IN MY LAST POSTING I told you about the events that made me publish this blog on the Internet. While in Islamabad, I read many parts of the manuscript, enough to make me think about lots of things. It seems to be Bishr Ibn Al Sirri comments on a series of books of what today is called the Bible – he treats them as different books. I am not used to the Bible and could not identify which part was taken from it and which one was a Bishr Ibn Al Sirri comment.
But who is this Bishr Ibn Al Sirri? All the information I got from the Internet is that he was a Nestorian Christian living in Damascus long ago. He was also a translator, and is known by his translation of what is known by the Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151, a manuscript dated of A. D. 867, about 200 years after the Arab conquest of the Middle East. So he was a Christian living in an Arabic world.
I am not what you could call a religious man, but I try to follow my parents’ traditions. Ok, I confess, not 100%. Perhaps 50% or less. But it was intriguing me to learn more about what this Bishr Ibn Al Sirri did. The only manuscript found translated by him is that one, which contains most of the Christian’s Bible New Testament. This one I’ve found seems to be a second and unrecorded manuscript. What a discovery!
The fact that it was discovered in a place that is undergoing war is one of the reasons I think it is not time to announce the cave’s location, even to some archeological institute or museum. The second reason is that an Arab who discovers a Christian manuscript and is influenced by it is not the best thing to happen in my neighborhood. So, let’s take a time and see how the things will develop.
Another reason of my care is the issue it covers: Prophecy. It seems that man understood what the Bible said about future events and wrote his comments. But don’t misunderstand me. It is not some kind of obscure and poetic Nostradamus prophecy, but a very clear route to understand events that were ahead of his time, but that seems to be very similar to what we are seeing around.
Now that I know and you know what the manuscript is all about, I will try to read it very carefully while traveling around and covering world news for the newspaper I work for. Perhaps with the knowledge I have of recent world history, I can find a parallel of the events described in the manuscript with what is going on around us.
But one thing I can assure you of is that Afghanistan has no important part in it. Maybe it is because it is just part of a whole and is just one of the things that will have influence in the main events. Afghanistan is only a consequence of World Trade Center attack. But in the big picture, even WTC will be seen as the image I saw today in CNN News of that small place crashing against an office in Tampa, Florida, piloted by a 15-year-old boy. Or will not be seen at all. I could bet the Euro issue is much more important and will have a much higher impact in trimming the world’s shape from what we have known until now.
Oh, yes, before I leave you surely will want to know what happened to my notebook, because I said that saving the manuscripts on a backup service on Internet was an wise idea. Don’t worry. It was not stolen, a missile did not hit it, nor I was abducted by an UFO and had to leave my notebook connected to the spaceship I used to escape. Nothing of that sort happened. A virus. Yes, one single and vicious virus left me with a blank clean HD in my notebook. And this is the way I leave Islamabad. In my next postings I will tell you what Bishr Ibn Al Sirri wrote and what I think they mean. As soon as I have time to recover my files, reinstall Windows and all the software. Perhaps this time I will leave Louis Armstrong’s Beautiful World out. There is not much of a promise like that in a short-term span of history.
