Steven Avery

Again.. to the cornfused Steven Carr, simply pointing out manuscript evidence facts like this .. (all numbers in the left column are guestimates, generally within a factor of 2)

.............................Luke 14:12......Omitted.
Greek Byzantine..........1000................0
Greek Alex/West.............15................1
Latin Vulgate..............1000................0
Aramaic Peshitta...........200................0
Old Latin........................ 4................6
Ethiopic/Coptic etc........100................0

becomes "ranting" amazing.

These are the facts ...along with the
multiple early church writer references
P75 being a 3rd century witness against an omission view
Vulgate actually being an update of the Old Latin line.

A few manuscripts, in one local line, none extant earlier than the 4th or 5th centuries, simply have a few words dropped out and the textcrit mentality can go bonkers as here.

Steven Carr either did not know, or willfully hides this, from his atheist audience, in his non-scholarly article, and now blusters and hand-waves away with his bland, blithe and laughable assertions of slam-dunk ............ for the RIGHT-HAND column !!!!!!!!

How absurd can you get.

Yes, we understand.
Alice-in-atheist wonderland.

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

Steven Avery

Hi Yuri. Putting aside our Graeco/Latin Bezae there are three early Old Latin manuscripts

http://www.vetuslatina.org/
Bobiensis, Vercellensis and Veronensis are 4th and 5th century,
everything else is later. .

So I stand corrected.. as do you, unless you have another seven manuscripts to share from the 4th and 5th centuries.

Incidentally, since there are about thirty Old Latin extant manuscripts with the gospels, I wonder about why we are dealing with only 10 ? Insufficient apparatus ?

Of course when you are claiming "omission", a mixed and wide early witness (in a sane textual world) with Eusebius, Cyril, the Vulgate (translated 384 by Jerome from Old Latin updated with Greek) , the alexandrian manuscripts .. all HAVING the verse, makes any omission concept very tenuous (droll understatement). Omission theories really are undone by multiple diverse early usages.

Not only did the "addition" come in all over the place, it then supposedly took over the wide variety of text lines virtually 100%. Textcrit theorists never explain the mechanism, except when Hort used to theorize the "Lucian recension", now defunct, or withered on the vine. This whole area is one of those textcrit emperor with no clothes aspects, when it comes up on the textcrit forum, hands start waving fulltime.

btw, Yuri, you do realize that the Peshitta used to be considered an early translation (2nd century) from the Greek. Later it was pushed back to the 4th century, despite real problems with that theory (on that Paul Younan et al make sense). However a 2nd century Peshitta simply destroys the alexandrian arguments, so it was very discomfitting. Accepting an early Peshitta translation would similary destroy all the supposed conjectured hidden 2nd century machinations, like here or the ending of mark.

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

Julian

I don't know why I am replying to this when I said I never would respond to any more of your ramblings. I guess one more time can't hurt.
If by that you mean that disregarding supernatural and unscientific issues such as divine inspiration and following the evidence based on some reasonable rules and going where the evidence takes us then, yeah, modern text crit is really bad.
That completely encapsulates your tendentious view, right there. Erasmus worked with a very small selection of late manuscripts and even had to translate from Latin in one instance. The only reason why you would think that it was somehow good would be an appeal to divine inspiration. Which, you must realize, will get no mileage neither here nor in the world of science.
My mistake. I seemed to remember that you favored the Byzantine but it was the TR. My bad. Still a bizarre notion completely unsupportable by evidence or reason. It must be that divine inspiration thing again.
Textual criticism is designed to approximate the autographs. Errancy has nothing to do with it. It is a tentative reconstruction of the originals through the methodological comparison of (much) later exemplars. There is no scientific way to defend TR, for that you have to appeal to mysticism.
Despite the fact that Aleph and B are generally considered the best available texts by pretty much all the experts. I am not necessarily as big a fan of Aleph and B as most are, but to dismiss them as you do is an obvious demonstration of just how far from any kind of rational scholarship your opinion really is.
My emphasis. That, right there, is why your views are nothing more than crackpot, fundementalist nonsense. It is quite a shame really. You are articulate, erudite and intelligent yet waste your potential on dishonest, blind apologetics and solidly ensure that no rational person can take your opinions seriously.

Julian

Yuri Kuchinsky

If you don't like them, don't read them. And I promise to do the same with your posts.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Steven,

I just looked up Lk 24:12 in P75, and it doesn't look like there are any substantial variations there.

Yes, I agree.

That's why I'm saying that there are more options available than the two you've admitted so far.

The fact that so few manuscripts omit this verse indicates to me that the omission may have been rather late.

When I see Old Syriac, Old Greek, and Old Latin agree (triple agreement), I call that a very old tradition. But when I only see the agreement of Old Greek (D alone) and Old Latin, I'm not quite as impressed.

Best,

Yuri.

Steven Carr

So there are some variations then.

So clearly the text was changed over time.

Out of interest, (only if you want to), what does the text of p75 say in that place?

Julian

Since I happen to be at home and near my books, I can answer that.

The only omission of the verse occurs in D. P75, the reading preferred by UBS4/NA27, shows the same reading as B, with the exception AUTON (accusative singular meaning him) in B being changed to EAUTON (accusative singular reflexsive meaning himself and more grammtically correct), which means nothing really, in P75 (as well as Aleph(c) and W). Other variations include uncial 33 which has a lacuna but is probably the same reading as B. Aleph(*) omits MONA (meaning only), A has KEIMENA (meaning lying [there]) instead and L 33 Majority f1 f13 and many others have both MONA and KEIMENA, although in varying order. 33 has another lacuna but probably conforms to B or A which has the minor him/himself grammatical divergence.

Overall, attestation of 24:12 is very good including all the uncials as well as some old latins, most of the ethnic variations and a number of church fathers.

However, the verse is rightfully disputed. Sometimes it is important to remember that even the oldest exemplar that we have are late by historical standards. Most major revisions were probably made in the second century when they were new and there was no canonical protection in addition to a large variety of heresies. D is a very interesting manuscript in many ways, not only for the divergence of its diglot texts, but also because it undoubtedly represents an early split in the textual family tree and is very likely preserving some old and authentic readings. One should not let the external evidence overwhelm historical analysis but rather acknowledge that we don't know and some uncertainty is in order.

Julian

ETA: I had to transliterate the Greek since my computer at home sucks and won't do the Greek stuff properly. I have never transliterated Greek so it might be wrong. Also, all the Greek translations are mine so they might be off but I don't think so.

Steven Avery

Thanks for taking the time to show that the early papyrus evidence joins the overwhelming majority of manuscripts in Greek and Aramaic and the Latin Vulgate in supporting the verse. For some reason Steven Carr was trying to get around the P75 inclusion in the evidence, and I appreciate that you took the time to unravel his convolution. Wonder if he will add that to his non-scholarship article on the web?

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

Steven Avery

Actually the problems are far more mundane and simple that this. A reliance on a couple of old scribally-corrupt manuscripts over multi-hundreds and multi-language and multi-geography evidences. Abject overuse of the lectio difficilior concept. Presumptions that additions were abundant and more likely than omissions.

The following article is one of the more interesting and readable web-site presentations on these issues (not that I agree with his conclusions )

http://www.nttext.com/index.html
New Testament textual criticism - Andrew Wilson

Erasmus travelled and corresponded all over Europe, so his knowledge of manuscripts was incredible. (e.g. he was quite aware of the Vaticanus readings) He refined his work over multi-editions, and that was followed up by Stephanus, Bezae and Elzivir editions. Meanwhile the Complutensian Polyglot was working off of different manuscripts, developing a very similar text.

If a textual criticism school starts with principles that essentially insist and create an errant text, from oddball and minority readings, using dubious paradigms, then there is no way to consider it neutral and scientific.

I don't dismiss them totally. They can show the existence of a reading in the fourth century, as in the example on this thread. Beyond that, though, they are abysmally corrupt. The 10+ different redactors in Sinaiticus and the humorous "fool and knave" note in Vaticanus are good examples of what we are up against with these two manuscripts. Dean John Burgon's analysis of their scribal corruptness has never been countered.

I'll take the complimentary part of this with appreciation, and let the rest be handled in real dialog rather than skeptic apoplectics.

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

JoeWallack

Leader:
Okay, what did the Roman Editors ever Change for us? Nothing, Right?!

Julian:
Uh, how about "Matthew" and "Luke" essentially being "Mark" with changed Theologies giving the Christian Bible the appearence of multiple attestation and significant agreement to its basic story when none really existed and making the whole question of Textual Editing misleading?

Leader:
Uh, well, that goes without saying. But what else did the Roman Editors ever Change for us? Nothing, Right?!

Praxeus:
Well they did Forge a resurrection sighting to the original Gospel "Mark" which contradicts the primary theme that no one in Jesus' time believed he was resurrected and provides the best potential evidence that Jesus was resurrected as opposed to a mere Empty Tomb.

Leader:
Well, okay, I'll grant you that. But what else did the Roman Editors ever Change for us? Nothing, Right?!

Roger:
What about The Johannine Comma which everyone agrees is not original and provides the only clear support to one of the most Fundamental Orthodox Christian beliefs, the trinity?

Leader:
Oh yea, right. Forgot about that. But what else did the Roman Editors ever Change for us? Nothing, Right?!

Steve:
And don't forget fraudently adding "son" to the start of "Mark" to try and hide the difference between Jesus literally being son of god in "Matthew" but only figuratively son of god in "Mark".

Leader:
I'll give you that one too. But what else?

Ben:
Even though I'm not yet forced to conclude that "Mark's" Jesus only intended a Blood baptism based on the Eucharist since he never mentions a Water baptism, other than in the spurious Ending, I Am moving in that direction which would be a Conflict with "Matthew's" Jesus' Water Baptism and Luke's Jesus' Air Jordan Baptism.

Leader:
Wow, that's a good one. Nice work Ben. But what else did the Roman Editors ever Change for us? Nothing, Right?!

JoeWallack:
What about Christian translators consistently mistranslating "The Holy Spirit" for phrases either lacking a piece and/or having a different order to dishonestly support the Concept of spirit as a separate entity? (All the Skeptics turn and give JW a look). Okay, I'll shut up.

Leader:
So, except for deceptively redoing the Original Gospel (twice), forging a resurrection sighting to the original Gospel, adding phony support for the trinity Concept, fraudulently adding "son" to the start of the Original Gospel and forging a water baptism to the original Gospel, what else did the Roman Editors ever Change for us? Nothing, Right?!

All:
Right!



Joseph

EDITOR, n.
A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page