Johnny Skeptic

What do you mean by "we have no ancient literature of any sort"? Let's take Hammurabi's Code as an example. I do not have any good reasons to assume that Hammurabi did not write the code, but I do have good reasons for assuming that a loving God would not use copies of copies of ancient texts as a primary means of communicating with humans. For instance, if you had lived in Jerusalem in the first century, and had a flying pig, and you wanted people who lived in the future to believe that you had a flying pig, if you believed that you and your flying pig had a life span of 10,000 more years, would you have stayed in Jerusalem and depended upon written records to let everyone in the world know about your flying pig, or would you have taken your flying pig all over the world for the next 10,000 years?

Johnny Skeptic

On the contrary, if a God exists, his motives are everything. You surely believe that. It is utterly absurd to discuss the textual accuracy of a book that was supposedly inspired by a God and completely disregard his motives. Your interest in the Bible is most certainly not entirely academic, or evenly mostly academic. There are not any doubts whatsoever that what you are basically saying is that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the early church fathers would not have said what they said. The simple truth is that you cannot reasonably prove that the early church fathers would not have said what they said if Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Your mention of the word 'must' was patently absurd. Speculating how a God would act who wishes to convince people to believe that he exists most certainly is not pointless. Whether or not it makes sense to question God's motives, that is exactly what millions of people do. If you wish to disregard that, then so much the better for skepticism.

When a crime is committed, the very first thing that police consider is intent, which is as it should be.

My flying pig analogy proved that if a God inspired the Bible, he would easily have been to convince more people to become Christians than he has.

JoeWallack

JW:
remez has been unable/unwilling to answer this most basic question which is a Key to his Assertian but somehow has found the time and energy to write:

"It means that rationally you cannot use these statements…………….."

"as a crutch to be so dismissive. Because we are 99.5% certain we know what the were."

"Not scientifically."

"I enjoy your style.
Agree with your assessment the that healing portion is an art, however the detection of variants and discernment of purity is science."

"again...."

"Now on this issue is that 100% faith without evidence?"

"I did not give you an opinion.
So you need to back up yours with something factual."


JW:
In the classic Cattyshack, Bill Murray had a choice of the pool or the pond. Similarly, we can give remez here the choice of Lecture or dialogue. I think Lecture would be good for remez.

Scientifically, in order to accurately calculate a % conclusion one of the things that needs to be done is Identify exactly what is being compared. At this point a superior statement for remez would be:

99.5% of Apologists Assert The N.T. is scientifically 99.5% textually pure.

Illustrative of the diffiCulty of trying to identify what was Original to use as a Base is an issue that has been demonstrated Ad Nazorean on these Holy Boards. Marcion is the first known user of a N.T. based on "patristic quotations". Based on "patristic quotations" Marcion's N.T. consisted of a version of "Luke" (which may have been the original "Luke" for all we know) and ten Pauline Epistles. "patristic quotations" confess to us that this Gospel and these Epistles were significantly different from what the orthodox used.
We have the following good reasons to suspect that Marcion either had the originals in Toto or at least in part:

1) Marcion is the First known user of a N.T. based on "patristic quotations".

2) The orthodox N.T. was a Reaction to Marcion.

3) We have sufficient Manuscript/Patristic evidence to convict orthodox Christianity of the Sin of Forgery while Marcion is still presumed innocent until proven guilty.

4) Specifically, everyone would agree that the orthodox Forged entire Epistles of Paul and Asserted they were authentic.

5) Marcion Retained the primary themes of Paul and "Mark" that the historical disciples did not understand Jesus.



Joseph

MAGIC, n.
An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

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

Sheshbazzar

Seems relevant to me, after all if the claim of "99.5% textually pure" was intended to present some kind of miraculously accurate preservation of the text, then it is only reasonable to take into consideration any reasons why or why not such a thing would be true, false, or even necessary, and given what "god" is claimed to be by his followers. And it certainly appears unreasonable that an entity that has all of eternity, and is all-powerful, would employ such a poor method of communication, that even his believers cannot agree as to what it is that he is saying, or how he desires them to live.

reply to Rogers deleted post

Sheshbazzar

Along with what Joe said above, there is the consideration of all of those other "texts" that were employed and accepted by early Christian congregations, but were only hundreds of years latter officially excluded from the Christian canon.
Even the canonical Book of Jude quotes from the uncanonical Book of Enoch, is then the canonical Book of Jude "99.5% textually pure", if so, then what does that say about the Christians treatment of the Book of Enoch? It WAS "pure" enough for the early original churches, but is now not "pure" enough for Christianity?

yalla

I'm starting to be persuaded by the case for Marcion.
Might have to start a new train of thought and do some research in a different, non-orthodox, direction.
Next week.
Hope its not, to borrow a phrase, a 'crank' scenario. Wouldn't want that!

blastula

So you agree there is no reason beyond faith to believe there is an extraordinary origin for the books.


Inadequately.

It's obscurantist to claim the book is 99.5% "pure" when there is no basis to know the pure original said.

Johnny Skeptic

Roger Pearse is not kidding anyone. Regarding the copies of New Testament documents, if there were contradictions regarding doctrinal issues, he would most certainly care about that, and yet he pretends that his interest in writings of antiquity is entirely academic.

Since Roger has conveniently refused to reply to my most recent post in another thread, I will also post it in this thread. Here it is:

The obvious answer to my first question is because Roger believes that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the early church fathers would not have written what they wrote.

But surely Roger approves of Christian pastors and missionaries being willing to discuss their beliefs. The reason that Roger does not wish to defend his beliefs if that he knows how difficult it is for Christians to adequately defend their beliefs.

Agenda07

May I ask for a citation of that figure? Where did you get it from?

Also, how do you reconcile your claim that none of the disputed sections '[bear] any weight on doctrinal issues' with examples such as the Comma Johanneum and the pseudo-ending of Mark?

Agenda07

Please correct me if I'm wrong (as what little Latin I know is self-taught and flaky in the extreme) but don't the different words for 'and' have some significance in determining the date and authorship of a text? If a writer consistently uses 'et' throughout their work, except for one short section where they use 'atque' then presumably that would raise questions about the authenticity of that passage? Similarly, I thought there were variations on the frequency with which the words were used in different time periods, although I can't remember where I heard that.