When working in the British Library it's easy to forget that you are sitting in a building containing unbelievable and priceless treasures from history, literature, music and religion. At lunchtime, taking a break from reading Felix Yusupov's ridiculous and mendacious account of the life and death of Rasputin, I popped into the exhibition room to have another look. I wrote about
a similar excursion back in 2008 and many of the same thought occurred to me this time. But the older I get the more moving I find it to be amongst the amazing wonders. I was actually welling up a little bit this time round - it's astonishing this stuff is still around, but also that we're allowed to stand in the same room as it. An impressive addition is
St Cuthbert's Gospel of St John, the oldest, intact European book, which was actually buried with the duck protecting saint in the seventh century. Something for everyone there - the religious, the historical and the gruesome who like to see books that have the leaking brain juices of saints on them.
Most of the older books are religious in nature, protected because of their holy status and the fact that they were kept in relatively safe institutions for centuries. Looking at one of the (I think) fourth century copies of the gospels I was surprised to discover that the story about Jesus rescuing the adulterous woman from stoning did not read, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and apparently it's not in any existing copy of the gospels from before that time.
This has always been one of my favourite quotes from the first Jesus (I am not saying I am the second one, that is for other people to say) and I was surprised to discover it's such a late addition to the Bible. Apparently it's possible that it is a line passed down through oral tradition and kept out of the "official" testament because it appears to condone adultery, but it seems pretty unlikely to me that something that wasn't in a book for three or four hundred years would suddenly find its way in or that someone would suddenly say, "Hold on, there's a bit of this story missing, I happen to know what Jesus said three centuries ago and it's not in here." Jesus Himself, I suppose could have popped back to earth and said, "Sorry to bother you, but you've kind of missed out the whole point of that story. This is what I actually said," and having dealt with newspaper sub-editors I can appreciate how annoying it is when the person printing something up misses the whole point. But you'd think Jesus' return to query some sub-editing might have made more of a splash in the newspapers and that the person adding the line in would have said, "I know this is true, cos Jesus just told me. Straight up."
Having studied the Bible as an interested amateur I am aware that much of the stuff in it will have been created or reimagined by the writers - a lot of the details are there just to confirm that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies - but there are some incidents and ideas that we can be pretty certain happened to the historical Jesus.
The "let he who is without sin" bit is so central to the ethos of Christianity (as I see it) and so revolutionary in religious terms - rather than following laws to the letter and being judgmental idiots, let's accept that we're all flawed and make mistakes - that I had always hoped that Jesus had really said that one. But common sense has to make it likely that someone else decided to add that off their own bat. It doesn't make it any less valid as a point and really I admire the chutzpah of whoever felt they were in a position to add stuff to the Holy Book of an already fairly well established religion. Somebody or bodies decided they were in a position to clarify and add to what the person they thought was the Son of God had to say. That takes some balls. "I think what Jesus was trying to say here was......"
I might make it one of my life-time ambitions to get a line that I have written added to the official Bible. You might think that's a big ask, and it might ruffle a few feathers, but if they could do it hundreds of years after Jesus had died, why not a couple of thousand? I am not expecting it to take hold straight away, but if I can get it into a couple of versions now and write it in by hand in as many copies as possible, then in 2000 years time, with a bit of luck (for example if there's a massive natural or man-made disaster which wipes out most of civilisation) then my line will be accepted as part of the true Testament in the way that the chucking stones made up bit is accepted by Christians today. It's as difficult to think of what you might want to have Jesus saying and I think something like following "Father, forgive them they know not what they doeth" with "And by the way, I'm coming back in about 2000 years and my name will be Richard Herring," would be too crude. Maybe something like after him saying, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," I could add him saying, with a wink, "Not like that!"
I'll have a think. But I was genuinely a bit sad to realise that Jesus didn't come up with one of his greatest hits. But was cheered up by seeing the lyrics of Hard Day's Night written on Julian Lennon's first birthday card.
