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Do we REALLY have to scroll thru these long posts again?
It's becoming excessive on many threads.
To then read a one liner?
Please...enough. Thank you.
Hi Miss Hepburn. Of course you don't have to read whatever you choose not to. I have however provided a significant amount of information for anyone who is interested in getting the details. In this instance, details relating to the accuracy of our New Testament documents as demonstrated by textual scholarship. I believe that is of interest to some. If not to you then you certainly do not have to read it. But it's there if you want to. I think it is an important topic.
And the huge number of Bibles printed in every possible language so as to be foisted on the world proves nothing other than a staggering global waste paper industry.
Where do you think half the Amazon rain forest went?
The only bit of your overlong post that is really relevant
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555
''The reality is that, although most of the text of the New Testament is not in dispute, some passages are.'' [p. 61]
.
You cannot sideline the evidence of emendation, alteration, omission and addition by quotemining people who say that general text can be recovered, the errors make no difference to the text, and irrelevant alternative reading like Mary instead of Miriam - which is not the sort of thing I even mentioned and does not, in fact, make any difference.
Nor indeed does the fact that adding a bit of Matthew to Luke in a later edition of the Bible make any real difference to the message, though that the woman taken in adultery can be in either Luke or John tells us something about the meticulous transmission claim (which is the point I was addressing) and the fact that Mark had no resurrection story originally tells us even more.
Where do you think half the Amazon rain forest went?
Shh...don't tell everyone...the rain forests are hardwood. They are not used in the paper industry which relies of forests of sustainable softwoods. Where does the hardwood go...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555
Hi Miss Hepburn. Of course you don't have to read whatever you choose not to. I have however provided a significant amount of information for anyone who is interested in getting the details. In this instance, details relating to the accuracy of our New Testament documents as demonstrated by textual scholarship. I believe that is of interest to some. If not to you then you certainly do not have to read it. But it's there if you want to. I think it is an important topic.
I agree, but a lot of your post wasn't really germane to the issue, which was about accuracy of transmission specifically the confirmation of the Qumran scrolls that the OT was copied without error. That was not the case with the NT, even if you don't agree with my arguments for alteration of an original text by the Gospel - writers.
The only bit of your overlong post that is really relevant
You cannot sideline the evidence of emendation, alteration, omission and addition by quotemining people who say that general text can be recovered, the errors make no difference to the text, and irrelevant alternative reading like Mary instead of Miriam - which is not the sort of thing I even mentioned and does not, in fact, make any difference.
Nor indeed does the fact that adding a bit of Matthew to Luke in a later edition of the Bible make any real difference to the message, though that the woman taken in adultery can be in either Luke or John tells us something about the meticulous transmission claim (which is the point I was addressing) and the fact that Mark had no resurrection story originally tells us even more.
My entire post is relevant, and there is no quote mining involved. The simple fact of the matter is that textual critics, experts in the field, which you are not, have demonstrated that what we have now is over 99 percent faithful to the original New Testament autographs.
Oh! And as for sidelining the evidence of emendation, I quoted Bruce Metzger concerning that in post #9.
Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was one of the most highly regarded scholars of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism. He served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies and was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He commented...
But the amount of evidence for the text of the New Testament , whether derived from manuscripts, early versions, or patristic quotations is so much greater than that available for any ancient classical author that the necessity of resorting to emendation is reduced to the smallest dimensions. [The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, pg. 230] [Bolding mine]
Last edited by Michael Way; 11-20-2015 at 12:09 PM..
Shh...don't tell everyone...the rain forests are hardwood. They are not used in the paper industry which relies of forests of sustainable softwoods. Where does the hardwood go...?
I agree, but a lot of your post wasn't really germane to the issue, which was about accuracy of transmission specifically the confirmation of the Qumran scrolls that the OT was copied without error. That was not the case with the NT, even if you don't agree with my arguments for alteration of an original text by the Gospel - writers.
My post refutes this comment of yours in post #8 which implies that we can't know what the original text of the New Testament was. New Testament textual criticism has shown that our present text agrees with the original New Testament autographs over 99 percent.
''. . .but it certainly isn't the case with the New Testament. Even apart from the discrepancies that are evidence of several revisions of the original stoiry and the contradictions that are evidence of changes made by the individual writers, have you never seen how many footnotes there are in the Bibles saying 'other ancient authorities read/omit/have alternative...' or this or that '..verse is omitted by the ancient authorities'.
This is religious garbledegook for - stuff has been added to or altered to the original scripture. And do I need to mention the woman taken in adultery story and that the 'ancient authorities' couldn't decide whether it was in John or Luke? And isn't it well known (but not publicized much) that Mark 16.9 onwards is all later addition, because the 'ancient authorities' felt there ought to be a resurrection story - so they wrote one?''
Old Testament (Dead Sea Scrolls):
A complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, dating from 200 BC (originally autograph written about 800 to 700 BC) was found among the scrolls. This pre-dated the previous earliest known Hebrew copies of Isaiah by almost 1000 years! After years of painstaking comparison, it was shown that the differences between the Qumran scrolls and scriptures penned 1000 years later, consisted only incidental spelling differences and variations in margin notes!
“They proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text. The 5% variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling. No variations changed the meaning of the text in any significant way. The fact that both Old and New Testament texts have been transmitted so accurately over so many years is miraculous." Gleason Archer, Harvard Phd (one of the most prominent Archaeologist of Twentieth Century)
I mostly agree with what you posted about the NT. It is fairly accurate--but some of the inaccuracies are interesting. Try reading a translation of the Coptic NT and comparing it to whatever version of English you are accustomed to. They have notable, if not astonishing, differences.
I am more interested in your emphasis on Isaiah as being complete (which it mostly was) but concluding that the entire Hebrew Bible is therefore proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
This is not correct at all.
In fact, you are faced with the Jeremiah Dilemma--one that derails inerrancy once and for all.
Quote:
With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, believers in the inerrancy doctrine thought they had found cause to rejoice. In Cave One at Qumran was found a manuscript of the book of Isaiah containing all 66 chapters except for only a few words that were missing where edges of the scroll had crumbled. Although many spelling variations were found in the text, the content of the Qumran scroll was found to be remarkably parallel to the Masoretic text of 895 A. D. Translators of the Revised Standard Version in 1952 found only 13 textual differences in the manuscript that they considered important enough to affect their translation of Isaiah. When scholars dated the manuscript at circa 100 B.C., Bible fundamentalists believed they had found in the Qumran text of Isaiah indisputable proof that through the long, silent centuries Jewish scribes had been scrupulously faithful in transmitting their sacred books. After all, if a thousand years had brought no significant changes to the text of Isaiah, couldn't we believe that the same was true of the other Old Testament books?
This would make an impressive argument were it not for subsequent discoveries that were made at Qumran, which Bible inerrantists have been very reluctant to talk about. In commenting on these other discoveries, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, professor emeritus of New Testament at The Catholic University of America, dashed cold water onto the hopes of those who had hastily concluded too much from the Qumran text of Isaiah:
In Cave 4, 157 fragmentary biblical texts were retrieved, among which is every book of the Hebrew canon, save Esther (and Nehemiah, which at that time was considered as one book with Ezra). Eventually, these Cave 4 fragments revealed a different story about the copying and transmission of Old Testament writings. In some cases, especially 1-2 Samuel, Jeremiah, and Exodus, the fragments brought to light forms or recensions of biblical books that differed from the medieval Masoretic tradition. For instance, one text turned out to be a shorter Hebrew form of Jeremiah, previously known only in its Greek version in the Septuagint. It now seems that the fuller form of Masoretic tradition represents a Palestinian rewording of the book. Another from Cave 4, written in paleo-Hebrew script and dated from the early second century B.C., contains the repetitious expanded form of Exodus previously known only in Samaritan writings, ("The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible: After Forty Years," America, October 31, 1987, p. 302, emphasis added).
This "different story" told by the discoveries in Cave Four at Qumran is a story that Bible inerrantists have been conspicuously silent about, probably because it puts to rest all notions of scrupulously meticulous ancient scribes who counted all the letters in the copies they made to be sure that no mistakes had occurred. The Cave Four discoveries tell us that mistakes were not only made but that TEXTUAL CHANGES WERE ALSO MADE WITH PROBABLE DELIBERATION. (emphasis mine)
In spite of the fact that the Proto-Masoretic text was the most popular or the most well-respected recension of the Hebrew Bible in Palestine, we cannot see it as being pristine or error free. In fact, the Masoretes themselves noted where certain errors had crept into the consonantal text. Instead of correcting the errors themselves, they left the errors in the text, but noted the correction in the marginal Masorah.
----
---the only other major identifying mark of the Masoretic text is a corrupt version of the book of 1 Samuel. When I use the term “corrupt,” I mean only that the consonantal text had experienced a number of errors in the transmission process very early on. These errors occurred well before the time of Christ, and resulted in at least three different versions of the Book of 1 Samuel, the Proto-Masoretic, the Proto-Septuagint, and a unique version found within the Dead Sea Scrolls.
I think it's great that Isaiah has come down so intact. But Jeremiah shows us all that what we are reading in our English Bibles has been extensively added to by scribes between the earlier Qumran discovery and the later Septuagint on which most people rely. And if it could happen to one book, it could happen to another.
And that's why taking Scripture at face value without studying it's history in detail is the path to becoming a fool.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 11-20-2015 at 02:53 PM..
My entire post is relevant, and there is no quote mining involved. The simple fact of the matter is that textual critics, experts in the field, which you are not, have demonstrated that what we have now is over 99 percent faithful to the original New Testament autographs.
Oh! And as for sidelining the evidence of emendation, I quoted Bruce Metzger concerning that in post #9.
Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was one of the most highly regarded scholars of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism. He served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies and was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He commented...
But the amount of evidence for the text of the New Testament , whether derived from manuscripts, early versions, or patristic quotations is so much greater than that available for any ancient classical author that the necessity of resorting to emendation is reduced to the smallest dimensions. [The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, pg. 230] [Bolding mine]
For all to note. While quoting Metzger's writing correctly, it should not be assumed that Metzger was in any way, shape, or form a fundamentalist. In fact, Bart Ehrman, an agnostic, studied under Metzger. But let's see what a real fundamentalist wrote about Metzger six days after his death:
Quote:
At this juncture, let me offer a Biblical fundamentalist perspective of Metzger’s contributions to New Testament scholarship. True and faithful Biblicists ought to be warned that Metzger’s scholarship is not one to be desired nor admired. Metzger could well be a gentle, courteous, and nice man as described in many a eulogy, but such adulations are no sure gauge of his biblical and theological orthodoxy. Let us beware lest we fall into the snare of unbelieving scholarship, and the seduction of worldly honour and glory.Every biblical scholar or theologue who is committed to the total infallibility and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, and the authenticity and integrity of the Greek New Testament of the Protestant Reformation which is the Textus Receptus must know that the adoption of Metzger’s philosophy and methodology will only lead to chronic uncertainty and perpetual unbelief of the total inspiration and perfect preservation of the Holy Scriptures.
One needs to read more than a single quote to gauge the depth of Metger's scholarship.
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