Ratel

This thread settles it, if I ever have something important to say to future generations I will at least scribe it into clay tablets and fire them, and if it's really important, I'll have it graven in a basalt slab 20' tall. Oh that the Ancient of Days had such foresight.

555

Veru thank you guys !

Ben C Smith

I cannot speak for all apologists everywhere, but I believe at least some of them bring up the sheer number of biblical manuscripts in order to show that we have a good shot at establishing what the originals said, not necessarily in order to show that we have a good shot at establishing how true the contents of those originals (or of the copies) may be.

Ben.

RUmike

This statement is utterly and completely nonsensical. How on earth could you possibly know that if we don't have the originals to with?

cjack

It should also be noted that the works of Sophocles, Plato, or Homer are not being touted as the literal "Word of God," and promoted as an infallible source of both spiritual and historical truth.

Iasion

Greetings,

Indeed.

But this distinction is often blurred - e.g. the page one allegiance linked talks about the NT being "reliable" (other pages say "valid".)

What does "reliable" mean?
The implication is that the contents can be relied upon (to be true.)


Iasion

Iasion

Indeed.

Consider the Behistun inscription :
http://www.livius.org/be-bm/behistun/behistun01.html

We still have the ORIGINAL from 25 centuries ago - long before the NT.

Iasion

Unbeliever

As Bart Ehrman puts it in Misquoting Jesus,

judge

Sorry , right you are I mindlessly copied that from here

one allegiance

Ummm...because we know when the original was WRITTEN. And we found texts closest to THAT time. We dont have to have the original texts to know what approx. time period they were first written. Paul, Peter and others wrote them AFTER Jesus died...so any before about 80 AD. I don't know the exact projected dates of the 4 gospels but Im pretty sure none were before 80 AD.