Steven Avery

There are many potential "textual criticisms" or "textual analysis" if you will. And the decisions of what principles to use will themselves have a paradigmic base, such as of errancy, they are not established in a vacuum, nor are they neutral.

Erasmus, Stephanus, Bezae, Elzevier worked with a sensible set of principles, my view on that is based on all the examples I have seen of their results, compared to the evidences.

Westcott-Hort established and worked with a very different set of principles, a set of principles that they honed for the specific purpose of replacing the Traditional Text, as indicated by the antagonism Westcott (as I recall) expressed even before getting involved in the attempted replacement work.

Dr. Maurice Robinson, working with the late William Pierpont, worked with a third set of principles, some of which overlap the "scientific textual criticism" of today, and their results were very different.

The "scientific textual criticism" in vogue today, taught in most evangelical colleges, has a built-in component that will create and insist upon error, both in the "original" text , and in its modern reconstruction.

That 'textual criticism' is built on a paradigmic base of errancy, and its results will always create an errant text, due to the principles that it embraces.

(And many skeptics understandably will understandably insist that such a created text is "True", and the principles behind the concepts "Neutral", since it fits their paradigms and makes their job easy. In a sense the game is over before it has begun.)

The modern textcrit principles are flawed.
The text they create are flawed, and they are errant.

My stance is with the Inspired and Preserved Bible :-)

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Diogenes the Cynic

There are a lot of words in this post but none of them show much comprehension of Steven's point. The fidelity of manuscript copies to the original has nothing to do with whether a text is "errant." Just because a text is accurately copied does not mean the claims within the text are objectively true. An accurate copy of the Illiad is no more true than a bad copy.

With Biblical manuscripts, you're conflating two different areas of study. Textual criticism is concerned only with establishing what the Bible definitively SAYS by seeking to figure out which manuscripts are most likely to be the most accurate copies of the autograph. Whether any of those mauscripts make historically accurate claims is the province of historical criticism.

There are few Biblical manuscripts which have much more than a passing acquaintance with genuine history, certainly the Gospels are almost total fiction, so all Biblical manuscripts are "errant" in the sense that none of them are factually accurate records of history, but some of them are more accurate renderings of the originals than others and the Textus Receptus is not the best records.

Would you care to explain what you mean when you say that a Bible is "inspired" and how do you know?

andrewcriddle

The point is that most of the above Fathers wrote commentaries or series of sermons going through John chapter by chapter (strictly section by section our chapters weren't invented then). This makes their silence on the Pericope particularly significant.

The TF is not a good parallel.
Actually this may be right.

After 500-600 CE scripture commentary becomes increasingly a matter of selecting and maybe paraphrasing 'good bits' from earlier writers. If there was no earlier material to use it is quite likely that commentators would be reluctant to compose brand new stuff.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Avery

Actually, I understand Steven's point of view quite well, thank you, as it is quite common, both in "Christian" and skeptic circles.

I have yet to see anybody on this thread understand what I shared,
so I will simply repeat the basics here.
================================================== =====

Modern "SCIENTIFIC TEXTUAL CRITICISM" will ALWAYS create a text with errors, even if the original Bible is Perfect, without errors. The reason can be seen in an examination of its principles and methodology.

================================================== ======
TEXTCRIT PRINCIPLES (1-2-3-4) & MODERN EVANGELICAL PRINCIPLES (4-5)
================================================== =======

1) Harder reading- more likely to the original, "smoothed" by later scribes
2) Harder reading is to be preferred
3) This is true whether or not the harder reading is error
historical, grammatical, geographical, numerical , doctrinal, logical,
harmony, Tanach/NT prophetic, etc.
4) Textcrit science recovers, close as possible, the original autographs.
5) Inerrancy exists only in the "original autographs"

These "textual criticism" theories MUST give you an errant text.
Ergo.. they are flawed.

They a priori and ipso facto presume that a perfect text is impossible.

==================================================

That discussion would be only a diversion from this thread and an unnecssary complication. Suffice it to say that with Inspiration and Preservation you are allowing for a perfect Bible, something that "modern textual criticism" a priori says is impossible, by its choice of rusty tools, as in the principles above.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Steven Avery

Surely not Origen. And at the time of the other two, we have a dozen or two early church writers who DID reference the Pericope, so they can't be probative either. I would be interested in a list and dates, or at least some examples, of actual verse by verse homiles before A.D. 400 or up to 450 or up to 500 that omit the Pericope. Allow me to guess that the before A.D. 400 list is going to be very short.

Good point. Hill may get a reprieve on that one.

Similarly in Rabbinics from 600 to 1000 today looks like no man's land, beyond Saadia Goan and some Karaite.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Yuri Kuchinsky

Steven Carr:
But the 'early' Christian period goes as late as Augustine. So it obviously belongs to the early Christian period.

That's right, freigeister!

Except that we have no manuscript fragments that are as early as Papias...

THE RYLANDS PAPYRUS FRAUD
www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/rylands.htm

Best,

Yuri.

freigeister

I was just trying to be generous to all the conservatives around here

Seekeraftertruth

Praxeus.... You said, "Surely not Origen. And at the time of the other two, we have a dozen or two early church writers who DID reference the Pericope, so they can't be probative either. I would be interested in a list and dates, or at least some examples, of actual verse by verse homiles before A.D. 400 or up to 450 or up to 500 that omit the Pericope. Allow me to guess that the before A.D. 400 list is going to be very short."

The earliest that I know of is St. John Chrysostom, who was born in 347 AD, and this doesn't get you much past the AD 400 line, either. (May not even get you past 400 AD at all, as he didn't enter the monastery until 386, and who knows when he actually wrote the homilies. He died in 407 AD.) But at any rate, this is the earliest set of validated [verified writing] homilies that I know of.
http://biblestudy.churches.net/CCEL/...113/PART01.HTM
http://www.chrysostom.org/life.html

As for the Pericope, you might also want to check out the following link....gives the manuscript sources. http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-John-PA.pdf

Vorkosigan

It's indicative, Andrew.

That's fascinating. I can't comprehend a mind like that. Although you have to admit, it does seem odd that nobody ever asked why the Greek fathers did not comment on the pericope adultera.

Vorkosigan

Seekeraftertruth

Might want to take a look at this:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/adult.html