Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 08-26-2009, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

hoping for a cupey doll from his father ... seems to think that the earliest manuscripts must be only two.... the fog in Steven Avery's head. Steven Avery's logic is as usual non-existent.

Oops. spin forgot to relate to the fact that his claim about the early manuscripts (even as few as one or two) being more important than 1000 others on the verse being discussed contradicted his lauding of the supposed eclectic manuscripts view of Hort.

John 14:28 (KJB)
Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you.
If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father:
for my Father is greater than I.

As pointed out, this is because spin does not seem to have looked at any textual theory at all in a decade or more, and is stuck in a timewarp of his loose and defective memories of Hort.

As for the early manuscripts being two in the mind of Hort, since spin has defacto acknowledged that W-H will take ANY reading agreed upon by Aleph and B, then any other early manuscript (eg. Alexandrinus, Bezae) are only of very limited use - when Vaticanus and Sinaiticus split, or if one of them is missing a verse. Two early manuscripts have absolutely primacy in the W-H text, a point that has been made crystal clear in the thread.

So far we have a couple of different positions from spin.

No support was given to this, and then spin took the opposite view.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

it doesn't matter how many thousand manuscripts attest to a wording when the earliest manuscripts don't.

spin has to attack me, as above, as the alternative to trying to come to grips with this documented double-confusion. Such attacks might play to some of his audience, but they do not make him look very sharp when his own quotes and MEMORIES are right here to see.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Still nothing scholarly at all to say why you prefer apparently a priori late manuscripts to early ones (and try to foist them onto how the vast majority of text scholars translate the bible).

spin

Steven Avery · 08-26-2009, 07:39 AM

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

late manuscripts to early ones (and try to foist them onto how the vast majority of text scholars translate the bible).

A little Bible text history for spin .. the text scholars working with the Critical Text are translating from a scholarly text that has no earlier example than the W-H text of around 1880, when it was revealed to the public. (It existed for about a decade before that in secret.) Today's Critical Text came out many decades later, but as an updating of that 1880 text it is reasonable to say that 1880 is the manuscript origin.

There is not a single earlier manuscript anywhere in the world that is remotely close to that 1880 text.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Roger Pearse · 08-26-2009, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

My understanding (and I'm not an academic) is that the variant Greek mss usually agree on basic points of Christian doctrine. I don't care much about verses being re-arranged or dropped or added if they only affect minor details.

This is my understanding too, again as an interested amateur.

In all manuscripts, the majority of errors are typos. In Greek mss another source of minor errors is the fact that the Greek language did not remain static, on its journey from Pericles to Papadopoulos. Consequently errors can be introduced because the scribe reads an obsolete word and unthinkingly puts down the current version. Another problem is that the NT was not written in Attic Greek, but in Koine; yet from the 2nd century to the 15th, Attic made a resurgence as a literary language. None of these things concern the meaning of the text. Since we are fairly sure that Jesus did not speak Greek most of the time, yet the texts are in Greek, and we have no record that this bothered the apostles or anyone afterwards, we can be fairly sure that this level of variation has no significance in doctrine.

Quote:

Second, the average English speaker today cannot understand the KJV well enough to really grasp what the translators intended. This is a disservice to king James' team, and defeats the whole point of having a vernacular translation.

This is correct. Jacobean English no longer conveys to the ordinary reader what it once did.

That said, the hideous episode of the TNIV, a translation revised to conform to one set of contemporary political mores, indicates that those who are reluctant to abandon the KJV are not wrong in fearing that there are people out there intent on introducing errors via "translation".

All the best,

Roger Pearse

sugarhitman · 08-26-2009, 08:25 AM

"spin has to attack me, as above, as the alternative to trying to come to grips with this documented double-confusion. Such attacks might play to some of his audience, but they do not make him look very sharp when his own quotes and memories are right here to see."

I do believe that tactic is written in spin's "How to debate Christians" e-book.

bacht · 08-26-2009, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Another problem is that the NT was not written in Attic Greek, but in Koine; yet from the 2nd century to the 15th, Attic made a resurgence as a literary language. None of these things concern the meaning of the text. Since we are fairly sure that Jesus did not speak Greek most of the time, yet the texts are in Greek, and we have no record that this bothered the apostles or anyone afterwards, we can be fairly sure that this level of variation has no significance in doctrine.

Good point. Aramaic would've been the first language for most of the gospel cast (and Josephus)

Interesting about Koine, I didn't know it fell out of use at this time.

spin · 08-26-2009, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

late manuscripts to early ones (and try to foist them onto how the vast majority of text scholars translate the bible).

A little Bible text history for spin .. the text scholars working with the Critical Text are translating from a scholarly text that has no earlier example than the W-H text of around 1880, when it was revealed to the public. (It existed for about a decade before that in secret.) Today's Critical Text came out many decades later, but as an updating of that 1880 text it is reasonable to say that 1880 is the manuscript origin.

There is not a single earlier manuscript anywhere in the world that is remotely close to that 1880 text.

Nice tangent, Steven Avery. My comment was a general one. It was not specifically aimed at the Hort text, but at your desire to impose your KJV apologetic on scholars who know better than you.

spin

Steven Avery · 08-26-2009, 09:29 AM

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

late manuscripts to early ones (and try to foist them onto how the vast majority of text scholars translate the bible).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

There is not a single earlier manuscript anywhere in the world that is remotely close to that 1880 text.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Nice tangent, Steven Avery. My comment was a general one. It was not specifically aimed at the Hort text, but at your desire to impose your KJV apologetic on scholars who know better than you.

This discussion has barely touched on the King James Bible, which really is a minor issue in the context of the discussion of the Westcott-Hort conceptual disasters, and the fact of their text being focused on two corrupt alexandrian manuscripts. The desire of Hort to replace the "vile Textus Receptus" would probably have been just about the same even if the TR Bible in use was the Geneva Bible. Dean John Burgon, who demolished Hort nonsense with very powerful logic and argumentation, was not at all defending the King James Bible.

As for the "scholars who know better than me" .. they are welcome to join in the discussion. Surely they can offer more than you have spin.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

spin · 08-26-2009, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

hoping for a cupey doll from his father ... seems to think that the earliest manuscripts must be only two.... the fog in Steven Avery's head. Steven Avery's logic is as usual non-existent.

Oops. spin forgot to relate to the fact that his claim about the early manuscripts (even as few as one or two) being more important than 1000 others on the verse being discussed contradicted his lauding of the supposed eclectic manuscripts view of Hort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

John 14:28 (KJB)
Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you.
If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father:
for my Father is greater than I.

As pointed out, this is because spin does not seem to have looked at any textual theory at all in a decade or more, and is stuck in a timewarp of his loose and defective memories of Hort.

Contentless rhetoric.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

As for the early manuscripts being two in the mind of Hort, since spin has defacto acknowledged that W-H will take ANY reading agreed upon by Aleph and B, then any other early manuscript (eg. Alexandrinus, Bezae) are only of very limited use - when Vaticanus and Sinaiticus split, or if one of them is missing a verse. Two early manuscripts have absolutely primacy in the W-H text, a point that has been made crystal clear in the thread.

Thank you for acknowledging that your absurd claim regarding two manuscripts was simply wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

So far we have a couple of different positions from spin.

Creative misrepresentation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

No support was given to this, and then spin took the opposite view.

spin has to attack me, as above, as the alternative to trying to come to grips with this documented double-confusion. Such attacks might play to some of his audience, but they do not make him look very sharp when his own quotes and memories are right here to see.

More empty rhetoric from the person who doesn't seem to defend any of his assertions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

The textual analysis world according to spin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

"spin has zero. .... I'm not going to renounce a position based on memory"
"spin isn't going... get a copy of the full Hort that he hasn't seen for a decade."
"why should I retract a memory? That's just the way it is. It may be wrong."
"This is obviously one of those things that you've done your prep work on and I have never looked at before in this light."
"I haven't looked at Hort's actually work in over a decade.... "
"Hort's "neutral" text was a relative term."
"You are confusing the acceptance of Hort's preferences with Hort's whole system."
"Demonstrate your claim about Hort's text and you then could make me see that the memory is wrong.".

Nice hotchpotch of material taken out of context. Stop wasting time. I said earlier "[you] will never put forward a meaningful case why one should generally favor a bunch of late texts over early ones. Just look back and see [your] attempts to do so. That's right, nothing. [You] simply haven't done it." Prove me wrong.

spin

spin · 08-26-2009, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

late manuscripts to early ones (and try to foist them onto how the vast majority of text scholars translate the bible).

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Nice tangent, Steven Avery. My comment was a general one. It was not specifically aimed at the Hort text, but at your desire to impose your KJV apologetic on scholars who know better than you.

This discussion has barely touched on the King James Bible, which really is a minor issue in the context of the discussion of the Westcott-Hort conceptual disasters, and the fact of their text being focused on two corrupt alexandrian manuscripts.

Oooh, golly, more Steven Avery corruption conjecture. No content, just conjecture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

The desire of Hort to replace the "vile Textus Receptus" would probably have been just about the same even if the TR Bible in use was the Geneva Bible. Dean John Burgon, who demolished Hort nonsense with very powerful logic and argumentation, was not at all defending the King James Bible.

He may have done so, but you haven't and cannot, given your track record.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

As for the "scholars who know better than me" .. they are welcome to join in the discussion. Surely they can offer more than you have spin.

No-one needs to offer anything until you get past empty rhetoric and burden shifting. "[you] will never put forward a meaningful case why one should generally favor a bunch of late texts over early ones. Just look back and see [your] attempts to do so. That's right, nothing. [You] simply haven't done it."

When you support your conjectures with more than contentless prose, there can be some discussion.

spin

Toto · 08-26-2009, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Another problem is that the NT was not written in Attic Greek, but in Koine; yet from the 2nd century to the 15th, Attic made a resurgence as a literary language. None of these things concern the meaning of the text. Since we are fairly sure that Jesus did not speak Greek most of the time, yet the texts are in Greek, and we have no record that this bothered the apostles or anyone afterwards, we can be fairly sure that this level of variation has no significance in doctrine.

Good point. Aramaic would've been the first language for most of the gospel cast (and Josephus)

Interesting about Koine, I didn't know it fell out of use at this time.

I don't think that Koine Greek fell out of use at this time. I think that Roger meant that Attic Greek was revived as a literary language in the 2nd century. Koine continued to be used as a common language.

Koine Greek evolved into Byzantine Greek and eventually modern Greek, but it was replaced by Latin in the Roman Empire as a common language. Koine was something of a lost language for a while. Early text critics in the modern era learned Attic Greek and thought that the gospels were written in bad Greek or "holy ghost" Greek, until the discovery in Egypt of "non literary papyri" allowed a reconstruction of Koine.

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08-26-2009, 08:25 AM	#64
sugarhitman Banned Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: georgia Posts: 2,726	"spin has to attack me, as above, as the alternative to trying to come to grips with this documented double-confusion. Such attacks might play to some of his audience, but they do not make him look very sharp when his own quotes and memories are right here to see." I do believe that tactic is written in spin's "How to debate Christians" e-book.

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