Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Steven Avery · 05-30-2005, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Robinson has some info here
http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/RobPier.html#Fallac
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tc-list/message/3116
Thanks Steven, I thought I'd recognized your style from several groups. You're a Jewish apologist for Jesus, no? Messianic Apologetics? Schmuel or Shmuel, something like that? Welcome aboard.

Thanks, Vork, appreciated... I held back checking this forum awhile due to some earlier email forays into mythicist and skeptic lands ... however this one has been surprisingly informative, genteel, and even usually respectful, so far :-)

Go by Schmuel, yes .. Messianic_Apologetic (no "s", that is a copycat forum) is my home email forum, I usually put it in my siggy, and then I post here and there, mostly on email forums, much less on web forums like this one. Yes, I'm a Jewish believer, with an eclectic faith background, if you don't mind I'd forego the phrase "Jewish apologist for Jesus" :-) lol.

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

Steven Avery · 05-30-2005, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

And the idea that Metzger is "liberal" scholarship is a bit much. After all, he does agree that the Pericope Adultera was orally transmitted and is historical. Metzger is quite conservative. He is a "liberal" only by comparison to the apologetics-driven claims of others to the right of him.

Hi Vork, I don't really use this Pericope discussion as a base of viewing Metzger as liberal (although in a certain sense I do in fact consider all modern Westcott-Hort "scientific textual criticism" as liberal). It is really based more on other views that I have seen of his, especially that of considering 2Peter to have been a 2nd century writing not by Peter (ie. a forgery). Even others who really are close to Metzger in textual views, like Daniel Wallace, are totally on the opposite side on this one. That I think is a fair dividing line for the term, although of course in a skeptic and mythicist environment, one's mileage may vary.

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

Spanish_Inquisitor · 05-30-2005, 08:49 AM

OK, here's the quote from the excerpt of Professor Bart Ehrman's lecture series (no 24) on The New Testament, titled "Do we have the original New Testament?":

He starts off discussing the fact that there are at least thousands of Greek manuscripts or their fragments, no two of which are exactly alike. Scribes made many mistakes, which got passed on from copy to copy. Words, lines and even entire pages might be left out.

Quote:

...Whereas there are some textual changes that are of no real importance for interpretation, for example the misspelled words, others are highly significant. For example, the oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John do not contain the famous story of the woman who has been caught in the act of adultery. They bring her to Jesus and they say, "The Law commands that we stone one such as this. What do you say that we should do?" And Jesus stoops down and begins writing on the ground, and he looks up and he says, "Let the one without sin among you be the first to cast a stone against her." It's a brilliant story filled with pathos, a story that was used throughout the ages to show that one should be merciful to sinners, even the worst of sinners.

Unfortunately, the story was not originally in the Gospel of John. It's not found in the oldest and best manuscripts. Moreover, the writing style of this story isn't at all like what is found in the rest of the Gospel of John. The first church father to quote this text in Greek as appearing in the Gospel of John isn't until the 12th century. It was only in the Middle Ages that this story was added to John, and the manuscripts that did have this in John were the manuscripts that were used then by the King James translators, and so it entered into English translation.

I obviously paraphrased it in my OP, and on comparing it, I'm not so sure I was off the mark, but there may be nuances to it I've missed.

I've scanned the entire excerpt, so if anyone wants a PDF file of the same, PM me.

SI

Haran · 05-30-2005, 09:04 AM

Quote:

SI:
He mentioned in the excerpt that the famous story in John of the woman who was caught in the act of adultery, where Jesus says "let the one without sin cast the first stone", was not in the original, and in fact did not show up in copies of the NT until the Middle of the 12th century

Quote:

Ehrman:
The first church father to quote this text in Greek as appearing in the Gospel of John isn't until the 12th century.

There is a subtle but important difference here that involves "Greek". Early latin manuscripts contained the pericope, as has been stated.

However, I am surprised at the following statement:

Quote:

It was only in the Middle Ages that this story was added to John, and the manuscripts that did have this in John were the manuscripts that were used then by the King James translators, and so it entered into English translation.

This, as stated, seems false. Perhaps the key lies in the use of "Middle Ages". Is Codex Bezae considered to have been written at the beginning of the "Middle Ages"? Considering most people probably think of the "Middle Ages" as closer to the 12th century (already mentioned by Ehrman), it seems that his statement was somewhat misleading and the term "Middle Ages" would lead the person back to the 12th century statement (as SI appears to have taken it).

Haran · 05-30-2005, 09:14 AM

SI, if you are truly interested by the subject, I would suggest you read some works on textual criticism. You might check the following resources:

Textual Criticism Resources

There are many there, so I would suggest Greenlee's Introduction or that of David Black. If you want to try a "standard", I'd suggest reading Bruce Metzger's or the Aland's Text of the New Testament. You should find links for all of these on the page that I linked.

Spanish_Inquisitor · 05-30-2005, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haran

SI, if you are truly interested by the subject, I would suggest you read some works on textual criticism. You might check the following resources:

Textual Criticism Resources

There are many there, so I would suggest Greenlee's Introduction or that of David Black. If you want to try a "standard", I'd suggest reading Bruce Metzger's or the Aland's Text of the New Testament. You should find links for all of these on the page that I linked.

Thanks, Haran. A quick perusal indicates that it is far more than I wanted to know, (or want to spend at Amazon

) but I have bookmarked it and will keep it as a reference.
SI

Spanish_Inquisitor · 05-30-2005, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haran

There is a subtle but important difference here that involves "Greek". Early latin manuscripts contained the pericope, as has been stated.
...
This, as stated, seems false. Perhaps the key lies in the use of "Middle Ages". Is Codex Bezae considered to have been written at the beginning of the "Middle Ages"? Considering most people probably think of the "Middle Ages" as closer to the 12th century (already mentioned by Ehrman), it seems that his statement was somewhat misleading and the term "Middle Ages" would lead the person back to the 12th century statement (as SI appears to have taken it).

I love this Mozilla Firefox extension that allows me to click on a word or term and get instant access to definitions and explanations from Dictionaries, Google and Wikipedia, among others. For instance, I looked up "pericope" on Wikipedia and got this (indirectly). It seems like a nice, quick explanation for something I didn't know (here the Pericope Adulterae).

I'm slowly working through the other cites in this thread, so thank you all.

SI

Spanish_Inquisitor · 05-30-2005, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Carlson blogged it a couple of years ago. Here's the NPR link:

Ehrman on NPR

Thanks for that link.

He doesn't really say whether he's an atheist or agnostic, or still an evangelical Xtian, as he started out. He simply says that his studies, and specifically the contradictions he found in the canonical and non-canonical books, led him to have a "crisis of faith". He doesn't say how he resolved the crisis, though I guess it's implied that it was not in favor of his previous evangelical roots. He expressed surprise that his friends from the Theological Seminary, who did not come from an evangelical background (that assumed the inerrancy of the Bible) but who learned the same things he did, continued to believe. I guess from that statement, you could assume that he no longer does, or at least does not believe as strongly as he did.

SI

Haran · 05-30-2005, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanish_Inquisitor

He doesn't say how he resolved the crisis, though I guess it's implied that it was not in favor of his previous evangelical roots. He expressed surprise that his friends from the Theological Seminary, who did not come from an evangelical background (that assumed the inerrancy of the Bible) but who learned the same things he did, continued to believe. I guess from that statement, you could assume that he no longer does, or at least does not believe as strongly as he did.

I think you nailed it. If he still believed in Jesus, it would not have been a problem for him to say so.

Steven Carr · 05-30-2005, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Oops, I omitted Augustine, around 425, who is also especially interesting because he offers a reason why the Pericope had dropped out of some manuscripts.

Hmmm.. Bruce and Bart forget to tell you about that as well ?

'some' manuscripts? There are some manuscripts before 350AD where ut is present?

Can I guess the reason? If a story in their own sacred scripture did not suit Christian beliefs, Christians would censor it, and try to airbrush it out of history? Am I close?

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

05-30-2005, 09:14 AM	#45
Haran Banned Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Dallas, Tx Posts: 1,490	SI, if you are truly interested by the subject, I would suggest you read some works on textual criticism. You might check the following resources: Textual Criticism Resources There are many there, so I would suggest Greenlee's Introduction or that of David Black. If you want to try a "standard", I'd suggest reading Bruce Metzger's or the Aland's Text of the New Testament. You should find links for all of these on the page that I linked.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.