Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spamandham · 05-03-2007, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Since my Bible is 100% accurate, textually, through the promised Godly imperatives of inspiration and preservation.

You do realize that anyone can write a book that claims it was inspired by a god and will be preserved by a god, don't you?

3DJay · 05-03-2007, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

And the figure you mention I would never use. Since my Bible is 100% accurate, textually, through the promised Godly imperatives of inspiration and preservation.

No errors? No contradictions?

Peace

hatsoff · 05-03-2007, 03:11 PM

Hmm. The 99% figure had to come from somewhere. It is quite obviously inaccurate, but I doubt somebody just pulled it out of a hat. Nobody knows its source?

Toto · 05-03-2007, 04:50 PM

Possible source: Ivory Soap commercial?

Googling around during a break at work - CARM

Quote:

The fact that over 5000 supporting Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have been discovered, when examined, shows us that they are all copied with extreme accuracy. The New Testament alone is over 99% textually pure.

CARM2

Quote:

Now, as far as the Bible having been changed from generation to generation. That is not the case. The New Testament, for example, has thousands of ancient copies in existence from very close to the time of Christ up to several hundred years ago. If the Bible had been changed, then the changes would have been made evident in the copies through the centuries. The New Testament, to continue the example, is 99% textually pure. That means that of all the ancient New Testament documents, there is very little manuscript deviation. Most of the deviations are word order changes, misspellings, etc.. They do not affect the meaning or the accuracy of the text.

Quoting Josh McDowell

Quote:

Textually we are able to restore over 99.8 percent of the original autographs from all the writings of the New Testament. There is no justifiable basis to doubt the integrity and accuracy of the New Testament writers. The New Testament passes the bibliographical tests receiving the highest mark of any ancient literature. The great Greek scholar A.T. Robertson said that the real concern is only with a thousandth part of the entire text. This would make the New Testament 99.9% free of significant variants. He dates the NT between 40 -to 65 Ad. The noted historian Philip Schaff calculated that of the variants known in his day, only 50 were of real significance, and not one affected any teaching of faith or practice.

Josh McDowell's Evidence that demands a verdict (or via: amazon.co.uk) can be read online. On p 44, there are some numbers thrown around: there are 200,000 textual variants, but these represent only 10,000 places in the manuscript. He quotes Hort as saying that 1/8 of the text is variant, but only half of that in doubt, and many of these can be brushed aside as trivial. He relies on Geisler and Nix (see below)

Norman Geisler in the II Library debate with Farrell Till

Quote:

the New Testament is more accurately copied. The New Testament is one of the most -- if not the most -- accurately copied books from the ancient world. The great Greek scholar A.T. Robertson said that the real concern is only with a thousandth part of the entire text. This would make the New Testament 99.9% free of significant variants. The noted historian Philip Schaff calculated that of the variants known in his day, only 50 were of real significance, and not even one affected an article of faith or a precept of duty. By comparison with the New Testament, most other books from the ancient world are not nearly so well authenticated. Professor Bruce Metzger, of Princeton, estimated that the Mahabharata of Hinduism is copied with only about 90% accuracy and Homer's Illiad with 95%. By comparison, he calculated that the New Testament is about 99.5% accurate. So even by conservative standards, the New Testament survives in a 99+% reconstructed text with all the essential truths about the death and resurrection of Christ not being affected.

Till's response:

Quote:

Let's assume that the New Testament was copied with one hundred percent accuracy. That would in no way prove that anything that was written in it was necessarily true.

Someone who believes in footnotes

Quote:

The result of the early Christian work was good copies, although not perfect copies. As we will see later, there are many spelling errors, trifle changes in word order, etc., but over 99% of the text is known to us. Robertson estimated that there is concern only with a "thousandth part of the entire text."[9] Schaff states that only 400 variations out of the 150,000 known in his day affected the sense. Of these, only 50 had any real significance and not one affected "an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching."[10] Geisler and Nix estimate that are only about forty lines or four hundred words of the New Testament are in doubt.[11] Warfield sums up by stating "the great mass of the New Testament, in other words, has been transmitted to us with no, or next to no variation."[12] Summing these witnesses up, the variations that exist in our New Testament text has no significant affect on its meaning; today we have good copies.

. . .

9 A. T. Robertson, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk), Nashville: Broadman, 1925, p. 22.

10 Philip Schaff, Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (or via: amazon.co.uk), third edition, New York: Harper, 1883, p. 177.

11 Geisler and Nix, op. cit., p. 367. [ General Introduction to the Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk) ? pages 473-4 can be read online ]

12 Benjamin B. Warfield, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, n. p.: London, 1886, p. 154.

So the text is not really 99% pure, but there is less that 1% that a believer finds troubling.

Malachi151 · 05-03-2007, 05:49 PM

As I said, when they talk about these thousands of manuscripts they talk about the minuscules of the Middle Ages. The earliest manuscripts that we have are from the 4th century, so it's of little use to talk about how accurately the copies were made 1,000 years later.

At any rate, it's not that important anyway, but as I say, due to the number of late copies made, compared to the number of copies of other books that were made, this is where the accuracy comes in.

What I explained before is the basis for this statistic.

vsop44 · 05-03-2007, 06:09 PM

On the other hand , in his book "misquoting Jesus" Bart Ehrman tells us that there are as many copying and translating mistakes in the NT as there are words !
How can they say that the NT is 99% correct since they do not know what was written on the original manuscripts ; what we have are the copies of the copies of the copies .... of the original manuscripts. The scribes who copied the greek documents did not leave space between words or used punctuation , that sure makes it easy to decipher them , as B. Ehrman noted when you read " godisnowhere " how do you know what the author really meant ?

douglas · 05-03-2007, 06:45 PM

Coincidentally, I've been trying to digest this article posted on islamic-awareness.org for the past couple of days. Of course they also have many articles defending the "perfection" of the Quran (gag!), but they seem to do a fairly thorough job of squashing "the bible is 99.5% accurate" argument.

Gullwind · 05-03-2007, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

As I said, when they talk about these thousands of manuscripts they talk about the minuscules of the Middle Ages. The earliest manuscripts that we have are from the 4th century, so it's of little use to talk about how accurately the copies were made 1,000 years later.

At any rate, it's not that important anyway, but as I say, due to the number of late copies made, compared to the number of copies of other books that were made, this is where the accuracy comes in.

What I explained before is the basis for this statistic.

Of course, the people using this statistic don't mention that the majority of the copies were made 1,000 years later. I wonder why?

Riverwind · 05-03-2007, 10:18 PM

In Case For Christ, Lee Strobel gets a quote (I think he attributed to Bruce Metzger) that the Bible is 99.5% accurate.

I don't recall reading this in Metzger's work, but I think I do recall having read something similar in a book on textual criticism written by Ebherd Nestle.

Toto · 05-03-2007, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riverwind

In Case For Christ (or via: amazon.co.uk), Lee Strobel gets a quote (I think he attributed to Bruce Metzger) that the Bible is 99.5% accurate.

I don't recall reading this in Metzger's work, but I think I do recall having read something similar in a book on textual criticism written by Ebherd Nestle.

From the Islamic Awareness site linked above:

Quote:

Someone who is reasonably well-acquainted with the scholarship of Metzger would immediately like to check how he arrived at such a fantastic accuracy. Our suspicions were aroused when we noticed that Geisler quotes Metzger's book claiming that he estimated the New Testament text to be 99.5% accurate without mentioning any particular page numbers. What now becomes unbelievable is that nowhere in this article does Metzger estimate the New Testament accuracy to be 99.5%. As expected, there is no mention of the New Testament having 20,000 lines of which only 40 lines are in doubt. Therefore, it is purely an invention of Geisler which he put in the mouth of Metzger. Metzger's article - on the other hand - is about how the trends in the textual criticism from the Iliad and the Mahabharata would benefit the New Testament studies in evaluating the text-types. With Geisler's fraudulent claims now exposed, let us now move over to the issue of 'numerical supremacy' and how this allegedly authenticates the reliability of the New Testament.

I read that part of Case for Christ on Amazon, and Stroebel interviews Metzger - but in the middle of the interview he quotes Geisler on the 99% figure.

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05-03-2007, 03:11 PM	#13
hatsoff Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Rockford, IL Posts: 740	Hmm. The 99% figure had to come from somewhere. It is quite obviously inaccurate, but I doubt somebody just pulled it out of a hat. Nobody knows its source?

05-03-2007, 05:49 PM	#15
Malachi151 Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 8,674	As I said, when they talk about these thousands of manuscripts they talk about the minuscules of the Middle Ages. The earliest manuscripts that we have are from the 4th century, so it's of little use to talk about how accurately the copies were made 1,000 years later. At any rate, it's not that important anyway, but as I say, due to the number of late copies made, compared to the number of copies of other books that were made, this is where the accuracy comes in. What I explained before is the basis for this statistic.

05-03-2007, 06:09 PM	#16
vsop44 Veteran Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: On an icefloe off the atlantic coast of Canada Posts: 1,095	On the other hand , in his book "misquoting Jesus" Bart Ehrman tells us that there are as many copying and translating mistakes in the NT as there are words ! How can they say that the NT is 99% correct since they do not know what was written on the original manuscripts ; what we have are the copies of the copies of the copies .... of the original manuscripts. The scribes who copied the greek documents did not leave space between words or used punctuation , that sure makes it easy to decipher them , as B. Ehrman noted when you read " godisnowhere " how do you know what the author really meant ?

05-03-2007, 06:45 PM	#17
douglas Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Dayton, Ohio Posts: 701	Coincidentally, I've been trying to digest this article posted on islamic-awareness.org for the past couple of days. Of course they also have many articles defending the "perfection" of the Quran (gag!), but they seem to do a fairly thorough job of squashing "the bible is 99.5% accurate" argument.

05-03-2007, 10:18 PM	#19
Riverwind Banned Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Allen, Tx Posts: 604	In Case For Christ, Lee Strobel gets a quote (I think he attributed to Bruce Metzger) that the Bible is 99.5% accurate. I don't recall reading this in Metzger's work, but I think I do recall having read something similar in a book on textual criticism written by Ebherd Nestle.

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