Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Richard has completely eliminated the mention of 1st century ..

"three versions".

And Richard has removed ..

"one survives to the present day".

Which had implied we had one of those "versions" today.

Good to see.
More we can go over, later.

Thanks, Richard, for correcting the errors.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Most welcome. Yes, Daniel's pamphlet is not widely circulated,
essentially you ask him to mail it to you for $5, last I checked.
It would be nice to be on the web.

This is not to say that Michael and Daniel are the only good Messianic
representations, however they come to mind and are definitely solid and
interesting and on certain issues they are the best I know. btw, their
approach to the almah question has differences. My view would be
much closer to Daniel in emphasizing the Hebrew aspects and considering
the Greek OT as irrelevant. My remembrance of his view anyway.

It is possible that Tim Hegg or John McKee or some others might have good
articles too. Risto Santala is excellent on many issues, however I do not
think he does so much on the virgin birth. Although I might check his latest
book on the Midrash of Ruth, with Risto you can often be pleasantly
surprised. (I am clumping him with the Messianics because of his strong
background in the Hebraic .. historical Judaism .. writings.)

And there are others who have good material who have a more 'Christian'
than 'Messianic' background. However in the context of the discussions
around your paper working with Brown and Gruber would be strong.

btw, there was a fascinating discussion between Michael Brown and Gerald
Sigal in Messianic Times on related issues years ago .. the right to be on
David's throne, overlaping the virgin birth discussion. My copy may be buried, may be incomplete, and is newspaper, not electronic. That too would be a nice discussion to make it to the Net.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Diogenes the Cynic

You should reread Richard's post. None of this is true.

jgibson000

FWIW, to my eyes, this not only less clear than before; it is unintelligible. And it certainly does not make the point you wish to make.

But given the meaning of "variants" in Biblical criticism and classical studies (it is a text critical term meaning attested variations of wording in a particular verse of a given book or writing), you actually are less clear than you are when you use the term "versions". Do you mean recensions?

Jeffrey Gibson

Steven Avery

Hmmm, Digogenes. Maybe you should do the rereading.

""Moreover, by the first century A.D. there were at least three variants of the Greek for many books in the Old Testament. Thus, besides even more variant manuscripts that survive to the present day, we know others existed in Matthew's time, and there were no doubt others now lost. All we know is that Matthew's..."

Any reference to "three versions" of the LXX or to one of the
three surviving today ? If so, please show me where.

Whether the new paragraph is clear and doesn't foster its own
misunderstandings is another issue. And from my perspective
whether it is worth writing about in depth is also a question.

However I am glad to see that the two straight-line mistakes
that were highlighted here were removed, and in a timely fashion.

Also Richard's perspective has been shown to not be based in
ignorance of the basic facts, so that was good to see as well.
ie. His error of "three versions" was not a dating error, but a
convoluted mechanism he had in his own mind of elevating
possibly attested variants and vague historical references
into the "three versions". Which is now defunct, so I do not
mean to belabor the issue.

Shalom,
Steven

Steven Avery

However, it is not 'wrong' in the simple factual-error sense.

A rarity.
I will compliment Jeffrey for a well-formed question.
(And step aside, at last for a few).

Shalom,
Steven

jgibson000

It isn't? Can you name the (more than) three pre 1st century CE Greek "variants/recensions/editions" of the Old Testament books that Richard has in mind?

Is it your giving me a compliment that's rare? Or is it that I "formed well" a question I posed?

Jeffrey Gibson

Steven Avery

Nope. However there was so much equivocation and unclarity in the
construct Richard set up (from variants to historical mentions to whatevers) that pulling out a definitive 'error' can wait till after I am finished nailing jelly to the tree outside in the spring.

From Richard's perspective the historical possibility of 3 Greek OT variants on some verses in the 1st century could be a sufficient-enough technical defense of what he wrote. Yes it is a bit on the absurd side, however web forums are not always a bowl of cherries.

Ahh, you noted the deliberate ambiguity and request a debifurcation.
Anyway, we know the compliment is rare, and was definitely on my mind.
(A truf, not a Reaganesque "mental finding".)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Richard Carrier

Now you can start to see why I don't waste time on the forums. I have to put up with stuff like this. If I say something one way A doesn't understand me, if I say it another way B doesn't understand me. If I try yet another wording, C will say he doesn't understand it. And so on for all eternity. Solution? Beats me.

Few people know the word "recension," and as your own link demonstrates, "recension" has several different meanings that can just as easily mislead as any other word I choose (the same goes for "edition" and we already saw what happened with "version"). The word "variant" in contrast is universally understood by ordinary English speakers to mean varying from others, different, not identical. Moreover, "variant manuscript" entails "manuscript with variants in its verses" so there could hardly be any confusion even for a cloistered professional.

Maybe you need to give up acting the pedant. You know for a fact that I am not speaking of verses, but manuscripts. The words "manuscript" and "book" are even in the sentences. Do you routinely ignore context when interpreting words in sentences? I doubt it. So it seems to me you are not being sincere when you suggest I am somehow "confusing" you into thinking I am talking about verses. Indeed, since "variant manuscripts" entails variants in the verses of those manuscripts, your claim to confusion sounds doubly insincere.

So I believe you know exactly what my sentences mean. I see little point in complaining about a sentence's intelligibility when you know perfectly well what it means and didn't need anyone to explain it to you. But, just to please even you, I will change the word to "variations" in the first sentence, adjusting accordingly, since that works well enough. But I'll keep "variant manuscripts" in the next sentence, since only a true, bona fide idiot would confuse my meaning there.

Richard Carrier

My mind kept mulling over the possibilities and I think perhaps I have a wording that will please everyone (though by adding bulk, which I am usually loathe to do if I can avoid it):

Moreover, by the first century A.D. the Septuagint had already split into several different manuscript traditions. So for many books of the Old Testament, the Greek would have read differently in many places, depending on which manuscript an author was relying on. In other words, even besides the variant manuscripts that survive to the present day, we know others existed in Matthew's time, of which we have only hints or fragments, and there were no doubt others now lost to us entirely.

Setting aside how I use this point in any argument (that's an entirely different issue), is this version of these three sentences at least sufficiently correct and "intelligible" to everyone here?