-Jay-

Solitary Man -

You seem to be implying here that there are specific Biblical texts for which there exist hard figures comparing extant texts with an original versions. Is this what you mean to say? If so, please provide examples.

regards,

NinJay

Solitary Man

No, that's not what I meant to say. Nor am I sure how you got that. Please reread. If it helps, write out each point one at a time, read and reread.

thedistillers

What "certain text" are you referring to, what hard figures do you have to propose, and what methodology did you use to arrive at those numbers?

I haven't. He's the one who keeps mischaracterizing Ehrman (and generally accusing people of obscurantism for stating trivial facts) - despite the fact that he doesn't even appear to have read him. Have you actually read the thread from the start?

S.C.Carlson

You're right that it's his own title. He once told me that Bruce Metzger was pushing for him to rename it to Orthodox Correction of Scripture but he resisted.

Stephen

Roger Pearse

All good points.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Equinox

Solitary man wrote:
Um, you are aware, I hope, that the majority of Christians (around 70%) in the US believe every word of the Bible is literally true, and a majority of Christians in the US believe that animals were created in their present form within the past 10,000 years, right? We’ve discussed the data on that before here. Why talk about a huge and influential group of people? Well, because they are huge and influential, and because that's what most Christians are today in the US.

Speaking of huge groups of people……

See above. (or are you going to say “humans as instruments of the holy spirit?) None of us here should make the mistake of thinking that most people are like us or our friends. Anecdotal evidence isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on because we aren’t average. Based on the data, it's clear that most Christians think that the Bible is the work of God, not just the work of fallible humans.

Sure it is. You said before that we know “99%” of a text. That 1% can put the message on it’s head. The fact is we do indeed have a pretty good idea of what these texts said in the second century – what changes it took to get them there is anyone’s guess. Most of the Biblical texts have a span of around 50 -100 years between when they were written and our first evidence of what they said (nearly always only from a proto-orthodox source). A text can be changed in a few minutes.

I see people (here and elsewhere) argue over the amount of change between the manuscripts we have (which is admittedly large), but the huge potential for change before that is usually ignored, and we know that Christians had no problem rewriting earlier texts. A good example is the G of Matthew, who rewrote much of Mark (making it more Jewish) without attribution.

No, we don’t all know that. A large group of Christians, probably a majority, never thinks about the changes made to the Bible. Again, see above.

Come on. Eternal torment is not a greater motivation than love for the classics? You’ve got to be kidding me.

OK, fine – let’s say the 18 plays are not representative. Then my point is even stronger – that the collection of stuff in the NT is even less representative because it was specifically chosen to support a certain doctrine of a dominant church.

Sure I can. Who did the preserving, copying, etc? The proto-orthodox church. Of course the ones preserved by the preservers tend to be older – they didn’t preserve the contemporary ones that disagreed with them.

OK, whatever. I know a lot more about church theology than most Christians (and that was true when I was still Christian too.)

I don't think a p155ing contest is useful here, so let's focus on more substantive discussions.


Equinox

JoeWallack

JW:
This exchange is illustrative of what Separates us. Andrew left behind Ehrman's explanation that the offending word has a literal and primary meaning of left behind (as opposed to only "forsaken me"). Ehrman mentions this on Andrew's quoted Lost Christianities reference. Ehrman provides even more emphasis to this in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and provides excruciating emphasis in my excerpt.

The literal and common meaning of "left behind" is key to Ehrman's point as that is what supports Separationism, not "forsaken me". Here the Gnostics were favored by the literal meaning, specific context of the pericope and general context of "Mark". Hence the orthodox need to replace the offending word with a different word (just as they did on the other side with 1:10). "left behind" has a physical meaning and "forsaken me" has a figurative meaning. For you to miss this after I corrected Andrew in detail is Amazing.

I deliberately avoided attributing motive to Andrew's characterization that the offending word was simply "forsaken me" which the Gnostics interpreted Gnostically which makes it seem as though it was the Gnostics who were straining here. But since you belabor the point... Since Andrew is Christian unlike you I think you both missed Ehrman's key point, but for different reasons. I'll explain in a parable to help you understand:

Way back when I was an auditor the most disagreeable controller I ever met worked for a company that manufactured ceiling fans in an outlying part of Houston. The company barely paid minimum wage and it's cooling system consisted of some of it's ceiling fans (the defective ones) haphazardly attached to the ceiling (which doubled as a showroom). When it got over 100 (May to September) they would extend the courtesy to their employees of turning the fans on "high". The people who worked here were the ones who couldn't get a job at the local (air conditioned) Dairy Queen. The main effect for people like me was this had a severely negative effect on the accompanying female gene pool.

One day, in the course of spending about a half hour trying to avoid a simple yes or no auditing question, the controller revealed in unnecessary conversation that two of the most unattractive (anywhere) female employees were sisters. We auditors (the controller always insisted on an audience when answering questions) were greatly amazed because the sisters looked nothing alike and were fearful that each was outstandingly ugly in their own way. (Hell, they were ugli (plural for ugly). They looked like a low flying plane hit them in the face and than backed up and did it again.) Whereupon, the controller gleefully responded to our observation that they looked nothing alike, "And both are glad!"



Joseph

http://errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

-Jay-

I got it from the part where you said "You'll have to actually bring up a certain text if you want harder figures." Perhaps I overreached on including the word "Biblical". What did you mean?

Roger Pearse

At this moment I am typing up stuff about the Greek classics. I'm looking at Diogenes Laertius. Oldest ms. written ca. 1200, perhaps 9 centuries later?

This is to confuse change within a text with the composition of new texts, tho.

The canon of the NT did not come into being in this way, I have to tell you.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Solitary Man

I meant that texts are evaluated on a singular basis.