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07/31/2008 09:47:31 AM · #176 |
Originally posted by Sam94720:
 farfel53, my impression is that most staunch believers have their beliefs because they grew up among beliefers. They have accepted as absolute truth that the Christian god exists and that the Bible is his infallible word. This basic premise is never to be questioned, this is where any discussion starts. And that's why I made the prison analogy earlier (post at 07/28/2008 12:59:29 PM); the prison is this basic set of beliefs that you will never leave.
It is funny that you would argue against this analogy by quoting the Bible, thereby proving my point: you're arguing from inside the prison. |
O.K., I will answer directly from inside my "prison": I had tossed my childhood-taught faith in my late teens, and was pretty much an atheist through my early twenties. It was only after much straining against my own weaknesses that I reached out, like stretching my arm out through the bars of my own self-made prison. Details of self-made prison not available on request. I had NEVER read the Bible, never heard the simple gospel preached. But the first step of faith was to say to God, if He was there, that I would see if He opened my eyes. And events entirely outside of my control occurred that made a powerful suggestion that there really IS a God, and He will hear anybody who calls to Him with a willingness to hear. Nobody will ever see God without eyes of faith, it can't be done, there is no logic, there is no human path. I will say to you that you don't need to pity me for the "prison" I am in. Many Christians will say the same. Some are trapped in religion, some are imprisoned by rules and regulations and rituals. Lots of us are not.
As far as quoting the Bible...that's the title of this thread.
jhonan - I was not referring to the population of the world. Just to Christians in general, and those set free by Christ, in particular.
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 12:04:40.
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07/31/2008 09:51:02 AM · #177 |
Originally posted by jhonan:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by jhonan:
Originally posted by farfel53:
Most of us believe that it is Christ that sets us free, and that to be outside of the will of God is to be in bondage. John 8:31-36 |
'Most'? - There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world out of a population of 6.6 billion. |
He means "most of us Christians" of course. Surely you can see that? |
No. 'Most of us' is pretty ambiguous, in my opinion. |
Look, I respect you and I don't want to be aggressive here, but that's just ridiculous. You KNOW Farfel's a Christian from all his posts here, and you KNOW he's not so unreasonable as to think "most human beings" believe Christ sets us free. The "us" in his statement is CLEARLY referring to Christians, c'mon man, be reasonable.
R.
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07/31/2008 10:04:23 AM · #178 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by jhonan:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by jhonan:
Originally posted by farfel53:
Most of us believe that it is Christ that sets us free, and that to be outside of the will of God is to be in bondage. John 8:31-36 |
'Most'? - There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world out of a population of 6.6 billion. |
He means "most of us Christians" of course. Surely you can see that? |
No. 'Most of us' is pretty ambiguous, in my opinion. |
Look, I respect you and I don't want to be aggressive here, but that's just ridiculous. You KNOW Farfel's a Christian from all his posts here, and you KNOW he's not so unreasonable as to think "most human beings" believe Christ sets us free. The "us" in his statement is CLEARLY referring to Christians, c'mon man, be reasonable. |
I'm not allowed an opinion? But if you want to ridicule it, feel free. |
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07/31/2008 10:09:23 AM · #179 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
The contention of Ehrman is that while the New Testament is one of the most important texts of the Western World it is impossible to know what it really says due to error. I would counter that while some error may have entered into the body of the text, the exponential availability of the text makes our predicament an "embarassment of riches". In other words, we should celebrate that the most important historical text of our civilization is so widely available and is still very faithful to the originals. |
Sam's already addressed this, but, you've apparently accepted the "copy of copies" scenario and the inevitable introduction of error by countering instead of dismissing it, so how is it that you know the current text is so faithful to the originals? The originals are non-existent. If in fact you don't accept Ehrman's scenario, please provide a short synopsis on your take of the history of the texts and cite your sources.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
We can quickly dispense with the snide retorts that God should have made his text available to everybody at once. This is not what happened and thus is irrelevant. |
But I don't want to dispense with this, since it is seems so seminal. "Aliens haven't landed on the White House lawn to announce their presence, so this is no argument against their existence." Am I merely to accept this line of reasoning and let those with an opposing viewpoint dictate how such a discussion must unfold? Also, is it snide to point out the bleeding obvious? ;-)
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
...I am contending that the inevitable introduction of errors, the majority of which are insubstantial, has been outweighed by the fact that it is now widely available to most peoples in the world. |
You have no way of knowing the substance of any errors introduced through copying. Simply no way, so you have no claim to make that they were insubstantial. They could very well have been bestially gross, whole books inserted to accomodate the mysterious political ends of some half-baked Roman scribe for example. There, I've just posited a very real and likely scenario given the circumstances and the nature of the relevant times. Disprove it. :-P
The current availability of the text is irrelevant. Plato and Aristotle have a few important texts that you can pick up at any bookstore in virtually any part of the world, and are at least as easy to obtain as the bible. If not for the woeful cultural appetite of the world's population, I'd say those texts, and pretty much any extant ancient text, are as available, widespread, and easy to obtain as the bible. That's a happy accident of our culture. This fact alone says nothing about the content of the available text, their history, who copied them, and the condition of the originals as written by their authors.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
People who counter immediately against my philosophical contention are, I'm assuming, simply conceding that my assertion about the reliability and availability is correct. |
I caution against formulating the conclusions of your partners in conversation before they've actually had a chance to speak. |
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07/31/2008 10:19:58 AM · #180 |
Originally posted by Sam94720:
ou keep claiming that the current versions of the Bible are closer to the originals than ever. This is silly for two reasons: |
Apparently DrAchoo is unfamiliar with the Apocrypha... it's certainly no miracle that versions of a story would agree if you gather all the known versions together and throw out the ones you don't like. If you're going to claim the veracity of a piece of literature over 2,000 years old that's divided into books, originally written in Greek and passed down by oral tradition, with details of known historical events and assumed deities, simply because it has since been translated into well over a hundred languages that are more widely available today than at any point in history, then you haven't excluded the Iliad, Odyseey or Aeneid as factual.
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
You KNOW Farfel's a Christian from all his posts here, and you KNOW he's not so unreasonable as to think "most human beings" believe Christ sets us free. The "us" in his statement is CLEARLY referring to Christians, c'mon man, be reasonable. |
Um... Farfel took exactly the same approach to Louis earlier:
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by farfel53:
Do you honestly say you know of more people in general who become convinced that it's not true, and turn their backs on God, the more they read of the Bible? |
...infusing your question with drama -- "turn their backs on God" -- is merely a device, as I'm sure you know that the position here is that there's no god to which one can turn one's back. |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Louis, is it official "here" "position" that there is no God to turn ones back on? Is it required of me and others to accept that position in order to be officially "here"? |
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 10:27:05. |
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07/31/2008 10:21:35 AM · #181 |
Originally posted by dahkota:
If God exists and if God 'wrote' the Bible, then man, by virtue of his imperfections, has not heard the word of God correctly. Can't this be another option? |
That's pretty awesome. That's a very difficult argument to crack from the perspective of someone who believes both that humans are imperfect, and that God "wrote" the bible through them. Unless the contention is that he made them into some kind of zombie-like automaton. But then, he'd have to have supsended their free will to do so, thus undermining one of the most important characteristics of his most important creation. |
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07/31/2008 10:35:23 AM · #182 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
You KNOW Farfel's a Christian from all his posts here, and you KNOW he's not so unreasonable as to think "most human beings" believe Christ sets us free. The "us" in his statement is CLEARLY referring to Christians, c'mon man, be reasonable. |
Um... Farfel took exactly the same approach to Louis earlier:
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by farfel53:
Do you honestly say you know of more people in general who become convinced that it's not true, and turn their backs on God, the more they read of the Bible? |
...infusing your question with drama -- "turn their backs on God" -- is merely a device, as I'm sure you know that the position here is that there's no god to which one can turn one's back. |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Louis, is it official "here" "position" that there is no God to turn ones back on? Is it required of me and others to accept that position in order to be officially "here"? |
[/quote]
Don't see the similarity in position or subject at all. Want to clarify?
You and he took the position that "most" who discover the "errors" turn back from following.
The item cited by Louis was no evidence of that whatsoever, merely an exhaustive collection of the "errors". And I might add, a completely cursory failure to see "good stuff" in 90% of the whole Bible. Only found two things "good" in Psalms. Nothing in Genesis. Nothing in Lamentations. Nothing in most of it. Guess he missed most of the "good stuff" some of us see.
I took a position above that "most" Christians would assent to the scripture cited, that Jesus sets us free. As a non-Christian, how would you dispute that?
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 10:45:31.
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07/31/2008 10:44:08 AM · #183 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Don't see the similarity in position or subject at all. Want to clarify? |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Most of us believe that it is Christ that sets us free |
("us" = Christians)
Originally posted by Louis:
...I'm sure you know that the position here is that there's no god to which one can turn one's back. |
("here" = among Atheists)
In both cases, subsequent posts failed to grasp the obvious context and intent of the author.
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 10:45:58. |
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07/31/2008 10:52:06 AM · #184 |
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07/31/2008 11:54:37 AM · #185 |
Originally posted by Sam94720:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
[...] we should celebrate that the most important historical text of our civilization is so widely available and is still very faithful to the originals. |
You keep claiming that the current versions of the Bible are closer to the originals than ever. This is silly for two reasons:
1) We do not know what the originals were.
2) Are you seriously saying that a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the original is closer to the original than a direct copy of the original?
Did you watch the video? Did you read my previous posts? This issue has already been addressed several times.
I know you will never, ever leave your prison, even if you saw the Flying Spaghetti Monster land outside. But could you please look out the window long enough to watch the whole video before coming back to the discussion? Thanks a lot. |
I'll try to address multiple posts here, but quote Sam.
1) I do not keep claiming that the bible is closer to the original than ever, I keep claiming that the combination of reliability and availability is better than ever.
2) Even if we do not know what the originals were, we can know whether one version is likely to be closer to the original than other versions. That's simple, basic paleography and textual criticism. If, as a hypothetical, in 1800 our best copy of the New Testament was dated to about the 10th century and then in 1900 we find a copy dated to the 2nd century we have just improved our knowledge and can claim with a high degree of probability that our knowledge is now closer to the original than it was before even though we still do not have the original. Likewise, if in 1900 we find a dozen new texts dated to the 10th century that have a high degree of agreement with a group of texts we already have (versus others we also have), we have also increased our probability of knowing the original text. Those are just simple examples and things are likely a bit more complicated, but once again I point out that the # of texts for the New Testament dwarfs any other ancient text.
3) I think it was Shannon that started talking about the Apocrypha. I'm talking about the text of the Bible as we have it. I'm not discussing the decisions that went into what was accepted as canon.
4) Dakhota, I'm not discussing authority. I'm not claiming whether the bible is the Word of God any more or less than anybody else is claiming that it isn't. I'm simply discussing the reliability. However, if claiming the Bible is the Word of God because it is reliable to the original is a false argument, then claiming the Bible is not the World of God because it is not reliable to the original is also a false argument. |
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07/31/2008 12:06:54 PM · #186 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Unless the contention is that he made them into some kind of zombie-like automaton. But then, he'd have to have supsended their free will to do so, thus undermining one of the most important characteristics of his most important creation. |
Apparently that's possible: as thoughts magically implanted in your brain are relayed by your conscious decision (free will) to write or speak. Sort of a dictation from imagination of inspiration...
Originally posted by SDW:
As I type this I Pray to God that he gives me the words and the right timing so I donĂ¢€™t delete this before I can post. ...I also believe when the Bible was translated; again the scholars were given the right words so that the Bible would remain accurate. |
Maybe SDW's words were given by God, complete with typos and grammatical errors. We can't prove it either way, but I'll bet most Christians, no matter how strong their faith, would regard the posts as Scott's alone. Why? We literally have no reason to believe that the Gospel according to Mark is any more divinely inspired than the claims of any other random person past or present. I've seen people point to the similarities of Luke or Matthew as evidence of the truth of Mark, but that's no more valid than pointing to the Aeneid as evidence of the Iliad's truth. One author retelling an earlier work does not increase its truth, and that doesn't even consider that these particular gospels were chosen by imperfect humans to be included in the Bible while many others of similar origin were discarded. Early church leaders would have to have been completely incompetent to choose books that didn't agree in basic outline! Bear in mind that this is only the starting point, before we even get to any copying errors noted in the OP and basic problems inherent to translation.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I do not keep claiming that the bible is closer to the original than ever, I keep claiming that the combination of reliability and availability is better than ever. ...However, if claiming the Bible is the Word of God because it is reliable to the original is a false argument, then claiming the Bible is not the World of God because it is not reliable to the original is also a false argument. |
You don't claim that the Bible is closer to the original, only that it's reliability is better than ever and there are more copies now. Reliable to what? The original. Ayiyiyi! :-/
P.S.- Your assertion is patently false. Even if we had Mark's actual draft, it wouldn't be evidence of the Word of God. It could only be used to determine the accuracy of later copies... unless it was printed on glowing, indestructible magic parchment. THEN you'd have some evidence of a divine source! By contrast, how could anything different from what was originally written possibly be the Word of God as given to the original author?
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 12:20:04. |
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07/31/2008 12:49:24 PM · #187 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
You don't claim that the Bible is closer to the original, only that it's reliability is better than ever and there are more copies now. Reliable to what? The original. Ayiyiyi! :-/
P.S.- Your assertion is patently false. Even if we had Mark's actual draft, it wouldn't be evidence of the Word of God. It could only be used to determine the accuracy of later copies... unless it was printed on glowing, indestructible magic parchment. THEN you'd have some evidence of a divine source! By contrast, how could anything different from what was originally written possibly be the Word of God as given to the original author? |
You may have been typing when I wrote the above because you didn't apparently read it. A) Statistics and textual criticism can tell us how close something is likely to be to the original without having the original. B) I am not talking about the authority of the bible, only the historical reliability to the original text.
I liked the comment made by the essayist I linked far above: "There is now general agreement that the textual problems in Shakespeare are of such complexity that no text can be established that will commend the general assent that constitutes 'definitiveness.' " [ibid., 26] Note: This is the closest I have seen in any "secular" textual criticism book to the statements of despair and woe made by some NT text-critics to the effect, "We can NEVER know what was REALLY written!!!" (See below.) Most critics, however, are of a far more positive bent! For example, though an edition of Richard III "can advertise that they contain more than a thousand variants from the conventional text" [Bowe.TLC, 3], we do not see text critics wondering if that play actually was written entirely differently! "Hamlet will not be revealed as a woman, or as the villian; he will still be melancholy and at odds with the life about him." [ibid., 8] Textual variants are important to note, but we are not going to find that they significantly alter the storyline!"
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 13:02:28. |
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07/31/2008 01:07:46 PM · #188 |
Does anyone beside me sense a high degree of irony in the fact that those debating that the Bible is NOT closer than ever to the original documents are mostly the same people who defend the Theory of Evolution - arguing that each new fossil finding adds to its "understanding" and credibility, and points ever more credibly toward the origin of life in a primordial swamp ( i.e. the "original documents" of life )?
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 13:09:37. |
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07/31/2008 01:08:59 PM · #189 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
4) Dakhota, I'm not discussing authority. I'm not claiming whether the bible is the Word of God any more or less than anybody else is claiming that it isn't. I'm simply discussing the reliability. However, if claiming the Bible is the Word of God because it is reliable to the original is a false argument, then claiming the Bible is not the World of God because it is not reliable to the original is also a false argument. |
I contend that availability has no connection to truth. Again, if you say something over and over, it does not make it true.
Reliability? As what? Historical Fact? If you hold that the New Testament, as presented in common bibles, is historically accurate, you must contend that other documents written at the same time are equally factual by virtue of their age alone. To state that inclusion in the New Testament means that its 'truer,' or to contend that you can buy it anywhere makes it 'truer,' is ridiculous.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Philosophical: Of course the more fun conversation is the implied question Sam is really asking. "What kind of god would fail to keep his main avenue of communication with his creation free of error?" I counter here that one can ask the question "What kind of god would utilize the hand of man to make his main avenue of communication more and more available to mankind as time progresses?" We can quickly dispense with the snide retorts that God should have made his text available to everybody at once. This is not what happened and thus is irrelevant. One side is taking what really happened and is inferring that God either doesn't exist or is inept because error has entered his word while I am contending that the inevitable introduction of errors, the majority of which are insubstantial, has been outweighed by the fact that it is now widely available to most peoples in the world. |
You were discussing authority and giving that authority reliability based on distribution. Again, repeating something over and over does not make it true. Including some ancient texts as 'source material' while excluding that with which one disagrees also does not make it true.
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 13:10:37. |
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07/31/2008 01:15:08 PM · #190 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You may have been typing when I wrote the above because you didn't apparently read it. |
Nope. I read it, and point #4 is a direct contradiction of point #1: you don't claim the Bible is closer to the original than ever, but you do claim that the reliability to the original is better than ever.
Statistics and textual criticism can tell us how close something is likely to be to the original, but they cannot tell us the source(s) or motivation for the original itself. As I suggested, we could find Mark's actual text someday and we still wouldn't know if it was the Word of God (any more than SDW's posts) or merely another work of Greek fiction sprinkled with historical references like the Iliad. Statistics and textual criticism can only tell us is whether a current version is the word of Mark. |
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07/31/2008 01:15:33 PM · #191 |
Originally posted by dahkota:
Reliability? As what? Historical Fact? |
Reliability simply means "does the text we have today accurately reflect the text as it was originally written." That's all I'm saying. Don't keep drawing more conclusions out of my words. You can decide for yourself if the words ring "true" or not. That's quite a separate arguement.
Originally posted by dahkota:
You were discussing authority and giving that authority reliability based on distribution. Again, repeating something over and over does not make it true. Including some ancient texts as 'source material' while excluding that with which one disagrees also does not make it true. |
I'm not following you. I agree with both your statements if that's what you want. I simply think they are irrelevant to my argument because I'm not contending your statements are false. |
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07/31/2008 01:24:23 PM · #192 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You may have been typing when I wrote the above because you didn't apparently read it. |
Nope. I read it, and point #4 is a direct contradiction of point #1: you don't claim the Bible is closer to the original than ever, but you do claim that the reliability to the original is better than ever.
Statistics and textual criticism can tell us how close something is likely to be to the original, but they cannot tell us the source(s) or motivation for the original itself. As I suggested, we could find Mark's actual text someday and we still wouldn't know if it was the Word of God (any more than SDW's posts) or merely another work of Greek fiction sprinkled with historical references like the Iliad. Statistics and textual criticism can only tell us is whether a current version is the word of Mark. |
Let me be clear. Our reliability is closer than ever to the original. It obviously doesn't equal the reliability of the original itself (duh!). To get a sense of what I'm talking about, read this passage from the wiki on textual criticism:
"The New Testament portion of the English translation known as the King James or Authorized Version was based on the Textus Receptus, a Greek text prepared by Erasmus based on a few late medieval Greek manuscripts. For some books of the Bible, Erasmus used just single manuscripts, and for small sections made his own translations into Greek from the Vulgate.[55] However, following Westcott and Hort, most modern New Testament textual critics have concluded that the Byzantine text-type was formalised at a later date than the Alexandrian and Western text-types. Among the other types, the Alexandrian is viewed as more pure than the Western, and so one of the central tenets of current New Testament textual criticism is that one should follow the readings of the Alexandrian texts unless those of the other types are clearly superior."
You get a sense that when the KJV was written we had less texts available for the translation. Thus, one can convincingly argue that the NIV, published in 1952, is closer to the original than the KJV published in 1611. Our knowledge and textual criticism has expanded. If we want to be proper (and I know someone will point this out so I may as well), the Novum Testamentus Graece is likely a more accurate greek New Testament than the Textus Receptus. The NIV was based on the former and the KJV based on the latter.
To illustrate my overall point again, I would say that it is an advancement if you have a text that is 95% reliable which is available to 66% of the global population compared to a text that is 100% reliable (the original documents) and is available to 0.0001% of the global population. Given statistical methods, we can deduce that the current text of the Bible is quite reliable to the original (I don't want to put a number there because I doubt one could pin a % down), but I'd say >90% and possibly greater than 95% or 98%. Read my argument above talking about the 7 major ancient copies of the NT and how they completely agree on about 66% of the text. Having agreement of 5/7 or 6/7 copies brings that % much, much closer to 100%.
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 13:30:04. |
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07/31/2008 01:25:17 PM · #193 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm not following you. I agree with both your statements if that's what you want. I simply think they are irrelevant to my argument because I'm not contending your statements are false. |
Let's assume for a moment that we know the gospel according to Mark with 100% accuracy, that we know exactly what he wrote letter-for-letter. How would that in any way offer evidence that the words were true or provided by a supernatural being? How would it differ at all from knowing the exact original words of the Iliad? |
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07/31/2008 01:30:37 PM · #194 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm not following you. I agree with both your statements if that's what you want. I simply think they are irrelevant to my argument because I'm not contending your statements are false. |
Let's assume for a moment that we know the gospel according to Mark with 100% accuracy, that we know exactly what he wrote letter-for-letter. How would that in any way offer evidence that the words were true or provided by a supernatural being? How would it differ at all from knowing the exact original words of the Iliad? |
Good question. Start another thread because this one has nothing to do with those questions.... |
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07/31/2008 02:13:23 PM · #195 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Read my argument above talking about the 7 major ancient copies of the NT and how they completely agree on about 66% of the text. Having agreement of 5/7 or 6/7 copies brings that % much, much closer to 100%. |
You're missing the point. Let me illustrate: let's say 2000 years from now archeologists discover merchandise and film memorabilia from Peter Pan. They find sequels, copies, translations and alternate versions, along with apparent inconsistencies such as Peter often being portrayed by a woman. Statistics and textual criticism might allow them to piece together the accuracy of known material to the "original," but which original? If the earliest artifacts are dated to 2259AD, then the original could be the first book, or it could be Disney's movie, Peter & Wendy, a Broadway production... if one version became popular and all surviving [extant] copies and versions were based on that, then the original could be any of them or even the work of an anonymous author who once heard of a since-forgotten story and wrote a completely different, dramatized account to pass along as Barrie's! The point is that even if all surviving materials generally agreed upon a similar story, we would have no way of knowing if it bore any resemblance to the actual word of Barrie, and it certainly wouldn't be evidence of fairies and mermaids. No matter how closely we managed to match existing materials to Disney's "original," no matter how many translations or copies we have, the original could still be based on older (or even completely different) source material AND be a work of fiction.
Perhaps an even better example would be Superman. The overwhelming bulk of material today portrays the Man of Steel as a flying, nearly invulnerable superhero (agreeing far more than 66%), but Siegels' original could only jump about 1/8 of a mile and be hurt by an artillery shell. Similarly, you'd be hard pressed to find any supernatural abilities attributed to Jesus within the Epistles of Paul- the only writer said to have lived during the lifetime of Jesus.
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 14:41:32. |
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07/31/2008 02:26:33 PM · #196 |
That's what I was going to say. In reality though, it doesn't really matter how accurate the current texts are with respect to a question of purely historical interest. The same can be said of Homer and Virgil. The fact that we have the document in its current form is reason enough to be satisfied with it as "the best it can be".
It's only when certain other claims are made -- that Jason is now saying are irrelevant to the discussion at hand -- that the authenticity and accuracy of the document becomes a point of contention. Nobody for example is claiming that the Aeneid is the inspired word of God (though it has been used as a kind of oracle), and so everyone is perfectly content to discuss the extant text based on its own merits.
The claims that the bible is the infallible word of God must be challenged with the kind of arguments you see here however. We have to suggest to anyone that makes this claim why it's an unreasonable claim to make. Questions of authenticity, accuracy, and so forth, and a dissection of the probable history of the texts, becomes vital. That's Ehrman's point.
If you don't care to propose that the text is the infallible word of your god, then the argument really ends with, "The text is as good as it gets and we're satisfied with it" (for the purposes of discussion, but ongoing investigation is of course a good thing). If you do make that proposition and ask others to accept it, the real discussion begins. That's why others keep bringing it up I would think.
Message edited by author 2008-07-31 14:30:45. |
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07/31/2008 02:43:18 PM · #197 |
Originally posted by Louis:
If you don't care to propose that the text is the infallible word of your god, then the argument really ends with, "The text is as good as it gets and we're satisfied with it" (for the purposes of discussion, but ongoing investigation is of course a good thing). If you do make that proposition and ask others to accept it, the real discussion begins. That's why others keep bringing it up I would think. |
Fair enough. I guess Sam kept pleading early in the thread that he was merely bringing up a video of a guy offering a scholarly view of the reliability of the New Testament. "Did YOU watch the video?" :) Now the goalposts are moved and I am somehow saddled with proving that the Bible is now the Word of God. Obviously that is a matter of faith. If there were an airtight case that the text is clearly the Word of God then only idiots would be non-believers (and Shannon vouched for you that you aren't an idiot).
So my counter is that when people scream the literary sky is falling and that we will never know what the New Testament authors REALLY said, I simply counter that as far as ancient texts go, the New Testament is in a class of its own in textual criticism. It is clearly "an embarassment of riches" as I've said before. Sure there are Christians out there who claim the bible is without error and have little to no understanding of how it was written, formed, and passed down. If you want to battle that six-year-old understanding, be my guest.
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07/31/2008 02:50:31 PM · #198 |
So, what I'm understanding from your posted arguments are:
1. There are textual variations in the bible but the differences are close enough that they really don't mean anything.
2. The original versions of the texts of the bible may or may not be reliable with regard to the actual words of God. Or, it doesn't matter in this context.
3. The original versions of the texts of the bible may or may not be reliable with regard to actual events that happened during the time period. Or, it doesn't matter in this context.
In essence, you've said pretty much nothing. I will concede that, on the surface, the textual differences don't seem to mean anything with regard to various versions but, I disagree with you that it doesn't change the meaning.
Additionally, from a quick search on the internet, I see that there is a battle between the KJV (1611) readers and the NIV readers. Both sides hold that theirs is a more reliable text. Some of the KJV readers believe the newer KJV, coming from more recent Greek texts, is less reliable than the 1611 KJV, not a true interpretation of the word of God. Now, if all versions of the bible are so similar that the differences mean nothing, why the argument?
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07/31/2008 03:01:57 PM · #199 |
Originally posted by dahkota:
So, what I'm understanding from your posted arguments are:
1. There are textual variations in the bible but the differences are close enough that they really don't mean anything.
2. The original versions of the texts of the bible may or may not be reliable with regard to the actual words of God. Or, it doesn't matter in this context.
3. The original versions of the texts of the bible may or may not be reliable with regard to actual events that happened during the time period. Or, it doesn't matter in this context.
In essence, you've said pretty much nothing. I will concede that, on the surface, the textual differences don't seem to mean anything with regard to various versions but, I disagree with you that it doesn't change the meaning.
Additionally, from a quick search on the internet, I see that there is a battle between the KJV (1611) readers and the NIV readers. Both sides hold that theirs is a more reliable text. Some of the KJV readers believe the newer KJV, coming from more recent Greek texts, is less reliable than the 1611 KJV, not a true interpretation of the word of God. Now, if all versions of the bible are so similar that the differences mean nothing, why the argument? |
LOL. You haven't been around Rant long enough if you don't think people can get really up in arms over very small issues. :)
To respond to your points:
1) Yes, I'd agree with that.
2) This is a matter of faith. You either believe the message of God is contained in the text or you don't. I don't think the original video talked about this so I won't either. "Did YOU watch the video?"
3) This is a different discipline and would constitute another very interesting but very different discussion. There's only one of me and it's not fair to expect me to suddenly become and expert in all things and carry on four quite different discussions. |
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07/31/2008 03:04:10 PM · #200 |
Originally posted by dahkota:
Now, if all versions of the bible are so similar that the differences mean nothing, why the argument? |
I think some of the subtler differences do mean something; for example, the interpretation of a particular Greek word may substantially alter the meaning, and thus the intent, of a given verse. This is of most importance to literalist interpretations of the bible.
It's reminiscent of revisionist history, where neo-nazis dispute the meaning of the German word "aussrotten" (to exterminate). They contend it actually means "to upend" or "root out", and thus exonerates the Nazis of the self-implicated "extermination" of undesirables. This interpretation may be of etymological interest, but flies in the face of (past and current) German usage.
So differences tend to matter, especially when dogmatic interpretations are at stake. :-) |
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