Jack the Bodiless

Romans 3:2: [the Jews] "...were intrusted with the oracles of God".

But we already know they broke that trust, through design or through incompetence. We know this from the contradictions between the MT and OTHER pre-Christian texts, and between different books within the MT.

So the preservation of Isaiah for 1000 years tells us that... Isaiah was preserved for 1000 years.

And nothing more than that.

Steven Avery

Are you assuming that the DSS are the Jerusalem Temple exemplars ? That would be the only way that I could see this conclusion as valid.

I am happy to grant that I can't prove that the MT are equivalent to the 'original autographs', that my position has a faith component. However there is no way that a set of oft-contradictory manuscripts can be used to show the MT is wrong, other than as a light evidentiary component.

Now, if Temple scrolls are found in the City of David digs, that would be far more evidentiary. Also if the DSS scrolls were homogeneous, then they would have evidentiary value for showing MT changes. As it is the positive value of the DSS outweighs those areas with differences, since they prove fealty for their sections and books. Even if the Masoretes were copying the "wrong" books, they were copying them accurately from ancient texts.

And as I have pointed out, the Masoretes showed complete fealty to the text, in the book that they might consider the most politically problematic (with Psalms second). That indicates their fealty to the text in general for that same 1000 years.

And we have corroborating evidence for a good part of that period with the Latin and Aramaic Tanachs, translations done as early as the first centuries (Aramaic) and 400 AD (Latin).

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Jack the Bodiless

Steven, you seem to be confusing "the Jews" with "the Masoretes".

The Jews were using various books which contradict the MT (like the LXX, for instance: unless you're going for a "No True Jew..." argument).

Also, the MT is itself a "self-contradictory text" (at least, the KJV is, and you seem to think it's an accurate translation of the MT).

So, even if the Masoretes were 100% accurate: inaccurate texts were circulating, including the one they "accurately" copied.

Doug Shaver

I wish I had thought of that when I was newspaper reporter. It would have come in so handy sometimes.

Source: "Doug, you misquoted me."

Me: "No, I just wrote a variant of what you said."

"Imperfect word of God" looks like an oxymoron to me . . . but errant or inerrant, whether or not any particular document is the word of God is another issue. Please don't beg that question.

So what? Without assuming your conclusion, how do you justify any supposition that error cannot, or probably will not, exist in a majority of the manuscripts?

Can you explain the correlation between the length of time something is believed and the likelihood of its being true?

Those who assume it to be the word of God, citing as justification 1900 years of orthodoxy, certainly will not see any problem in it.

You're assuming your conclusion here.

Oh, well, that settles it, doesn't it? Whatever orthodox Christians have believed for 1900 years cannot be an error, can it?

It would seem, according to your argument, that the documents on which Christian orthodoxy is based must be inerrant because orthodox Christians themselves are infallible.

You have probably done a lot more reading in this area than I have, but I have never seen anybody expound that idea.

I have, however, seen arguments to the effect that certain kinds of additions are more likely than their equivalent omissions. That is, considering the particular nature of a given passage concerning which it must be decided whether it was added or ommitted at a particular stage of the manuscript's history, there may be cogent arguments for supposing addition to be the more likely occurrence in that particular instance.

That is certainly not the same as a generalization that additions are more common than omissions, but in my reading of the apologetic literature, I have seen scant evidence that the average inerrantist has any feel for such fine distinctions.

Chris Weimer

The "Great" Isaiah scroll is a misnomer - it is in fact in a more decrepid shape than 1QIsaiah-b. The latter was the best preserved scroll found at the DSS site and diverges greatly with the Masoretic text. Those who continue to think that 1QIsaiah-a still has any authority is only basing their judgement on faith and their a priori biases.

Roger Pearse

If we're saying that they don't do their own apologetics very well, of course that may be so! But for us, the important thing is to work out what the case is, and make sure that we address it, even if we have to correct their errors. Every case must be judged by its merits, I think, rather than by the defects of the case as expounded by others.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Steven Avery

There is actually reasonable evidence that the Masoretes were Karaites Jews. Although the rabbinist Jews give arguments against that claim.

The Greek OT was used in the diaspora. However I don't consider it of any relevance, the texts are such a mess and gnostic-alexandrian-Christian-manhandled that they can barely be related to Jewish-provenance Greek OT, which is not extant other than scraps.

It is an accurate translation (Api focuses on "brother of" that is put in italics, that and the Isaiah 7 brouhaha are about the only signficant accuracy claims). We differ on this self-contradictory stuff, of course.

Well at least we understand that the issues are separate. The Masoretic Text can be considered, for point of discussion, a special text, accurately translated in the King James Bible, while the skeptic tries to poke holes in the Masoretic Text as contradictory or corrupt, often using the textcrit viewpoints of supposed conjectural corruptions long lost and unknown from ancient times. While various folks will defend the text, sometimes completely, sometimes less so, especially Karaites, Orthodox Jews, and the Psalm 12:6-7 Christians.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Helpmabob

Hi Doug Shaver - Helpmabob wrote: For me, it's not so much an assumtion as an experience. The Bible has never forced me to err, or encouraged me to desire to do evil. This suggests that it is in itself based on the best good around, and probably largely free from error. The rewards are by far the best when read with an openness to the the guidance of the Holy Spirit.As I said, it’s more from experience mixed with evidence and reasoning rather than either an assumption or purely logical analysis that I trust in the Bible. The Bible tackles matters of who God is and how it relates to our soul and its salvation. Shakespeare deals with another realm altogether – that of entertainment. So in that realm only does his work hold sway. Whether his works seem good or otherwise is a personal judgement, but at no time is the destiny of our soul being determined.

Doug Shaver

Actually, "the Bible" doesn't do anything. The men who who wrote its constitutent books tackled many issues, some of which concerned the nature of God. Only a few of them said anything about the soul and its salvation.

The question is why anybody should believe that, of all the people throughout history who have written books on those subjects, those men and only those men made no mistakes.

Helpmabob

Hi Doug - Agreed. No book says anything until you read it.Ok. A lot of the Old Testament deals with the Israelites inability to perfectly follow the law, the old covenant, and highlights the need for a Saviour, the new covenant, that is presented in the New Testament.
People are entitled to believe whatever they want. Personally, I believe that any mistakes made were of minor importance, and that the messages of all the books in the OT and NT are in agreement, because all writers were under the guidance of the Hoy Spirit.