Johnny Skeptic

http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?p=209316#post209316

Jet Black

carbon dating is a lie, those scrolls are only 20 years old.


erm... I don't know where you want this to head, shouldn't it go in BC&H or something?

ets: I'm moving it there.

Johnny Skeptic

I was considering the BC&H Forum, but I chose the Evolution/Creation forum instead because of the issue of carbon dating.

tjakey

I am quite willing to accept the premise that the bible we have today is basically an accurate rendition of the original. That doesn’t make it any more true, just a faithful retelling of Bronze Age myths. The claims made by Christianity are demonstrably false; accurately copying those claims can’t change that.

Jo

Google has all the answers!

Otherwise thats some funny shit. Also it was PA dating :P

Jo

Also Christians forget that the DSS has nothing to do with them haha

Toto

Except that they haven't been carbon dated to 68 CE, and they don't exactly match the Bible of today.

Steven Carr

Hey, 1 manuscript of Isaiah is a very good match.

That's a 1 for 65 success rate (One book is not represented at all)

Which quarterback would not crow about a 1 for 65 record?

Equinox

Originally Posted by By_Faith_I_Lie (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Wow – where to start!?!

Talking to a Christian about the DSS is like talking to a Christian about biology. You first have to clear up a whole bunch of misleading or outright false propaganda that they have been fed before you can have an intelligent conversation.

First, some DSS basics. Yep, found in ’47 by accident, and yep, they are pretty good in showing accuracy in transmission of the old testament. Knowing how often copyists make errors, the DSS have fewer errors and outright changes than expected. They contain all of the books of the old testament (including those in the Catholic OT) except for Esther. However, some “books” are preserved by only a few lines, so saying that they contain all of the OT is quite inaccurate. In other words, if a book had only a few lines from it found, then the DSS is said to contain that book. This is the case with Samuel, for instance. The DSS were written at various times depending on the book, between the 3rd century BCE and when the place was destroyed by the Roman armies marching towards Jerusalem in 68 CE. You may want to read the wikipedia page for more basic information.



Second – You can bank on how this will go – it’ll be a textbook example of moving goalposts. The Christians have been fed lines that the DSS “match” the “Bible”, or that they are “virtually error free” or that “the book of Isaiah has only a few changes to 5 words”, or “scholars are amazed at how accurate the DSS are”. All of these are misleading, are sometimes just plain false, and are often mined quotes. Like any copied material, there were many errors. It is true that scholars are surprised at how accurate they are, because they contained thousands of changes instead of tens of thousands – that’s a far cry from the perfection you’ll hear about though. The books varied greatly in their quality. That’s why Christians are likely to mention Isaiah – there are quotes by scholars about it’s accuracy that they will mine and present out of context – just like they do with creationism and quotes by Gould, etc. They won’t mention more altered books like, say, Psalms, which as many changes to the content, order, and presence of the Psalms, in addition to having a half dozen Psalms that aren’t in the Bible. I have a copy of the DSS, and there are footnoted changes on nearly every page, with many pages that have between 6-10 changes. It’s true that most of these changes are trivial, such as misspellings or minor word changes, but some are much more significant – see below.


So, the way this will go – they will make a claim, you’ll show that it is wrong, and they’ll move the goalposts without admitting that they were wrong, and make a new claim. At which point you’ll show that the new goalposts/claim is also wrong, at which point the goalposts will be moved again. This cycle will continue until someone gets tired, or you end up at a completely watered-down statement.

For instance:

XT: “The DSS show that the Bible has been transmitted with virtually no error.”

You (Y): “The DSS do in fact show changes – spelling mistakes, other changes, and such occur throughout them.”

XT: “The very few changes are very minor. A DSS scholar said that Isaiah 63 had only one error in one word. Imagine, only one word changed in 2,000 years!” (note first retreat of goalposts)

Y: “Any change is a problem if you are going to assert a perfect God. Let’s look at those changes. Isaiah alone has hundreds of changes, and it’s about the best match in there. Other books have larger changes.”

XT: “Well, even with more changes, none of the changes go beyond minor spelling mistakes, and none change the meaning.” (2nd goalpost location change)

Y: “OK, let’s continue to look at some changes. The example below from 2nd Samual shows that entire lines differ, with content changes including, in that case, a new story about thousands of Jews getting their eyes gouged out. That’s not a change in meaning?”

XT: “None of the changes affect a single doctrine of Christianity.” (3rd new goalpost location)

Y: “Well, we saw from the 2nd Samuel example that there are differences in the Jewish history which is given, and there are other clear changes in meaning too. Isn’t it a doctrine that the Bible records the history of the Jews?”

XT: “That’s a minor point. I mean major, significant doctrines, not just any doctrine.” (4th new goalpost location)

Y: “You know as well as I do that doctrines are ‘interpreted’ various ways regardless of what the scripture says – that’s why we have thousands of Christianities today who use the same KJV bible. Besides, a lot do affect doctrine, unless one has decided ahead of time what they will ‘interpret’ the DSS to mean. For instance, many Christians point to Isaiah 6:3 (“Holy, holy, holy”) to show the doctrine of the trinity. The DSS has just “Holy, holy” there – so are you saying that the trinity isn’t a major doctrine?”

XT: “No matter what you say, it’s clear that the overall message of the Bible isn’t changed by the DSS.” (5th new goalpost location)

Y: “Whose ‘overall message’ do you mean, and whose bible do you mean? The DSS contains the books that the Protestants removed from the Catholic bible, as well as containing other books that the Catholics don’t have – including 1st Enoch and the Letter of Jeremy, among others. Those books all have doctrines. For instance, the books that the Protestants removed from the Catholic Bible support prayer to Saints and for the dead (that’s part of why the Protestants took them out). Those books are in the DSS. The book of Enoch has really wild stuff, like saying that there were 400 ft tall cannibals that killed people a few thousand years ago. Do Christians believe in these towering cannibals, or is that not part of the “overall message”? Plus, the DSS society seem to have rejected the book of Esther, which is part of the KJV and most of the currently used Bibles. All of these canon gyrations show that the term "the Bible" is misleading. One should use the term "the Bibles" or "the Bible my church uses", since the different Bibles have significant differences.

XT: “The DSS show that most of the text of the Bible Christians have today can be found in what Jews had more than 2,000 years ago.” (6th new goalpost location).

Y: “Well, you mean the old testament, no the whole Bible, right? There were no new testament books nor Christian works in the DSS.”

XT: “oh. Yeah.” (final watered down agreement, that there is a lot of text that’s currently in the Old Testament that can be found with few changes in the DSS.)

Y: "Cool. we agree."

Summary of Goalposts to expect:

Goalpost # Goalpost:

1. The DSS show virtually no error or no error (“they match” = no error)
2. The very few changes are very minor.
3. none of the changes go beyond minor spelling mistakes.
4. none change the meaning
5. None of the changes affect a single doctrine of Christianity.
6. I mean major, significant doctrines, not just any doctrine.
7. the overall message of the Bible isn’t changed by the DSS.
8. The DSS show that most of the text of the Bible Christians have today can be found in what Jews had more than 2,000 years ago.
9. there is a lot of text that’s currently in the Old Testament that can be found with few changes in the DSS

Third – Here are a couple letters to the editor that I was just involved with. Enjoy.

-Equinox
************************************************** **
To the Editor- pub. Aug. 10th

In his July 24th letter Mr. M- states that God’s “words as we read them were first written about 2,000 years ago and I haven't seen them change yet.”. The Bible has a long and rich history. Luckily for us, there is evidence that sheds light on this history.

The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS, written around 2,000 years ago) contain often incomplete Old Testament books. While statements about the DSS are often quote-mined by fundamentalists arguing that their chosen Bible is inerrant (because the DSS are more similar to the current Old Testament than was initially expected), the DSS confirmed that changes occurred - they contain thousands of differences. The differences are easy to see in my copy of the DSS, where there are several differences on nearly every page, such as different words (sometimes with different meanings). There are also added sections (such as 5 “new” Psalms).

The ancient manuscripts of the New Testament reveal even more changes. No two of the over 5,000 New Testament manuscripts are identical - other than the tiniest scraps, and we have no originals. These manuscripts show that changes were made over time, including additions of entire verses, stories and chapters. This is why the King James Version (KJV - which is based on a few more recent manuscripts) has changes that add up to more words than are in the books of I and II Peter combined.

It’s also clear that the list of books included in the Bible has changed over time, and still isn’t settled today. Early Christians often excluded books such as Revelation, Jude, and others, and the Protestants removed several Old Testament books. In addition, there are significant differences in meaning for the same passages in the alphabet soup of different translations you can buy today.

Even a very basic study of the history of the various Bibles shows that though much is unchanged, they have changed over time. I can list examples of the many changes mentioned above if asked - or even better - simply check it out yourself. Regardless of which (if any) Bible each of us may use, I hope we can all keep our morals consistent with the human factors that apply to all of us, regardless of religion or sexual orientation. Have a good day-

-J

***************************************
From a response, 8/22

It should be remembered that the DSS was copied sometime around the Common Era. At that time, the Old Testament had been adopted as Canon by the leaders of the Jewish faith for about 400 years. Since the Christian faith was originated by those of the Jewish faith, and the background of the new Christian faith was based on these Jewish scriptures, they would not alter or change their doctrines. Various denominations have been made to make modern translations without any bias toward any one denomination. A review of works made by numerous biblical scholars indicates the presence of wording variations which affect about 4 percent of the content of the Bible. None of the variations affect the intent or general meaning of the scriptures.
-P
******************************
My next letter
To the Editor- ran 2007.09.18

I agree that a lot of effort has been spent figuring out what ancient Biblical texts mean (Mr. -8/22 letter). By acknowledging differences between sources such as the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), the Masoretic Text, and others, he supports my point that the Bibles have changed over time. It would take a book to describe all the differences, but here is one example:

1Sam 10:27 to 11:1 in the NIV Bible:
Compare this with the same passage, 1Sam 10:27 to 11:1 in the DSS:

Lines of text aren’t the only changes. Mr. M- states that the OT canon had been adopted by around 300 BCE – but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The Catholic OT is what many 1st century CE Jews used, while the Protestant OT is what the Jews settled on by 100 or 200 CE (the Tanakh). The OT canon isn’t settled today, with some OT lists having over 50 books, compared to the 39 in the KJV. The changes are summarized at tinyurl.com/2opgpz. Different books result in different doctrines.

Mr. - also writes that “Since … the background of the new Christian faith was based on these Jewish scriptures, they would not alter or change their doctrines.” However, the Early Christians clearly did change Jewish doctrine. For example, some early Christians saw the doctrine of original sin in the Eden story, while Jews (both then & now) don’t. Similarly, Jews expect (& expected) the messiah to be a leader who is inferior to Yahweh, while many Christians claimed the messiah was himself God.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean one must ignore the historical fact that the many different Bibles slowly grew out of a long process of gradual change.

-J

xrey

From the Christian Debate Forum in the Original Post:
I love how the author flips around the burden of proof by 180 degrees!

Instead of Christians having to prove that the Bible has been consistent, now skeptics have to prove not only that it was changed, but also must determine when it was changed and by whom.

The general demeanor of the posts on that board is just sad. They less evidence they examine, the greater their assurance. For example:

[along with annoying animated emoticons.]

Is that supposed to be a parody?