The Forbidden Book (New 2006 Version)
by Brian Barkley
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DVD details
Actor: Craig Lampe, Jim BirdsallDirector: Brian Barkley
DVD: Region Code 1
Format: Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Digital Sound, Director's Cut, Full length, Full Screen, NTSC, Restored, Special Edition, Subtitled
Running Time: 60 minutes
Published: 2009-04-01
DVD Release Date: 2006-01-20
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: New Liberty Videos
DVD Reviews of The Forbidden Book (New 2006 Version)
DVD Review: Often Unreliable
Summary: 2 Stars
This DVD, a documentary that is hosted by Craig Lampe (with a title similar to a book by Craig Lampe) has many erroneous or misleading historical statements. For example:
1. In discussing how "Ezra ... assembled the Old Testament", the DVD says "It was done on a material much like this sheepskin by scribes who gave their lives to make sure that the Bible was preserved."
Actually, the Hebrew scribes in Ezra's time may have devoted their lives to preserving the Bible, but there is no record that they died in consequence, like William Tyndale who was executed. (In part of this same discussion, as the camera pans slowly over a Hebrew scroll, the Hebrew text is upside down).
2. The DVD says that in the 2000-year old biblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls "there is not a single error of a single book" when compared to a Hebrew Torah he says is 1,000 years old.
Actually, while the Dead Sea Scrolls showed that copying had been carefully done all these years, there are some differences, as can be found by an internet search.
3. The DVD says,"By 400 AD, the Bible had been translated in 500 languages. By 500 AD the Bible had been reduced to only one language."
Actually, there appear to be only about a dozen languages into which the entire Bible could have been translated by 400 AD (e.g., Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Gothic), and even these would not all have a complete Bible by that time. I'm doubtful that the host can name the other 480+ languages and tell us his sources.
As an ongoing theme, the DVD dismisses the established (western/Latin speaking) church from 500 AD to 1500 AD as being generally corrupt, under control of the Pope, and against the Bible. Lampe's statement above about the Bible being allowed in only "one language" ignores the entire Eastern Roman Empire, begun at Constantine's new capital in Byzantium, where Greek was spoken for the next 1,000 years. The eastern churches continued to use the Greek Bible, the Syriac Bible (in Syria), and the Coptic Bible (in Egypt), not the Latin Bible used in the west.
4. The DVD says of the middle ages, "Augustine's proclamation of prostitution as a 'necessary evil' resulted in over 100,000 prostitutes being employed by the church."
Actually, I doubt the words 'necessary evil' are a direct quote from Augustine or that this fairly represent Augustine's views; Lampe gives no references. But even beyond this, does anyone really think such practices centuries after Augustine would not have happened if only Augustine had been silent? Is he saying the church itself was their employer?
5. The DVD does not justify its statement that Wycliffe was "the most powerful man in England in his day" (wouldn't that be the king?). The DVD mistakes the current Glastonbury Abbey ruins for a 1st century church; the ruins shown are not that old.
6. In a discussion of indulgences Lampe says, "You could kill a man for $1.75" (as if there were no other consequences for murder?).
7. Lampe likens the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation to a "feast of Baal" - a historically baseless comparison.
Lampe is introduced as having a PhD, but does not tell us from what institution. In any case, this DVD needs to be corrected by a history teacher or professor who has a knowledge of European history and knows how to give support for historical claims (or not make the claims). The topic is interesting and deserves more careful presentation.
The above comments used the second half of the DVD, which simply repeats the program with added captioned text.
I don't know of other DVD's on this topic but there are several good books on the history of the English Bible. For example, F. F. Bruce's History of the Bible in English (ISBN 0195200888) is readable and far more competent. A search on YouTube may prove helpful.
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