Tercel

I don't know what you have been reading...
The first copies containing all the NT canon in one book date from the 4th century. Earlier than that the manuscript evidence becomes scanty - probably due to the "Diocletian" Persecution of 303AD which included an order "to tear down the churches to the foundations and to destroy the Sacred Scriptures by fire."

Fortunately for us Constantine's edict to stop Christian persecution came in 313, and the Church got busy producing manuscripts to make up for the ones that had been destroyed. Hence most of our manuscripts date from this period or later.
However that is not to say these are the earliest manuscripts we possess. We have approx 50 greek manuscripts dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries variously containing multiple NT books to tiny fragments containing a couple of verses.

There are also numerous quotations of, and references to, the books of the NT canon by 2nd and 3rd century Church writers.

I am not aware of anyone who tries to date any of the NT canon past 200AD, and rare is the Scholar who will put more than 4 or so books (ie 1 + 2 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Peter) of the canon past 100AD.

Ironically, our earliest manuscript fragment (p52) comes from the Gospel of John. The fragment has come to be generally regarded as having a date of no later than 125AD. Since the Gospel of John is generally considered to have been written last of the four Gospels, this has a significant effect on the dating of the Gospels.

Actually, all the books of the NT canon were composed in Greek. The only hint we have of anything to the contrary is a quote of Papias (c135AD) to the effect that Matthew recorded the teachings of Jesus in the native tongue of the Jews. However, textual analysis of our Gospel of Matthew shows that it was originally composed in Greek and is not a translation.
It has been supposed that Papias' "Matthew" might have been used as a source in our Gospel of Matthew, but it is difficult to regard them as being the same thing.

We can be reasonably sure for the most part that the words we read at least reasonably resemble what was written. We possess over 6000 greek manuscript copies of the NT and over 18000 copies of translations. There are dedicated scholars who work to piece together as accurately as possible the original text, and our modern translations are based on their works. Any decent modern bible will contain foot notes saying "Some manuscripts have XXX" where the original reading of the text is at all in serious doubt. But any suggestion that our reading of the NT differs significantly from the original is unfounded.

It seems to be a singularly slanted view of history you have there.
The King James version is not exceedingly accurate as it is based on only five late (12th Century if I recall correctly) manuscripts and it was done in a hurry in order to be the first Bible released. However, for all that it’s not exceedingly bad, and is fairly accurate for the most part.

Actually, yes it can. Copies of scripture were being made throughout the world and it is perfectly easy to see if and where and particular copy has been “improved”. However for the vast majority of it, it seems the scripture was regarded as sacred and the copiers did their best to produce a faithful copy.

Please understand that the above is not an argument, so much as simply stating the facts as they are - since you appeared to be ignorant of them.

I imagine it was because the Talmud said some not very nice things about Jesus. It probably ridiculed the virgin birth as an illegitimate one, probably accused him of being a blasphemer and any other derogatory accusations the Jews could think up. It is my understanding that the Church and the Jewish authorities later came to an agreement whereby the all passages mentioning Christ in the Talmud should either be removed or amended.

Tercel

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Ironically, our earliest manuscript fragment (p52) comes from the Gospel of John. The fragment has come to be generally regarded as having a date of no later than 125AD. Since the Gospel of John is generally considered to have been written last of the four Gospels, this has a significant effect on the dating of the Gospels.

There was a recent thread in BC&A in which someone noted that recent work has redated this to later in the second century. I'll try and see if I can track it down.

Vorkosigan

Tercel

Interesting. Up until now, its date seems to have been getting pushed earlier and earlier. So what's with the later date? I would certainly be intrigued to read the thread if you can find it.

Tercel

The way "variants" are counted can be slightly misleading. As I understand it, if one word is spelt with one spelling on 500 manuscripts and spelt a different way on another 500, then that is counted as 500 varients. As they admit here, there are 200,000 "variants" but only in 400 instances do the actual variations affect the meaning of the text, and only 50 of these variations in meaning are actually important (though who knows what they deem as "important). That's under two "important" variations per entire book in the NT... oh no... how awful...
Given that all modern translations have footnotes alerting the reader to any varient readings anyway, we might be inclined to ask why this matters...

We might be inclined to ask why the Septuagint (aka LXX) -a translation made in about the 2nd Century BC differs so markedly from our current Hebrew texts. Is it perhaps that the Hebrew texts are in places corrupted? (Contrary to the claim the site is making here, it is my understanding that most more recent modern translations use the Hebrew texts, only calling on the LXX where the Hebrew texts make no sense)

You know why? In the first Century AD when Christianity started, the standard texts used by the Jews was the LXX. (Since many Jews no longer spoke Hebrew by that time) So the Christians naturally adopted the LXX as their standard OT text. Of course the Jews just had to be different so they reverted to the Hebrew texts, or at least that is the explanation given by Christians for it. What do the Jews say?

Tercel

You're right, it's almost as amusing as Acharya S:
<a href="http://www.messiahtruth.com/response.html#mythos" target="_blank">http://www.messiahtruth.com/response.html#mythos</a>

Gotta love them beginning by pulling Paul's rhetorical question which he proceeds to answer in the negative out of context and interpreting it as a positive statement!

Their recount of the Nicea Council is certainly impressively imaginative: "The council changed Jesus from man to God in the flesh" among other things...

Perchance

Help me out here...

If people killed each other over the wording of the Bible, or divided themselves into sects and "heresies" based on different interpretations, as still happens today, then why are the variations not important?

-Perchance.

sighhswolf

Perchance,
You will notice that my original premise had to do with the validity of the texts, what is believable and verifiable with concrete evidence and what isnt.
What and who decides the historical accuracy and the progression of the writings from ancient times until today.
We could go on with this thread for an indeterminate amount of time and we would not reach an agreement of the historicity of Biblical text.
Tercel in his own way, in the last few posts validated my argument for me, for which I should thank him.

No matter what anyone "thinks" of the texts, or what anyones interpretation is of ancient manuscripts, none of the work is verifiable and if you have this same conversation with 25 people you would more than likely get at least half of them in disagreement.

When ancient works are bogged down in semantics wars, you can pretty much bet that no one actually has concrete evidence to prove the reliability and accuracy beyond doubt.
That is why we have folks spending half thier lives trying to determine if a certain greek term is plural or refers to the male or female gender.
If you examine the American Atheist information you will find the following:
The Bible did not assume anything like its present form until the fourth century. The Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Protestant canons were not adopted until modern times. The Bible was recognized as a collection of independent writings. The Council of Trent (1563) determined the Roman Catholic, Protestants denounce the Catholic Bible as a "popish imposture." The Greek Catholics at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672 finally accepted the book of Revelation. Their Bible contains several books not in the Roman canon. The Westminster Assembly in 1647 approved the list of sixty-six books composing the authorized version, the one most used in America. Our Bible, therefore, is less than 300 years old.
Out of 250 Jewish-Christian writings, sixty-six have arbitrarily been declared canonical by Protestants. The rejected books are of the same general character as those now published together as the "Holy Bible." Circumstances rather than merit determined selection.

For 150 years the Christian Bible consisted of the sacred books of the Jews. The New Testament was not formed until the latter half of the second century when Irenaeus selected twenty books from among forty or more gospels, nearly as many acts of apostles, a score of revelations and a hundred epistles. Why were these particular books chosen? Why four gospels instead of one? Irenaeus: "There are four quarters of the earth in which we live and four universal winds." The gospels were unknown to Peter, Paul, and the early church fathers. They were forged later.
You see it all depends on who you are conversing with in a discussion of historical documents and the validity of those documents.
The information above is presented by American Atheist Press.

I'm getting together some other information so that we can disagree on it too.
If you talk to christians they are quite naturally going to give information based on what christian scholars have told them to believe.
And therein lies one of the basic issues.
Strict obedience and blind faith are not exactly the qualifiers of an earnest researcher.

This is a very interesting thread guys, and it demonstrates and validates my argument.
More to come............

wolf

Terracotta

Bring it on, Wolf!

I have found this thread to be most fascinating.

Tercel

I hope you realise that much of what they write is just as biased in its own way as the JewishMessiah site or Josh McDowell.

That's fairly blatently not true. A cursory reading of earlier Church writers will show that they were, with the exception of a few borderline books, pretty much universally agreed as to what was authoritative and what was not. The Council of Nicea (4th Century), merely served as a universal declaration of was was already accepted and what was not. The <a href="http://www.bible-researcher.com/muratorian.html" target="_blank">Muratorian fragment</a> also contains an early list of accepted books which shows a very close resemblance to our canon.

Arbitrarily? Perhaps the writer thinks their names were drawn out of a hat?

Same "general character", ie they are religious books. Perhaps we should accept all books about religion into the Christian Canon?

? The requirements established for the selection of the canon were primarily whether the Church could trace the book's authorship to an apostle or a companion thereof.

No doubt Irenaeus was the real founder of Christianity!
I'm sorry, but this is just ludicrous...

Alright, now we've reached the realm of blatent lying.
Ignatius (died 110) quotes Matthew and Luke and 6 other NT books, and Polycarp (c70-c155) quotes from most of the books in the NT in their surviving writings.
Papias (c135) in the few fragments that remain of his writing mentions the Gospels of Mark and Matthew and gives details on their composition.
Justin Martyr(100-165) mentions the "Memoirs of the Apostles... which are called Gospels".
Tatian's (110-172) most famous publication was "A harmony of the four Gospels" (aka the Diatessaron).
All 5 of whom predate Iranaeus' writing.

These guys are the earliest of the "Early Church Fathers". You don't get lying much more blatent than "The gospels were unknown to... the early church fathers"!

[ June 01, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

woodchuck

I am in no position to butt in here with anything worthwhile to say except a little encouragment to tercel- you are doing awesome and I love your posts (I am not putting you other guys down but hey in a place like this us "xians" gotta stick together).

I am currently studying this subject and if I get anything to add I will be back.