Gospel of the Lots of Mary' Discovered

[Mikolaj]

A 1,500-year-old book that contains a previously unknown gospel has been deciphered.

http://www.livescience.com/49673-newfound-ancient-gospel-deciphered.html

[PersonFromPorlock]

Hm... early Magic Eight-Ball?

[bubblykiss]

Hm... early Magic Eight-Ball?

No, they used the old 37 sided dice or 37d for you RPers out there.

[paperdyer]

No, they used the old 37 sided dice or 37d for you RPers out there.

They used it to avoid the wandering monsters.

[Grandpa Greenman]

I didn't know Christians were allowed to do such things and I wonder who wrote it? Interesting find.

[PersonFromPorlock]

I didn't know Christians were allowed to do such things and I wonder who wrote it? Interesting find.

Christianity - which presumes that human life is inevitably flawed - is actually pretty relaxed about what Christians can and can't do. Christian heirarchies, though, like to have scrupulous observation of their rules lest someone get the idea that heirarchies are unnecessary.

[IceBorne]

So does this mean, the church has stolen even more stuff from other cultures??? . . . Would be no surprise to me. Some hobbies last forever. XD

[Leonardo]

No, they used the old 37 sided dice or 37d for you RPers out there.

Do you get to re-roll if you get a bad result?

[FLOMBIE]

Do you get to re-roll if you get a bad result?

Only if you have a fate point left!

[Keel M.]

Do you get to re-roll if you get a bad result?

Not with this book as it's supposedly all positive stuff...

[+OverSword]

Yep, seems more to do with fortune telling than religion. It's really cool from an antiquary point of view but has little or nothing to do with being a religious scripture. They keep it vague and generalized like astrology or tarot making it the obvious tool of a charlatan.

[Peter B]

So does this mean, the church has stolen even more stuff from other cultures??? . . . Would be no surprise to me. Some hobbies last forever. XD

Not at all. And I don't think the church was responsible for stealing much other stuff from other cultures either.

Rather I see these sorts of things in two similar ways.

One way is that people becoming Christians bring a lot of their old culture with them and the church accepts it and builds it into its own systems (hence Christmas being celebrated on 25 December). However, the church could (and occasionally did) crack down on overtly pagan practices, particularly around the time this book is dated, and this book would be the sort of thing they'd target.

The other way is that, out in the countryside where priests were rarer, people may have been nominally Christian but maintained their own version of it which incorporated older beliefs. (Have a look, for example, at the folk saints of Central America, like Santa Pascual Baylon and Santa Muerte.)

In the case of this book, it may well not have been officially sanctioned by the church, but was used by otherwise devout Egyptian Christians who nevertheless found something useful in a holdover from pre-Christian Egyptian religion.

[paperdyer]

So does this mean, the church has stolen even more stuff from other cultures??? . . . Would be no surprise to me. Some hobbies last forever. XD

Just like all religions. Progressive wasn't first in pick your own options

[ellapenella]

A 1,500-year-old book that contains a previously unknown gospel has been deciphered.

http://www.livescien...deciphered.html

Whoa !!!