big d

Went to church with my sister this weekend and the sermon was The Reliability of the Bible. I could hardly wait to hear this guy “prove” the Bible was reliable! Would love input on it!
(I'm in ()
Here is part one and 2 of his apologetics:

First off, there is 2 Timothy 3:16 . . All scripture is inspired by God . . . (of course, when this was written there was not a NT, just the OT, something most Xtns can’t seem to understand)

Proof #1 – Study the History of the Bible!Not the history in it, but the history OF it.

Criterion #1 – How much time separates the earliest manuscript from the original?

The Bible clearly passes this test as it was written 50-90 AD and the 1st NT manuscript is 130 AD (I don’t know where this came from, I thought our first manuscripts, that is a complete ones, are the Codexs in the 300s). Since there is 500 years between Homer’s original and our first copy, and 1250 years between the original of Plato’s Republic and our first copy we have, then a mere 40-80 years for the NT “proves” the history of the Bible. (How does “prove” reliability?)

Criterion #2 – How many existing manuscripts are available for comparison? The Bible clearly passes this test, as there are 24,633 manuscripts or pieces of manuscripts from 130 AD and only 7 of Plato’s first copy.

(Many heads were nodding affirmations and there were a few “Amen”s. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I heard the sound of sheep - baa baa!)

Proof #2 – Study the Unity of the Bible.
Proofs:
Written over 1400 years
Written over 40 generations
Written by 40 authors
Written on 3 continents
Written in 3 languages
Contains 0 contradictions
The odds of 40 different authors agreeing on a single subject are 1 in 1,099,511,628,00.
(Unity? I’d like to hear input on this one too!)

So, again, the Bible is reliable! (And do I have a deal for you!)

Alexis Comnenus

Hello Big D,

Our preacher can fit in more fallacies into one paragraph than most of us manage in a week.

I know a bit about textual criticism and while early manuscripts are useful we manage without for most of historical study. The facts in the first part of the sermon are correct but the conclusion is rubbish.

In fact, I'd expect that the standard critical edition on the New Testament is very, very close to what was originally written. However, the fallacy is that this tells us nothing about how reliable and truthful the original authors actually were.

The sheer number of manuscripts also does not mean much. Given we are pretty sure of Plato's text, it means that 24,626 of the New Testament manuscripts are of no text critical value (and in fact, almost all of them are not).

As for the second proof, the allegation that there are no contradictions in the Bible is simply false. I see this very site will supply you with load of ammo on that front. There are many errors, as you'd expect from a collection written by 40 people over 40 generations in 3languages etc etc.

Regards

Alex

CX

Even if your observation were not correct (which it is) this is circular reasoning. The claimant is assuming the conclusion in the premise.

The oldest fragment of NT scripture is P52 which contains only a handful of partial verses which may or may not attest to canonical John. P52 is dated by scholars between 100-125 C.E. The first full manuscript of the NT we have dates to the 4th century. The earliest books of the NT (the authentic Pauline Epistles) are dated to the middle 50s' and the latest date to aroung the beginning of the 2nd century. Even so people can confuse things that happened last week. Imagine a car accident. Ask everyone who witnessed it what happened and you'll get different answers.

First off I'd like to see a citation of the source of this information. As far as I know there are only about 5,000-6,000 known fragments that attest to the canonical NT. Secondly most all of these are quite late. The only thing that dates to 130 or earlier is P52 and perhaps a handful of others. The vast majority are 4th century or later. Even so quantity does not attest to accuracy or quality.

This is simply ridiculous. Asserting that the bible contains no contradictions is a willfully blind assertion with no support. It is futile to argue against such a position.

Accepting for the sake of argument that there is complete agreement this use of a very big number for support is meaningless. We need to recall that the books of the NT did not appear whole and complete out of the vacuum. Every book in it was selected by the early church precisely because they agreed with orthodox doctrine. There are some 40 or so non-canonical gospels that we know of that most definitely do not agree with the canonical texts. So once again we have circular reasoning. "We picked 27 books for the New Testament which agree with orthodox docrine. We know they are inpsired because they all agree. The one's that don't agree aren't inspired because they don't agree. Now isn't it amazing that the 27 books of the NT agree? Hallelujah!"

I hope I made it clear above. Of course the books of the Xian bible agree. They were specifically chosen by the orthodox for precisely that reason.

not a theist

Especially since about 90% of the minuscules (which I think he's also counting given his number) are of a Byzantine text type. That means that they probably have a common "ancestor" and are therefore really more like (though not exactly) copies of eachother.
Which I for one would not accept even for a moment. The accounts of the synoptics aren't even in complete agreement despite sharing common sources! Substantial agreement would be more like it. But if the agreement is just substantial rather than complete, his big number no longer applies. How would one come up with those odds anyway? What calculation was used?

[ April 08, 2002: Message edited by: not a theist ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

What I love about blind declarations such as these is that no one ever stands up and says, "Excuse me, Reverend, but that isn't true."

Priests, Rabbis, Reverends, all of them supposed to be paragons of honesty and truth and blah, blah, blah and every single one of them boldly lies to their flock on a regular basis with absolute impunity; not a single detractor in the one place that, arguably, should be the arena of truth (much more so than here) to challenge the veracity of such ludicrous claims.

If it's really God's house, don't you think that would be the place to stand up and declare a heresy of lies is being perpetrated?

I remember back when I was in the cult thinking these thoughts; wondering why it was that I just sat there like a "good little boy" when the lies came fast and furious. And not just subtle lies, but blatant, obvious lies and contradictions and basic, childish flaws in logic that a seven year old (myself) could clearly and easily see, yet no one ever said a word.

Nods and murmurs all around (I was in the Presbyterian faction). Just once--just once--I wish I had the integrity to have stood up and said, "Reverend, there are countless contradictions and we have absolutely no way of knowing what was written and rewritten when, all of which is irrelevant based on your very own insistence that we believe through faith alone, so what's the point of this masturbatory nonsense? Let's eat the fucker's flesh and drink his blood so we can end this sham and I can go play!"

Ahh, to be young again.

Gooch's dad

The claim of 24,000 or so 'early manuscripts' of the NT is, of course, rubbish. It seems to have originated in that pile of apologetic hogwash by Josh McDowell, 'Evidence that Demands a Verdict'.

Of course, it includes all hand-copied manuscripts up to roughly the time of Gutenberg, possibly even later.

Before the 4th century codices, we have the Rylands fragment, the Bodmer papyrii, the Beatty papyrii, and not much else.

The whole canonization process completely turns this argument, and the comparison to other ancient texts, on its ear.

From a bit after Nicea on, the copyists ONLY copied the canonical gospels. There didn't even have to be a process of destroying non-canonical copies, they just didn't copy them. Papyrus is fragile and doesn't last very long without careful handling and storage.

-Kelly

PS name change, I used to be Touchstone.

[ April 08, 2002: Message edited by: Gooch's dad ]</p>

CX

According to the appendix in NA27 only P52 and P90 both tiny fragments of John date solidly in the 2nd century. Of the Bodmer Papyrii the earliest is P66 which dates to circa 200 C.E. Of the Beatty papyrii the earliest is P46 which dates to circa 200 C.E. The vast majority of MSS (your statement of 90% is probably on target) date after the 12th century. Essentially we have two tiny little scraps in the first 150+ years after Jesus which attest (possibly) to canonical John. I don't understand how people can make such obviously false arguments.

Also where in the hell does that 24000 number come from? I've seen it before, but as far as I'm aware there are only something on the order of 5,000 - 8,000 NT MSS and fragments that have been identified.

Gooch's dad

<a href="http://www.biblefacts.org/history/oldtext.html" target="_blank">This website</a> is one presumably popular source of the '24,000' nonsense:

Quote:

There are over 5,300 known ancient Greek manuscript copies (MSS) and fragments of the New Testament in Greek that have survived until today. Counting an additional 10,000 Latin Vulgate and over 9,300 other early manuscript versions in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, and Ethiopic, totaling over 24,000 surviving manuscripts of the New Testament.

braces_for_impact

Interesting things can happen when you go to church with the relatives. My interesting Sunday service came when I was 'losing my religion' when I was about 14. I came from a Christian Reformed church, nice and quiet. I went to go visit my Uncle out of state, and he dragged me to his Pentecostal church. I had never seen anyone make so much noise in church! What really got me was how silly the speaking in tongues was. It struck me as so obviously faked, I sat straight up and threw out a bunch of mumbo-jumbo lingo right in the middle of service. My Uncle was really upset with me to say the least. But imagine our surprise, when another lady with the "interpretation" gift stood up and provided everyone with a translation, courtesy of the Holy Spirit! After the service, I could hardly contain myself with all the congratualtions people were giving me on recieving the Holy Spirit so quickly. In the end, I was vindicated, and my uncle left that church soon thereafter.

Grumpy

Western Asia is three continents now?

Maybe somebody's thinking of Egypt -- except that no part of the canonical Bible was originally written in Egypt (or so tradition tells us). If Moses wrote the Torah, he did so in the Sinai wilderness, and that's in the Asian part of modern-day Egypt.

Do letters written by Paul from Rome count as the European contribution? That's a stretch. A guy from Asia Minor wrote to his associates in Asia Minor. That he wrote them while travelling in Europe is of no consequence. Add to that the fact that these three continents intersect in the region in question. (Indeed, our conventional division of these three landmasses into different continents traces to the cultures from that area and their parochial assignment of differences to their neighbors. Which is why Asia is treated as a separate continent from Europe.)

In other words, not only is three continents a stretch, it's irrelevant.
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At least, this is what I'd say if I had Koyaanisqatsi's gumption and interrupted the preacher with my objection. I guess the similarity between church services and theatrical productions is partly what inhibits most people from challenging the performers. (As a possible exception that tests the rule, I'll mention the common interjections heard from the congregations at African-American churches and movie theaters. You can draw your own conclusion.)

Actually, if I blurted out something in the middle of this preacher's sermon, it would probably be: "The Book Of Mormon is barely 150 years old! It must be super-reliable! We've all got the wrong religion!"

[ April 08, 2002: Message edited by: Grumpy ]</p>