Steven Avery

I had noticed that Hill, in this article, uses some questionable argumentation. Good job pointing it out :-) I don't think most of those points are primary, most significant may be the Eusebius situation (textually I consider Eusebius pretty weak, but you would expect him to be reasonably well-informed on historical/textual issues)

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Peter Kirby

Am I missing a post? I'm not sure of which post you refer to.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

freigeister

I only linked to the Hill page because it was the first that came up on google that had the quotations from Ambrose and Augustine, which are primary.

Yuri Kuchinsky

There are really two separate issues here AFAIAC.

1. Is PA a very ancient story that goes back to the early Christian period?
2. Did PA originally belong to Jn?

The first is the most important question here IMO and, clearly, the answer is yes.

The second question OTOH is not really so important from my perspective, although for Prax (and for Hill) it's important. For my own part, I'm just happy to answer, 'I don't know'.

Best,

Yuri.

Steven Avery

hmmm.. not sure if the dog ate my homework on that one... it was my agreeing that you had a good fix on the concepts and the logical/spiritual basis, and then expanding the discussion a bit. Anyway, this is what I consider the crux, in an expanded version.

TEXTCRIT PRINCIPLES (1-2-3-4) & MODERN EVANGELICAL PRINCIPLES (4-5)
1) Harder reading- more likely to the original, "smoothed" by later scribes
2) Harder reading is to be preferred
3) This is true whether or not the harder reading is error
historical, grammatical, geographical, numerical , doctrinal, logical,
harmony, Tanach/NT prophetic, etc.
4) Textcrit science recovers, close as possible, the original autographs.
5) Inerrancy exists only in the "original autographs"

The irony is that in textcrit/evangelical class, they atomize. When 1-2-3-4 are taught, you are told that Inspiration and Preservation are out of bounds. "We are simply recovering the text".

(5) is taught in MEU Modern Evangelical University, they have faith in textcrit to give the text, but don't discuss the concepts and results of 1-2-3-4, that is a different discipline, left to the experts, who will teach you.

The result of 1-2-3-4 is an absolute certainty --
ERROR in the recovered bible

ERROR even in the best approximations of the "original autographs", conceptually (theoretically, ideally) as well as practically (the texts they use)

Explaining all their dancing -- "scribal error", etc., which doesn't help at all, since they are actually insisting that the ORIGINALS are the source of error.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Steven Carr

I don't get this.

Which critics say that there are textual errors in the originals?

That makes no sense.

Steven Carr

But the 'early' Christian period goes as late as Augustine. So it obviously belongs to the early Christian period.

Steven Avery

Use your noggin, and figger out the results of applying the principles involved in 1-2-3-4-5 .

We may not know when you believe John is written, but this is not real complicated.

Shalom,
Praxeas

Steven Carr

It is to me.

Explain how textual criticism is used to establish that there are errors in the originals.

Textual criticism is used only to establish what the text probably was.

It is the *text* itself which is then used to show that there are errors.

freigeister

It obviously goes back to Papias, 250 years earlier than Augustine, and as such is as old as anything else we have of the Gospels, except for manuscript fragments. Unless, of course, Eusebius is involved in a deception.