About "we do know that the Book got some changes made on few occasion to fit with the Church's vision"
Plus many more changes in the course of being translated from the original to Greek then to Latin then to modern languages; also the question of several "originals" with differing content. See, for example, the contents of the Dead Sea scrolls; some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content (to the Old Testament).
There are conspiracy theorists who claim some of the Dead Sea scrolls will never be published because of such differences to the New Testament but there is no evidence that such unpublished scrolls even exist.

By the way, I enjoy so much more this kind of conversation on religion than the so typical ''those are nutter than us'' or ''those are the bad ones....''

Talking about technicality and historical is way much funnier!

Oh, most definitely, he must have been a lier! .. or delusional .. or someone of higher intelligence for that time, taking the mickey out of the the general public ...... somewhat like the movie "The Life of Brian".

The pagan religions had plenty of willing followers for that time. Was only the Romans who had the forethought to incorporate all the religions into one big family. Actually, was the god of Mammon who ruled, and everyone paid taxes to the RC`s .... making it a very wealthy business to be in .....

If I remember correctly .... was it not the Celts and their Druids who refused to bow down and worship....?

If I remember correctly, it was the Celts who kept the flame of Christianity alive (in the West, at least) during the Dark Ages, eventually bringing the Word to the heathen Angles and Saxons who eventually saw the benefits of it and became rather enthusiastic Christians themselves... but don't let historical fact get in the way of your story...

I got a lot of interests in the deleted parts concerning women apostles and the Shroud of Turin's fabrication.

Great stuff in there!

I have & in these books they say the Greek Orthodox believe they are the only Christian church & the Roman Catholics are a breakaway group who left the "true" church in 1054.

Roman Catholics got too soft over the years for them?

Nah... it was something about unilaterally changing the working of the Nicene Creed, and the fact that the Bishop of Rome thought he was something special.

I love church history, me. It's got nothing to do with the message, of course, but it makes for fantastic soap opera.

I love the church history too. A lot of people are dismissing the theory used by Dan Brown (because it it a novel) but the theories in the books are coming from real theories actually.

I had a teacher at University who was a lot into those kind of theories and believe me, it was the most interesting class I had in my whole Bacc. And it was more than what 10-13 years ago.... Brown didn't invent anything, he just paint it with more colors (and flowers, and rainbows...)

About " The King James version was the first to be transcribed into english, and it is assumed that it was an authentic translation."

1. It was not the first, the first one was about 300 years earlier - claimed to be by John Wycliffe in about 1382. There were several other translations during those 300 years. In fact the Act of Parliament requesting the King James version said "An act for the reducing of diversities of bibles now extant in the English tongue to one settled vulgar translated from the original"

2. They did a good job of the King James version but it was itself revised 4 times in the next 200 years.

Yes, the "fine" story about the Pope inspired fourth Crusade where the "rogue" crusaders decided it was too much trouble to go & fight the Turks so instead they went & sacked Constantinople which was the seat of the Greek Orthodox church; equivalent to Rome for the Roman Catholics.
I wonder what the Wiki leaks cables of the time would have said about the role of the Pope

I challenge anybody to start thread which gets off topic quicker than this and stays off topic longer.

It seems very on topic...

You see, I don't really take a quest for spirituality in any opposition to rational thinking and science. It can be wrapped up in some biblical message, very ornate and with super elaborate stories and long history and institutionalized, or just a moment in one's mind, without any of this. I take it as a skill of our heads and hearts, not illusions or dreams, but necessity or a natural process..It seems to put our minds and hearts in some kind of idyllic cooperation that is normally so hard to achieve..I don't see that in a form of some ghost flying above my head telling me what to do, quoting scriptures and scaring me with hell, in fact I do think this all has been a clever work of humans to make life somewhat more meaningful, little program facilitating the whole journey. I don't really think there are many people who actually do believe in heaven and hell, who take the whole story of bible in in tiny details and identify with it. I think they make themselves, they want to, and why not. All thinking creatures are naturally scared of death...I don't think we are so faulty that we need the help of another system that is independent of us, that rules this life and we should worship it, etc. I think we are so genius to create something like this, with stories and pictures, and books, and institutions, and little helpers, and leaders and hierarchy. Maybe it was us who created it, maybe not. I enjoy the mystery of it, too. Keeps the questions coming and keeps people enough humble. But it seems to be overall functioning, it helps people being better, even despite the fact there are obvious signs that this system needs an update. We all do, at times, all systems do.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

About "it helps people being better"
True but on the other side I believe religion is probably the biggest single cause of violent deaths in the world's history! Fairly recent events were the partition of India & Pakistan in 1947 with resulting deaths estimated at large fractions of a million, or the Yugoslavia break-up or Nothern Ireland.
I would not want to belong to a group that thinks it is OK to murder people for no other reason than they belong to another group, so that rules out Christian, Muslim, Hindu &&&.
I would support the Sainthood of a Pope who stood up, clearly condemned such events & took action against any of his own followers who were involved.

I can mock anyone's religion anytime, if they feel offended, that's their problem. This is what tolerance is about and this is why it is terribly wrong for someone to get death threats for portraying a prophet with bombs.

Few things -amongst others- that people should be able to stand in the free world:

• religion mockery
• burning of flags
• nationality repudiation
• royalty mockery
• invasion of the private life of public figures
• gossip of any kind
• any kind of opinion, including the opinion that people should not vent opinions

If you can't stand these, in my opinion, you are in the wrong latitude.

__________________
From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life long, from the years that were to come.

Er, it is written in the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Shroud of Turin is a fabrication?

I didn't know you were that old, DB

Yes, first Ernest Grimshaw and now the Celts.........
Hmmm........are you being honest about your age, DB??

You can have what ever opinion you have but if you hurt someone, that someone can hurt you back. And that is to you to deal with it.

True, but too many people respond to hurt feelings by hurting people's bodies - and not necessarily the bodies of those people who hurt their feelings in the first place!

If people don't like to hear their religion being mocked, perhaps they ought to simply stop listening?