J-D

No, I knew what I was talking about. I just didn't know what you were talking about, because for some reason you couldn't just come out and say it. But you've blathered on so much now that I have finally figured out what you're saying ...... you're saying that where copying errors have been made they must have been made by people who weren't scribes.

But, as I already said in a response to one of your challenges, a response which you disregarded, that's not what it says here:

Richard Dawkins, 'The Gibbon's Tale', in The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage To The Dawn of Evolution, pages 127 to 133. You can read that bit at Google Books.

or here:
http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/ho...manuscript.htm

or here:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/ms-c...e/scbl-err.htm

Apparently people who study the subject don't agree with you about the superhuman infallibility of scribes.

aa5874

I did not say such a thing. You don't know what you are talking about.

I asked you to identify mistakes made by scribes.

You have NOT identified any mistakes by scribes.

I asked you about the condition or versions of manuscripts before they were copied.

You do NOT know the condition or versions of manuscripts before they were copied.

I asked you to show that a scribe altered, added, removed or interpolated any writing without the express permission of the owner or author of the material to be copied.

You have not.

Yet you are of the view that scribes somehow are responible for mistakes or differences in material that were copied. But you really don't know what you are talking about unless you know what was actually copied or given to be copied.

J-D

So you think the scholars of the subject whom I've just cited don't know what they're talking about either?

J-D

On these three pages

http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/tools/errors.htm

you can see reproduced images of pages from scribal manuscripts with copying errors: some detected and corrected by the scribe, some not detected by the original scribe but corrected later by somebody else, and some not corrected at all.

aa5874

I was very specific. I wrote that "YOU don't know what YOU are talking about."

You seem to think scribes were responsible for errors yet cannot show what the manuscript contained before it was copied or that any changes were not authorised by the owner or author of the manuscript.

aa5874

Again, YOU don't know what YOU are talking about.

You cannot just say that corrections on a manuscript were done by a scribe. It may have been done by the author or some other person. Or it may have been authorised by the owner or author of the manuscript.

Examine "Against Marcion" 1 where some writer under the name Tertullian explained that his writings about Marcion were manipulated by some other person, FULL of MISTAKES, and that he himself amended his own writings so that there were THREE VERSIONS of his writings about Marcion.

"Against Marcion" 1

So based on Tertullian, it was not scribes that were responsible for any errors, mistakes, or alterations in the various forms of "Against Marcion" that were being circulated. The errors, mistakes and alterations were either done by Tertullian or his "brother" the apostate fraudster.

Now, it could have been that manuscripts were altered by the authors themselves before given to a scribe, it that could have been that manuscripts were fraudulently manipulated before given to scribes and it also could have been that manuscripts were altered and copied, not by scribes, but by the fraudsters themselves.

Just looking at a manuscript with corrections does not automatically mean it was done by a scribe. There are many other factors or scenarios that must be taken into consideration.

mountainman

Its very unusual for you to be prepared to logically acknowledge something J-D. Is there a reason for this?

aa5874 might have "some reasons".
Have you asked aa5874 for these "some reasons"?
It would the logical thing to do. Then you can go about your weary business of logical rejection of his "some reasons".

J-D

What I am saying is that I know that scholars who work on old manuscripts take it for granted that scribes sometimes made errors in copying manuscripts. I have posted some examples of web links which substantiate this; here is another one:

http://tinyurl.com/273wdhm

If you look there, you will see a footnote which directs you to another scholarly work which gives 'a detailed discussion of the errors of the scribes'. They wouldn't refer you to 'a detailed discussion of the errors of the scribes' if there were no 'errors of the scribes'.

How do you explain the fact that all these scholars talk about scribal errors? Can you refer to a scholarly work that supports your position that there are no such things as scribal errors?

J-D

I acknowledge sense when I encounter it. You would see it happen more usually if you produced sense more usually.I would ask aa5874 questions more often if aa5874 answered them more often.

aa5874

Again, You don't know what YOU are talking about.

It is quite illogical to take it for granted that scribes made mistakes but still cannot show that any scribe made a mistake.

If you see manuscripts with differences it cannot be taken for granted that it was a scribe who introduced the differences since you must know what was given to be copied, the condition of the "master" manuscript, and that each scribal copy was carried out at the same time under the same conditions.

Again, as I have pointed out in Tertullian's "Against Marcion", you have utterly failed to understand that the "master manuscript", and the condition of the "master" manuscript" is a most significant piece of evidence in order to show that a scribe made errors.

Please produce the "master" manuscript of any scribal copy!

By the way, using manuscripts of a play is not a very good example to show scribal error when people who familiar with acting will point out that amendments and corrections to the scripts are completely normal and routine.

Sometimes an entire scene of a play can be added or removed, or dialogue can be altered or omitted.