Freethought & Rationalism Archive

sotto voce · 02-01-2012, 10:55 AM

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Originally Posted by Meatros

from Erhman's conclusion:

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The originals were lost, the first copies were lost, the copies of the copies were lost, and the copies of
the copies of the copies were lost. What guarantee is it that the entire tradition goes back to some kind
of original rather than to a copy? What’s the argument for that? What’s the logic behind that? Most
scholars today simply don’t see that as a tenable point of view.

Sensible guys. Scholars can do as they like, people who actually use the Bible will take no notice. So scholars follow users, not the other way round. Ehrman and friends want to change ontology, but they have not got anywhere, so far.

Perhaps the original Bible texts were totally different from those taken as standard now. But the fact is that, if they were, what we have now is so organically cohesive and self-referencing that it's a miracle of it's own. People will pay thousands of pounds/dollars/marks for top level scholarship into this relationship, and a thousand Ehrmans are not going to stop them.

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If you think God inspired the originals, why don’t you have the originals?

Why should you have the originals? We come back to this internet obsession with written lore, lore at a time when oral lore was the rule, and was much trusted. In medieval times, jongleurs and troubadours committed vast amounts to memory. A modern child cannot tell what 6 x 6 equals, without electronic assistance. But a century ago, British children could instantly calculate in shillings and pence in their heads, reel off poems, the output of coal mines, lists of monarchs, with dates, and much more. The exams. they took, British teachers could not pass, today. Not all of it useful info, but demonstration that human capacity to memorise with precision is almost boundless. Particularly when info is held to be of prime importance.

Frankly, Ehrman is either too ignorant to make useful comment, or he is disingenuous.

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And why is it that we don’t
know what the originals said in places? The differences in these manuscripts do matter. It does matter
whether the Gospel of John calls Jesus ho monogenes theos, “the Unique God.” That’s very different
from that saying Jesus is divine; if Jesus is the Unique God, well, that’s a very high statement that you
find nowhere else in the Bible.

So you discount it. The standard hermeneutic rule.

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We don’t know how often the earliest scribes changed their text. Let me bring up one datum that has not been brought up yet. The later scribes of the Middle Ages don’t disagree from one another very much because they’re trained scribes. The earliest copyists were not trained scribes.

Proof?

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The surviving early manuscripts differ a lot.

But not enough to matter. Most of the copyists' errors can be easily spotted as copyists' errors. That is how we know they were not alternative narrative, or disagreements about theology.

mrsonic · 02-01-2012, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Why should you have the originals? We come back to this internet obsession with written lore, lore at a time when oral lore was the rule, and was much trusted. In medieval times, jongleurs and troubadours committed vast amounts to memory. A modern child cannot tell what 6 x 6 equals, without electronic assistance. But a century ago, British children could instantly calculate in shillings and pence in their heads, reel off poems, the output of coal mines, lists of monarchs, with dates, and much more. The exams. they took, British teachers could not pass, today. Not all of it useful info, but demonstration that human capacity to memorise with precision is almost boundless. Particularly when info is held to be of prime importance.

have you ever read the gospels? does it look like that in mark , jesus' deciples have awesome memories?

sotto voce · 02-01-2012, 01:29 PM

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Originally Posted by mrsonic

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Why should you have the originals? We come back to this internet obsession with written lore, lore at a time when oral lore was the rule, and was much trusted. In medieval times, jongleurs and troubadours committed vast amounts to memory. A modern child cannot tell what 6 x 6 equals, without electronic assistance. But a century ago, British children could instantly calculate in shillings and pence in their heads, reel off poems, the output of coal mines, lists of monarchs, with dates, and much more. The exams. they took, British teachers could not pass, today. Not all of it useful info, but demonstration that human capacity to memorise with precision is almost boundless. Particularly when info is held to be of prime importance.

have you ever read the gospels? does it look like that in mark , jesus' deciples have awesome memories?

They certainly have memories, else they would not have been at fault for not applying them.

This does not of course, mean that people pre-Gates had infallible memories. One may be very capable of reciting a poem learned years ago at school, but quite unable to recall what one had for breakfast. No doubt Ancient Egyptians discovered this as they grew more ancient.

mrsonic · 02-01-2012, 02:21 PM

mary converses with an angel and then runs off to tell pete that someone stole jesus even though the angel told her that jesus was on his way to a location. if we were to apply a memory test on the deciples, how well will they do?

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They certainly have memories, else they would not have been at fault for not applying them.

when they did apply them they went to annoint a dead body because they thought it wasn't gong to ressurect.

James Brown · 02-02-2012, 08:23 AM

They also only remembered along the way to the tomb that there was a large heavy stone specifically put in place to discourage grave robbers. They wondered what to do about the stone, but did not appear to plan for it.

So if Jesus had not resurrected, then these women would have woken early, gathered their things, walked to the tomb, looked at the big rock, then turned around and walked home. Why, it's almost as if the author had his characters act on knowledge that only the author could have had.

la70119 · 02-03-2012, 09:22 PM

Quote:

What guarantee is it that the entire tradition goes back to some kind
of original rather than to a copy?

IMO Francesco Carotta undoubtedly asked the same question Bart Ehrman asks here and concluded that Jesus was Caesar.

make what you will of it.

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02-02-2012, 08:23 AM	#25
James Brown Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Texas, U.S. Posts: 5,844	They also only remembered along the way to the tomb that there was a large heavy stone specifically put in place to discourage grave robbers. They wondered what to do about the stone, but did not appear to plan for it. So if Jesus had not resurrected, then these women would have woken early, gathered their things, walked to the tomb, looked at the big rock, then turned around and walked home. Why, it's almost as if the author had his characters act on knowledge that only the author could have had.

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