This Will Make You Think

I wonder what all the people I know who insist the King James version of The Bible is the only proper translation will say to this:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The world's oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday -- but the 1,600-year-old text doesn't match the one you'll find in churches today.

Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.

The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections -- some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.

Pretty neat stuff, huh? But here's the one line that has me really intrigued:

And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said. [Emphasis Added]

I think that has some potentially serious implications, or rather, I'd like to think it would. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction is going to be for people to cling to the current story of death and resurrection - understandable given that without it, you don't have much of Christianity left I suppose. Yet, what if the current texts have it wrong? What if the miracle wasn't that Jesus died and returned? What if the miracle was that a brilliant teacher and spiritual leader simply taught peace, love, and understanding at a time when people were hopeless?

...scratch that. Knowing what some people say and do in Jesus's name makes it all the more depressing to think that we missed the point far worse than initially thought.

You can read Codex Sinaiticus online for yourself.

Big Damn Dog

Sasha was spayed today. She's home now, recovering and doing very well. I can tell she's still feeling the effects of the drugs they gave her because she hasn't barked once, and she tends to bark at me every five minutes on a normal day. That and she's not jumping on the couch either.

They weighed her said she's now a whopping 38.5 pounds. That's another ten-pound weight gain since May, and she's only roughly six months old. The vet looked at her chart and at her teeth and said, "Oh yeah, she's going to be over fifty pounds." So I have enough heartworm meds and flea stuff for two more months. By that point she should be at fifty pounds or over and then I can just buy however much medicine I need for that weight range.

When I found her back in March, she fit inside both of my hands with room left over. Now her paw takes up the palm of one hand. And it's so weird to know she's only six months old, but she's now the same size as Penny, who is almost five years old.

What's really funny is watching her run away with her tail tucked between her legs from my neighbor's Shi Tzu, who is also roughly six months old. She's about three times his size, and when he barked at her the other day, she panicked and ran back toward the porch. I nearly fell over laughing because she's big and bad until another dog barks back. They started playing a few minutes later when he wandered into my yard (I supervised until his owner could come collect him).

When she's feeling better later this week, I'll take some pictures of her. She's turning into a gorgeous dog, even if she's going to be huge.