peanutaxis

Moved where?

Roger Pearse

True.

Indeed so, although it doesn't take away from the raw fact.

This is the real problem; is the graph demonstrating the reliability of the content, or the reliability of the transmission?

It certainly demonstrates the latter; but the former is a separate question; did the authors write the truth?

Are you sure? Just thinking, John's gospel was written ca. AD 90. Papyrus fragment P52 is dated to 125 AD, plus or minus 25 years, by the Colin Roberts in his original publication; but I believe some people think more likely ca. 150 these days, doubtless with the same margin of error. So ... that figure seems more or less right?

Either way it is indeed a lot, lot less than 500, given as the next entry.

Although that made me wonder just what copy of portions of the Iliad was only 500 years after composition? Doubtless it is some papyrus fragment; but the main copy I think of, when I think of the Iliad, is the Venetus A, a 10th century AD ms.

Nothing whatever.

But I think we're looking at a mirror here. I can't be the only one who remembers all the atheist arguments that the *text* of the NT is not transmitted, asserting that the content of the bible is unreliable, because of copying? Surely here's the same argument coming back.

Surely it gives a reasonable reply to this? I.e. if we suppose that people investing time and money in copying books didn't really care much about the quality of the resulting copies (leaving aside evidence on the subject), then whatever effect this negligence had applies even more to other books than to the NT.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

aeebee50

You said no one. Come on, I may not believe everybody, but someone would object whether right or wrong. You are right, but no one. I would have to give a search to find at least one. I would not want to come up with someone from the Westboro church or a preacher being killed playing with a rattlesnake.

aeebee50

Everything.

aeebee50

I do not know Kate Upton. She must be some kind of a model and she would be better in a full bunny rabbit suit or maybe it is a full suit to her.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...-eggs-bra.html

Zenaphobe

Based on the same set of comparisons, yes, the Book of Mormon must be a very reliable religious text.

More copies!

Texts dating to the genesis of the prophet himself!

If the New Testament ought to be taken as very reliable because of the number of manuscripts and the supposed proximity to the originals, then the Book of Mormon is superior in every way.

Neat huh? :grin:

Solo

Hi Roger,
I don't think negligence or lack of attention of would be the main concerns here. It is the inclusion of the interpretive notes believed to have been part of the text, and of course the wilful manipulation of the text due to differences in theological POV between the received text and the copyist.

Best,
Jiri

Roger Pearse

No.

You're concocting an argument which you know isn't valid, because not the same thing, and inviting others to find the flaws.

The normal English term for this is "dishonesty".

Don't do this. It brings atheism into disrepute.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

Eeeek, Roger, you're selling Roberts infallibility! As this hopeful dating appears with unchecked enthusiam, we need to point out that Andreas Schmidt dated it to 170 CE ± 25 years. Brent Nongbri--HarvardTheolRev 98.1 (2005) 23-48--heavily criticized the datings indicating that such a narrow dating is not justifiable from palaeography and that scripts can be around for a hundred years.

Sheshbazzar

I believe you have inadvertently put you finger upon the real problem here Roger.
The fact is that those in power, with the time and the money to 'invest' in the 'copying' of books, more often than not were those with a particular political and religious doctrinal agenda to forward, and rather than not really caring about the quality or the content of the 'copies' they were sponsoring and paying for, these 'copies' were the 'working tools' of their particular sectarian religious/political agendas and they were very concerned with getting their desired return upon their investments.

How easily a few denari could influence the translator or the 'copyist' in their employ to simply 'choose' a 'more suitable word', a prefix, or suffix, in this or that particular verse to comply with the goals of the paying sponsors who would ever thereafter have their desired textual tool to manipulate and to shape the thoughts and the doctrines of others into desired positions.

Nothing new, the same paid manipulation of 'Scriptural' texts still goes on today and is what gives us such a plethora of textual 'versions'.
It is the ones paying the 'translator' and the printer who will determine how each word of their text will finally read, not any slavish conformity to any earlier texts that they are ostensibly 'translating' or 'copying'.
This is what gives us everything from 'The Douay Version', or 'The New Oxford Bible' to the JW's 'New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures', to A.B. Tarina's 'Holy Name Bible'. Those that pay, pay to get the text that they desire.

מה־שהיה הוא שיהיה ומה־שנעשה הוא שיעשה ואין כל־חדש תחת השמש׃

"That which has been, is that which will be, That which has been done, is what will be done, And there isn't anything new under the sun."
ha'Sfar Debrey Qoheleth ben-Da'weed 1:6 ("The words of the Preacher the Son of-David" 1:6) or "Ecclesiastes"

This same old shit that went on in previous generations, goes on in generation after generation;
'I said in my haste, All men are liars'. ...And most are hell-bent upon proving it.