worldling

Over on a xtian board I just saw someone say that "the NT is probably the best-preserved historical document in the world".

I have heard similar claims made by xtians before. How legitimate is this claim?

Thanks in advance.

Vinnie

Not in the world. We have orignal copies of lots of older materials.

It should be claimed that in that region and that time, it has the strongest manuscript attestation. Compared to Josephus, Tacitus, et al. This is not altogether far from the truth but the most fluid stage of a texts composition is when its first written and there is considerable distance from the autographs to the first manuscripts. Also to look at is the number of known interpolations, letters of Paul that are actually more than one letter combined and so on. Some church fathers accused others of corrupting the scriptures to fit their views.

Once a text becomes popular and authoritative it generally becomes more fixed. Before this its fair game and more prone to more alteration.

Vinnie

Plognark

*pppppfffffftttt* AHAHAHAHAHAA!!! *sniff*

There, that's how legitimate that claim is. It almost made me spew soda out my nose when I considered it for more than a microsecond.

Others, who are more knowledgable than I, can probably provide you with oodles of links on the topic.

Legion

Somewhat, but not very.

They are basing that on the number of manuscript copies available to us, which might actually be more than any other writing (and definitely is more than any other of that time period) but that is not the whole picture. Vinnie already brought up the point of an original manuscript of a work (which we do not have of any work in the Bible, including the NT) in comparison to a multitude of copies. While there might be extant original manuscripts of other works, with regards to the NT there aren't. Instead, there are no manuscripts from the first century, a few fragments of manuscripts from the second century, the first manuscript of an entire book (if I remember correctly) is from the 3rd or 4th century, and then our oldest manuscript of the complete text of the NT is from about the fifth century (Codex Vaticanus, if I'm remembering off the top of my head accurately). So yes, there are many NT manuscripts, but they aren't old enough or complete enough to testify adequately to the accuracy of transmission, and there actually are a number of discrepancies, more than can be easily discussed on a forum, but Bruce Metzger is one who has covered this somewhat in his book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

spin

One bitch session removed.

Vinnie

Crossan discusses a personal letter found in one of his works as well. I forget the details. Prettu sure it was in the HJ. Something about "if its a girl cast it out???"

"""""""Bruce Metzger is one who has covered this somewhat in his book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.""""""

Do you mean Bart Ehrman rather than Metzger?

Al Kafirun

A Christian once looked me directly in the eye, and with a straight face said that Acts is the best historical document to ever be preserved. After I stopped laughing I thought about it and actually the NT while NOT AT ALL ACCURATE--which is what Christians imply--has been preserved... well.

Jus Ahab

Oh, I saw some loon coming out with this on 'the Carl Baugh Show' the other day. He was quite mad.

Anyhoo, here's a link on the claim Manuscript support for the Bible is unparalleled!

Enjoy!

Legion

Yes, sorry, I'd misplaced my copy of it somewhere and was trying to remember off the top of my head.

Blueye

Hi Legion,

Do you think we could find a light online version of this book?
Subject seems very interesting.

Blue