Johnny Skeptic

I would like to know why anyone should conclude that the copies we have of New Testament manuscripts accurately represent the originals.

andrewcriddle

For most of the New Testament we have various types of multiple attestation of the text, (Greek manuscripts, early versions, quotations), dating within a few centuries of its composition.

When all the early evidence for the text of a verse agrees, it would seem reasonable to presume this to be the original in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

Johnny Skeptic wrote: I would like to know why anyone should conclude that the copies we have of New Testament manuscripts accurately represent the originals.

Andrew Criddle replied: For most of the New Testament we have various types of multiple attestation of the text, (Greek manuscripts, early versions, quotations), dating within a few centuries of its composition.

When all the early evidence for the text of a verse agrees, it would seem reasonable to presume this to be the original in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.

Johnny: Thank you for your comments, Andrew. The copies that survived were the copies that the Church wanted to survive. Award winning author and college professor Elaine Pagels says "For nearly 2,000 years, Christian tradition has preserved and revered orthodox writings that denounce the Gnostics, while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves. Now, for the first time, certain texts discovered at Nag Hammadi reveal the other side of the coin: how Gnostics denounced the orthodox. The 'Second Treatise of the Great Seth' polemicizes against orthodox Christianity, contrasting it with the 'true church' of the Gnostics. Speaking for those he calls the sons of light, the author says: '...we were hated and persecuted, not only by those who are ignorant (pagans), but also by those think they are advancing the name of Christ, since they were unknowingly empty, not knowing who they are, like dumb animals.'" Pagels has also said "The victors rewrite history, their way."

Larry Taylor says "How does this apply to the story of Jesus? Simply that all of the early critics are dead. Skeptical opinions were banned. Christian opinions, other than those of the establishment, were banned. Books were destroyed, and later, heretics were burned."

The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2002 says "By the 3rd century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution. Partly in reaction to the Gnostic heresy, the church strengthened its organization by centralizing authority in the office of bishop, which made its effort to suppress the poorly organized Gnostics more effective."

It is important to note that we don't know when copying first became widespread within +/- ten years. It is entirely possible that by the time copying became widespread the originals had already become corrupted. If that's what happened, then that would account for a good deal of agreement in the copies.

Regarding your mention of multiple attestation, the Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition says that 90% of Matthew and 50% of Mark are taken from Mark. None of the anonymous Gospel writers ever claimed to have seen the risen Jesus, and none of them ever revealed any of their sources. Their sources were second hand at best, and the possbility that their sources were third hand or fourth hand cannot logically be ruled out. It is not even known when stories about the Resurrection first began to circulate. Do you have any external historical evidence regarding this issue?

Richard Carrier says "“Craig argues that the Markan empty tomb story predates Mark based on incredibly specious reasoning not accepted by objective experts in the field. His argument is entirely rooted in the presumption that the story is not theologically adorned and that it contains semitisms (i.e. Greek phrases that indicate an underlying Hebrew text or speaker). But the latter evidence is useless, because such semitisms are used even by Luke and others, and so do not indicate date--semitic speakers of Greek were still around and still members of Christian communities for hundreds of years, and so the fact that Mark was writing like a Hebrew tells us nothing about when he wrote. Also, the key Hebraicism that Craig claims to find comes verbatim from the Septuagint, and therefore is not from any pre-Markan empty tomb "source.� In short, Craig's argument that the empty tomb story predates 37 AD is absurd.�

Steven Carr

None of the copies of the NT manuscripts accurately represent the originals.

No Christian takes Sinaiticus as his New Testament, and attempts by publishers to see Sinaiticus (or Vaticanus or Alexandrinus) as accurate copies would not sell.

Christians work with man-made composites. DC Parker in 'The Living Text of the Gospels' records his concern (not a great concern, but still a concern) that he was reading a verse that had no representation in *any* early manuscript.

It was a bit like one of those composite resolutions at Labour Party conferences - a bit from this, a bit from that, a bit from over here, and the result was deemed to be 'authentic' when it was a text that nobody had proposed.

Steven Carr

Carrier does not say which Hebraicism Craig is using. Is it 'te mia ton sabbaton'?

andrewcriddle

Hi Johnny Skeptic

I think there are several issues involved here.

a/ your original question was about how far the copies of the NT books represent accurately the original. However, part of your reply is about how far the originals are historically accurate, which is another issue.

b/ Our archtypes for the NT books presumably go back to an early 'published' version which may have differed slightly from the original. Eg the manuscripts of Paul's authentic letters probably go back to a collection published by his disciples around 15 years after his death. How far this edition was modified for publication is very difficult to say. However, in any particular case, it is going to be very hard to argue convincingly that a reading present in the archtype is probably not original.

c/ Given the presence of manuscripts from before 300 CE, versions originally made before 300 CE and quotations made before 300 CE, plus later non-standard texts like Codex Bezae, it is highly unlikely that modifications to the text first made after 300 CE are now found in all surviving texts.

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

"Slightly", Andrew?

How about "a lot"?

Or maybe 50 years after his death?

No, I'm afraid it's the other way around... In fact, it's the one who wants to appeal to Pauline material who needs to show that Paul really wrote this.

Remember, in a court of law, it's the one who presents any document for consideration also bears the burden of authenticating this document.

Well, it's rather unlikely that there were all that many modifications after 300 CE. It's the time before 300 CE, and especially before 200 CE that we need to worry about.

Yours,

Yuri.

Johnny Skeptic

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Also, the key Hebraicism that Craig claims to find comes verbatim from the Septuagint, and therefore is not from any pre-Markan empty tomb "source.� In short, Craig's argument that the empty tomb story predates 37 AD is absurd.�

Steven Carr replied: Carrier does not say which Hebraicism Craig is using. Is it 'te mia ton sabbaton'?

Johnny: I don't know. I suggest that you send him an e-mail and ask him. If you don't have his e-mail address I can give it to you.

Johnny Skeptic

Skeptics, I would like your input regarding the following arguments from a Christian that I am having difficulty dealing with:

If you're talking about the gospels, Johnny Skeptic, you're dead in the water. For those of us who accept Higher Criticism, it is evident that at least the Synoptic Gospels borrow from one another. Where three gospels cover the same verse, even miscopying after the originals from two of them would still leave us with a shared core where all three agree. Many of us don't like to see this reductionist approach applied to Scripture, but it at least gives us assurance that whatever is common in the Markan tradition and in Q must come from the original manuscripts in the First Century. Back in the early '60's that was *all* I believed, and I can assure you that this core is ]not different in nature from the less attested material found only in Matthew and Luke, except that the exclusively Matthean is more "churchy" and the exclusively Lucan is more universalist (gentile-friendly).

The Gospel of John is a different problem, of course. Only a small portion is the same material as the Synoptics. The rest is largely different in nature than the other three gospels. However, *John* has been extensively studied. In addition to the well-known Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, papyri from the Second Century have been discovered that cover most of the Fourth Gospel (P66 and P75). They were published in 1966, and careful study of them (in conjunction with the other two "Neutral" texts mentioned) by Howard Teeple enabled him to see the traces in them of the original writers of this Gospel. While there is plenty of room to disagree with his conclusion (as I do myself), it is still clear to one who admits Source Criticism that various parts reveal distinct styles. To a skeptic like Teeple the authors remained unknown, but cross-reference with the Muratorian Canon (about 170 A. D.) identifies two of them as the apostles Andrew and John. For Higher Critics, the document called the Signs Gospel would be what I would attribute to Andrew, the Last Supper and various Resurrection appearances to John, and I have derived Nicodemus as the one who wrote down Jesus's sermons, speeches, and the Great Discourse.

The point, Johnny Skeptic, is that a hyper-critic like Teeple could not find such distinct word-uses in John if copyists had blurred all traces with their bad copying. Nor can you argue that different copyists marred different parts, because the styles correlate to distinct matter (discourses everywhere show the same style and textual difficulties, the parts paralleling the Synoptics have their distinctives, and the Signs Gospel is particularly pure in style) and to presumable authors (Andrew, John, Nicodemus, and John Mark).

Thus for the gospels, at least, bad copying cannot undermine our certainty that they testify to the original manuscripts quite closely. John A. T. Robinson's Redating the New Testament (1975) puts it all to have been completed within forty years of Jesus's crucifixion.

Amaleq13

John Meier in A Marginal Jew, Vol 1 on Robinson's efforts to redate the Gospels:

"The result is a dazzling tour de force that fails to convince. The thesis has been largely rejected by NT scholars; for a telling review, see Robert M. Grant in JBL 97 (1978) 294-96."

If your opponent is not persuaded by the opinion of a Catholic scholar who clearly desires to maintain as much tradition as he considers reasonably possible, perhaps you might find what you are looking for by following Meier's reference.