aa5874

I have just demonstrated that it is possible to produce a copy that is 100% accurate by proof-reading.

And I can copy this last post of yours 100% accurate, but you will have to pay. I am not infallible. I just need to get paid.

You are just wasting time.

mountainman

Where did you find this information (concerning "Early Christian - before the 4th CE - Scribal practices)?

J-D

Of course it's possible to produce copies that are 100% accurate.

But there is no technique which gives a 100% guarantee of 100% accuracy in copying 100% of the time. If you think there is, I challenge you to find a professional proofreading or editing service (and there are plenty of these to be found online) which will give such a guarantee.

I also challenge you, again, to provide an explanation of the existence of variations in scribal manuscripts of documents from before the age of print. I mentioned The Canterbury Tales because it was the first example that sprang to mind, but the phenomenon is a general one.

mountainman

These people had a great deal of time on their hands -- the world was a lot simpler -- since they did not have TV . This of course does not imply that scribes did not make mistakes, rather that the technique of "proof reading" was considered to be very much part of the "High Technology of Antiquity" and that therefore "Scriptoria" gained or lost reputations on the basis of their accuracy.

It is also important to consider the epoch. You earlier mentioned the manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales which are representative of 14th century practice. When discussing scribal activity with respect to the New Testament manuscripts specifically we also need to be aware that we could be covering a number of centuries.

For example, the massive Differences between codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are attributable to scribal activity during the 4th century. This specific scribal task may have been in fact related to the production of the 50 copies of the "Constantine Bibles". We have no idea what the quality assurance practices were of the scribes who performed this task under the instruction of Constantine and the direct supervision of Eusebius, but it was obviously a monumental task.

J-D

A high degree of accuracy I am prepared to acknowledge. But aa5874 is for some reasons insisting on 100% guaranteed 100% accuracy 100% of the time, and there's no such thing.As I explained above, I mentioned The Canterbury Tales because they happened to spring to mind, but I'm sure similar examples could be found from other centuries.

aa5874

I told you that it could be done and I did it.

If I was a scribe I would guarantee you 100% accuracy or your money back.

You have already stated that 100% accuracy is possible. It must therefore be possible that a technique was used to obtain 100% accuracy and once that technique is used all the time all the copies would be 100% accurate.

Well if you think that 100% accuracy of a copy cannot be guaranteed then I challenge you to give me 20,000 words written in English and I will charge you one US dollar per word.

I will guarantee you a copy of your presentation or MASTER COPY with 100% accuracy WORD FOR WORD in English.

You seem to have made a fatal error based on "Chinese whispers" or Legendary Tales.

Please prove or demonstrate that a scribe made mistakes in "The Canterbury Tales". And then show what EXACTLY the scribe was asked to copy.

J-D

A guarantee of 100% accuracy or money back is not logically equivalent to a guarantee of 100% accuracy.Of course 100% accuracy is possible in individual cases, but that is not logically equivalent to a technique that gives a 100% guarantee of 100% accuracy in 100% of cases.Setting a challenge of your own is no substitute for meeting the challenges I set you.I didn't say anything about 'Chinese whispers'. I am referring to undisputed historical facts. It is undisputed that multiple scribal manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales exist--or do you dispute that? It is also undisputed that there are textual differences between those manuscripts--or do you dispute that? So how do you explain those facts?

aa5874

How illogical can you be? Proof-reading can give you 100% accuracy. I just did it. IT can be done for one word or millions of words.

You are just wasting time.

Just put your money where your mouth is.

You have not giving me a challenge since you yourself cannot demonstrate that you have any idea of the actual copying method of every version of "The Canterbury Tales" and the errors that may have been already in the manuscript before any scribe made copies.

Please name one scribe who copied "The Canterbury Tales" and made a mistake?


It is YOUR OBLIGATION to show what each each scribe was given to copy.

You MUST prove that a scribe was given one version of "The Canterbury Tales" and produced another version of his own by adding or removing words, and/or chapters without the expressed permission of the author or owner of the manuscript to be copied.

It is quite illogical to see different versions of a manuscript and then think that it was the product of scribal error when the different versions were not at all written by scribes.

You MUST provide sources external of the Church of Jesus believers of antiquity that claimed scribes were altering manuscripts without the permission of the author or owner of the manuscript.

And, if the early printing methods are examined, you may find that they were PRONE to making many errors.

J-D

No matter how hard I tried, I could never be as illogical as you.Not with 100% certainty.I'm happy with the use I'm making of my time. If you're not happy with the use you're making of your time, that's your problem.Sorry, I don't know what you mean by that.Did you proof-read that?

The challenges are there. If you don't want to meet them, that's another matter.No, I don't. But what I can or can't do is no justification for your inability to meet the challenge as I posed it.I don't know the names of the scribes. Scribes didn't always put their names to their work. And I don't know which ones made mistakes, either--how could I? My point is that the scribes who copied, for example, the Harleian, Hengwrt, Lansdowne, and Petworth manuscripts either made non-identical copies of identical originals, or copied from originals (no longer in existence) which were already non-identical copies of the original. These and other early manuscripts still exist today, and they are verifiably non-identical.YOU CAN'T OBLIGE ME TO DO THINGS BY USING CAPITALS.

I don't know what each scribe was given to copy and neither does anybody else. What difference does it make?USE OF BOLD CAPITALS DOES NOT GIVE YOU CONTROL OF WHAT I MUST DO.

No matter how you try to wriggle out of the implications, the fact remains that you have not given an explanation of the indisputable fact that the manuscripts are non-identical.How do you know they weren't?Richard Dawkins, 'The Gibbon's Tale', in The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage To The Dawn of Evolution, pages 127 to 133. You can read that bit at Google Books.

Or you could look here:
http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/ho...manuscript.htm

or here:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/ms-c...e/scbl-err.htmI don't doubt it. I don't see how it has any relevance to the point I was making.

aa5874

So, how illogical can you be? You have admitted that you just don't know what are talking about.

..... Again, how illogical can you be? You don't know what the originals contained, and you don't really know if they were copied by scribes before or after they became non-identical.

Your point is worthless.

Please name a single scribe who copied any document and added, or removed words without the express permission of the owner, or author of the document.

You may never know the difference.

But you have ALREADY admitted that you don't know anything about the condition of the manuscripts BEFORE they were copied and you really don't know when scribes copied and if the copying was always done by scribes.

You have utterly failed to show that any scribe of antiquity made any errors or that all or any differences in any manuscript was the FAULT of scribes.

You have utterly failed to show that any scribes in antiquity altered, removed, added, interpolated and redacted any writing WITHOUT the express permission of the author or owner of the material to be copied.