lukeprog

Clearly, I'm only familiar with the U.S. education system!

Roger Pearse

When I was still an active scientist, we used to laugh about that sort of thing.

But we can generalise, I think. In the late 19th and early 20th century a veneration for science replaced that previously held by religion. This still hangs in the background today, although not to the same extent. This being the case, any fraud whatsoever which is attempting to give itself credibility will appeal to whatever is considered impressive at the time. Thus the existence of bogus science, bogus pseudo-sciences, and claims to scientific authority? Just my thoughts, anyhow.

The Dagda

And bogus philosophy Robin, let's not forget that all fashions are somewhat fleeting, be it science, religion, philosophy or clothes only I can see.

Roger Pearse

As a rule this forum is one of those places where people DO have to justify their claims. And... in general, it is not the responsibility of others to research our claims for us, surely? Come, argument by assertion will just become "yes it is/no it isn't".

Now I haven't followed the debate, but whatever the point being made, is this sort of response the kind that is useful to anyone?

If we follow this approach that does tend to mean that wild and general claims are impossible to make, and that we have to be specific; but that's a good thing, surely?

You summarise (I think?) earlier posts as follows:

Your claim here is very general, and I've lost what the context is, or why you are making this claim. But it needs to be more specific, I think; such things vary pretty appreciably between countries, cultures and denominations, you know.

I would hope so, considering that the historical record pretty clearly says different. No doubt someone can argue for such a position; no doubt some scholar will assert that he knows better; but I never pay much attention to religious or political claims about antiquity for which there is no ancient evidence whatever, and I doubt anyone else should either.

I think you started by claiming that the texts of the NT had been changed thousands of times? If you are withdrawing that claim, then you need to say so, and be more specific about what it IS that you are claiming here. If not, I would be most interested to see the passage in Metzger that endorses that. You claim the backing of all scholars and all the data; by all means produce some evidence for this.

What Metzger does point out is that the text suffered damage in transmission (although not faintly to the extent that you suggest). Beyond this, I think we need to be specific. Are you suggesting that no ancient text has reached us; that all of them have been changed in whatever way you describe? If not, which ones have?

For practical purposes, most texts that have survived at all have survived OK. This is because words form part of clauses, clauses part of sentences, sentences part of paragraphs, and paragraphs part of trains of thought. In Tertullian's Ad Nationes book 2, the sole manuscript witness (Codex Agobardinus = Parisinus Lat. 1622, 9th century) suffered damp, and the margins were cut off, removing chunks of the text. If you look at the Latin you will see loads of dots. But if you look at the translations, you will see no gaps, since the sense of the missing words is obvious, even in Tertullian's prose.

Manilius is one of the few that I can think of where the damage to what was originally an obscure subject in verse has rendered it less than certain what the author meant to say.

A possible background: some atheists have invented a *theological* argument, which asserts that no text which is divinely inspired is capable of being transmitted by copying without losing inspiration. Unfortunately such a claim involves a statement about the nature of God, and I never seem to have come across the divine revelation that these atheists received that backs up their claim. At all events, such a claim is otherwise untestable and therefore meaningless.

Perhaps you would offer some evidence for this claim about the consensus of scholars? I would defer to Jeffrey, who will know, but it sounds quite improbable to me. I suspect that you are repeating amateur hearsay here, you see.

Forgery, you see, involves a much larger claim about a text than pseudonymity. (The latter claim has been made in varying forms for a century, although not in such a manner as to convince cynical people like myself that it is based on anything but wishful thinking.) It involves asserting that the authorship given in the manuscript tradition and all the witnesses is false; that the text was intentionally composed by some other person under that name; and that the person doing it intended fraud.

Now that is quite a lot of claims. But I can think of few falsely attributed texts in antiquity where we would know enough about the circumstances of composition to be sure of all this; and that includes the Donation of Constantine and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, neither of which is genuine.

Well... I have found that, on subjects of political or religious controversy, Wikipedia is usually a TERRIBLE place to start, consisting of cheap hearsay as edited by whichever weenie fought longest and hardest to inject his own bias. (If you try editing some of those articles to inject data, you will quickly discover this unpleasant reality.) Indeed you get people set out specifically to "infidelize" articles on Christianity (and doubtless the reverse). Look at some of the articles on Macedonia, for another example. The valuable articles in Wikipedia are those on obscure and non-controversial subjects. Be sceptical!

But... taking a step back and looking at your post as a whole, I wonder here if you feel that I am being a little unfair? You're not making nuanced statements, but hasty one; perhaps you're asserting what you believe the nuanced statements of people whom you refer to actually amount to? You genuinely believe that the text of the NT has not reached us, for practical purposes, and you've heard quotations by people like Bart Ehrman proferred in support of this; and for most of the other statements, you feel you have similar evidence. And my comments, and those of Jeffrey, you suppose to be "disagreement by carping and nit-picking" -- at a guess.

Certainly I disagree with the points you make. I don't believe them to be based on the historical facts. But...

The difficulty is that your statements are broad-brush; and, **as stated**, are largely untrue. They have to be made more precise to be discussed. Probably you would feel that what *was* true was not really different in substance from your opinion. But we need to get to that position, not these general, and generally false, assertions.

Good luck!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

True. Although I'd say Aristotle has sadly proven something more than fleeting.

lukeprog

Where is that rule? I don't see it.

I do not want argument by assertion. I wasn't arguing for those claims made in my comment. I wasn't supporting or defending them at all. I do not even wish to defend them. I was sharing my views, not defending them.

On many occasions I defend my positions. On many occasion's I don't, because I'm not arguing. Am I supposed to defend the existence of other minds every time I reference them? Or is it okay to sometimes express my opinion without defending it? It takes a long time to defend a position with reason and argument, and we can't do that everytime we make a declarative statement. I will be happy to argue in formal debates and even in other threads, but I have no intention of taking the time to defend my tiny little post I made back there. Not here, anyway. Doing so would take weeks, just as it would take me weeks to write up a defense of the existence of other minds.

BTW, Wikipedia only allows hearsay. It allows no original research. It's a collection of what other people have thought or discovered. That's the whole point.

Of course there are problems with Wikipedia. I found one article that quoted Augustine as being hostile to as being hostile to a particular heresy, but when I looked it up the quote did not exist. It had been invented for Wikipedia, probably by an atheist. Obviously, we should be skeptical.

But the same exact problems exist with all sources. This is not a problem unique to Wikipedia.

Perhaps what you don't like about Wikipedia is its "neutral point of view," which requires it to treat all religions the same and not give special privilege to the magical claims of Christianity over the magical claims of other religions.

The reason I like Wikipedia is that its articles are edited by people of all worldviews, and the good articles have TONS of citations and provide a nice overview of the views that are out there. It's a good place to BEGIN research. Much better than:

- a book by one author, who has one particular view about the subject to defend
- most popular articles or news items, which are given without any citations or links to further research
- a printed encyclopedia, which is confined by the (a) date of printing and (b) the space on pages.

Roger, the point of my comment about preaching deceit was not argument. If you want an argument, I welcome you to debate me. But of course I know that is a big commitment and I will understand if you can't make the time.

Cheers.

The Dagda

Sadly? I'm not sure what you mean?

Jeffrey Gibson

What you want and what you do are two different things entirely. But apparently you don't see that either.

Jeffrey

lukeprog

How many times do I have to point out that my little comment back there was NOT an argument?

Jeffrey Gibson

Probably about as many times as I have to point out that I never said it was. For what I actually said, see here.

Jeffrey