Monday, March 5, 2012

A monk shows up for his new job...

A monk shows up for his new job, copying ancient texts. His abbot says:

"Brother Arnold, you are assigned to copy Canon Law documents. The copying must be precise. Every ten years we've been copying the Canon, and few mistakes have been made, even in 2000 years. There is a rich tradition."
Brother Arnold asks:

"But abbot, I am afraid I may make an error. How is it possible for men to copy again and again for 2000 years, and never make a mistake?"
His abbot replies:

"Brother Arnold, I trust you to be meticulous. But if you must, go to the Vatican library and check for yourself. They have all of the Canon Law manuscripts there. Everything has been faithfully passed down, even to each and every letter. See for yourself that the old manuscripts are faithfully rendered."
So Brother Arnold trugded off to the Vatican Library, and buried himself in the stacks to study the precious ancient manuscripts, copied with fidelity for 100 generations.

Several minutes later, a scream was heard from the library stacks:

"It's celebrate... c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e... c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e!

7 comments:

  1. LOL
    A favourite of mine.
    Good one, Mike.

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  2. I wonder if your atheist commenters will catch this joke.

    To catch or not to catch, that is the question!

    ;-0

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    Replies
    1. Pepe,

      Bart Ehrman has written several books on this very topic.

      Perhaps you might like to show off your knowledge of Ancient Greek, and demonstrate that the Ancient Greek word for the English word 'celibate' when incorrectly copied became the Ancient Greek word for the English word 'celebrate'.

      The joke doesn't quite work ... Reminds me of the Republican politician who'd thought that the Bible was originally written in English ... Although personally I have doubt that anyone, even a Republican, could be that stupid and it must be an urban myth.

      Delete
    2. It's a JOKE, Bach.
      Not intended as a treatise on ancient Greek phonetics.
      It's a funny one too.
      Would it kill you to make a nice comment once in a while?

      Delete
    3. CrusadeRex,

      Well, I didn't regard it as funny. It wasn't plausible to begin with. There aren't enough monks nowadays to be set a useless task as copying ancient texts by hand for a start.

      Now a funny joke:

      After a very long and boring sermon the parishioners filed out of the church saying nothing to the pastor. Towards the end of the line was a thoughtful person who always commented on the sermons. 'Pastor, today your sermon reminded me of the peace and love of God!'. The pastor was thrilled. 'No one has ever said anything like that about my preaching before. Tell me why'. 'Well - it reminded me of the peace of God because it passed all understanding and the love of God because it endured forever!'


      Now that's a funny joke. Even I as an atheist could use the punchline as a comment on some of the meetings I've attended at work.

      Delete
  3. Crusade Rex,

    Yes, it would hurt me to make a nice comment about that idiot Pepe. I didn't write that the joke wasn't funny. I just wrote that it doesn't quite work. It's implausible from the start. Your very long joke over many parts about the man trying to find the secret of the monastery succeeded because it was plausible right up to the punch line.

    ReplyDelete