Originally Posted by Overkill

No, but then again these books don't proclaim that they are the flawless teachings of an omnimax God.
And here is a place where the Bible says it is neither to be edited or added to, that it is the word of God, and that every word is useful.
Revelation 22:18-19, NIV
"18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."

Originally Posted by Iacchus

Oh baloney! Does that mean that 99 percent of the books we find in today's classrooms are unfit for teaching as well? I have heard (in some other forum) that these books are chock full of errors.

Originally Posted by Riverwind

the potential flaws in the "art" of textual criticism as it has been practiced over the past couple of hundred years or so.... For instance, if the "thou shalt commit adultery" *slip* had been in an early manuscript, some textual critics would be prone toward saying that it was the "difficult reading". Of course, contextually, most people would understand that that society and their God would not have condoned did not condone adultery. However, not seeing any good reason for the "not" to drop out, they would declare that it would be much more reasonable for this reading to be "smoothed out" and changed because it was "embarrassing".

Originally Posted by Overkill

...1 percent error is 1 percent too much error. If someone offered you a slice of pie that had a couple bits of horseshit in it would you eat it? Come on, don't be such a baby, its almost 99 percent pie!:Cheeky:

Originally Posted by Riverwind

Ah...the "Adultery Bible", as it is affectionately known...I actually saw one in a travelling exhibit once. Funny, that.

You know... I was thinking about this point, and I think that it shows the potential flaws in the "art" of textual criticism as it has been practiced over the past couple of hundred years or so.

For instance, if the "thou shalt commit adultery" *slip* had been in an early manuscript, some textual critics would be prone toward saying that it was the "difficult reading". Of course, contextually, most people would understand that that society and their God would not have condoned did not condone adultery. However, not seeing any good reason for the "not" to drop out, they would declare that it would be much more reasonable for this reading to be "smoothed out" and changed because it was "embarrassing".

Since we have so many manuscripts, we can at least isolate where that 1% textual inaccuracy is. I think this is what allows many conservative scholars to say that there is no variant that significantly affects Christian doctrine, and even where it does affect doctrinal issues, there is usually another textt that can be referred to for the same doctrine.

Ugh...sorry if this post is horribly worded. It's getting late, and I'm very tired...not the best combination for making sense.

Originally Posted by praxeus

Hi Riverwind,

Exactly. You have pinpointed one of the major problems in current textual criticism, the horrid abuse of lectio difficilior. And often it is easy to find the 1% manuscripts with the absurd readings (a good start is to check under names like Aleph and B) and only a backwards 'science' with paradigms inimical to those of both real evangelicalism and common sense would make the type of arguments that your are referencing. That a dumb, minority, contradictory, absurd reading is true and original precisely because it is dumb, minority, contradictory, absurd. (In some cases with Aleph and B the degree of absurdity is so great that the readings get rejected anyway but that is a very high bar of absurdity and corruption.)

Yet that is the textual 'art' today.

Originally Posted by hatsoff

A lot of people have objections to textual criticism, but most of it derives from a lack of understanding. Your treatment of this example is quite unnatural.

Originally Posted by hatsoff

Hardly. I'm curious to hear an alleged abuse of the difficult reading rule. If you can really find one.

Originally Posted by praxeus

[COLOR="Navy"]Sure, dozens are available. Usually they go hand and hand with the lifting up of corrupt Aleph and B as supposedly early and reliable in their harder reading corruptions. So you can end up playing a musical chairs circular shell game.

The attempt by Bart Ehrman to argue for Mark 1:41 having Jesus being "angry" is one that does not have Aleph/B support. The major thrust of the argument is the insipid [??] usage of lectio difficilior [empasis mine] rather than substantive textual evidence (even from the modern textcrit view).

Originally Posted by jgibson000

But this isn't "the Bible" saying anything, let alone "the Bible" saying anything about the entierity of "the Bible". This is the author of Revelation speaking about his book and his book alone.

JG

Originally Posted by praxeus