spamandham

I don't see why it would be relevant even if true. If we had the originals, we could all go home. But we don't. We don't even have fragments of the originals as far as we know. We have no knowledge whatsoever as to what was contained in the originals.

All we have are a few fragments of unknown fidelity from the mid second century, a few references to texts of unknown fidelity in other writings of the 2nd century, and extant texts which start rolling in around the beginning of the 3rd century. We also have mountains of speculation, of course.

Roger Pearse

This is surely hair-splitting, tho; the answer is 'yes', for all practical purposes, it's fine. Indeed the same is true of most texts. An example of a badly preserved set of texts would be Tertullian's, but his voice comes right on through anyway, loud, clear, -- and not very welcome to the most establishment kind of clergyman!

People get confused because text critics are interested in minor stuff like whether a text contains 'ac' or 'et' at a given point, as that will indicate the flow of copies. But since both mean 'and' to us, it's rarely important.

Think of it as the difference between looking through a piece of glass and looking at it for wrinkles.

(NB: these comments are not specific to biblical texts, and apply equally to *all* literary texts from antiquity).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

The same applies to every other ancient literary text, except more so. I presume, then, that you reject all of those as well? No copies of the classics for you, then -- after all, they're not reliable. Back to the middle ages, and don't forget that you don't know Latin either -- Donatus can't be reliable, after all, for just the same reason.

Atheism does not necessarily involve obscurantism, as A.E.Housman could have told you.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Chris Weimer

"For all practical purposes", I suppose most is fine. I've looked less into the construction of the Pauline epistles as I have the gospels, so I don't think I'm qualified one way or another.

One great example, though, that I've studied thoroughly is Catullus. There are two surviving traditions of Catullus, one 12th century of only one poem, the other a lost 14th century text of his corpus. There are several places where a textual criticism plays a significant part in understanding that specific line, but overall we understand Catullus just fine. In fact, you could do so without any other literature. The added bonus is that through reason, the same historical identification used in other literary texts, scholars have generally come to conclude that the Lesbia in Catullus is actually Clodia.

The same obscurantists tactics can be tried against this theory - we don't have the originals, so maybe he makes the nature of Lesbia more clear, we don't have any explicit references (although there is one clear to me, the association of lesbius as pulcher) to Lesbia = Clodia, Catullus' poems to men, and so on and so forth. These tactics, very similar in nature to the ones used against an historical Jesus, are generally worthless in scholarship. To be consistent, though, if one would grant that Jesus is a myth, the same would apply for many hundreds of "historical" characters. Lesbia would no longer be Clodia, but some imaginary woman of Catullus' imagination. The sparrow never really existed. Half of Caesar is pure propoganda (I doubt he even really conquered most of Gaul). The Punic Wars were fabricated by Caesar. Caesar was fabricated by the Julio-Claudians. The Julio-Claudians were actually "god men"...etc ad infinitum. It's garbage.

jakejonesiv

The proposal that we have something close to the "original autographs" in the extant texts is wishful thinking. The Apostle allegedly wrote his epistles in the middle of the first century, and there are no extant texts for a minimum of 150 years. At this point someone usually observes that such a gap is not unusual in ancient texts. This is true, but in the case of the NT texts, this was the time of intense doctrinal disputes that were reflected into the formation process. And, contrary to most ancient texts, we have a record of the process, told from one side, in the writings of the church fathers of the 2c. and early 3c.

The observation that, unless we accept the NT Texts "as is", we must throw out all ancient texts, and give up on history, is without merit. In some cases (certainly no one on IIDB) this is an apologetic slight of hand to prop up the doctrine of the authority of the Bible. If we had the same sort of running commentary on the textual disputes during the critical time period of these other ancient texts, we could do better history on them also.

We don't have the original version of any New Testament text. What we have is the catholicized version of texts that went through numerous redactions. The very reason we have synoptic gospels is lack of fidelity to previous texts.

So if Matthew is the result of redacting and combining previous works, why not Romans? Why not Gal.?

The fact that Marcion had an alternate version of the Apostle and the Gospel proves that the text was not fixed in the second century. Quite the contrary, the Marionites and the proto-orthodox accused each other of corrupting the scriptures for dogmatic reasons. The New Testament text as we have it today is the end result of a long process.

Jake Jones IV

Roger Pearse

You're quite right Chris. The same tactics could be used to rubbish *anything*. Caesar's commentaries are a good example, I agree; think of the number of people in antiquity eager to make things up. We even know that Augustus censored Caesar's works! (actually just destroyed his juvenalia)...

I wasn't aware of the text tradition of Catullus, but it sounds like a normal one for a classical text to me. Evidently he wasn't that popular in the middle ages (and so a look at Texts and transmissions tells me).

Incidentally am I alone in wondering why details of the textual transmissions of ancient texts are so thin on the ground? I have a few here.

I've got a bunch of Loeb's here, just to look at this issue and upload a few more notes. Theophrastus (plants and stuff) is based on one 12th century manuscript.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Spanky

You are sooooo convincing Chris. I think I will put Toto on my ignore list and listen to your mighty, endless, boundless knowledge of 99 percentiles. Thank you for making me to realize that Toto is "not to be trusted with what he says." He is obviously ignorant of the facts. The facts that New Testament/Biblical study is only 1% fundamentalistic (cool, a new word:notworthy: ) is a gimme.
Thank you also for helping me to realize why we do not use the subjunctive verb tense in English too much. It is better to stick to the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Weimer notion of things: that everything is 99%, without exception, and without room for doubt. My way or the highway. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Chris Weimer

Hey! You can build strawmen! And you can knock em down! WOW!

Roger Pearse

And Frontinus, De aquis, on a single medieval manuscript preserved at Monte Cassino.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spamandham

If by 'reject', you simply mean 'do not blindly accept at face value', then yes. If you mean instead 'valueless', then no.

Reliable in what sense?

True, but faith does necessarily involve credulity.