Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Johnny Skeptic · 05-19-2007, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

But of course just because we have a reliable -- at least for all non-theological purposes -- text does not mean that the authors of it were correct in what they said. That is a different issue altogether.

Whether or not the authors were correct in what they said is the most important issue of all regarding the Bible, much more important than most of the topics at this forum, and the issue that the vast majority of people who are looking for a worldview are concerned with more than who copied what accurately.

If copies of New Testament documents were accurately transmitted, so what? What does that have to do with the truth?

You have a long and scholarly Internet article defending your assumption that Eusebius was not a liar. In my opinion, you wasted your time since your article does not address the issue of innocent but inaccurate revelation. I assume many if not most religious writings were partly or mostly the result of innocent but inaccurate revelation, not lying. Why do you exclude a reasonably possibility that the New Testament writers were guilty of innocent but inaccurate revelations?

agentacer800 · 05-19-2007, 11:35 AM

Thank you all for the replies. I'm trying to complied as much as I can find about the subject so I can better understand each side of the argument, and these answers helped a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Are you perhaps talking past each other, I wonder? If I understand correctly:

* On the one side is a claim that Jesus of Nazareth never existed.

* On the other is a claim that the biblical text has been transmitted to us reliably, and that this means what it says is correct.

I'm not clear that the response addresses the claim, other than implicitly; and implicit argument is invariably fallacious.

I heard the discussion again, and I realized that we did talk past each other quite a few times, which probably caused a lot of the misunderstanding between each other. In case you want to listen to it, here is a link: http://podcast.wayofthemasterradio.c...8-07-Hour1.mp3

Quote:

The first position is not a disagreement between atheist and Christian, but between the uneducated or foolish and the educated. As such this query would best be directed to any professor of ancient history -- not biblical studies -- in any university in the world. In my cynical way I would have thought that common sense should tell us that every ideological movement is founded by a chap with a beard on a soapbox, and unless compelling evidence appears to the contrary we would certainly suppose the same of Christianity.

I agree with this point, and I understand that Todd Friel is not the best person to ask a history question especially since he asked me in the interview if "I believed that Julius Ceasar existed". But I was just asking if his argument was valid, not credible.

Quote:

The second position involves category mistakes. The bible is indeed extant in more and/or earlier manuscripts than any other literary text surviving from ancient times. This should not surprise anyone, since almost all these texts were copied by monks, and they copied bibles more than anything else. If any text has survived from ancient times, this one has. (Some unwary people sometimes go for obscurantism to try to avoid this evident truth, or start introducing theology to try to create a double standard).

But of course just because we have a reliable -- at least for all non-theological purposes -- text does not mean that the authors of it were correct in what they said. That is a different issue altogether. I know that this is obvious once one says it; the problem is that the two get slurred together.

I agree with this as well. As I have always heard, quantity does not necessary equal quality.

Quote:

I hope that helps.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Yes, this helped a lot, thanks!

JoeWallack · 05-19-2007, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

The second position involves category mistakes. The bible is indeed extant in more and/or earlier manuscripts than any other literary text surviving from ancient times. This should not surprise anyone, since almost all these texts were copied by monks, and they copied bibles more than anything else. If any text has survived from ancient times, this one has. (Some unwary people sometimes go for obscurantism to try to avoid this evident truth, or start introducing theology to try to create a double standard).

But of course just because we have a reliable -- at least for all non-theological purposes -- text does not mean that the authors of it were correct in what they said. That is a different issue altogether. I know that this is obvious once one says it; the problem is that the two get slurred together.

JW:
Trying to compear the quality of TransMission of "The Bible" to other ancient Texts is like comparing Allahs and Oragens. We have the following issues unique to the Bible:

1) There was no original "Bible".

2) The Bible consists in part of 4 Gospels, each of which intends to be the complete Gospel story and none of which would have wanted to part of a Bible with the others.

3) "Matthew" and "Luke" are re-writes of "Mark". This would be like having an edited Tacitus' Annals included with its predecessor in the same writing. The Bible is it's own witness that it has not accurately transmitted what was originally written. What "Matthew" wrote is not what "Mark" originally wrote.

4) The 4 survivalists were chosen by the Christian winner of Survivor. This brand of Christianity confesses to us that there were many other Gospels that didn't make the circumcision.

5) We have clues left to us by Christianity indicating that important pieces of what has been transmitted to us has been Edited/Forged and therefore was not original, such as probably the best potential evidence for Christian Assertians, the supposed resurrection sightings in the original Gospel ("Mark"). Since Christianity is based on proof-texting, individual words or small phrases are exactly what would be targets for Editing/Forgery.

6) We have no idea who exactly wrote the basic Jesus narrative. The original Gospel "Mark" is largely a character (so to speak) assassination of those who supposedly knew Jesus leaving us to believe that it was written by A. Gnome Us.

Perhaps, just for Roger, we should make up one of those funny quizzes:

1) Was Jesus born BC or CE?

2) Who's buried in the Empty Tomb?

3) Who wrote Tacitus' Annals?

Joseph

SCRIPTURES, n.
The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

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