Diogenes the Cynic

Peter was being facetious.
ALL the texts are "corrupt" to some degree or other. The TR is simply more corrupt than the older and more complete Alexandrian texts.
There was no such "region." Gadara was a city. The "region" is just a gimmick to try to dig you out of an error.

How many demoniacs were there, by the way?

Except that they don't because they're not in Gerasa as Mark states or Gadara, which Matthew tried to correct Mark to.
Josephus does not support you.
I don't blame you for fearing a discussion here. You would not do well with your position.

Want to talk about Jesus horses?
You keep making arguments based on certain specific assertions and then declining any request to support those assertions. If you are only here to witness, I think you'll find the ground rather rocky.

Steven Avery

Josephus, region and such are covered earlier in the thread, open for anybodies review.
Hmmmm.. If true, he sure did a good job of masking and sounding lucid and logical
In Gadara (Poriya) ... one
In Gergesenes ........ two Read the text :-)
Nothing takes place in Gerasa in the Bible, using the historical text.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Diogenes the Cynic

It was very dry.
So you think there were two different excorcisms and two different herds of swine? Ok.
Translation: "la la la la, I can't hear you."

Peter Kirby

Diogenes and Praxeus, are we talking about the post starting, "I get your point"? In that post I was attempting to be lucid, but I made no indication of whether the points that you (Praxeus) make are logical. I am capable of dry humor, but this was just a summary. My hope was and is that Praxeus hangs around to discuss those particular points that interest him (text criticism, for example--why not start a thread on that 1 Timothy issue?).

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Steven Avery

Yes. I understood that as a summary, neither agreeing or disagreeing, but putting in perspective.

I'll consider 1 Timothy 3:16, I think it is a great example of what we are talking about, and since it is an ALTERNATIVE reading rather than an omission/inclusion issue, it is actually much simpler and straightforward conceptually, especially in terms of weighing evidences. Plus I've got some homework done, to start it up :-) (whew)

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Diogenes the Cynic

Mark says Gerasa. You still haven't dealt with that. The discussion of Gadara is moot until you can show a reason why a mistake-riddled, heavily edited and sometimes fabricated compilation from the late middle ages should be preferred to older, more complete and less "creative" set of manuscripts. I think Amaleq is being rather kind to you by not only suffering your ad hominems with grace but by humoring your preferred magical text to the ones which are actually used in legitimate scholarship.

Having said all that, I think Amaleq has you in a box with his point about the tombs, not that you have been very sucessful (despite your constant self-proclaimations of victory) in making a case for Gadara having a "region" which extended to the lake anyway.

Steven Avery

Actually I have dealt with the reasons for rejecting the alexandiran text in many places on this forum, and also the false paradigms that trumpet that text.

My acceptance of the true Bible, the King James Bible and the Textus Receptus and the Masoretic Text, and its Inspiration and Preservation, is not dependent upon my convincing people who are opponents of the Bible which is the proper Bible for them to oppose. Opponents of the Bible, like yourself, will almost always prefer a corrupt and error-ridden man-tampered version like as from Westcott-Hort or NA27.

As for you comments on the thread as a whole, you have shown a complete non-comprehension of the issues from the start,

As I remember you were still insisting that the reference most be to the city of Gadara, when you weren't insisting that I use your preferred error-laden Bible text.

So I will take your summary comments with a very hefty grain of salt.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Diogenes the Cynic

No, you really haven't. All you've done is scream that the Alexandrian manuscripts are "corrupt" (ignoring the point that they are still older and better preserved than the the TR) while simultaneously asserting on the basis of nothing at all that the TR is "inspired" (a claim you won't define or defend) and that the KJV is the "true Bible." Patent nonsense considering not only the the severe problems with the TR but the miserable translation that is the KJV itself. Appeals to magical authority are somewhat less than convincing on a forum of "infidels," you know.
"Opponents of the Bible?" I am a student of the Bible, and a student of history. I am motivated by curiosity and personal interest, not by animosity. I'm not even sure how I could "oppose" the Bible. I think it's a fascinating library of ancient literature.
Somebody really needs to invent an irony smilie.
Um...no...I insisted on no such thing. I insisted that Matthew's reference to Gadara was to a city and not to some nebulous "region" which extended to the lake, but since Matthew got his story from Mark, I also think it's a moot point since Mark said it was Gerasa and Luke retained Mark.
And yet you'll swallow such things as Biblical inerrancy, "KJV only" and YEC without even needing a glass of water.

Steven Avery

Actually I started a discussion the other day of why the current paradigms of modern textcrit would absolutely by logical necessity create an errant Bible version, (which is what happened with Westcott-Hort and the ensuing modern versions) ... I explained it by showing five steps in modern thinking. .... That means that the current paradigms are flawed since they do not allow for the possibility of an inspired and preserved text, and then create the errant text that is used.

Perhaps you can find that post, and continue from there, rather than repeatedly make false accusations here about my views or ideas or background or consistency vis a vis the modern version issue. Others like Peter (in understanding my views) and Yuri (in pointing out flaws in W-H) should have helped you realize that your belligerent attitude vis a vis the text is improper and unhelpful and unbecoming.

You want to insist that I use a fatally flawed text, one that I consider as pure junque, one frequently based on close to zilch, and minimal, historical & manuscript evidence for its unique readings, from manuscripts of horrid scribal dis-integrity, in defending the infallibility of the scriptures.

Truly, this is the height of logical and conceptual absurdity :-)

One can understand however, why a skeptic looking for errors in the Bible, like Joe W or yourself, would take that stance.

A perfect example was the Gerash claim, and your discomfit that the King James Bible has an easily historically defendable reading, and the modern W-H versions (as well as the Vulgate) falls to pieces.

If you need help understanding why I consider the W-H text as flawed, please first review the writings of writers like Thomas Holland and Maurice Robinson (or Wilbur Pickering) on the Net. Then we might have a base of discussion.

Everything else you raised is handled fine in the thread archives, and folks who are interested can simply review the thread.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Diogenes the Cynic

Anything which DID allow for the possibility of an "inspired and preserved text" would be academically worthless. If you want to assert magic, you have to PROVE magic. That's just the way it works. Show us any empirical reason that we should believe in a magic text. You're getting upset because we won't take your a priori assumptions of magic at face value. Nor should we.
Peter was not agreeing with you, just asking for confirmation of what you believed and Yuri is, let's just say, "unorthodox" in many of his views.
You're wildly misstating the strength of those manuscripts and still utterly missing the point that no text is perfect, and that the TR has even more problems than the Alexandrian. There is no perfectly preserved text of the Bible. All we're doing is looking for the least flawed.
[Insert irony smilie *HERE*]
This is a gross misstatement of what Biblical scholarship is all about.
I'm afraid that you've showed no such thing. The "discomfit" seems to be yours in that you haven't been able to explain away Mark's error, so you've had to resort to trying to inculcate your preferred (and inaccurate) text with magical incantations. Forgive me if I fail to be impressed by a defense that "MY text is INSPIRED."
One more time. All extant Biblical texts are flawed. Yours is more flawed than mine.