Julian

Just wanted to clarify a few things to any lurkers who might be reading this. First of all, Ehrman and Metzger, in particular, are highly respected scholars in the field of textual criticism, a field of study that engages in the scientific investigation of biblical textual reconstruction. The field uses techniques that are as objective as possible, they are not neutral since they have to make some assumptions, but they are the best we have. Prax would have us throw away those methods and simply wave our hands and say "Goddidit!" The methods we have are a far cry better than a simple appeal to divine inspiration. Prax denigrates textual criticism because it hurts his precious Textus Receptus, probably the worst bible text available. He will disagree with this last statement but be unable to produce any good reason why it might be otehrwise. Although, I have seen him try to use the appeal to popularity logical fallacy, which he doesn't think is a fallacy, "We have more copies of TR and they have been around for a long time so therefore it must be correct text," or something to that effect.

So it is the opinion of all the leading textual critics versus prax and a few people, some of whom cannot rightly be called scholars (like Burgon, for example.) Yeah, this was kind of an appeal to authority but one that can be easily substantiated. Judge for yourselves.

Secondly, judging by his posts, prax also doesn't like logical fallacies, nor does he understand them, because he must utilize logical fallacies to make his point, flawed as it is. Like the appeal to authority, in this case the early church. Or poisoning the well by saying that 'hardened skeptics' won't accept evidence, which is a downright bizarre assertion.

Julian

Steven Avery

Obviously Julian misrepresents me in virtually every claim regarding my views and postings above. Probably more out of his own biases and ignorance than deliberate deception, but the results are the same.

Anybody who reads my posts that discuss the mistaken paradigms of 'modern scientific textual criticism' will know that very well, since I explain (to the best of my ability) precisely where and why the methodology is both flawed and biased (as well as guarenteed to create an errant text). And I discuss scholars using more sensible methodologies leading to different conclusions, one which generally agrees with the vast majority of manuscripts as in the historic Byzantine text. And these do include the late Dean Burgon (who is actually often acknowledged in textcrit circles for his scholarship abilities, even by those who disagee, I recommend looking at the discussions on the two sequential textcrit email forums for more on this). And they include Edward Hills (who ironically was accused of hiding his true sympathies while he received his scholarship degrees .. an interesting situation), and of course Professor Maurice Robinson (a giant of modern-day scholarship) and a number of others.

Of course there is a huge irony when the "majority" scholarship is again and again the bottom line on a mythicist/skeptic board in determining the truth, something which they reject vehemently when applied to their own scripture theories. What we have is a complete inability so far here for anybody to effectively defend 'modern scientific textcrit', since it is grossly mistaken and biased (discussed on other threads), so instead we get the recourse to posts like Julien's above.

And incidentally I discuss in depth various methods of deception employed by Metzger and Ehrman. A good example of this is two threads that discuss the Johannine Comma, where there was a thunderous silence in the pro-Metzger group once those deceptions were explained, including one web-article that went point-to-point with one of his typical explanations (read by one poster with thanks and commented on favorably). For another example I often recommend the Cyprian debate on the web involving Daniel Wallace (agreeing with Metzger) and Marty Shue (my appeal to authority). You can see the same type of dependence on false paradigms, evidence hiding, illogical reasonings, ultra-deceptive word parsings and false conclusions again and again when you start studying the textcrit arguments (usually given first from Metzger.. recently Ehrman has been used) closely.

The most recent response when an article was referenced analyzing many of Ehrman's errors received only the worst forum unedited ad hom (allowed by the moderators on a technicality .. it was tossed toward somebody not here to defend himself, so that is considered fair game). Nothing at all of substance to try to defend the often surprisingly ill-informed Ehrman when exposed. However I will say, as does Will Kinney, that Ehrman is in fact a more consistent advocate of the textcrit theories, since his open agnosticism or atheism matches the theoretical underpinning of the theories upon which he is building his construrcts.

As for my understanding of 'logical fallacies', tis actually reasonably good, although I always strive to learn more.

What Julian chafes at above is that I exposed the fact that the accusation of 'logical fallacies' itself can be simply wrong (appeal to authority example analyzed in depth above), and then used as a cover for some of the weakest posting.

Shalom,
Steven

Amaleq13

I should have been more clear:

"that the early church was quite vigilant on this very question" = appeal to authority

Sorry you wasted so much time barking up the wrong tree.

And I am still looking forward to a substantive argument.

Jack the Bodiless

...As am I.

I'm no expert in this field (and I'm in no position to judge the competence of the various "experts" named), so I go with what we have.

2 Timothy "quotes scripture", and that scripture (in the Greek) is suspiciously close to "Luke": close enough to imply a common source.

What does this tell us? Nothing useful. EVEN IF 2 Timothy was genuinely Pauline, the "scripture" could have been the OT or any pre-Pauline script, and then Luke could have copied Paul (as there is PLENTY of evidence that the author of Luke was very much aware of Paul!). But, with 2 Timothy being considered pseudigraphical: the "scripture" could have been Luke, Q, or whatever.

So, praxeus has no argument. I can see that much.

Now, I have a question at this point.

We know that Luke allegedly knew Paul. But what is the evidence that Paul allegedly knew Luke? Where is Luke named in Paul's writings, and are these in writings still deemed to be genuinely Pauline?

BenefitOfTheDoubt

Zorba yourself--the Greek of both is "O ERGATHS TOU MISQOU AUTOU" and in the Bishops' Bible and Tyndale both verses say "The labourer is worthy of his reward." If you are refering to the difference that in Luke it's "FOR the labourer is worthy of his reward" and in Paul it's "AND, the labourer is worthy of his reward" then please think again, seeing that "difference" is only cause by the fact that this is Paul's second quotation in the passage, "For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. AND, The labourer is worthy of his reward."

Toto

Colossians 4:14: "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you. "

According to Peter Kirby's siteBut this is not exactly relevant. The gospel is attributed to Luke because it was assumed that a companion of Paul wrote it, and Irenaeus searched Paul's letters and picked a likely suspect. We don't really know anything more about Luke.

Jack the Bodiless

...Aha! Thanks for that.

So, there is hardly any evidence that Paul knew "Luke", and none at all that Paul knew of a "gospel" of Luke.

Steven Avery

Amaleq, this tree makes less sense than my alternative of what you were trying to say.

The very issue is what is the canon of the Bible, which is what was accepted by the early church. The people in the first centuries much closer to the time of the writings, and more aware when new writings came forth 'late' or in a false name (as discussed I believe by Tertullian as even a cause of discipline).

And of course the early church integrity and standards on authorship are a primary question. Especially in a discussion of the validity of Pauline and Petrine authorship of books they did accept as scripture.

Thus it is highly disingenuous to try to make their view "unsubstantive" or an "appeal to authority".

Clearly your main standard of "unsubstantive" is "I don't agree", do don't expect me to modify my arguments to try to meet your standards.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Amaleq13

This is simply a more explicit appeal to authority. And that is because the basis of your argument is apparently your faith in the ability and efforts of the early Church to accurately identify fraudulent texts rather than the specific details of the efforts that lead to their conclusion.

Do you understand the difference?

An appeal to authority basically says "X is true because Authority Y says so." which appears to be what you are doing. "The Pastorals are genuine because the early Church accepted them." That is an appeal to authority.

A more rationally compelling argument would consist of the specific arguments and evidence that lead to their conclusion.

Steven Avery

Hi Benefit, I agree. However, at one time folks trying to see a difference actually brought the "for/and" issue up, and whatever Greek thingy is involved, my comment above was preemptive.

(btw Benefit, I use Zorba in a humorous way, as discussed once earlier in another thread, maybe on Peshitta stuff)

It is important to realize that this linkage has a number of compelling aspects that commentators try to get around, often by hand-waving. As Ben pointed out in another thread, this has to be accounted for. (Mathematically it really can't be a case of "accidents just happen"). Five words in exact agreement, never known to be used previously, becomes close to probabalistic proof of dependence/connection.

The alternative theories (other than #1) all have grave weaknesses.
Note: There is some overlap between 2 and 3.

THEORY 1
Timothy referencing Luke, and referencing it as scripture.
Fits well.
(this has two branches, Paul wrote Timothy, and not)

THEORY 2
e.g. Luke referencing Paul ?
Dating is highly suspect, since both in conservative and liberal theories Luke generally predates Timothy.

Also Paul's reference to the verse as scripture becomes very strange. Paul was referencing a phrase as scripture, next to another clear reference, yet this one was given while not even close to any known scripture ?

Again and again Paul quotes scripture closely, yet there is one place that is a very vague 'quote' ?

And then what ...
Luke put it in to cover the Pauline reference ?
Or just happens to also have in his mind the same
unknown reference as scripture ?

THEORY 3
An accidental correlation with an unknown 'aphorism' source ?
That Paul just happened to reference as scripture ?
And they both happened to quote exactly ?

I am a big fan of conspiracy theories, but again, Occam is shaving in his grave on 2, while 3 is a probabalistic nightmare. We have never seen this aphorism anywhere, in any form. Both Paul and Luke quote it, they both quote it identically, the aphorism vanishes from site, and Paul just happened to quote it as scripture.

Bridge for sale.

Let's watch the typical handwave.

THEORY 2
Yet this has huge problems, as mentioned above. Why would Paul reference the verse as "scripture" ? And note that already here the presumption here is that 2 Timothy is genuinely Pauline, and both Luke and Paul are early, effectively deep-sixing a ton of skeptic dating and argumentation. Making the "EVEN IF" very strange, since it involves essentially a concession of the whole skeptic/mythicist/liberal position.

Anyway, Theory 2 is simply virtually impossible to correlate with the typical skeptic theories floated on this forum.

Most assuredly. Luke basically states as much himself in Acts. Not sure how this affects the discussion.

However if it is from Luke, then Luke was considered scripture in the early church, AND 2 Timothy is quoting Luke as scripture. Very difficult to correlate with what generally passes as scholarship here. In fact the recognition as scripture would have had to be extremely strong and accepted to be risked by a non-Pauline author c.100 AD. Oops to a ton of skeptic theories. However, there really is no substantive evidence that 2 Timothy was not by Paul.

Ahh, yes, when there is no argument, throw out good old Q, or its friend "whatever".

Actually your hand-waving attempt only emphasized that much more how significant is the Timothy reference to Luke as scripture.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic