Haran

No. I meant what I wrote and I see yet another misanthropic generalization. Combine comments like you made above with the unabashedly haughty comments on your website about your IQ of "close to 130" (that isn't the top of the scale, btw ) and one might begin to wonder whether you really listen to anyone but yourself, Vinnie...

Yeah...big dumb church-goin' Joe...

More colorful rhetoric wrapped around a strawman attempt at describing my beliefs and Christianity in general.

How do these kinds of comments serve you, Vinnie? Does it make you feel better and more ethical to condemn others and their beliefs? Somehow your comments don't strike me as much better than those of the few fundamentalists who say similar bad things about others (and get all the attention).

Perhaps. I am honest. I have known many fundamentalists and they do not resemble your strawman generalizations in the least.

If you're going to get into TC, you're going to have to be more specific. What do you mean by canonized?

If you are talking about "standardized" texts like the Byzantine, sure, the text was more "fluid" before "standardization". That's why the later text is referred to as "standardized".

If you are saying that the text was standardized before the first fragments that we have, then I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to prove that and describe in what sense and depth they were standardized.

It can be looked at like this... The ancient texts we have discovered read similarly to today's text. If the 2nd and 3rd century texts we know today were to be destroyed tomorrow, then it would be possible for textual critics of the far future to make the same claim you seem to be making about the texts of the 1st century...id est...the texts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries could have been "unacceptably" variable. Unfortunately, they would be wrong depending upon your definition of "unacceptably", of course.

The problem I see for you is that you need to show me why the 1st century texts wouldn't have been the same relatively "minor" and quite recognizable mix as the 2nd and 3rd century texts.

Have you read the ancient texts to understand what is meant by a "mixed text"? That "mix" is minor in my opinion and could probably be somewhat comparable to someone taking the KJV, NIV, NAB and mixing them all together.

Even the "major" mixes, omissions, etc., are usually mentioned in modern Bibles, so even "Joe-pew Warmer Christian" may know about them already.

To let you know, there are some scholars who hold views similar to yours (though I don't believe quite as extreme and unreasonable) such as Bart Ehrman. However, with your earlier blanket condemnation of all biblical scholars, you pretty much shot any argument you might have otherwise had...

Of course I can't, but I never said I could. The fact that I can't do so does not mean that 1st century texts were not substantially similar to the texts that we do have from the 2nd and 3rd centuries and onward.

I will not be responding on the other thread because it seems like an insincere request in which you seem to think you will be teaching me that there are no undisputable 1st century texts. I already know that, thank you.

Instead I'll let you show me why I should believe as you seem to that the texts of the 1st century were not substantially the same as the texts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries that we do have... This is the claim you are making, correct? That would be more productive and you might even teach me something. I'd really appreciate it if you would present information from scholars other than Koester, Ehrman, Metzger, Aland, Parker, Finegan, Black, Holmes, Fee, Wallace, Comfort, Greenlee, and a few others whom Yuri (most likely) and I have already read through... Thanks!

Vinnie

Thgat is all you needed to say. No need to go on and on blah blah woof woofing it.Since yo u refuse to evaluate the textual evidence of ECW's we are done here.

Later,
Vinnie

Hugo Holbling

Perhaps this thread has played itself out now but i doubt that we require further poisoning of the well here, gentlemen.

Haran

Sorry Vinnie and thanks Hugo. I felt I would try to make a point and went too far...

My request also did not sound sincere, so I'd like to state it differently.

I would like to know why others think someone should believe that the texts of the 1st century were not substantially the same as the texts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries that we know about. I will not comment further but I would like to read why this is believed by others and what the detailed evidence is for their belief. Thanks.

Steven Carr

http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/reli2.htm

Or you can look at The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by Bart Erhman or the Living Text of the Gospels by D.C.Parker

Vinnie

For the record I stated I was a militant agnostic on this issue. We don't know what most of the texts looked like. We have detected enough alterations in the extant manuscripts to be unsure that the text we have is very similar to the original given lacking attestation of each manuscript within its first hundred years or so. There may be versions of Mark, John, , Thomas, Q, John was redacted, 2 Cor is a composite texts a la the consensus today and there are plenty of obvious interpolations that could be cited. There was ample time for development and the record shows some development. We simply don't knowhow much development there was because we have no texts either way. We can only infer bits and pieces.

My position is agnosticism. To say that the third century texts do not cohere with the first century autographical texts is just as absurd as the opposite extreme which says they do. Since there is no real evidence and only presumption which is overturned by the record given Christians were not all that hesitant to alter texts early on, we should remain agnostic on the issue.

It is also my contention that if we remain agnostic on this issue the rest of NT research becomes a pile of garbage given what it is built on. And people think reconstructing Q is bad or going to far

I concede upfront that your textual knowledge is far superior to my own. I thought it would then be simple for you or all these other well read members here to shoot me down. The other thread is just collecting dust though.

Vinnie

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Haran,

Your assumption here is that there were any "[gospel] texts of the 1st century". But this is far from certain.

According to Loisy, for example, the earliest gospels may have appeared ca 100 CE.

Also, it's far from certain that we have _any_ Papyrus texts that might date from the 2nd century. OTOH there's a general agreement that we have some from the 3rd century.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Haran,

a) There is no "Alexandrian text".

This is what my article is really trying to say. It was just a Desert Mirage that a couple of 19th century British Wizards thought that they saw...

Actually, it's already becoming something of a mainstream view among textual scholars that there was no "Alexandrian text" before the 4th century... Whether or not there was such a thing in the 4th century may still be debated, though.

b) What might "the Greek classics" have to do with anything in the context of the present discussion?

Are you trying to connect "Alexandrian text" with gnosticism, by any chance, and with other such matters that the conservative KJV-only crowd wants to connect it with? Like secret devil-worship and stuff?

Quote:

You make it sound as if scholars uncovered some old papyrus manuscripts in Egypt and just decided that they must be the best because they are the oldest known. This is not the case.

But I think that this is precisely the case! It's the fallacy of age ("the oldest attested MSS must be the best MSS"), and this is what W&H really seems to be based on.

Quote:

Yuri, don't be surprised if you turn away even someone who might be sympathetic to your armchair scholarship because of these kinds of unreasonable statements. They hurt your case...

Hey, I already tried to be nice and reasonable. And I was expelled from those professional mailing lists in any case, on bogus excuses.

So why should I try to moderate my language now?

Might as well call a spade a spade.

Yours,

Yuri.