Glenn Beck explains the Dead Sea Scrolls

Arts & Sciences Religion & Spirituality
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What could be more explosive a topic in the Religion forum, than the significance of the Qumran texts known as the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’?

Glenn Beck on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Transcript by Robert Cargill.

[quote]Beck: You know the… Dead Sea Scrolls. You know what they are? Stu, do you know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are? …
Stu: Well, of course I do.
Beck: No, come on. Most people don’t. I’m not…
Stu: I heard of them. I don’t really know.
Beck: You don’t really know, do you. You have no why they were there.
Stu: Nu uh.
Beck: Sarah, average person doesn’t know. Any idea? Take a guess on what, why the Dead Sea Scrolls are there, anything else.
Sarah: Something religious.
Beck: OK good. Even though I’ve explained this on this program a couple of times, I’m glad to see that, I’m glad to see that even the people that work with me everyday don’t even listen.
Stu: Well, there’s, we were actually talking about American Idol last night. The guy won! It was unbelievable.
Beck: All right. So here’s what happened. When Constantine decided he was going to uh… cobble together an army, um, he did the uh… Council of uh… Nicaea, right, Pat?
Pat: Yea.
Beck: Council of Nicaea. Um… and what they did is brought all of the religious figures, uhh, together, all the Christians and then they said, “Ok, let’s uh, put together the Apostles’ Creed, let’s, you know, you guys do it.” So they brought all their religious scripture together, and that’s when the Bible was first bound and everything else. And then they said, “Anybody that disagrees with this is a heretic and… off with their head!” Well, that’s what the Dead Sea Scrolls are. The Dead Sea Scrolls are those scriptures that people had at the time that they said, “They are destroying all of this truth.” Whether it’s truth or not is, is up to the individual, but that… at that time those people thought that this was something that needed to be preserved and so they rolled up the scrolls and they put ‘em in clay pots and they, they put ‘em in the back of caves where no one could find them. They were hidden scripture because everything was being destroyed that disagreed with the Council of Nicaea and Constantine. That’s what those things are.[/quote]

Words fail. The level of ignorance here, on so many levels, on so many topics, is simply colossal. :noway:

I think this says it all:

[quote]Beck: OK good. Even though I’ve explained this on this program a couple of times, I’m glad to see that, I’m glad to see that even the people that work with me everyday don’t even listen.
Stu: Well, there’s, we were actually talking about American Idol last night. The guy won! It was unbelievable.[/quote]

What really terrifies me is that Beck has a significant radio audience. This means there are hundreds of thousands of people more stupid than Glenn Beck. And it’s no excuse that he’s a Mormon, since the Mormons actually have some highly credited and well recognized theologians and Biblical scholars (such as David Paulsen and Blake Ostler). Beck could at least pay attention to his sect’s own scholarship.

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There’s really a simple answer here I think you’re missing: he really just meant Apollo Creed.

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Yeah, there are a lot of dumb people out there.

Some of 'em get on the radio, and many listen to the radio.

Here’s what Sam Harris said about Mormonism . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8hLbqdrQug

At the same debate, he really made me laugh . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjhbccXIp4c&feature=related

Sam Harris and Rabbi David Wolpe are Americans, too. I think their level of discourse is a level or two above that of Glenn Beck and his radio crew. They probably don’t pull in as many listeners as Beck.

Edit to add: If Elvis ain’t alive, life ain’t worth livin’. :cry:

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Jeff Beck explains the Dead Sea Scrolls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jD2tbLND0&feature=fvst

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Glenn Frey explains the Dead Sea Scrolls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZ3bXURmSw&feature=related

and Apollo Creed explains the Dead… no wait, he just dies…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NTUmrOfyUA

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He seems to have confused the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Nag Hammadi codices. Even the best scholars do that from time to time. Like Dan Brown.

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You guys should have been around last night, you could have heard GlenLIVET explain the Dead Sea Scrolls…except it probably sounded more like “Dess Eee Strol-no, wait, Deck Tee Sprawls, hang on, give me a sec here…”

Honest, I know a guy back home named Glen Beck, stupider than 3 bags of hammers, I swear, dumbest SOB to ever put shoes on.

I guess this a different guy.

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Enough of this religious mockery!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZ6-6RbSEg

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Christ, TC, you resurrected that one! But it is a classic

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[quote=“the chief”]Honest, I know a guy back home named Glen Beck, stupider than 3 bags of hammers, I swear, dumbest SOB to ever put shoes on.

I guess this a different guy.[/quote]
Maybe not. Did this guy you know have a radio show?

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Nothing he said could even remotely be attributed accurately to the Nag Hammadi Library.

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[quote=“zender”][quote=“the chief”]Honest, I know a guy back home named Glen Beck, stupider than 3 bags of hammers, I swear, dumbest SOB to ever put shoes on.

I guess this a different guy.[/quote]
Maybe not. Did this guy you know have a radio show?[/quote]

Bro, this guy couldn’t spell “radio show”…

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Beck explains where the uh … Council of uh… Nicaea is at.

Sorry for the threadjack, Fortigurn. I am sure you know that there aren’t that many Bible scholars in the US or elsewhere. I am impressed that you are one who really knows his Bible, but considering how many people claim to live their lives according to the good book, precious few have read it cover to cover and even fewer understand it.

Have you seen any Biblical-test results or even any good Bible tests?

I’m guessing less than 20% of all Americans that call themselves Christians know the ten commandments.

Edit to add: Here’s an interesting article from Reuters. So, more Americans know the ingredients in a Big Mac than know the 10 Cs. And more people know the members of the Brady Bunch. And only 60% knew “Thou shall not kill.” :noway: I’m not impressed.

reuters.com/article/idUSN1223894020071012

I’m currently reading “The Year of Living Biblically” by A. J. Jacobs. He’s the guy that read the Encyclopedia from front to back and then wrote, “The Know-It-All.”

In TYOLB, he follows the 7 hundred some rules of the Bible as literally as possible. You can check it out from Taipei City Library when I return it.

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Isn’t that an oxymoron? Bit like a “Lord of the Rings scholar”?

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Isn’t that an oxymoron? Bit like a “Lord of the Rings scholar”?[/quote]
Hardly. One’s a book that has shaped civilizations, the other is a book that has shaped a subculture of anorak-wearing dweebs.

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Isn’t that an oxymoron? Bit like a “Lord of the Rings scholar”?[/quote]
Hardly. One’s a book that has shaped civilizations, the other is a book that has shaped a subculture of anorak-wearing dweebs.[/quote]
Yeah right, like you can tell which is which. Are we allowed to call them “scientology scholars”? Do I get to have a scholar named after my johnson if my progeny “shape civilization”? Since when does something have to “shape civilization” for it to have “scholars”?

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Glenn Beck is insane. That’s all I have to say about this issue.

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Well, I guess some people are interested in how a book can have had such a massive influence for so many years over such an enormous number of people.

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Well, I guess some people are interested in how a book can have had such a massive influence for so many years over such an enormous number of people.[/quote]
But that’s a study of its effect on civilization, not a study of the Bible itself eg which psalms are which, how it contradicts itself and why - you know, all that chunky crazy stuff, like my nutty Hasidic relatives (ex-relatives sine they sat the prayer of the dead for me, no shit) yammering on and on and on about how this verse says this but that verse says that and some rabbi back in the day stuck his finger up a dog’s ass and so forth - “Bible Study”

A scholar of Christianity sounds more correct to me. A Bible scholar is… well… about as much use as a LotR scholar

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Come on back, boychick, it’s not too late!!