Steven Carr

http://ehrmanblog.org/the-text-of-th...orks-relevant/

A fascinating article in which Bart Ehrman claims that we simply don't have the manuscripts to have 'some assurance' as to what Galatians 1:19 said .

'‘As I will explain in my next post, the kinds of manuscripts we would really need to be able to say with some assurance that we know what the “originals” said – very early and very extensive manuscripts – simply don’t exist.’

And in response to a question whether Paul wrote 'brother of the Lord', Ehrman claims that we would need evidence to suggest it has been changed.

Amazing.

Bart looks at the manuscripts and says these manuscripts are missing, we can't say what was the original.

But when it comes to his texts that he relies on, he says the manuscripts are missing, so we can't say it has been changed....

EHRMAN
Apologists who say things like “There are more manuscripts of the New Testament than for any other book from antiquity, and thererore we can trust it,” have committed a rather serious error (a non sequitur)

CARR
And Ehrman claims we can know 'beyond reasonable doubt' that Paul wrote 'brother of the Lord'.

Go figure....

EHRMAN
' and since we know from other sources that the James who headed the church in Jerusalem was in fact known to be the brother of Jesus).'

CARR
Out of curiosity, which sources would they be? Luke/Acts, the Epistle of James, Jude? Does Josephus ever claim James was the head of the church?

Is Ehrman waving invisible documents around again?

Huon

Steven, you are really a bad boy !

graymouser

With a basic understanding of textual criticism, it should be fairly obvious where Ehrman is heading with this. We can't be certain exactly that our oldest and "best" manuscripts of any ancient text are even vaguely related to the autographs. What we can do is to compare what we have and use different text-critical methods to try and weed out what probably isn't original, and say that what we have left at the end is the closest we can reasonably get. This seems like a cheap attempt at point-scoring without actually engaging with textual criticism as it's practiced by scholars of the New Testament.

thief of fire

And people wonder why mythicists are often considered internet cranks. :huh:

Steven Carr

I see.

But it is 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that 'brother of the Lord' is original....

EHRMAN
'‘As I will explain in my next post, the kinds of manuscripts we would really need to be able to say with some assurance that we know what the “originals” said – very early and very extensive manuscripts – simply don’t exist.’

CARR
I just want 'some assurance' that we know what the original text of Galatians 1:19 said.

But Ehrman just can't give me that assurance.

And he will explain why in his next post.

Steven Carr

EHRMAN
We simply create a little fiction in our minds that we are reading the actual words of Mark, or Paul, or 1 Peter, and get on with the business of interpretation.

CARR
And compare people to Holocaust deniers if they disagree about your interpretation....

James The Least

I thought Galatians 1:19 was supposed to be the definitive knock-out punch to mythicism? Early manuscripts don't exist, but since all of our fourth century or later manuscripts say "brother of the Lord," then we can say with "some assurance" that it was there in the original manuscripts (which don't exist).

Brilliant logic there Ehrman. You can't have it both ways.

graymouser

Yes, it is beyond a reasonable doubt that Galatians 1:19 is original.

There is no text-critical reason to doubt the authenticity of Galatians 1:19. There is no significant manuscript missing the verse or the phrase τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου. There is no scholarly reason to dismiss the text of Gal 1:19 as present in our oldest and best mss. There are no alternate patristic quotations that would lead us to discard the verse or "τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου." Given the best available evidence, from the oldest and best mss, textual criticism has to assume that Galatians 1:19 in the form we have it is as close to the original as we can come.

Given the evidence, there would have to be some actual ground for assuming that Galatians 1:19 is not original. There is no reason whatsoever to doubt it, unless of course you have an agenda where that would be served by τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου not appearing in the original text of Galatians. Serious scholarship attempts to deal with the evidence as it stands and doesn't just resort to ad hoc handwaving to remove anything inconvenient to its hypothesis.

Juststeve

Graymouser:

You ignore the best reason for thinking that Galatians 1:19 is not original. Its so damned inconvenient for mythers, that's why its not original.

Steve

hjalti

So when Tertullian quotes Gal 2:1 without "again", is that not evidence for a version of the epistle (probably Marcion's and not Tertullian's) lacked the first visit to Jerusalem (and that would include Gal 1:19)?