Toto

Please use this link instead.

[ July 21, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

Steven Carr

I challenged King Arthur to find the exact phrase 'and he gave him back to his mother.' which is a translation of 'kai edoken auto te metri auto', which is the phrase from the OT that Luke copied, as King Arthur agrees.


King Arthur writes

The boy that Muhammad s.a.w.s was playing with ran to Halima telling her that Muhammad s.a.w.s was killed. However, when they came back they saw him as if nothing had happened except that his face was shinning with a different light. After this Halima got scared for Muhammad s.a.w.s so she took him back to Mecca and gave him back to his mother.


But that one is religious, so I'll go one better for you.
<a href="http://merlin.alleg.edu/group/review/1995.html" target="_blank">http://merlin.alleg.edu/group/review/1995.html</a>


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Allegheny Literary Journal 1995
After the camera's flash and whirr Santa lifted Daryl off his lap and gave him back to his mother. "Goodbye, Daryl," said the elf in broken pitch.

CARR
Perhaps King Arthur can find the exact phrase 'and he gave him back to his mother.' in his examples, I can not.

Steven Carr

King Arthur has still not come up with a sentence to meet my challenge - find 'and he have him back to his mother.'

He is lying when he says he has heard the phrase at a day centre.

Will he admit that Luke copied the phrase?

Will he admit that he misled people when he 'cleverly' pointed out that the phrase I said was used in Acts about Peter in Acts 11 also appears in Acts 10, when he totally forgot to mention that this story in Acts 10 is *also* about Peter, and that this phrase is only used about Peter in the NT?

Peter Kirby

Steven, I just ran a Google search for the exact phrase that pays, and it looks like you are okay, so long as nobody puts up a website with the purpose of parting you and your pounds.

One thing about the challenge is that I would have restricted it to the Greek phrase, for a few reasons -- actually, the Greek is the way in which I interpreted your original challenge. For the most base reason, few people have the wherewithal to perform a search of the mountains of Greek texts, and there is only one way to get to Greek searching heaven - the Thesaurus Lingua Grecae of UCI. The TLG is available to universities and wealthy scholars. Attending UCI, I went down to the building that is the headquarters to the TLG, with the Greek phrase scrawled on a piece of paper, so that I might see if Carr's challenge held true. When I got there, I asked the folks if I could run a search on the TLG, but for some reason, I forget what, I had to come back later in order to do so. When asked why I wanted to search, I said 'oh nothing, just some argument I had with a friend'. Then, after I left, I didn't have the nerve to go back and ask again, as I can only imagine the curiosity and excitement that must have been building up over the intervening days. How often do the Greek-speaking computer science nerds get visits anyway! But, King Arthur is a hardy soul; perhaps he can succeed where I failed.

But the more substantive reasons: first, the English phrase is not and never can be an exact equivalent for the Greek phrase. That's just a fact of any translation. Second, presumably the purpose of the challenge is to see whether a Greek speaker in ancient times would have independently formulated the same phrase. The chances that an approximate English phrase would have been independently formulated are different, again because they are different languages. Third, perhaps this other document could be argued to be the actual source of the phrase, if it were older than Luke.

But you really should capitalize on the verbatim copying point once the correct context is set: these are both miracle stories. Specifically, they are both resurrection miracle stories. More specifically, they are both resurrection miracle stories in which a prophet of God raises a young child. Once this context is set, then you let the reader know: 'by the way, a Greek sentence of six words is exactly the same in both the Septuagint and Luke'. At this point, it is obvious that Luke used the Septuagint story as a model for his resurrection story. Now, you could say that, even though Luke turned to the Septuagint for the phrase, the same event actually happened in each case by divine providence: a prophet of God raised a young child from the dead miraculously and returned the child to the mother. Maybe God intended pious believers to notice how wondrous it is that Jesus is seen as the new Elijah and something more. But the only real evidence for the source of Luke's story points to copying from the Septuagint, not to historical reminiscence, as historical reminiscence has absolutely no evidence in its favor. To suggest that Luke did anything other than fashion Jesus as the new Elijah, to say that Jesus actually raised the child from the dead, well that is an act of faith.

Now, King Arthur, do you have such faith? Or are you an old-time rationalist who thinks that the child was somehow revivified by Jesus or that the death was only apparent? Or are you just trying to prove how savvy you are as a skeptic of skeptics?

I think that you would have appeared more even-handed and would have garnered more support if you had admitted that Carr is not puffing the peace pipe when he points out the similarities between these two stories. Sure, kai egeneto ('and it came to pass') is so common that Carr should be corrected for appealing to it. But when you go so far as to say that Carr should be taking his site offline, then you no longer appear to be a man who comes in the name or reason but rather a man with a chip on his shoulder of some kind.

best,
Peter Kirby

Steven Carr

As always Peter is very rational and correct, and worth listening to.

I appealed to 'kai egeneto' simply because some Christians write off Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon as a rip-off of the King James Bible, and one thing he did is use 'And it came to pass' a lot. (But why then do they not say Luke ripped off the Septuagint?)

<a href="http://members.aol.com/jazzdd/IsaBM5.html" target="_blank">http://members.aol.com/jazzdd/IsaBM5.html</a> is one example.

From <a href="http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/byu_comp.htm" target="_blank">http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/byu_comp.htm</a>

'When the Book of Mormon was first published, some people ridiculed it because it was filled with the expression, "And it came to pass." '

So why can't I have 'Kai egeneto', which is, if I remember rightly 'And it came to pass'? Should people not have ridiculed 'And it came to pass', because it was so common that Christians should be corrected for appealing to it?

My web page is after all called 'Miracles and the Book of Mormon' and is intended to show that the charges of plagiarism that Christians level at the BOM rebound upon them.

I notice that King Arthur never once attempted to show that the examples I gave from the Book or Mormon were wrong.

Steven Carr

Peter writes 'Once this context is set, then you let the reader know: 'by the way, a Greek sentence of six words is exactly the same in both the Septuagint and Luke'. At this point, it is obvious that Luke used the Septuagint story as a model for his resurrection story.'

Actually, Peter, I point out in my article other very close textual similarities between these two stories - not just that one Greek phrase.

Peter Kirby

Carr writes:

Peter writes 'Once this context is set, then you let the reader know: 'by the way, a Greek sentence of six words is exactly the same in both the Septuagint and Luke'. At this point, it is obvious that Luke used the Septuagint story as a model for his resurrection story.'

Actually, Peter, I point out in my article other very close textual similarities between these two stories - not just that one Greek phrase.

I realize that. I had in mind the way that the challenge was presented on this discussion board. It is not like the Gospel of Luke says that Jesus worked at a day care center for extra money when he was around 20 and that, at one point, he gave a child back to the mother. That could be brushed off as mere coincidence, perhaps. It is the total set of parallels on both the narrative and idiomatic levels that point to imitation.

best,
Peter Kirby

Boro Nut

Whosoever pulleth this nail from out my wrist shall likewise be the true born king of the castle, and shall live in my father's mansion for ever. Alternatively, scratch my nose for me.

Boro Nut

Steven Carr

King Arthur writes (about Finnegan's work where Finnegan says there are only 2 *complete* consecutive words on the earliest Biblical manuscript)

If you still don't believe me, then go back to the original publication of the manuscript by C.H. Roberts back in 1935 and look at the transcription (if you can't read the Greek of the manuscript, surely you can read the transcribed Greek since it is the same format as what you underlined in your website pictures). If you can find his "An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel", look on page 28 for the transcription. Look at line 2 on the Recto: "oudena ina" and on line 4 of the Verso: "legei auto" (go ahead and use an online lexicon and find the definition of the words if you don't really know them).


End of King Arthur's words
CARR
Actually, as the 'a' of 'oudena ina' is slightly damaged, Finnegan was right. But almost all of the 'a' is there, I grant that.

It can be seen at
<a href="http://home.debitel.net/user/martin.arhelger/tr/p52.jpg" target="_blank">http://home.debitel.net/user/martin.arhelger/tr/p52.jpg</a>

Anyway, I found this transcription at
<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/ManuscriptsPapyri.html#P52" target="_blank">http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/ManuscriptsPapyri.html#P52</a>

Capitals show letters which are still there. All the rest of the earliest Bible manuscript is reconstruction,
recto
OI IOUDAIoi HMEin ouk exestin apokteinai
OUDENA INA O Logos tou iu plhrwqh on ei-
PEN SHMAINWn poiw qanatw hmellen apo-
QNHSKEIN IShlqen ouk palin eis to praitw-
RION O Pilatos kai efwnhsen ton in
KAI EIPen autw su ei o basileus twn iou-
daIWn...

verso
(...leus) eimi egw eis touTO GegNNhmAI
kai elhluqa eis ton koSMON INA MARTU-
rhsw th alhqeia pas o wn THS ALHQEi-
as akouei mou ths fwnhs LEGEI AUTW
o pilatos ti estin alhqeia kaI TOUTo
eipwn palin exhlqen pros TOUS Iou-
daious kai legei autois ego oudeMIan

As can be seen, even if I grant King Arthur that there are no less than the huge number of two (count em, two, ie far more than one) places where there are consecutive words remaining, it still does not seem to me as though there is a lot left of the earliest copy of John's Gospel.

King Arthur

Well, what you wrote was wrong and, in my opinion, misleading.

As a matter of fact, there are other complete words and some that can be pretty much assumed. When all of it is put together, a small snippet of the passion story can be seen.

Now, since this "snippet" is seemingly from the "middle" of the passions story, one can reasonably presume the existence of at least a very similar passion story to that of the Gospel of John. This is pretty significant, don't you think? Much more so than pretending as if no one can glean anything from this little itty bitty scrap of papyrus with "no two consecutive words written on it".

Finally, wish I had the time to reply to everyone.

Peter, you are very right about the use of English as opposed to Greek, but then Steven doesn't seem to know the Greek. It would be pretty easy to find such a common phrase that reflects a pretty common thing in life. As a matter of fact, all the elements of those two stories are pretty common. Widows were at the gates of cities quite often begging for food. These were the most visible places to be and where business was conducted as well.

By the way, I think that the "raising" of people was probably quite common as well and nothing particularly special. People would become very sick and sometimes "miraculously" recovery at just the right time for it to be perceived as a "resurrection". But then, what do I know. I've never seen anyone "raised" from the dead, so I couldn't tell you for sure what happened in these circumstances.

I would rather Steven take his website down than continue providing misinformation that looks scholarly so that others take on his errant views unwittingly, thinking that they have found an authority.