penatis:

It is not a matter of “think.” I KNOW Nomad is relying on the fourth century MSS because they are the earliest extant documents attesting to the earthquake and resurrection.

Nomad: Sorry, but not good enough. I already told you that we have extant copies of some of the Gospels dating back to the 2nd Century, and requiring the complete codex of the full NT Canon is not required in order to do this.

I ask Nomad to give the nomenclature of any MSS attesting to the earthquake and resurrection of saints. I am not asking for a complete codex, only a document, even if it is fragmentary, that includes Matthew 27:45-56. (I don't believe he understands that there is no extant attestation before the middle of the fourth century.)

Nomad: BTW, you probably know that we also have Latin, Coptic and Syriac copies of the Gospels that date back before the 4th Century, and as ancient documents these are perfectly acceptable.

Does one of these contain Matthew 27:45-56? If so, name it.

Nomad: Oh, and don't forget all those commentaries from Origen and other early Fathers. They quote verbatum from much of the Gospels as well, including the Passion Narratives. So try not to be so naive and limited in your choice of sources please.

Please quote the church father who mentioned the earthquake and resurrection of saints at the moment Jesus was executed.


penatis: The MSS that Nomad trusts contain numerous omissions, additions, and errors.

So? Tell me one that is important please.

Let me explain it in clear terms: If all extant NT MSS are copies of copies of copies and they all contain variant readings, obscure words, omissions, additions, and errors, then no one (I include Nomad here) can be sure of what the earliest writers wrote and, more importantly, what they thought.

Nomad: Translation? You don't have any examples of significant changes in the NT Canons because there aren't any. I know it's hard to accept penatis, but if you study long enough you'll get used to it eventually.

I am not sure how Nomad defines "significant changes." Perhaps he considers all changes, regardless of their nature, insignificant.
Facts: No universally accepted canon was established before the fourth century. No writer knew that his work would be included in a collection. Some early collections contained books that are not in the modern NT; some collections left out some of the books now in the modern NT.


Nomad: You might even come to appreciate what a treasure trove we have in the Canonical Bible (the most widely translated and distributed book in all of history you know ).

Yes, it has been translated into many languages, but have many people have actually read it?

penatis: Anyone who believes he knows precisely what the early Christians thought and wrote is deluded.

Nomad: Since I'm tired of listening to your mindless assertions I'm simply going to point them out when I see them (or ignore them completely if they get too numerous).

Apparently, Nomad KNOWS which of the variant endings of "Mark" is the "inspired" one. If he does, he is the only person who does.

penatis: 1. Textual criticism would not be necessary if just one original NT had been produced and preserved. (I should point out that textual reliability is no guarantee of historical reliability.)

Nomad: And this is a non-sequitor. Personally I doubt you would believe in the Gospels if we found perfect originals inscribed on sheets of 24 carat gold, so it is also a strawman.

Nomad has a perfect right to think whatever he wishes.

penatis: 2. What is embarrassing is the fact that no portion of any original work of any NT writer is extant; it is all the more embarrassing since this collection of religious works is supposed to have been inspired by an omnipotent god. (It appears the whole NT, like the OT, was inspired, written, collected, and canonized by humans. And, even today, humans have not been able to define precisely what the NT, or the OT, is.)

Nomad: And this is your second non-sequitor, together with your gratis advice to God on how He could do things better.

I know many young people with average intelligence who would like to see an end to violence and human suffering. They have told me that if they had it within their power, they would change the world into a better place. And, yet, there is supposedly an omnipotent, benevolent god out there somewhere who does nothing. Maybe Nomad KNOWS why. Of course, if there is no god, then it is no wonder why some suffer and some don't.

Nomad: Sadly, you don't have the job (as an omnipotent God), so we will just have to live with the choices the only one we have made.

It is indeed sad. I would make some drastic changes and I would make them immediately.

Nomad: On the other hand, maybe you can explain to us why you think Christians should require the Bible to be treated the way the Qur'an is by Muslims. After all, they DO believe that the Qur'an is perfect in every respect (at least in its original Arabic) and even put a sentence of death on Muslim that says otherwise. Christians (except for the most radical of fundamentalists) have NEVER made this error. Why should we put our faith in a mere book written by men?

A better question: Why should anyone put faith in what could very well be an illusion?

Nomad: Finally, I will point out one more time that you have offered nothing beyond assertions (your own and appeals to authority) to demonstrate that any significant changes, ommissions or additions in the texts. Give me at least one that would change Christian doctrine please, or drop this strawman #2.

I can only appeal to the good sense of our readers to accept the evidence I have presented. It is not my goal to change Christian doctrine.

penatis: 3. Facts: No papyrus fragment of any NT work dates earlier than the second century. (The earliest is P52, a fragment the size of a credit card, dating to circa 130-150 CE).

Nomad: Not necessarily. Like all sciences, papyrology is advancing all the time, and new techniques are being developed and old ones are being improved upon. So, in addition to 7Q5 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have the Magdelan Papyrus (three fragments), and Barcelona Papyrus (2 more fragments) have all been dated to the first century. I will put up a post on the subject on a seperate thread, since this one is plenty crowded and confused enough as it is, but I hope you will be offering real arguments against these claims and not just assertions and appeals to scholarly opinion in your rebuttals.

If Nomad has evidence of papyrus MSS that date prior to P52, then he needs to name them, with dates. 7Q5 does not qualify for reasons I have already stated. The dating of P52 is universally accepted to be around 130 CE, and it is universally accepted to be the earliest Greek papyrus MSS attesting to any portion of the NT.

penatis: No “NT” dates earlier than the fourth century and no NT dates earlier than the seventh century. (The fourth and fifth century codices do not contain precisely the same books as those contained in modern bibles.)

Nomad: You still have not established why the fact that early codices have additional books in them, or why we need to have ALL of the Canonical books in a codex for us to consider it.

I mention these facts to show that divine inspiration had nothing to do with the composition, collection, and canonization of the NT books.

Nomad:Finish the following sentence please:

The fact that we do not have a complete set of the Canons (as opposed to complete books of both the OT and NT) that is reliably dated to before the 4th Century is important because...[/b}

I ask Nomad to finish the following sentence:

I believe the words of an ancient, anonymous writer who wrote of fabulous events that contradict reality because...

penatis: 4. The “huge amoung [sic] of MSS to work from with the NT” Nomad alludes to comes from mostly fragmentary texts dating after the fourth century.

Nomad: So? Once again, we still have the commentaries from the Fathers, as well as translations in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syric. Are you suggesting some kind of enormous conspiracy that somehow managed to radically alter the originals that got to all of these different translations, and yet managed to remain undetected to modern scholars?

No conspiracy. Just human trial and error.

penatis: 5. All papyrus and parchment texts contain obscure words, omissions, additions, variant readings, and errors.


Nomad: Still waiting for an important one. Give me the best one you can find and let's see how good it is.

Many Christians consider the claimed resurrection of Jesus to be significant. In the earliest gospel, "Mark," the following passage is found in virtually every modern Christian bible:

"Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard tht he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they sat at tables; and he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen." Mark 16:9-14

What many do not know is that these words (as part of one of four variant endings to "Mark") are conspicuously absent from the oldest Greek MSS. The fact is, some scholars believe 16:8 is where the writer ended his narrative. In other words, this variant reading was added to the older "Mark," years after its composition. The implications should be obvious to all: In the early stories about Jesus, there were no post-resurrection appearances, only an empty tomb. An empty tomb is not evidence of a resurrection. It is evidence of a missing body.

b]Nomad: Show us your scholars please penatis, and tell us verbatum what they have to say.

I will begin with a statement made by Bruce M. Metzger: “...the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of his material.” This statement is from a well-known book and it comes after Metzger spent several paragraphs comparing the number of MSS attesting to ancient classics to the number (over 5000) of MSS attesting to the NT.
This is very impressive indeed. Right? Well, actually, no.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, yes it is. But let's keep going.

penatis: In a footnote, Metzger states, “Lest, however, the wrong impression be conveyed from the statistics given above regarding the number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, it should be pointed out that most of the papyri are relatively fragmentary and that only about fifty manuscripts (of which codex Sinaiticus is the only uncial manuscript) contain the entire New Testament.” See The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, P. 34 [Bruce M. Metzger is Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton Theological Seminary.]

Nomad: And you know how many complete codices we have of any other ancient work that dates back as far as the NT right? Is it 50? 10? 100? More? Less?

Whatever the number, they were preserved by human beings. Precisely the same way the papyrus fragments attesting to the NT were preserved by human beings.

Nomad: See what I (and Metzger) mean? It really is an embarrassment of riches, but most non-scholars (at least the sceptical ones) don't seem to appreciate this fact for some reason.

It is not "an embarrassment of riches." It is a vast amount of MSS that were preserved centuries after the autographs were written.

penatis: "There is, furthermore, empirical evidence that major disruptions have in fact taken place in the transmission of the text of the New Testament. As was pointed out earlier...more than once we find Church Fathers making reference to variant readings that were once widely known but are today found in only a few witnesses or even in no extant manuscript."

Nomad: Hmm... and his examples are...?

I gave the source. Nomad can confirm what he needs.

Nomad: Don't you just hate it when a scholar starts offering his opinions but doesn't back them up with hard text and examples?

Metzger uses the words "empirical evidence." Empirical evidence is not opinion. Take a look at his book.

Nomad: (And I do know that I am being hard on you here penatis

This is an open forum. Nomad can say what he wishes.

Nomad: but I have seen so many sceptics rely on the same stuff over and over and over and OVER again, and still haven't seen any good examples yet.

I have offered evidence in my commentary to support my views. I don't, nor did I ever, expect Nomad to accept it. I hope that a neutral reader will take a serious look at what I have said and presented.

Nomad: I remain hopeful that someone will come up with something though, and maybe you will be that person. I remain hopeful).

See above.

penatis: "Such a situation rules out any attempt to settle questions of text by statistical means. The upshot of all this is that, though one can be grateful to Hodges and Farstad for preparing an edition of the Majority text, which represents more precisely than does the Textus Receptus what was the prevailing form of the Greek text in the Byzantine period, their edition is far from reproducing the original text of the New Testament.” Ibid, P. 292.

Nomad: No doubt you are going to tell us that you think it is a weakness that we have independent traditions and translations in the Byzantine Textus Receptus, as well as the Majority Text, the Alexandrian Text, the Coptic Text, the Syriac Text, and the Critical Text (plus, of course, the Latin Vulgate and commentaries of the Early Fathers). Funny how most people would say that more information is a good thing rather than a bad thing. The fact that we cannot establish a theoretical "perfect" text appears to vex you a great deal, but I fail to see why.

I believe any reasonable, neutral reader can understand and appreciate the point Metzger is making.

Nomad: Use ANY of the textual examples cited above and show me how they would damage any orthodox Christian doctrine or theology please (like the Trinity, Resurrection, belief in Heaven or Hell, the Virgin birth).

That's where faith comes in. The "Trinity," the "Resurrection," "Heaven," "Hell," and the "Virgin birth" cannot be empirically demonstrated. However, if someone wishes to believe in these things, that is his/her prerogative. Problems begin when someone says there is evidence substantiating any of the above.


Nomad: The cool thing about this is it can't be done (or at least, I have yet to see it be done by anyone thus far).

Blind faith can overcome all difficulties.


Nomad: The REAL corruption of Biblical text comes from those that wish to change it deliberately, or throw out big sections of the text (see examples in the Jehovah's Witness New World Translation, the Mormons, and liberal theology most famously represented by the Jesus Seminar).

I don't believe Nomad understands that to a neutral observer, all religious works and their respective associated dogmas have equal value.

Nomad: In the case of mainline Christian Churches, we all use a Bible that looks so much like every other Christian Bible ever used by anyone anywhere anytime it isn't even funny.

I agree, it isn't very funny.

penatis: Very few [NT] manuscripts were dated by their scribes, and the exceptions tend to be late. Fortunately, secular documents of various sorts carrying dates have survived, enabling paleographers to compare handwriting and ascertain within broad limits the date of a biblical manuscript.” See The Oxford Companion to the Bible, P. 488. [Article on Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger]

Nomad: Yes, and this helps to prove dates, and offer better ones, and as I said before, the techniques and methods in use are improving all the time. Many (i.e. thousands) previously undated and even largely unexamined papayrus will be dated in the future, so stay tuned.

penatis: "Interpreters of the NT are faced with a discomforting reality that many of them would like to ignore. In many instances, we don’t know what the authors of the NT actually wrote. It often proves difficult enough to establish what the words of the NT mean; the fact that in some instances we don’t know what the words actually were does more than a little to exacerbate the problem. I say that many interpreters would like to ignore this reality; but perhaps that isn’t strong enough. In point of fact, many interpreters, possibly most, do ignore it, pretending that the textual basis of the Christian scriptures is secure, when unhappily, it is not.” See Text and Tradition: The Role of New Testament Manuscripts in Early Christian Studies; Lecture One: Text and Interpretation: The Exegetical Significance of the “Original” Text. [This lecture was delivered by Bart D. Ehrman at Duke Divinity School in 1997. Ehrman is Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill]

Nomad: You are aware that the "Christians" the lecturer is referring to are largely the fundamentalist inerrantist types right? Orthodox Christianity has been very comfortable with working with the Bible as is, translational and transcriptional warts and all. I still don't understand what YOUR personal problem is with it penatis.

I don't have a "personal problem" with anything, much less the JC Bible. Nomad has made some false assertions and I have attempted to point out as many as possible. Along the way, I have attempted to show that the Christian Bible, like all other bibles, is the product of humans, nothing more and nothing less.

penatis: "It is difficult to know what the authors of the Greek New Testament wrote, in many instances, because all of [the] surviving copies differ from one another, sometimes significantly. The severity of the problem was not recognized throughout the Middle Ages or even, for the most part, during the Renaissance. Indeed, biblical scholars were not forcefully confronted with the uncertainty of their texts until the early eighteenth century.”

Nomad: And the request I am making is the same. Tell us a doctrine that is affected by any of these problems or difficulties that Christianity has had to deal with virtually since its founding? (You are aware, for example, that the Christian faith was started and existed at least for decades with only the OT Canons right?)

Again, if "faith" is the operative word, then no problem. A person has every right to believe what he wishes, as long as he does not pretend he can substantiate incredible claims using an ancient text, written by anonymous writers.

Nomad: Tell us what modern Christians believe about our central doctrines that the early Church did not.

That is not my concern. Christians are free to believe what they wish.

penatis: "No one knows for sure how many differences there are among our surviving witnesses, simply because no one has yet been able to count them all. The best estimates put the number at around 300,000, but perhaps it’s better to put this figure in comparative terms. There are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the NT.” Ibid.

Nomad: Yes, that BIG IMPRESSIVE number again. 300,000 differences. And the overwhelming number are repetitions of the same spelling and translational mistakes. So, sounding like a broken record here, but I need to see an important one to talk about, so do your best and find one penatis.

Since faith is more important than evidence to Nomad, I think I will pass on this one.

penatis: {Snip}See Robert W. Funk’s Honest to Jesus, pp. 94-95. [Funk is a Guggenheim Fellow and former senior Fulbright Scholar. He has served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature and is currently director of the Westar Institute in Santa Rosa, CA.]

Nomad: Yes, founder of the Jesus Seminar. I've heard of him. My advice is you not go too far with this one. After all, the last time I checked, anyone that said that "God, at least a metaphysical God, is dead", is at best an agnostic, but more realistically an atheist.

Notice that Nomad does not deal with what Funk said. He merely gives his opinons of the man.


Nomad: His theological agenda is so obvious it has ruined whatever may be left of his credibility as an objective scholar. From my side I would have to quote Pat Robertson to reach as low.

Why does Nomad attack Funk? Why does he attack Pat Robertson?

penatis: "None of the small errors and tiny differences or wording in the [NT] texts, it is [said], affects any major item of Christian belief. This optimism may be misplaced. We have two early papyri which overlap across seventy years of John’s Gospel, and even if the plain errors of their copyists are excluded, they differ at no less than seventy small places. Unlike Catullus’s love-poems or Juvenal’s satires, the Christian scriptures were a battlefield for textual alteration and rewriting in the first hundred years of their life.” See Robin Lane Fox’s The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, P. 139. [Fox is a fellow of New College, Oxford, and a University Reader in Ancient History]

Nomad: Another atheist (and at least he believes in the empty tomb, and confesses that he cannot explain it). No doubt you don't think that gives him an agenda. On the other hand, perhaps you could humour me and offer examples of these "small" changes that really would affect orthodox Christian doctrine.

I look forward to your examples.

This bears repeating: Church doctrine is founded on faith, not evidence. Therefore, no amount of evidence will change Nomad's mind. But, evidence might influence the mind of a neutral reader.



[This message has been edited by penatis (edited January 03, 2001).]

I thank you very much for your kind words.

Ron

Thanks, Andrew, for your kind, considerate words. I sincerely appreciate your comments and will always attempt to put forth my best efforts.

Ron

Well penatis, you are being modest considering you are very logical and knowledgeable.

While I'm very impressed with Nomad's arguments, I feel this can be added in responce to you question.

The Gospels are not histories in the way we think of history. They are theology in narrative form. This is a specific genre and can not be treated as a impartial third party news report of just the facts. Hence the authors include or exclude what is pertinent to his lesson through the facts. What we have is not a free for all picture of Jesus for anyone to decide on its implications. We have a biased picture of the events that happed. The extent of truthfulness of that bias is another question. I believe it is true. But the gospel writers don't include info that's not pertinent to the theme that they are deriving out of the facts. They are teachers/preachers not reporters. Matthew might be highlighting something different about the resurrection than Mark. The writer is answering new questions about a previously done story. The same issues of missing info, or father particularized info, in the narratives of the Old Testament, say Kings and Chronicles. Nor do they feel a great need to verify and prove to their immediate audience what was seen and know in the news already. I hope this changes peoples approach to the Gospels.

penatis: Nomad said the witnesses to the resurrection were named; they WERE NOT. Furthermore, no one knows of them besides “Matthew.”

Nomad: And another thing, don't misrepresent what I actually said.

Here is what Nomad originally wrote:

Pompous Bastard: "...we simply cannot accept that there were dead people walking around Jerusalem and no one bothered to comment except Matthew, we would have to read this figuratively to salvage Christianity."

Nomad's response: “Matthew tells us that he is drawing his testimony from witnesses that were there (even going so far as to name some of them). No need to read this as metaphor PB."

Nomad states that "Matthew" names "some of his witnesses" and therefore, no one "need to read this ["dead people walking around Jerusalem"]as metaphor." If Nomad is not saying the witnesses to the resurrection were named, what is he saying?


quote:

penatis: Furthermore, those persons who are NAMED in 27:56 are not the same as those mentioned with the centurion, for the writer states, "Many women were ALSO there," and they were "looking on from a distance."

Nomad: So?

penatis: You said the witnesses to the resurrection of saints were named. They WERE NOT.

Nomad: See above. My guess is you are new at this, so I will assume that you simply did not understand what I said the first time through.

Again, I have presented Nomad's original statement. He said "Matthew" named witnesses; therefore, we do not have to take "dead people walking around in Jerusalem" as a metaphor.

Maybe Nomad meant that he PRESUMED that since "Matthew" mentioned two women named Mary, THEIR eyewitness testimony (from afar) was used as a source for what happened at the execution, but not as a source for the resurrection of saints.

Of course, the anonymous writer of "Matthew" says no such thing. He merely repeats what "Mark" had written.

[This message has been edited by penatis (edited January 03, 2001).]

Gonna wade through as much as I can tonight. I appear to be outnumbered (again!).

Metzger failed to address the new evidence put forward by C. Peter Thiede in his books The Jesus Papyrus, and Eyewitness to Jesus. Like I said in my last post, I'll move this to a separate thread, and we can see how your evidence and arguments stack up against Thiede's.

No. You are confused.

The Paris Codex I am speaking is the one studied by Kurt Aland in 1966.

And if you want to argue that this makes it an addition to the original Gospel (or any other claim for that matter), then you need to offer proofs. I am really surprised that I even have to tell sceptics stuff like this. After all, you demand it from the theists all the time.

First, pentatis needs to show that I said we knew the names of the witnesses, or even why we should expect their names to be given in a sentence that says: "Suzy Q say the formerly dead John Doe wandering the streets of Jerusalem on Tuesday..."

Second, penatis needs to show why any of this matters, since in my other posts I have stated quite clearly that Matthew may well have been embellishing his Gospel, but we have no proof that he did so. To date, I still haven't seen any beyond speculations just like you have offered up here.

Nope. I don't know of any, so stop building strawmen.

You really do hang up on these strawmen arguments don't you? I still don't know why you think this is important. Let's say, worst case, that Matthew used this as an apocalyptic device (a theory offered by Raymond Brown in The Death of the Messiah Volume 2, pgs. 1137-40). You think this would be important because...?

Well, for one thing, the style of his writing appears to indicate this. For example:

Mark 15:21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Robin Griffith-Jones, professor of NT studies at the University of Oxford tells us that "Mark expected his readers to know the family" (The Four Witnesses, R. Griffith-Jones, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2000, pg. 37).

But unless you want to turn this thread into an exclusive discussion on Gospel authorship, I suggest that we move it to another thread.

No. Nomad has a problem with arrogant know-nothings that think that modern authorship rules need to apply to ancient texts, yet never explains why this is important. Also, Nomad assumes that penatis can eventually tighten up his complaint to the point where we can actually talk about it without being forced to his assertions and beliefs yet again.

Hmm... and you clearly think that you have a monopoly on these qualities. Get over how much you think of yourself, and get down in the trenches and do some actual work. Maybe then you might learn something.

No, I am trying to figure what your REAL complaint is. As near as I can figure, you are yet another disillusioned ex-fundamentalist that abandoned the faith once he found out that the Bible is not 100% inerrant. Since the traditional Christian faith, Church and doctrines have NEVER been built around such assumptions, I still fail to understand what your problem is.

Based on this assumption, I see you as an individual that swallowed a bunch of crap very blindly in the past (spoon fed to you by your fundamentalist teachers), and now you swallow just as blindly the crap that is fed to you by your new atheistic teachers. The world of faith is much larger than the narrow black and white one you have lived in thus far penatis. It is time to look at that larger world and see what you might learn.

Nomad

Much of my irritation has been the result of your refusal to address me directly. I find it rude and irritating, but recognize that it is your style, especially considering your agenda (i.e. playing to the crowd rather than carrying on a dialogue with me), so I just have to get used to is. I go through this with a couple of other regulars on these boards, but you are easily the worst of the bunch for this.

We have evidence, and you don't like it. Such is life. Your assertions don't change the evidence though, and save the blind faith assertions please, they really are tiresome.

It is, at least for a mass resurrection, but one time only. That will be Judgement Day. It may also have happened one other time, and that was the day Jesus died. I don't see any evidence against it, only assertions and blind materialistic faith (or prejudice, take your pick).

Here's a question for you:

Llet's assume that someday we develope the technology to revive long dead people (who knows, stranger things have been done by science already right?). At that point will you believe that they are no longer possible?

Tell me, is your standard of reality confined to only the things that seem to be rationally possible (in other words, NOT absurd)? That will exclude a lot of known science if it is.

You have not told me if you read the thread where Earl and I hashed through this already. And as you said, you are not here to learn anything in any event right? So no biggie.

We already know the crowd is on your side penatis. I think you can stop playing for applause now, but if it makes you feel better, well, go ahead. I understand.

And I say he is not anonymous because he is not anonymous. Stop making assertions and offer the proofs you have. BTW, you said the entire NT was anonymous, then backed off to just the Gospels are anonymous, and now Mark and Matthew are anonymous. Which is it?

So? Tell me why they think so? (My request is like asking you to tell me why Einstein believes in the Theory of Relativity. Telling me that the encyclopedia says he does does nothing to prove your point. That is called an argument from authority. Humour me and show that you actually UNDERSTAND the reasons for your beliefs, then we can see how well your prejudice holds up under scrutiny. THAT is how debate takes place. The other option is to get into an "I SAY YES, YOU SAY NO" match, and those are not useful.

Perhaps penatis will get off his high fucking horse and engage in a discussion. On the other hand maybe penatis and Nomad will continue this dance ad naseum with Nomad asking questions and penatis doging them and dancing.

Wonderful false dichotomy. How about Nomad has better arguments that Mark was most like the author as opposed to someone else, including anonymous. Of course we will never know if you keep blabbering your mindless mantras and never ask will we?

Why this blind trust in the dating of ancient non-Christian manuscripts, and willful disbelief in even more Christian manuscripts penatis? This is what I don't get. Do you decide that non-Christian texts are reliable, and Biblical ones are not because you don't like the latter? See how your biases cloud your judgement?

That is indeed one technique. Know any others? (for example, I'm still waiting for you to tell me when you think the codex was first used in place of scrolls).

Maybe you hadn't read my posts before you posted this. We have several fragments dating to the first Century already. The science of papyrology does keep advancing you know, and it is important to keep up with these things. You can start with my new thread on 7Q5.

This is true, and at the same time, as we have discovered that the codex dates to the first century (when it was previously believed to be a 3rd Century invention) the dating of many current manuscripts are in serious need of re-evaluation. In fact, what is happening now is very similar to what paleontology went through about 20 years ago regarding dinosaurs. The science has moved on, and our assumptions and past prejudices need to give way to the new realities. I recognize that it is hard, and it should be since new theories must always prove themselves against the old, but maintaining a dogmatic position in defence of the old is hardly progressive now is it?

Setting aside your interesting claim (since you have yet to ask me anything to find out what I know about the science), we are about to get started on this debate (assuming you wish to participate), but on another thread.

To find out what you know of course. I have assumed you were a rookie based on your almost fanatical trust in scholars, even as you have shown no ability to demonstrate WHY they believe what they do. If I am proven incorrect, that is cool, but you will have to do much better than you have thus far.

An excellent book, but a bit dated (late 80's). Like I said, the science keeps moving. In the words of the great Cambridge Latinist A.E. Housman:

"Textual criticism is... not susceptable to hard and fast rules. It would be much easier if it were; and that is why people try to pretend that it is, or at least behave as if they thought so. Of course you can have hard and fast rules if you like, but then you will have false rules, and they will lead you wrong; because their simplicity will render them inapplicable to prolbems which are not simple, but complicated by the play of personality. A textual critic engaged upon his business is not at all like Newton investigating the motions of the planets; he is much more like a dog hunting for fleas. If a dog hunted for fleas on mathematical principles, basing his researches on statistics of area and population, he would never catch a flea except by accident. They require to be treated as individuals; and every problem which presents itself to the textual critic must be regarded as possibly unique." (Eyewitness to Jesus, by C. Peter Thiede, Doubleday, 1996, pg. 123-124, quoting from "The Application of Thought on Textual Criticism", A.E. Housman, 1921, pg. 68-69)

Meaning what exactly? We have thousands of texts to wade through penatis. This takes time, so be patient. In the meantime, if you asked a paleontologist how many dinosaur bone fragments as a percentage of the total had been perfectly identified yet, you would be laughed out of the building. Papyrology is still relatively young, and even Textual Criticism is a relatively new science (about a hundred years).

Bottom line, be very careful how many arguments you build on your theories today, they may not be there tomorrow. (kinda like all other sciences eh? ).

Patience penatis. We will get into how things are dated in Textual Criticism. Your assumptions are not facts, and the facts are changing quickly.

I'm not surprised you missed this bit of irony penatis, so I will show it to you.

Your first point was that there is evidence that Christians destroyed a lot of ancient texts (and this evidence is not presented by you of course, simply asserted), THEN you tell us about the THOUSANDS of manuscripts that can be found at only two libraries (not even BEGINNING to count all the other libraries and manuscripts of the world).

G.K. Chesterton called this the "Any Stick will do" syndrom, where the sceptic feels free to use two completely contradictory arguments (often the same sceptic too, and in the same breath no less) to beat up on Christianity. Like Chesterton, I find this tendancy very curious to say the least, and considering he said it in 1908, it is no less surprising to see it practiced to this very day (almost 100 years later).

So which is it? Did Christians destroy manuscripts in wide spread book burnings or not? Choose your stick penatis, then give up the other one.

Considering many of the manuscripts that Van Minnen is talking about are legal documents and contracts, the presence of dates is not surprising. The fact that the pages of the Gospels and epistles don't have dates on every single sheet is hardly surprising. Even today, very few books do this do they?

We can now move on to the questions on actual textual criticism and the dating of the manuscripts. Hopefully, we can also address the questions of authorship, because to be honest, outside of penatis telling me that he believes that they are anonymous, we don't really know the arguments that stand behind why he believes this. I think it is a question worth pursuing.

Nomad

Since the beliefs of Christians have been consistent from BEFORE we had any New Testament texts at all until today, I still don't see what your problem is penatis. Quite simply, the communities and Churches founded by Peter, John, Paul and the other apostles believed the same things we believe today about God, Jesus, baptism, the Virgin Birth, ect. We have had various heresies, but each has had to try and radically change the Bible to suit their purposes (from the Gnostics and the Manicheans and Marcians to the modern day Mormons, Oneness Pentacostals and Modernists). I think you have put the Biblical cart before the theological horse, and that has probably been what has been driving your complaints (although it is still hard to tell exactly).

You did know that the apostles came first, and the NT Canons came second right? Therefore the theology had to come first, then the books. So to show we changed the books, you have to show that we changed the theology first. I'm still waiting for you to do this.

And as I said, none of this matters. The doctrines and theology of the Church has stayed the same. We have always believed that Jesus was God, the Father was God and the Spirit was God. We have always practiced baptism for admission to the faith. We have always believed that Jesus died and rose again physically from the dead. We have always believed that Jesus was born of a Virgin. We have always believed in heaven and hell, and the resurrection of the dead and Judgement Day. If you have evidence that any of the apostles taught differently than what we teach today, you need to offer some evidence penatis. THAT is what I mean by an important change. Thus far you have talked about spelling mistakes, translational differences, linguistic challenges (Greek to other languages), and minor redactions. None of this come close to touching the core of the faith (unless you define the faith as being whatever inerrant literalist fundamentalists believe, but they are only about 150 years old as a group, so they can hardly claim to represent historical Christianity can they?

Of course they have. In fact millions have. It is rumoured that even a few atheists have read it.

Penatis, start looking at the theological forest instead of the textual trees. Our doctrines and teachings are rooted in tradition plus Scripture, and before the NT, that Scripture was the Old Testament alone. All of the writings since have simply fleshed out our beliefs and helped to codify them, and record them for future generations. Even the New Testement serves such a role, confirming doctrine, rather than setting it. Perhaps you did not know this, I do not really know what you do know and don't about how we have come to believe what we believe.

Of course he can. Don't we all.

On the other hand, your words do tend to create a picture of how you think, and thus far that is what I see.

I think we are actually getting much closer to the heart of your complaint here penatis. I do hope so. It has taken you long enough to get there.

Maybe Nomad does, maybe he doesn't. Up until this post I didn't even know it was at the heart of your beefs. All you had to do at the beginning was tell us that you and many young people could make a better god than the one that we have, then we could have talked about it. Would you like to talk about it?

Maybe. God(s) or no God(s), the place certainly does appear to be quite a mess doesn't it?

Fascinating. And no doubt you have the omniscience to foresee all possible outcomes of the changes you would make don't you?

I always thought Gene Rodenberry was onto something with his non-interferece "Prime Directive" from Star Trek (bless his atheistic heart). Most of us regular humans just don't have that kind of wisdom and foreknowledge penatis. Perhaps a little humility is in order on your part.

Where I come from a question is not an answer to a previous question. Would you care to take a stab at mine first please?

If you showed me an actual change in Christian doctrine, then I missed it. Point it out for me please. (Or are you just being evasive on purpose here?)

The thread is now started, and if I may, I would suggest that you avoid making conclusions before the evidence is presented and evaluated. In other words, at least PRETEND that you are open minded, otherwise people might start to think you are biased.

That was quite a leap. Since you offered no reason to accept your rationale over the Church's, I'll take the Church's.

I'm sorry, did you finish my sentence? It was a question you know, and like I said, where I come from questions are not answers to questions.

Of course we know that they were absent. I think the KJV is about the only translation left that doesn't mention this fact.

Yes they do, including the Church scholars. No biggie though, we don't just rely upon Mark, we still have Paul's letters (which predates Mark), the tradition taught before Paul's epistles, and the other Gospels which all line up.

And if all we had was Mark without Paul, then this might be true. But we do have Paul, so the earliest Christians understood what an empty tomb meant, that Jesus was risen. Mark didn't have to hold their hands.

You missed my point, but no biggie, I don't want to dwell on it anyways. What I wanted to point out to you was that we rarely have more than 1 or 2 extant copies of ANYTHING from antiquity outside of the Bible. Meaning? These other texts are alone, and give us nothing at all to compare them against, and therefore no means to uncover if the copy is accurate. With the Bible, the fact that there ARE differences, and so many extant copies of so many Canonical texts means that we can actually do the work needed to uncover errors, additions, translational errors and redactions. In the world of textual criticism, this is a good thing, and exactly the reason that Metzger (who ought to know) calls it an embarrassment of riches when compared against other works.

If you want to disagree with Metzger, why did you quote so extensively from him? I swear penatis, you really do appear to be hunting around for every stick you can find to beat Christianity. But you should try and stay consistant in your sticks at least don't you think?

This is not how it works penatis. When you want to make a claim, you can't just offer a source, you need to quote from it, especially when someone asks you for YOUR opinion of what is important.

Since you have read it, tell us what empirical evidence you find most convincing. It is a simple request. Surely you have an opinion on the matter.

Then humour me and tell me what yours is. When you offer quotes, it is customary to explain why you think that they are important. And when your quotes are simply ones that show that an experts opinion supports your opinion, this is known as an appeal to authority. So pull out his supporting evidence so we can see how strong it really is.

We have plenty of evidence penatis, but you have been very busy trying to prove something, and we haven't seen what it is yet. When the Church demonstrates that it has always believed the doctrines you mention above, and you wish to assert otherwise (even when every document we have on the matter proves otherwise), then you need to do much more than assert your beliefs.

Hmm... so if a neutral observer looks at the evidence and becomes a believer, then we are to discount his conclusions? Is the reverse also true? Or must one remain neutral forever to be considered "reliable"?

One more time: When you submit expert opinion in place of your own, it does not remove the expectation that evidence will be provided to support that expert opinion. Offer the evidence, and then I offer my own, and we compare to see which is best. Then the proverbial "neutral" observer can decide for himself. Appeals to authority should not carry weight (or am I allowed to just make appeals to Church authority here?).

This was your reply to yet another request from me for you to offer a Church doctrine that is affected by the "errors" you have pointed out. As we can see, there is no answer in your reply.

And again.

Considering the number of times you have avoided answering my questions I figured I was due. Besides, Funk really doesn't have a lot of respect in the industry, hence the reason I compared him to Pat Robertson (to give you a basis of comparison most sceptics can relate to).

Because you would rightly reject any evidence that I offered that had a clear theological agenda. It works both ways.

You have to try actually offering evidence to change a person's mind before you can draw a conclusion. Alas, we are still waiting.

Nomad



[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited January 04, 2001).]

Nomad is saying that Matthew and Mark name some of their witnesses. All you had to do was ask him.

Nomad