bible then,” Twilight remarked.
“Yeah, let me fix it for you,” Tom took about ten minutes to replace all the text of the KJV with the JST corrections. After that, they both continued to read deep into the night.
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10327373
Yeah, but unlike the DBZ fusions, this fusion wasn't created by willing participants, made a complete fusion of the two Souls involved, and there is no(?) way to reverse it.
This poor fusion is going to be very confused. They are aware that they're a separate entity from their components, but they still have Twilight and Tom's memories bouncing around in their head like Pinkie Pie on a double expresso.
You are a Mormon?
did tom write what he could remember? and it only took 10 minutes to make the new version?
10327412
Enhanced recall spell. It's how he remembered the entirety of the Scriptures to begin with.
10327408
yes
this was different not many touch on religion
10327466
I find it patently silly. Religion is supposed to be about Love and Acceptance, but so many people hide from it because Religion has become "controversial". Why should we hide from what we believe in? We don't shy away from stating that we believe murder is wrong. We don't shy away from stating we believe in common decency for our fellow man. But as soon as actual Religion enters the conversation, everyone's suddenly an Ostridge. Even if we don't believe in anything at all, why shy away from it?
So what if we believe different thing? The concept of Inner Truth dictates that we each view our belief from a different perspective. The whole point is to accept and embrace that fact! In my own belief, we are all unique, but we are all Children of God. We should love each other no matter what! Maybe what most baffles me his how I, a person with Schizoid, have come to these conclusions.
When I was younger and Yahoo Answer was still a thing I used to spend long hours in the religion section of the forums, just to answer questions and defuse arguments. It was nice. I wasn't really able to go on a Mission, due to my mental health, which at the time was in a truly disastrously bad state, but it still felt like I was serving. It doesn't matter if you get ridiculed and scorned, just turn the other cheek.
Well, that's my ramble for the day.
Well, never liked religion to begin with, but history itself is interesting. And tragic.
I have nothing against it in fiction, though. Imagining that higher powers actually exist is quite fascinating even though I personally don't see a dustinct need of their existence.
10327539
Even just the subjective history is super fun to research and write.
10327542
To be honest I never liked history in school, but that's most likely due to all history teachers I encountered only told everyone to read the book and couldn't tell anything interesting on the subject. I doubt they liked their work either.
10327403
I believe there was a fanfiction (the same one with that one changeling who has advanced shapeshifting power and the idea of moving souls into drone bodies) the main character had a dilemma where he was randomly slipping into memories of his previous body. This caused a few problems (and one badass moment) when the two sets of memories started influencing each other. (In this case it was a whole bunch of spotty memories from Luna and a normalish human.)
10327784
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/255419/
This one, maybe?
10327408
I caught that way back in the chapter on Sunset Shimmer, when Tom tells Sunset the story of Alma the Younger from the Book of Mormon. Actually, using "Alma" as a man's name virtually guarantees someone has at least passing familiarity with the Book of Mormon - most people recognize Alma as a Latin-derived female name, but according to what I've heard it's also a male name in Hebrew that shows up in extra-biblical documents but not in the Bible itself. The Book of Mormon, which describes itself as being of Israelite heritage, has several prominent male figures named Alma.
I absolutely love the JST, or the "Inspired Version". It makes so many things so much clearer, particularly the New Testament Epistles. But I also had an experience similar to yours with the passages from Isaiah quoted in the Book of Mormon. In Isaiah 2, the KJV has "ships of Tarshish", while an alternate version of the Talmud has "ships of the sea". The version presented in the BoM has both, showing that the Plates of Brass that Nephi was drawing from predate the other manuscripts which had lost content over time.
There are many other in-text proofs of Book of Mormon authenticity - colophons, naming conventions, chiasmus, cultural norms, coinage systems, wordprinting - that LDS scholars like to point to in support of Joseph Smith's prophetic calling. But it all reminds me of something Hugh Nibley wrote, I think it was in his book Since Cumorah: all the "proofs" he discusses will strengthen your belief if you already believe, but to the skeptics nothing he says would convince them (loose paraphrase). No single piece of evidence he presents is enough to tip the scales of belief, so instead he bowls you over with the sheer number of interesting coincidences he's aggregated.
I have a few other things to say about this exchange between Tom and Twilight.
I wasn't under the impression that the Latin Vulgate Bible as translated by St. Jerome was "rough", and I think you misrepresent the integrity of the manuscripts that made their way through medieval copyists. From all I've heard, there's a remarkable degree of accuracy when we compare the earliest extant New Testament documents with those who came later.
(Nephi talks about "plain and precious parts" being removed from the Bible, which can color how the LDS layperson views the Bible as a whole, and Joseph Smith's qualifier "as far as it is translated correctly" probably introduces more skepticism than is healthy - I would say he was talking just as much about translating into "Blikish" or "Travelerese", i.e. interpretation, as he was from Greek or Hebrew.)
And can I say I'm just tickled at how it's obvious that Tom actually read the entire Bible, even the boring parts? After all, the Good Book says "the
Holy SpiritEnhanced Recall Spell will bring all things to your remembrance", and you can't remember what you haven't read. Though he also mentions the Roman Empire so casually that Twilight must have been mining his brain for more than just scripture.10328435
Yes, as mentioned in Tragedy Averted, Tom forgot to moderate himself for our favorite nerd and she's been hounding him off and on about all the nitty gritty of Human History.
As to Nephi's mention of 'precious and plain parts' I will absolutely acknowledge that many LDS have a harsher than strictly needed view of St. Jerome's translation, as well as other translations. It certainly wasn't bad, but I try to have subtle differences of opinion with Tom. He personally sees anything other than the JST to be running roughshod over the Scriptures. I see the other versions of the Bible of just doing the best with what they had at the time.
Tom and I both grew up in very strict religious households. He grew up as a Catholic but converted to LDS at age 15 after one of his acting friends left behind a copy of the Book of Mormon and he read it all the way through. I was born and raised LDS, although we didn't go to church all that often when I was younger, so I basically self-taught most of my Scripture reading. I read all of the Bible and Book of Mormon by the time I was 8, but didn't even realize the JST was a thing until I was 13 or 14.
Surprisingly, neither of us found the Bible to be boring. Tom was already used to sometimes dry Elizabethan Era scripts when he picked the Bible back up after converting and with the new context the JST provided, everything just seemed to flow better, I guess? He was already a student of history at the time, so that also helped to keep his interests engaged originally, seeing how the people lived, worked, were taught, etc.
When I started reading the Bible at age 6, I didn't realize any of it was supposedly 'boring'. There was always the warm feeling of the Holy Ghost encouraging me to read and I was glad to do so. I was already a budding bibliophile and the only things I had to compare the Bible to were Clifford the Big Red Dog books, which did bore me to tears.
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God". That passage basically sums up how we both feel. It's not just some words or verses that sustain us, but every word in the Bible and Book of Mormon that fill us.
Great story! Finished it in two days and I must say that I'm impressed. I felt like there could have been more to the ending though. Like, what happens after? What other daily struggles is T&T going to deal with? Also it would have been nice to see more about how Twilight feels about not having her real body back. Something more heartfelt? I feel like Twilight didn't get enough moments of expressing her desires. Like in later chapters she did seem depressed about not being able to eat anymore.
Overall the story is really good but the ending was not what I was expecting. That's probably why I'm a bit thrown off.
10328512
Those things will take place in the experts I have planned. I'll be periodically adding excerpts from the three or so months Tom and Twilight spend together, to help shine a better light on their struggles. I can't promise they'll come soon, just as the inspiration takes me, but I'll continue to do so even once I've started Book 2.
10328518
You're starting another book eventually? Well damn I wasn't expecting that! I eagerly await your future chapters. Can't wait to read more. There's no rush or anything but I'm already excited
Have a good day/night and thank you for your time, until next time.
10328529
Aye, Book 2 will be published in about a week or so under the title Shattered Souls unless I can think of a more clever title.
10328531
Hey the title seems pretty good to me personally. Also, a week?! I was expecting a whole year or something! You're on fire it seems. Take as much time as you need, I'll be reading that new story as soon as I see that it's been released!
10328486
Funnily enough, I was just reading an essay on the history of the Latter-day Saints with the KJV. Why the King James Version? From the Common to the Official Bible of Mormonism. In specific, I learned that Catholics have been forbidden from studying Protestant-produced Bibles since 1545 by the ruling of the Council of Trent, which would encompass the 1611 Authorized "King James" Version. If Tom grew up Catholic he would likely have been reading one of their newer translations, or the Douay-Rheims version which prior to 1900 was the only authorized English translation.
As for "boring" bits of scripture, I thought as a kid that Isaiah was dry, because the quotations from Isaiah were the slowest part of the Book of Mormon (with which I was much more familiar than most of the Bible). Once I actually read the Bible from cover to cover, I learned that Deuteronomy was much harder to get through, and so were Ezekiel, Job, and portions of Chronicles. I also learned that the Proverbs and Psalms, while fine in small doses, are absolutely not meant to be read straight through from front to back.
10328539
Yes, I will completely agree with you that Psalms and Proverbs are best enjoyed in smaller bites. As for my personal hardest book to get through, I'd have to say either Acts, 1 Peter, or Leviticus. I'm not entirely sure why I feel the way I do about those three books.
On the other hand, my favorite book of the Bible is hands down Revelations, and not just for bad jokes about the number of the devil. Daniel comes in at a close second with Job probably taking number 3. Come to it either Daniel or Saul of Tarsus/Paul are my favorite Bible Prophets, which is strange considering how Acts is one of my least favorite books.
As for Book of Mormon, I think Ether is the hardest to read while Alma is my favorite followed my Helaman. Samuel might be my favorite prophet, but Alma the Younger also makes a very strong case.
Ah the Bible. The most corrupted and rewritten text in the history of the world.
But yes the more resent rewrites are far better. To bad other branching paths from the original didn't do a similar thing.
10327994
Yes. Thank you! Been a while since I last read it and I've bern looking for some of the better fanfics I read but can't remember the name of.
10328704
The Bible certainly has a long, sad history. Even today there are arguments on which version is the best and if the Bible should be translated more closely to the King James style prose or language closer to the way an uneducated fisherman of Galilee might write.
10328960
Changelings in general and Chrysalis in particular offer so much untapped potential in the show. I will always be grateful to the army of fanfic writers on this site and that some of them want to focus on the possible interpretations of the Changelings.
Yikes. I feel like this story would be better without those discussions about religion - it's almost like those stories with annoying, edgy atheists that go "hurr durr religion is dumb" but reversed.
10330285
Agreed, it feels... preachy, especially so when simply presenting it as the truth.
Just an fyi... burnings were super rare. Most were drowned
Ah, so Tom is Mormon... that's very different from my own branch of Christianity, referred to as Evangelical.
See, that one is directed by the last few verses of Revelations: "To those who add to Our Word, I shall add to your burdens. To those who remove from Our Word, I shall remove years of your life.". There's also the idea that no interpretation of Scripture is valid that contradicts other parts of it, but that all the remaining interpretations are ALL valid. And also the idea that says it was meant to be taken literally in all cases (unless context clearly said otherwise, such as Jesus's many parables). In short, we believe in The Word, all of The Word, and nothing but The Word.
By that definition, the Book of Mormon is... well, apocryphal. And rather contradictory to the Old and New Testaments at times (family structures on Earth retaining any importance in Heaven is the big example that comes to mind). Moreover, we don't use the JST version of the official Bible, though neither do most use the KJV. Last I checked, NIV was the preferred iteration, though I think it was revised into the rNIV somewhat recently.
Now, I'm not sure whether "don't suffer the witch" is still in there, but there actually IS a witch in the Bible (King Saul uses one to try talking to the deceased prophet Samuel, and he's NOT HAPPY about it). By that example, it's clearly referring to communing with dead spirits and other very satanic practices, not merely murderers and definitely not mages! Heck, that didn't become a common term for "female thaumatologist" until the Catholic Church said it was so, meaning they're just as guilty in my book as they are in yours for that one.
10360793
It's insane how many differences there are between various christian denominations. Just teasing apart these differences so you can compare them can take years to get good at. Comparative religion in the scope of christianity is insanely detailed and worthy of so much study.
Truthfully, when reading a 'religious' or 'holy' text. I suggest take everything you read with a grain of salt. Cause that book was written by man for man.
Ah a fellow Morman, and student of Christianity. I applaud thee for not being afraid to voice your views of the word and to actually put it in a well thought out and awesome story.
Eh, I feel like the Tower of Babel inclusion was incredibly forced. Sure, let's just ignore the many, many reasons language change and die out over time; from political to geographical to cultural reasons. Nope, just the tower of babel. It just feels weird to have Tom teaching Twilight something blatantly wrong.
To put it another way, can you imagine how ridiculous it would be for Tom to go, "Also the Earth is only 6000 years old!" while "teaching" her? It just feels really out of place I guess.
11167565
Which is why this chapter is called "a brief history of the bible" and not a general history of Earth. Also, to be fair, Tom did word it rather poorly. The Tower of Babel probably only ended up breaking the unified language into 5 or so different languages. Then time and imperfect record keeping across the world caused more fractures to appear, creating further new languages and some languages to die out.
Also young earth theory is, in my opinion, completely idiotic. Just because the timeline of the Bible suggests Adam and Eve emerged from the Garden of Eden at around 4000 BC does not mean that the world was created at the same time. Point of fact, the Bible is quite clear in that God created The Earth and the Heavens as the very first thing He did and the creation of Man in His own image was the last. So we first have to consider that we don't know if our understanding of a day as a 24 hour period is even comparable to the six "days" God took to create everything. I myself believe every "day" spanned potentially a million years or more. Then we also have to consider how long Adam and Eve actually spent in the Garden of Eden, which was on Earth, before they were cast out due to eating the forbidden fruit. Given they were not mortal before eating the fruit, who knows how many millions of years they could have spent in the Garden. While dinosaurs roamed Adam and Eve were probably still in blissful ignorance in the Garden.
11167873
Plus considering how long it took for the press to be invented education wasn't probably the most important thing in the world for a lot of folks who felt that learning how to certain things was way more important. Education probably over time with the language issues fell by wayside.