We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
The Word of/by/about God?
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Last: 6 yr ago by Oldbear83
JXL said:TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
1. "There is no instance where it can be proved that 'alm designates a young woman who is not a virgin. The fact of virginity is obvious in Gen 24:43 where 'alm is used of one who was being sought as a bride for Isaac." (R. Laird Harris, et al. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p. 672.)
2. Assuming of course that Jesus, a resident of an area (Galilee) with a high Greco-Roman population, did not speak Greek, one of the standard languages of commerce in the area ... and also assuming that the idea of being born again could not be conveyed in Aramaic.
3. There is no reason to assume that the Gospels were not written by the people to whom authorship has been universally and unanimously ascribed. Even if we assume these authors were invented (for some reason which has never been explained), there would be no reason to invent these particular people as authors of Christianity's most important books.
Look who they are - a hated tax collector, an obscure secretary, a Gentile, and a teenager (at the time the events took place). Why would anyone invent these people? It makes more sense to do what the Gnostics did when they wrote their fake pseudo-Gospels - - they used famous people that everyone would know. The pseudo-Gospels of Thomas and Peter and Mary (among others) were given famous names, but were known to be fake and rejected by the church from the earliest times.
4. Likewise, the evidence of non-Pauline authorship of certain letters is in most cases pretty flimsy to say the least. The argument I've run across most often comes from the vocabulary of the letters, which is plainly nonsense.
5. I've read Bart Ehrman. His arguments rely primary on speculation, conjecture, and guesswork, accompanied by simply omitting data he does not like. For example, in Misquoting Jesus, he talks about his devotion to the textual theories of Westcott and Hort, so important he requires his students to learn them. He also discusses other 19th century textual critics - but he completely omits any mention of Burgon, perhaps the foremost textual critic of that time, much less any mention of the fact that Burgon completely demolished Westcott and Hort's theories (for more information on this, see Burgon's work The Revision Revised).
The writer of Matthew in many places, as here, is trying to show that Jesus fulfills prophecy. Here he is trying to say that Jesus virgin birth is a sign from God, i.e. "God is with us" and is a fulfillment of prophecy. So, Mathew is quoting the Greek translation of from the Hebrew Isaiah 7:14 which is a prophecy involving a young woman who has already conceived. The Hebrew word "Alma" for young woman is what is found in Isaiah. The Hebrew word for virgin is Bethulah. It's obvious when Matthew quoted the Greek he used the version with the Greek word Parthenos (i.e. virgin). The writer of Matthew obviously took the word Alma to mean virgin. However, Isaiah 7-8 is clearly talking about a young woman who has already conceived, and therefore could not be talking about a virgin.Quote:
1. "There is no instance where it can be proved that 'alm designates a young woman who is not a virgin. The fact of virginity is obvious in Gen 24:43 where 'alm is used of one who was being sought as a bride for Isaac." (R. Laird Harris, et al. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p. 672.)
It is pretty well understood that the native tongue of the Jewish population in first century Palestine was Aramaic. Being fluent and literate in Greek was not the rule.Quote:
2. Assuming of course that Jesus, a resident of an area (Galilee) with a high Greco-Roman population, did not speak Greek, one of the standard languages of commerce in the area ... and also assuming that the idea of being born again could not be conveyed in Aramaic.
The fact is the original copies did not have an author. Authors were assigned to the gospels years later. This isn't disputed. None of them claim to be written by the assigned author. We simply do not know who wrote the first version (written years after-the-fact), and we simply do not know how much the original was altered over time. For this reason, we cannot know with certainty what the originals did or did not say. We do know that no two are the same until the printing press came about. We do know that there were a lot of different ideas about who Jesus was and his nature in the early church, which was not thoroughly hashed out until centuries later after the fact, and to some degree is still not resolved.Quote:
3. There is no reason to assume that the Gospels were not written by the people to whom authorship has been universally and unanimously ascribed. Even if we assume these authors were invented (for some reason which has never been explained), there would be no reason to invent these particular people as authors of Christianity's most important books.
Look who they are - a hated tax collector, an obscure secretary, a Gentile, and a teenager (at the time the events took place). Why would anyone invent these people? It makes more sense to do what the Gnostics did when they wrote their fake pseudo-Gospels - - they used famous people that everyone would know. The pseudo-Gospels of Thomas and Peter and Mary (among others) were given famous names, but were known to be fake and rejected by the church from the earliest times.
. Not so flimsy that most scholars agree for a variety of reasons, Paul did not write many of the letters attributed to him. Writing under someone else's name wasn't an unheard of practice in ancient times. Quite simply, none of the books in the NT were written for historical purposes. They were not meant as disinterested historical sources of the past. Rather, they were very intentionally slanted messages written with the purpose of shaping a theological idea and faith.Quote:
4. Likewise, the evidence of non-Pauline authorship of certain letters is in most cases pretty flimsy to say the least. The argument I've run across most often comes from the vocabulary of the letters, which is plainly nonsense.
I'm not familiar with Ehrman's views on Burgon. I do know that Ehrman is considered an authoritative and respected critical scholar despite your characterizations. Much of Ehrman's views are alike and similar to many of his peers and other recognized critical scholars.Quote:
5. I've read Bart Ehrman. His arguments rely primary on speculation, conjecture, and guesswork, accompanied by simply omitting data he does not like. For example, in Misquoting Jesus, he talks about his devotion to the textual theories of Westcott and Hort, so important he requires his students to learn them. He also discusses other 19th century textual critics - but he completely omits any mention of Burgon, perhaps the foremost textual critic of that time, much less any mention of the fact that Burgon completely demolished Westcott and Hort's theories (for more information on this, see Burgon's work The Revision Revised).
The whole point of the passage is to use Nicodemus confusion in order for Jesus to state you must be born from above, of the spirit. The play on words only makes sense in the Greek with the Greek word anothen. Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus word for "you must be born from above" to mean "You must be born again, or a second time." The context of the story is the cause for confusion and misunderstanding is because the Greek word for "from above" can also mean "again." It's Nicodemus's need for clarification that causes Jesus to delve into an explanation of a heavenly spiritual birth from above. Aramaic would have been their native tongue, and the play on words cannot be replicated in Aramaic, since the words for "from above" and "again" are not the same and do not have the same meaning. The conversation could not have occurred as described by "John." The Greek word has two different meanings, depending upon context "a second time" i.e. "born again," or "from above." Clearly Jesus is saying he must be born from above to get to heaven. Nicodemus incredulously takes it to mean reborn of his mother, so Jesus has to explain no, he means instead a spiritual rebirth from heaven. There is a problem for the English translation, since the Greek anothen double meaning can't be duplicated in English. For English translation, they have to decide to translate it as "again" or "from above," since the word has to have both meanings for the context of their conversation to make sense Nicodemus taking it one way and Jesus meaning another way. The double meaning cannot be replicated in Aramaic ,the native tongue to both Jesus and Nicodemus. The double meaning doesn't work in Aramaic. The word for "from above" does not mean for "a second time," and Jesus whole point contextually was to say you must be born from above spiritually. Jesus clearly didn't say "a second time" or "again." In the context of the message he is clearly depicting a spiritual rebirth from above which contradicts your idea that "again" or second time" is actually what Jesus SAID. The sayings, activities and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise it is not plausible that he actually said or did those things.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
I second what JXL said, and I'd like to add my two cents here:
For the benefit of those who may be reading all these, this is the crux of what TS is saying about the "born again" phrase in the gospel of John, which is an argument straight from Bart Ehrman: When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again", Nicodemus misunderstands this to mean a physical re-birth, but Jesus was speaking of a spiritual one. This confusion arises only because the Greek word for "again" can also mean "from above", and Nicodemus is thinking of the first meaning, while Jesus was using the second. This is the "play on words" that is being referred to, a double entendre.
So, the argument goes that since neither Jesus nor Nicodemus were speaking Greek, but rather Aramaic, this kind of double entendre could not have been said by Jesus. Therefore, this conversation between the two could not have happened.
But this conclusion is ridiculous. Nicodemus' confusion of "born again" could have easily been the result of Jesus saying "born again" or "born a second time" in Aramaic as well, with Jesus meaning a second, spiritual birth, but Nicodemus only thinking in terms of a physical one. The confusion is not necessarily predicated ONLY on there being a double entendre arising from the Greek word, and it doesn't take a language expert to see this. When this conversation was translated into Greek, the writer either was using this specific Greek word for "again" or "second time" because, well, that's what Jesus SAID, so it was an accurate translation, or, the writer used the opportunity to use the double meaning of the word as a literary technique, and therefore chose this word over other Greek words that mean "again" but without the double meaning. To say that it is conclusive, that this conversation must NOT have happened, simply because of one particular framework from which you choose to view it, is the kind of narrow-minded, deceptive, sloppy logic that Ehrman likes to employ in order to cast doubt on the reliabilty and authenticity of the Gospels. And it's the kind of thing that people who already have it in their minds to reject the Gospels, eat up.
We know that later in the gospel of John, while on the cross Jesus gives the duty to care for Mary, his mother, to John. It is not a stretch to say that during Jesus' burial, that since undoubtedly Mary would be there, that John would be there also. The gospel also says that Nicodemus was there as well. It is not implausible, therefore, that John and Nicodemus spoke with each other then, and often thereafter. John could have heard Nicodemus' recounting of the whole conversation between him and Jesus, and decided to record an account of it, to the best of his recollection, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would help them remember all things that had happened. Could have there been a missed word or two? Could the writer have used his own literary license to convey what happened? Absolutely. But to say that since the exact wording was not recorded and preserved, or that the writer took the liberty to add things for literary effect or to convey a certain meaning, that the conversation did not happen at all or that we don't have any idea what the essential message Jesus was teaching, is an egregious over-assumption and incredibly arrogant.
I wanted to say more, about the virgin birth, but I've gone too long, and I've run out of time, so I will have to address that tomorrow.
In order for ancient documents to be reliable, the subjects of what they are writing about must conform to the historical and social contexts of the times to which they relate. In this case the activities, sayings, and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise their reliability and plausibility as to what he actually said or did comes into question. So, it has everything to do with the question of authenticity.Sam Lowry said:A couple of thoughts before I get to my main point. You're assuming that the double entendre in "born again" is an essential part of the meaning of the passage, that it wouldn't work in Aramaic, and that Jesus couldn't have spoken Greek. None of these things are true. The translation of "virgin" may or may not be accurate, but it's a moot point since Isaiah probably wasn't referring to Jesus anyway.TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
What's more pertinent is that none of this has any bearing at all on authenticity. Even if the existing manuscripts do have historical and translation errors, it doesn't change the fact that they are reliable copies of the originals. A copy doesn't have to be historically accurate to be an accurate copy.
If I'm not mistaken, you have already argued each of these point before, shown your (or the authors) errors and have now come back to them again.
You are not here to seek out answers but to stir up trouble. It really speaks volumes about you I believe.
Being a scientist would imply that you are an intelligent person and yet, an intelligent person wouldn't continue to swing at shadows,
repeatedly,
day after day,
thread after thread,
miss after miss,
whiff after whiff
I guess I'm being redundant, much like yourself. One would think I'd stop now. One would think you would too.
You are not here to seek out answers but to stir up trouble. It really speaks volumes about you I believe.
Being a scientist would imply that you are an intelligent person and yet, an intelligent person wouldn't continue to swing at shadows,
repeatedly,
day after day,
thread after thread,
miss after miss,
whiff after whiff
I guess I'm being redundant, much like yourself. One would think I'd stop now. One would think you would too.
Accuracy of the copies vs. accuracy of the contents. Two different issues. I don't know how to put it any more simply.TexasScientist said:In order for ancient documents to be reliable, the subjects of what they are writing about must conform to the historical and social contexts of the times to which they relate. In this case the activities, sayings, and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise their reliability and plausibility as to what he actually said or did comes into question. So, it has everything to do with the question of authenticity.Sam Lowry said:A couple of thoughts before I get to my main point. You're assuming that the double entendre in "born again" is an essential part of the meaning of the passage, that it wouldn't work in Aramaic, and that Jesus couldn't have spoken Greek. None of these things are true. The translation of "virgin" may or may not be accurate, but it's a moot point since Isaiah probably wasn't referring to Jesus anyway.TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
What's more pertinent is that none of this has any bearing at all on authenticity. Even if the existing manuscripts do have historical and translation errors, it doesn't change the fact that they are reliable copies of the originals. A copy doesn't have to be historically accurate to be an accurate copy.
One book does not make your case.Waco1947 said:Very.JXL said:Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
Are you familiar with the importance placed by the Jewish culture on the accurate transmission of biblical manuscripts?
Are you aware that there were 4 written sources to the Old Testament. All with a different slant.
J - written via oral tradition Uses Yahweh for God
E - Elohim - written via oral Tradition used Elohim for God
P - Priestly - The Priests' redactions
D - The final redactor Mostly Deuteronomy
R - Redactors who put four sources together
Oral tradition goes back to events 2,500 BC
But not written down and redactor until nearly 2,000 years after the actual events.
And with a decidedly faith and Hebrew prejudice.
And you ducked the central point. Oral tradition covered a lot of ground.
And one would have to compare the Dead Sea scrolls to other copies.
TexasScientist said:The whole point of the passage is to use Nicodemus confusion in order for Jesus to state you must be born from above, of the spirit. The play on words only makes sense in the Greek with the Greek word anothen. Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus word for "you must be born from above" to mean "You must be born again, or a second time." The context of the story is the cause for confusion and misunderstanding is because the Greek word for "from above" can also mean "again." It's Nicodemus's need for clarification that causes Jesus to delve into an explanation of a heavenly spiritual birth from above. Aramaic would have been their native tongue, and the play on words cannot be replicated in Aramaic, since the words for "from above" and "again" are not the same and do not have the same meaning. The conversation could not have occurred as described by "John." The Greek word has two different meanings, depending upon context "a second time" i.e. "born again," or "from above." Clearly Jesus is saying he must be born from above to get to heaven. Nicodemus incredulously takes it to mean reborn of his mother, so Jesus has to explain no, he means instead a spiritual rebirth from heaven. There is a problem for the English translation, since the Greek anothen double meaning can't be duplicated in English. For English translation, they have to decide to translate it as "again" or "from above," since the word has to have both meanings for the context of their conversation to make sense Nicodemus taking it one way and Jesus meaning another way. The double meaning cannot be replicated in Aramaic ,the native tongue to both Jesus and Nicodemus. The double meaning doesn't work in Aramaic. The word for "from above" does not mean for "a second time," and Jesus whole point contextually was to say you must be born from above spiritually. Jesus clearly didn't say "a second time" or "again." In the context of the message he is clearly depicting a spiritual rebirth from above which contradicts your idea that "again" or second time" is actually what Jesus SAID. The sayings, activities and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise it is not plausible that he actually said or did those things.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
I second what JXL said, and I'd like to add my two cents here:
For the benefit of those who may be reading all these, this is the crux of what TS is saying about the "born again" phrase in the gospel of John, which is an argument straight from Bart Ehrman: When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again", Nicodemus misunderstands this to mean a physical re-birth, but Jesus was speaking of a spiritual one. This confusion arises only because the Greek word for "again" can also mean "from above", and Nicodemus is thinking of the first meaning, while Jesus was using the second. This is the "play on words" that is being referred to, a double entendre.
So, the argument goes that since neither Jesus nor Nicodemus were speaking Greek, but rather Aramaic, this kind of double entendre could not have been said by Jesus. Therefore, this conversation between the two could not have happened.
But this conclusion is ridiculous. Nicodemus' confusion of "born again" could have easily been the result of Jesus saying "born again" or "born a second time" in Aramaic as well, with Jesus meaning a second, spiritual birth, but Nicodemus only thinking in terms of a physical one. The confusion is not necessarily predicated ONLY on there being a double entendre arising from the Greek word, and it doesn't take a language expert to see this. When this conversation was translated into Greek, the writer either was using this specific Greek word for "again" or "second time" because, well, that's what Jesus SAID, so it was an accurate translation, or, the writer used the opportunity to use the double meaning of the word as a literary technique, and therefore chose this word over other Greek words that mean "again" but without the double meaning. To say that it is conclusive, that this conversation must NOT have happened, simply because of one particular framework from which you choose to view it, is the kind of narrow-minded, deceptive, sloppy logic that Ehrman likes to employ in order to cast doubt on the reliabilty and authenticity of the Gospels. And it's the kind of thing that people who already have it in their minds to reject the Gospels, eat up.
We know that later in the gospel of John, while on the cross Jesus gives the duty to care for Mary, his mother, to John. It is not a stretch to say that during Jesus' burial, that since undoubtedly Mary would be there, that John would be there also. The gospel also says that Nicodemus was there as well. It is not implausible, therefore, that John and Nicodemus spoke with each other then, and often thereafter. John could have heard Nicodemus' recounting of the whole conversation between him and Jesus, and decided to record an account of it, to the best of his recollection, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would help them remember all things that had happened. Could have there been a missed word or two? Could the writer have used his own literary license to convey what happened? Absolutely. But to say that since the exact wording was not recorded and preserved, or that the writer took the liberty to add things for literary effect or to convey a certain meaning, that the conversation did not happen at all or that we don't have any idea what the essential message Jesus was teaching, is an egregious over-assumption and incredibly arrogant.
I wanted to say more, about the virgin birth, but I've gone too long, and I've run out of time, so I will have to address that tomorrow.
Do you process anything that is written in response to you? Your double entendre argument has already been squashed. Repeatedly. Pay attention, lest your credibility take another hit.
You're predicating your argument entirely on your insistence that Nicodemus' confusion can ONLY be caused by a double entendre from a Greek word, but this is a completely manufactured dilemma. Saying "born AGAIN" in Aramaic could cause the same misunderstanding, while being true to BOTH what Jesus meant, and what Nicodemus understood. It is not necessary that there be an Aramaic word with a double meaning to cause the confusion.
Your insistence that the context of their conversation DICTATES that Jesus surely did not say "again" is so logically flawed, it's clear you're either forcing a certain, narrow reading of the text in order to suit an agenda, or your intelligence is highly suspect.
That never happens around hereBusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:The whole point of the passage is to use Nicodemus confusion in order for Jesus to state you must be born from above, of the spirit. The play on words only makes sense in the Greek with the Greek word anothen. Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus word for "you must be born from above" to mean "You must be born again, or a second time." The context of the story is the cause for confusion and misunderstanding is because the Greek word for "from above" can also mean "again." It's Nicodemus's need for clarification that causes Jesus to delve into an explanation of a heavenly spiritual birth from above. Aramaic would have been their native tongue, and the play on words cannot be replicated in Aramaic, since the words for "from above" and "again" are not the same and do not have the same meaning. The conversation could not have occurred as described by "John." The Greek word has two different meanings, depending upon context "a second time" i.e. "born again," or "from above." Clearly Jesus is saying he must be born from above to get to heaven. Nicodemus incredulously takes it to mean reborn of his mother, so Jesus has to explain no, he means instead a spiritual rebirth from heaven. There is a problem for the English translation, since the Greek anothen double meaning can't be duplicated in English. For English translation, they have to decide to translate it as "again" or "from above," since the word has to have both meanings for the context of their conversation to make sense Nicodemus taking it one way and Jesus meaning another way. The double meaning cannot be replicated in Aramaic ,the native tongue to both Jesus and Nicodemus. The double meaning doesn't work in Aramaic. The word for "from above" does not mean for "a second time," and Jesus whole point contextually was to say you must be born from above spiritually. Jesus clearly didn't say "a second time" or "again." In the context of the message he is clearly depicting a spiritual rebirth from above which contradicts your idea that "again" or second time" is actually what Jesus SAID. The sayings, activities and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise it is not plausible that he actually said or did those things.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
I second what JXL said, and I'd like to add my two cents here:
For the benefit of those who may be reading all these, this is the crux of what TS is saying about the "born again" phrase in the gospel of John, which is an argument straight from Bart Ehrman: When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again", Nicodemus misunderstands this to mean a physical re-birth, but Jesus was speaking of a spiritual one. This confusion arises only because the Greek word for "again" can also mean "from above", and Nicodemus is thinking of the first meaning, while Jesus was using the second. This is the "play on words" that is being referred to, a double entendre.
So, the argument goes that since neither Jesus nor Nicodemus were speaking Greek, but rather Aramaic, this kind of double entendre could not have been said by Jesus. Therefore, this conversation between the two could not have happened.
But this conclusion is ridiculous. Nicodemus' confusion of "born again" could have easily been the result of Jesus saying "born again" or "born a second time" in Aramaic as well, with Jesus meaning a second, spiritual birth, but Nicodemus only thinking in terms of a physical one. The confusion is not necessarily predicated ONLY on there being a double entendre arising from the Greek word, and it doesn't take a language expert to see this. When this conversation was translated into Greek, the writer either was using this specific Greek word for "again" or "second time" because, well, that's what Jesus SAID, so it was an accurate translation, or, the writer used the opportunity to use the double meaning of the word as a literary technique, and therefore chose this word over other Greek words that mean "again" but without the double meaning. To say that it is conclusive, that this conversation must NOT have happened, simply because of one particular framework from which you choose to view it, is the kind of narrow-minded, deceptive, sloppy logic that Ehrman likes to employ in order to cast doubt on the reliabilty and authenticity of the Gospels. And it's the kind of thing that people who already have it in their minds to reject the Gospels, eat up.
We know that later in the gospel of John, while on the cross Jesus gives the duty to care for Mary, his mother, to John. It is not a stretch to say that during Jesus' burial, that since undoubtedly Mary would be there, that John would be there also. The gospel also says that Nicodemus was there as well. It is not implausible, therefore, that John and Nicodemus spoke with each other then, and often thereafter. John could have heard Nicodemus' recounting of the whole conversation between him and Jesus, and decided to record an account of it, to the best of his recollection, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would help them remember all things that had happened. Could have there been a missed word or two? Could the writer have used his own literary license to convey what happened? Absolutely. But to say that since the exact wording was not recorded and preserved, or that the writer took the liberty to add things for literary effect or to convey a certain meaning, that the conversation did not happen at all or that we don't have any idea what the essential message Jesus was teaching, is an egregious over-assumption and incredibly arrogant.
I wanted to say more, about the virgin birth, but I've gone too long, and I've run out of time, so I will have to address that tomorrow.
Do you process anything that is written in response to you? Your double entendre argument has already been squashed. Repeatedly. Pay attention, lest your credibility take another hit.
You're predicating your argument entirely on your insistence that Nicodemus' confusion can ONLY be caused by a double entendre from a Greek word, but this is a completely manufactured dilemma. Saying "born AGAIN" in Aramaic could cause the same misunderstanding, while being true to BOTH what Jesus meant, and what Nicodemus understood. It is not necessary that there be an Aramaic word with a double meaning to cause the confusion.
Your insistence that the context of their conversation DICTATES that Jesus surely did not say "again" is so logically flawed, it's clear you're either forcing a certain, narrow reading of the text in order to suit an agenda, or your intelligence is highly suspect.
Then this would be a forum with one uniform monolithic view, and some people require redundant repetition to learn. I just want you to critically and objectively examine your beliefs and face reality.LIB,MR BEARS said:
If I'm not mistaken, you have already argued each of these point before, shown your (or the authors) errors and have now come back to them again.
You are not here to seek out answers but to stir up trouble. It really speaks volumes about you I believe.
Being a scientist would imply that you are an intelligent person and yet, an intelligent person wouldn't continue to swing at shadows,
repeatedly,
day after day,
thread after thread,
miss after miss,
whiff after whiff
I guess I'm being redundant, much like yourself. One would think I'd stop now. One would think you would too.
The whole point of Jesus' message is that you must be born from above spiritually. That is clearly what he said in the context of his message. He did not say you must be "born again." There is no double entendre in Aramaic. The words would not cause misunderstanding in Aramaic. Don't forget, the writer of the Gospel of John had his own theological views about who Jesus was that he was trying to advance. That's why this story only appears in John.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:The whole point of the passage is to use Nicodemus confusion in order for Jesus to state you must be born from above, of the spirit. The play on words only makes sense in the Greek with the Greek word anothen. Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus word for "you must be born from above" to mean "You must be born again, or a second time." The context of the story is the cause for confusion and misunderstanding is because the Greek word for "from above" can also mean "again." It's Nicodemus's need for clarification that causes Jesus to delve into an explanation of a heavenly spiritual birth from above. Aramaic would have been their native tongue, and the play on words cannot be replicated in Aramaic, since the words for "from above" and "again" are not the same and do not have the same meaning. The conversation could not have occurred as described by "John." The Greek word has two different meanings, depending upon context "a second time" i.e. "born again," or "from above." Clearly Jesus is saying he must be born from above to get to heaven. Nicodemus incredulously takes it to mean reborn of his mother, so Jesus has to explain no, he means instead a spiritual rebirth from heaven. There is a problem for the English translation, since the Greek anothen double meaning can't be duplicated in English. For English translation, they have to decide to translate it as "again" or "from above," since the word has to have both meanings for the context of their conversation to make sense Nicodemus taking it one way and Jesus meaning another way. The double meaning cannot be replicated in Aramaic ,the native tongue to both Jesus and Nicodemus. The double meaning doesn't work in Aramaic. The word for "from above" does not mean for "a second time," and Jesus whole point contextually was to say you must be born from above spiritually. Jesus clearly didn't say "a second time" or "again." In the context of the message he is clearly depicting a spiritual rebirth from above which contradicts your idea that "again" or second time" is actually what Jesus SAID. The sayings, activities and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise it is not plausible that he actually said or did those things.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
I second what JXL said, and I'd like to add my two cents here:
For the benefit of those who may be reading all these, this is the crux of what TS is saying about the "born again" phrase in the gospel of John, which is an argument straight from Bart Ehrman: When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again", Nicodemus misunderstands this to mean a physical re-birth, but Jesus was speaking of a spiritual one. This confusion arises only because the Greek word for "again" can also mean "from above", and Nicodemus is thinking of the first meaning, while Jesus was using the second. This is the "play on words" that is being referred to, a double entendre.
So, the argument goes that since neither Jesus nor Nicodemus were speaking Greek, but rather Aramaic, this kind of double entendre could not have been said by Jesus. Therefore, this conversation between the two could not have happened.
But this conclusion is ridiculous. Nicodemus' confusion of "born again" could have easily been the result of Jesus saying "born again" or "born a second time" in Aramaic as well, with Jesus meaning a second, spiritual birth, but Nicodemus only thinking in terms of a physical one. The confusion is not necessarily predicated ONLY on there being a double entendre arising from the Greek word, and it doesn't take a language expert to see this. When this conversation was translated into Greek, the writer either was using this specific Greek word for "again" or "second time" because, well, that's what Jesus SAID, so it was an accurate translation, or, the writer used the opportunity to use the double meaning of the word as a literary technique, and therefore chose this word over other Greek words that mean "again" but without the double meaning. To say that it is conclusive, that this conversation must NOT have happened, simply because of one particular framework from which you choose to view it, is the kind of narrow-minded, deceptive, sloppy logic that Ehrman likes to employ in order to cast doubt on the reliabilty and authenticity of the Gospels. And it's the kind of thing that people who already have it in their minds to reject the Gospels, eat up.
We know that later in the gospel of John, while on the cross Jesus gives the duty to care for Mary, his mother, to John. It is not a stretch to say that during Jesus' burial, that since undoubtedly Mary would be there, that John would be there also. The gospel also says that Nicodemus was there as well. It is not implausible, therefore, that John and Nicodemus spoke with each other then, and often thereafter. John could have heard Nicodemus' recounting of the whole conversation between him and Jesus, and decided to record an account of it, to the best of his recollection, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would help them remember all things that had happened. Could have there been a missed word or two? Could the writer have used his own literary license to convey what happened? Absolutely. But to say that since the exact wording was not recorded and preserved, or that the writer took the liberty to add things for literary effect or to convey a certain meaning, that the conversation did not happen at all or that we don't have any idea what the essential message Jesus was teaching, is an egregious over-assumption and incredibly arrogant.
I wanted to say more, about the virgin birth, but I've gone too long, and I've run out of time, so I will have to address that tomorrow.
Do you process anything that is written in response to you? Your double entendre argument has already been squashed. Repeatedly. Pay attention, lest your credibility take another hit.
You're predicating your argument entirely on your insistence that Nicodemus' confusion can ONLY be caused by a double entendre from a Greek word, but this is a completely manufactured dilemma. Saying "born AGAIN" in Aramaic could cause the same misunderstanding, while being true to BOTH what Jesus meant, and what Nicodemus understood. It is not necessary that there be an Aramaic word with a double meaning to cause the confusion.
Your insistence that the context of their conversation DICTATES that Jesus surely did not say "again" is so logically flawed, it's clear you're either forcing a certain, narrow reading of the text in order to suit an agenda, or your intelligence is highly suspect.
TexasScientist said:Then this would be a forum with one uniform monolithic view, and some people require redundant repetition to learn. I just want you to critically and objectively examine your beliefs and face reality.LIB,MR BEARS said:
If I'm not mistaken, you have already argued each of these point before, shown your (or the authors) errors and have now come back to them again.
You are not here to seek out answers but to stir up trouble. It really speaks volumes about you I believe.
Being a scientist would imply that you are an intelligent person and yet, an intelligent person wouldn't continue to swing at shadows,
repeatedly,
day after day,
thread after thread,
miss after miss,
whiff after whiff
I guess I'm being redundant, much like yourself. One would think I'd stop now. One would think you would too.
Read your last sentence; look in a mirror; repeat as necessary.
The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
this has been explained to you before. You either missed it or, have chosen to ignore it. Next.TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
TS: " I just want you to critically and objectively examine your beliefs and face reality."
A number of people have already that to you, TS, and with real evidence on their side.
A number of people have already that to you, TS, and with real evidence on their side.
His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Luke 3:21-22 (see also Mark 1:10-11; Matthew 3:16-17; John 1:32-34)
"And this word, which you have been hearing from me, comes not from me, but from my Father who sent me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in his turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you." John 14:24-26
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." 2 Corinthians 13:13
TS, you may not be religious, but you are truly a person of prodigious faith.TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
And none of these verses says that any of the three are one and the same. None of these verses says there is a trinity that is one god. At best they imply three separate divinities, two of which may be subservient to the Father. The idea of the Trinity comes later by addition for developing theological reasons.Sam Lowry said:"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Luke 3:21-22 (see also Mark 1:10-11; Matthew 3:16-17; John 1:32-34)
"And this word, which you have been hearing from me, comes not from me, but from my Father who sent me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in his turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you." John 14:24-26
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." 2 Corinthians 13:13
Better - lack of prodigious faith.Sam Lowry said:TS, you may not be religious, but you are truly a person of prodigious faith.TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
Worse - you trust your assumptions in place of centuries of considered thought.TexasScientist said:Better - lack of prodigious faith.Sam Lowry said:TS, you may not be religious, but you are truly a person of prodigious faith.TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
Well you are the biggest proselytiser around here.
Centuries of considered thought of people with primitive understandings.Oldbear83 said:Worse - you trust your assumptions in place of centuries of considered thought.TexasScientist said:Better - lack of prodigious faith.Sam Lowry said:TS, you may not be religious, but you are truly a person of prodigious faith.TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
LOL. Maybe, but there is a lot of proselytizing going on around here. I just happen to have a minority view on here.Keyser Soze said:
Well you are the biggest proselytiser around here.
"I and the Father are one." John 10:30TexasScientist said:And none of these verses says that any of the three are one and the same. None of these verses says there is a trinity that is one god. At best they imply three separate divinities, two of which may be subservient to the Father. The idea of the Trinity comes later by addition for developing theological reasons.Sam Lowry said:"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Luke 3:21-22 (see also Mark 1:10-11; Matthew 3:16-17; John 1:32-34)
"And this word, which you have been hearing from me, comes not from me, but from my Father who sent me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in his turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you." John 14:24-26
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." 2 Corinthians 13:13
"The Spirit we have been speaking of is the Lord; and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom." 2 Corinthians 3:17
By your standard, we should therefore reject Artistotle, Pythagorous, Galileo and every other scientist from the past.TexasScientist said:Centuries of considered thought of people with primitive understandings.Oldbear83 said:Worse - you trust your assumptions in place of centuries of considered thought.TexasScientist said:Better - lack of prodigious faith.Sam Lowry said:TS, you may not be religious, but you are truly a person of prodigious faith.TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
I'll acknowledge I misspoke to say or imply none of the verses says any of the three are one and the same. I should have said none of the verses say the three are one and the same. What I am saying is none of the verses, other than 1 John 5:7-8, says the three are one and the same. 1st John was written after the gospel, as John 5:7-8 was added later. 2nd Corithians is written by Paul, not John. You have to consider the message of John is different from that of the other gospel writers. In the other gospels, Jesus doesn't claim to be God. He only claims to be the Messiah and the Son of Man. He talks about God, the coming kingdom, and how to live. John, who writings come after the synoptic gospels, wants to advance the theoligical idea that Jesus is God. The idea of the Trinity evolved from a progression of theoligic ideas about the nature of Jesus and who he was.Sam Lowry said:"I and the Father are one." John 10:30TexasScientist said:And none of these verses says that any of the three are one and the same. None of these verses says there is a trinity that is one god. At best they imply three separate divinities, two of which may be subservient to the Father. The idea of the Trinity comes later by addition for developing theological reasons.Sam Lowry said:"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Luke 3:21-22 (see also Mark 1:10-11; Matthew 3:16-17; John 1:32-34)
"And this word, which you have been hearing from me, comes not from me, but from my Father who sent me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in his turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you." John 14:24-26
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." 2 Corinthians 13:13
"The Spirit we have been speaking of is the Lord; and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom." 2 Corinthians 3:17
Refer to the transitive property of equality.TexasScientist said:I'll acknowledge I misspoke to say or imply none of the verses says any of the three are one and the same. I should have said none of the verses say the three are one and the same. What I am saying is none of the verses, other than 1 John 5:7-8, says the three are one and the same. 1st John was written after the gospel, as John 5:7-8 was added later. 2nd Corithians is written by Paul, not John. You have to consider the message of John is different from that of the other gospel writers. In the other gospels, Jesus doesn't claim to be God. He only claims to be the Messiah and the Son of Man. He talks about God, the coming kingdom, and how to live. John, who writings come after the synoptic gospels, wants to advance the theoligical idea that Jesus is God. The idea of the Trinity evolved from a progression of theoligic ideas about the nature of Jesus and who he was.Sam Lowry said:"I and the Father are one." John 10:30TexasScientist said:And none of these verses says that any of the three are one and the same. None of these verses says there is a trinity that is one god. At best they imply three separate divinities, two of which may be subservient to the Father. The idea of the Trinity comes later by addition for developing theological reasons.Sam Lowry said:"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Luke 3:21-22 (see also Mark 1:10-11; Matthew 3:16-17; John 1:32-34)
"And this word, which you have been hearing from me, comes not from me, but from my Father who sent me. So much converse I have held with you, still at your side. He who is to befriend you, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send on my account, will in his turn make everything plain, and recall to your minds everything I have said to you." John 14:24-26
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." 2 Corinthians 13:13
"The Spirit we have been speaking of is the Lord; and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom." 2 Corinthians 3:17
Compare John 1:1-4 with 1 Corinthians 8:5-6.
TexasScientist said:The whole point of Jesus' message is that you must be born from above spiritually. That is clearly what he said in the context of his message. He did not say you must be "born again." There is no double entendre in Aramaic. The words would not cause misunderstanding in Aramaic. Don't forget, the writer of the Gospel of John had his own theological views about who Jesus was that he was trying to advance. That's why this story only appears in John.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:The whole point of the passage is to use Nicodemus confusion in order for Jesus to state you must be born from above, of the spirit. The play on words only makes sense in the Greek with the Greek word anothen. Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus word for "you must be born from above" to mean "You must be born again, or a second time." The context of the story is the cause for confusion and misunderstanding is because the Greek word for "from above" can also mean "again." It's Nicodemus's need for clarification that causes Jesus to delve into an explanation of a heavenly spiritual birth from above. Aramaic would have been their native tongue, and the play on words cannot be replicated in Aramaic, since the words for "from above" and "again" are not the same and do not have the same meaning. The conversation could not have occurred as described by "John." The Greek word has two different meanings, depending upon context "a second time" i.e. "born again," or "from above." Clearly Jesus is saying he must be born from above to get to heaven. Nicodemus incredulously takes it to mean reborn of his mother, so Jesus has to explain no, he means instead a spiritual rebirth from heaven. There is a problem for the English translation, since the Greek anothen double meaning can't be duplicated in English. For English translation, they have to decide to translate it as "again" or "from above," since the word has to have both meanings for the context of their conversation to make sense Nicodemus taking it one way and Jesus meaning another way. The double meaning cannot be replicated in Aramaic ,the native tongue to both Jesus and Nicodemus. The double meaning doesn't work in Aramaic. The word for "from above" does not mean for "a second time," and Jesus whole point contextually was to say you must be born from above spiritually. Jesus clearly didn't say "a second time" or "again." In the context of the message he is clearly depicting a spiritual rebirth from above which contradicts your idea that "again" or second time" is actually what Jesus SAID. The sayings, activities and teachings of Jesus have to be plausible in the historical and social contexts of first century Palestine, otherwise it is not plausible that he actually said or did those things.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:You have a mistranslation of the word for young woman to virgin. You have the word born again, which is a play on words in Greek. We know Jesus didn't say that because he most likely spoke Aramaic and not Greek. That same play on words doesn't work in Aramaic. So we know it is unlikely Jesus said you must be born again the way the story is relayed. These are two known discrepancies that are revealed through textual criticism. There are many scholars who have written and published about these discrepancies and others. The fact that we don't have purported complete copies until over a century after the fact, tells us there is no way to know exactly what the original author wrote. You can say the may approximate the original in some ways, but we know things were added and things were left out from one copy to the next. And in the case of the Gospels, and some of the Pauline letters, we don't even know who wrote the originals. There simply is no way to know the accuracy and reliability of their contents.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:It's through scrutiny and textual criticism their reliability is called into question. All you have is pieces and fragments of early copies until well over 100 years after the fact. And those fragments were not contemporaneous to the time they were writing about. It's not until years later that you have what's purported to be a complete copy of anything, and even those are not the same. They are copies of copies of copies etc.There are discrepancies, errors, omissions and additions. You even have other gospels and acts that are written, some of which almost made cannon. There is nothing reliable about who Jesus was or claimed to be other than possibly in broad generalities. This problem continues right on up to today, where you have the Book of Mormon claimed by some as reliable scripture.Oldbear83 said:Yes actually, we can say the Scriptures are the most reliable, due to centuries of scrutiny from experts from every age. Only when rejection of religion became a popular assumption, replacing objective analysis, has the authenticity of Scripture ever been doubted.TexasScientist said:I don't think you can make the statement that they are the most reliable set of ancient texts. You don't know that, and even if you could make the statement they are more reliable than other texts, that doesn't translate to them being reliable.Sam Lowry said:You say second century like it's a bad thing. The earliest copy of Julius Caesar doesn't appear until a thousand years after his death. By any ordinary standard, the NT is the most reliable set of ancient texts you're going to find. Why fear using the ordinary standard?TexasScientist said:Only pieces and fragments of writings by unknown authors, except for some of Paul's letters, with no complete versions until late second century at best.Sam Lowry said:They were written 20 to 50 years after Christ's death, give or take a few years in some cases.TexasScientist said:All assembled (NT), recognized and written as the words of God 100's of years later by politically appointed men. Seems to me to be the words of men from the minds of men.Sam Lowry said:The canon was assembled and recognized as the word of God more than 1,000 years before Gutenberg.Waco1947 said:
There were hundred of manuscripts copied - each with a translation to the writers prerogative.
As I said in OP
"In fact, when the books of the bible were finally gathered together into one printable volume, starting with Johann Gutenberg back in the 1500's, publishing houses began to compete with one another. One of the sales points they used in pushing their particular product was to say, "Our bible is the word of God" (as opposed to what our competition is printing). As time went by people simply accepted that as fact, rather than understanding that the bible is simply words about God that the Church collected together and declared "sacred scripture," even though even the main branches of Christianity haven't even agreed upon a single list of books that should be included to this very day!"
In simple terms, Scripture has been tested and examined far more rigorously than any other ancient documents, from any time or place. It therefore has earned confidence as reliable on the strength of such examination.
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Regarding the reliability of the NT:
Copies of the original manuscripts were not done in linear fashion, where one copy was made, then a copy of the copy, and so on. In this fashion, errors can be compounded, and the reliability would definitely suffer. But what we have with the NT, rather, is that copies of the original were made geometrically: from one original, 5 copies were made, then 5 copies of each of those 5 were made, etc.
Because of this, the amount of manuscript evidence for the NT dwarfs that of other ancient, historical texts, and so its textual criticism can be very rigorous and precise. There are over 5300 manuscripts of the NT, compared to the closest non-biblical ancient text, Homer's Illiad, which has only 647 existing copies. Also, to your point about the earliest biblical manuscripts being 100's of years after the fact- this is the closest compared to all other ancient texts. Caesar's Gallic Wars and Herodotus' History exist in only a handful of manuscripts that date over a 1000 years after the fact. Josephus and Tacitus survive in only a handful of manuscripts 500 years or so after the fact.
The results of NT textual criticism has revealed that only 2% of the New Testament manuscript evidence have discrepancies. And it is important to note, that most all of these errors are simple spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. And even more importantly, NONE of the errors have any doctrinal significance.
So... we can most certainly say that the New Testament we have today is reliable.No, I'm not joking. The copies we have were all written years after the originals. It's precisely through textural criticism and outright observation the errors, omissions, changes and additions from one copy to the next have been revealed. There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same. There are minor scriveners errors, there are major differences, some of which affect actual meaning and may have doctrinal implications.The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this. There are many textual scholars who have written extensively on this subject. It wasn't until the printing press came about that the final version(s) (yes versions because there were various competing ones) began to be settled. It is precisely through textual criticism that many of the major additions and changes have been exposed. This cannot be denied. It is for these reasons that no one can know what the originals actually said, and it is for these reason that they cannot be relied upon as the original text. There simply is no way to know the original text. The Trinity, virgin birth, and being born again are prime examples of potential doctrinal issues.Quote:
Are you joking? It is through textual criticism that the reliability of the New Testament is solidified! Textual criticism of the NT has revealed that about 99.5% of what we have as the NT today is textually pure, meaning it is the same as the earliest original manuscripts. If you doubt that what was recorded is what actually happened, then you are questioning its accuracy, not reliability. And you are basing that on assumption, not anything scientific, I might add.
Again....
Textual criticism has revealed a 99.5% textual purity of the New Testament. You can't get around that.
Yes, textual criticism revealed errors, omissions, changes, additions... only 0.5% of the time. And the vast majority of those errors are insignificant to the meaning of the text- spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors.
Apparently, you are taking these minor errors to qualify your statements like: "There thousands of copies, and virtually none are the same." No, none are EXACTLY the same. If two sentences differ by a single spelling error, then they are not the same. You also said, "The copies, linear and geometric all reveal errors, omissions, changes and additions. You cannot deny this." No, I do not deny it. It's in agreement with what I said- there are errors, but the vast majority are insignificant. The game you are playing here is amateurish.
Of those that are significant changes, omissions, or additions, there is a lot of debate about them, but again, none significantly affect essential doctrine. The Comma Johannes regarding the trinity in 1 John is not the only doctrinal support of the Trinity in the bible. Regarding the virgin birth and being born again, I do not know of the textual variation that you are referring to that changes these doctrines. If you are referring to how the word "almah" is translated in Matthew as it relates to the prophecy of Isaiah- it does mean "virgin". If you are referring to how "born again" is translated- "born again" is correct. But these are issues of translation, not textual criticism.
The fact is, due to the extensive volume of manuscripts we have of the New Testament, we can perform textual criticism with a high degree of precision. Detecting major differences only ADDS to the strength and validity of textual criticism. Your statement, "There simply is no way to know the original text" is just plain false. That is exactly what the science of textual criticism does.
I second what JXL said, and I'd like to add my two cents here:
For the benefit of those who may be reading all these, this is the crux of what TS is saying about the "born again" phrase in the gospel of John, which is an argument straight from Bart Ehrman: When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again", Nicodemus misunderstands this to mean a physical re-birth, but Jesus was speaking of a spiritual one. This confusion arises only because the Greek word for "again" can also mean "from above", and Nicodemus is thinking of the first meaning, while Jesus was using the second. This is the "play on words" that is being referred to, a double entendre.
So, the argument goes that since neither Jesus nor Nicodemus were speaking Greek, but rather Aramaic, this kind of double entendre could not have been said by Jesus. Therefore, this conversation between the two could not have happened.
But this conclusion is ridiculous. Nicodemus' confusion of "born again" could have easily been the result of Jesus saying "born again" or "born a second time" in Aramaic as well, with Jesus meaning a second, spiritual birth, but Nicodemus only thinking in terms of a physical one. The confusion is not necessarily predicated ONLY on there being a double entendre arising from the Greek word, and it doesn't take a language expert to see this. When this conversation was translated into Greek, the writer either was using this specific Greek word for "again" or "second time" because, well, that's what Jesus SAID, so it was an accurate translation, or, the writer used the opportunity to use the double meaning of the word as a literary technique, and therefore chose this word over other Greek words that mean "again" but without the double meaning. To say that it is conclusive, that this conversation must NOT have happened, simply because of one particular framework from which you choose to view it, is the kind of narrow-minded, deceptive, sloppy logic that Ehrman likes to employ in order to cast doubt on the reliabilty and authenticity of the Gospels. And it's the kind of thing that people who already have it in their minds to reject the Gospels, eat up.
We know that later in the gospel of John, while on the cross Jesus gives the duty to care for Mary, his mother, to John. It is not a stretch to say that during Jesus' burial, that since undoubtedly Mary would be there, that John would be there also. The gospel also says that Nicodemus was there as well. It is not implausible, therefore, that John and Nicodemus spoke with each other then, and often thereafter. John could have heard Nicodemus' recounting of the whole conversation between him and Jesus, and decided to record an account of it, to the best of his recollection, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would help them remember all things that had happened. Could have there been a missed word or two? Could the writer have used his own literary license to convey what happened? Absolutely. But to say that since the exact wording was not recorded and preserved, or that the writer took the liberty to add things for literary effect or to convey a certain meaning, that the conversation did not happen at all or that we don't have any idea what the essential message Jesus was teaching, is an egregious over-assumption and incredibly arrogant.
I wanted to say more, about the virgin birth, but I've gone too long, and I've run out of time, so I will have to address that tomorrow.
Do you process anything that is written in response to you? Your double entendre argument has already been squashed. Repeatedly. Pay attention, lest your credibility take another hit.
You're predicating your argument entirely on your insistence that Nicodemus' confusion can ONLY be caused by a double entendre from a Greek word, but this is a completely manufactured dilemma. Saying "born AGAIN" in Aramaic could cause the same misunderstanding, while being true to BOTH what Jesus meant, and what Nicodemus understood. It is not necessary that there be an Aramaic word with a double meaning to cause the confusion.
Your insistence that the context of their conversation DICTATES that Jesus surely did not say "again" is so logically flawed, it's clear you're either forcing a certain, narrow reading of the text in order to suit an agenda, or your intelligence is highly suspect.
Umm... just re-read my post, because all you did was repeat your arguments that have already been handled. In fact, re-read all my posts because they've already adressed everything you're trying to rehash now, including why this story only appears in John. To reiterate, John's gospel says that Nicodemus was at Jesus' burial. Undoubtedly, Jesus' mother Mary would have been there, and so would John, whom Jesus charged with Mary's care after his death. It doesn't take a genius to see that this is where Nicodemus and John could have met, and began talking together about their experiences with Jesus. Nicodemus recounts to John his secret conversation with Jesus, and John remembers it and records it.
Look- I realize that you have to keep arguing out of self-preservation, but merely recycling arguments after they've been quashed is a sign that you've lost, not to mention it's intellectually indignifying to keep flailing at this point. Seriously, your level of obtuseness rivals that of Waco47.
Waco1947 said:One book does not make your case.Waco1947 said:Very.JXL said:Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
Are you familiar with the importance placed by the Jewish culture on the accurate transmission of biblical manuscripts?
Are you aware that there were 4 written sources to the Old Testament. All with a different slant.
J - written via oral tradition Uses Yahweh for God
E - Elohim - written via oral Tradition used Elohim for God
P - Priestly - The Priests' redactions
D - The final redactor Mostly Deuteronomy
R - Redactors who put four sources together
Oral tradition goes back to events 2,500 BC
But not written down and redactor until nearly 2,000 years after the actual events.
And with a decidedly faith and Hebrew prejudice.
And you ducked the central point. Oral tradition covered a lot of ground.
And one would have to compare the Dead Sea scrolls to other copies.
The point was the painstaking accuracy which Jewish culture insisted upon for transmission of sacred texts, whether through oral tradition or in writing. Being accurate wasn't something minor that they could take or leave - it was critically important to them.
TexasScientist said:The problem is the copies made for c1, c2, c3, and c4 are not the same. The copies d1 through d8 are not the same, so you have thousands of copies that are not the same. It's clear that things were added, changed, and omitted, sometimes years later. There is no way to know what the original copy actually said.Sam Lowry said:We know because the progression is geometric and not linear. Say that person A writes a text and copies it for person B, B copies it for C, C copies it for D, and so on down to Z. All we have is Z's copy. In that case there's no way to know how accurately it reproduces the original. That's not the case with the NT. There you have person A, who copies it for B1 and B2, who copy it for C1, C2, C3, and C4, who copy it for D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8, and so on until there are thousands of copies. When those copies agree with each other 99.5% of the time, the chances that it's a coincidence are infinitesimal. It would mean that thousands of copyists all made the same mistakes independently of each other. So it's almost mathematically impossible for the extant copies not to be accurate.Waco1947 said:Apparently I don't know. Enlightenment me with knowledge.Sam Lowry said:You're a minister. How in the world would you not know it?Waco1947 said:
"Realiable copies of the original?" How in the world would you know that?
again....(sigh)....which is why we employ textual criticism, by comparing the copies. When they virtually agree 99.5% of the time, yes, we DO have a really good idea what the original actually said (for the umpteenth time!)
When they don't agree, you look at the copies- if among c1, c2, c3, c4... cn, only ONE out of those copies says something that the others don't, you know that part is an addition, and should not be considered authentic. This is the painstaking procedure that was undertaken for thousands upon thousands of manuscript evidence that still exist today. This process has led to a pretty darn good idea what the original text said. You are trying to exaggerate the impact of the differences, saying that because of them we're completely in the dark about what was said. This shows an utter lack of understanding of textual criticism, and/or a predisposition to casting doubt on the reliability of the New Testament regardless of the facts.
Rinse, repeat, recycle.
TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.
Quote:
His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense.
His point was that if someone had the original, that one person or group could doctor it/change it, perhaps out of their biased interpretation, and then no one except that person or group would know what was originally said. On the other hand, if NO ONE had the original, but rather 10 people had copies of the original, then if one person tried to make a change, the 9 others have textual proof that he did so, because none of the other copies would show the change. This way, the integrity of the original is protected, rather than being subject to the whims of the one person or group who controls the original. It wasn't that hard to understand.
Quote:
I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.
Here is what Bart Ehrman said in his book, Misquoting Jesus, in the appendix:
"Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in 'Misquoting Jesus' does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger's position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."
OUCH! SciGuy, that last part in the bold had have hurt.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:TexasScientist said:His arguments don't hold up. First of all the early " copies" are not complete copies, and are not believed to be originals. They are fragments, some of which fragments show up in later copies and some of which do not show up in later copies. It isn't until years later that so called complete copies begin to show up. They have differences, some of the hundreds of thousands of variants are inconsequential, others are significant. So there is no way to know for sure what was in the original. His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense. If a possessor changed the original, it would only be by changing it through another copy. You would still have the original copy to compare unless it was destroyed or lost. In the case of the NT, we only have early fragments, which likely are not original fragments, but are likely fragments of early variant copies. There is no way to know when and what any, especially the gospels, of the original texts said. All these variants indicate that the theology of Christianity was evolving and being hammered out over time by various theologians. The questioner in the video correctly points out one of these conundrums on salvation. I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.LIB,MR BEARS said:
Tarp duster and others have already discussed the language issue
By way of example, 1 John 5:7-8 is the only place in the NT that outright says there is a Trinity, three in one. There is no other explicit statement of this doctrine in the NT. However, this verse was not original to the NT, but is a later addition.Quote:
His argument that comparing incomplete copies assures you have the original, where if you had the original the possessor could change it, doesn't make sense.
His point was that if someone had the original, that one person or group could doctor it/change it, perhaps out of their biased interpretation, and then no one except that person or group would know what was originally said. On the other hand, if NO ONE had the original, but rather 10 people had copies of the original, then if one person tried to make a change, the 9 others have textual proof that he did so, because none of the other copies would show the change. This way, the integrity of the original is protected, rather than being subject to the whims of the one person or group who controls the original. It wasn't that hard to understand.Quote:
I don't believe the lecturer is accurately characterizing Bart Ehrman as saying there are no doctrinal isssues arising from these textual variances. I would like to see him document that statement. I believe the lecturer it is out of context.
Here is what Bart Ehrman said in his book, Misquoting Jesus, in the appendix:
"Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in 'Misquoting Jesus' does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger's position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."
Literally all of the folks that post on this thread are better educated than I am, I've no doubt. But, even I can see that you are not being a skeptic but an antagonist. But, I also know enough about your background to know that the first really impressive professor you had that posed questions about your faith and you couldn't answer them. That made a big impression on you. At the same time, you were studying to become a scientist and told that science was the way to go to find answers. I'm sorry that before that professor you were only taught to WHAT to believe and not WHY to believe. You were put in a perfect storm for creating doubt.
Here we are today and you're a scientist so you rationalize everything as requiring empirical proof. Guess what, there is truth all around you, all around you and it is written on your heart as well. But scientist don't believe their heart, they believe the proof. Especially proof that supports their hypothesis. YOU keep placing the word "empirical" in the way because, well, you're a damn good scientist and that's what scientist do.
Remember, before you were a scientist, you were a believer just with an untested faith hypothesis. The first data came in from a professor you admired because he challenged you but it is all pointing away from your hypothesis. You didn't stop to think then if you were seeing the raw data, you just took it for what it was. Guess what, that professor was biased and only provided data that he wanted supported. You're not the first scientist to make that mistake. heck, you weren't even a scientist then but a college student probably away from home for the first time. That prof was someone you looked up to and admired. Why not believe him?
Now, today, virtually everyday, more and more data roles in challenging your new hypothesis and supporting the original. So what is a scientist to do, be an antagonist, a skeptic or a seeker of the truth?
Humility is not a bad thing SciGuy. Not being the smartest guy in the room isn't a bad thing. Having a flaw isn't a bad thing. Latching on to incomplete data is only bad if it is not corrected before it is too late. For your own sake, let this pride thing go just a bit. It is okay to be flawed, to miss something. Jesus used flawed people all the time. Loosen that grip just a bit. If the scientific data is accurate, it will still be there when everything has been investigated.
Still praying for you SciGuy
Texas Scientist don't believe Tarp. He does not answer any question. He simply says he does.
He never engages in real dialogue.
Here 's one he has never answered
"Can you prove God is all powerful using science or mathematics or biology or chemistry or physics?"
Show your reasoning please.
He never engages in real dialogue.
Here 's one he has never answered
"Can you prove God is all powerful using science or mathematics or biology or chemistry or physics?"
Show your reasoning please.