charlesfinney

A few notes and comments regarding Josh McDowell's Charade (1982) by Gordon Stein, Ph.D., submitted with humilty and respect for your opinions, though I question them:

Dr. Stein writes the following: "The bibliographic test for a manuscript in reality is 1) can we trace the manuscript back to the original in an unbroken chain?, 2) how many copies of the manuscript are there?, 3) how closely do the copies agree?, and 4) do we have any (or all) of the manuscript in the handwriting of the purported author? In reality, the New Testament flunks badly tests number 1) and 4). We have a 300+ year gap between the first entire Gospel manuscript and the time at which it was supposed to have been written. In addition, we have no manuscript in the handwriting of the purported author. In fact, we don't even know who the authors of the Gospels were. Remember, it's the Gospel accordng to Mark, Luke, Matthew, or John. This means that it's only an attribution, but not an established fact that anyone named that actually wrote a word of any Gospel.

"McDowell seems incapable of reasoning. He claims that there are 14,000 or 26,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. So what? What we need is not thousands of manuscripts from the Middle Ages (which is when most of these were written), but two or three from the exact time that Jesus supposedly lived and died. We have none until at least 40-60 years later (that is none was written down until then, but things remained in an oral tradition form), and we have no copies of any Gospel until the Codex Sianaticus of 350 A.D., more than 300 years later."

Interesting comments from a PhD, I believe. Actually, there is more evidence from a manuscript perspective, for the NT integrity (consistencey of the accounts, etc) than there is for Plato's works. The NT manuscript evidence is by *far* unlike anything else ofr any other books in the history of humanity. Plato's works are next, with less than two dozen manuscripts or manuscript portions . Would we, by Dr. Steins' reasoning, conclude that Plato never existed? I doubt it.

I'm not a huge McDowell fan, but I would be cautious to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. McDowell may not have presented such a scholarly presentation, or one that you would like, but there are countless others who could and have (c.f. "The Illegal Trial of Jesus Christ by Simon Greenleaf, or the works of Francis Schaeffer).

You say: "there are 14,000 or 26,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. So what?" So what? Now that is an interesting conclusion. One need not have a PhD to know that this support of original manuscripts (with, mind you, miniscule proportion of any significant manuscript differences that would change doctrinal conclusions) is utterly amazing, and is a fact that seperates the Bible from all other books at any time in history. No book or manuscript or author even comes remotely close to this circulation or verification of an original, save Plato whose manuscripts number less than two dozen. Plato's manuscripts are the closest thing, and there is no comparing two dozen manuscripts to thousands. We are talking apples and oranges here. If I were to present you with just 5,000 hand-copied letters, from three different languages, from three different parts of the world that claimed to be of the original letter - but we could not find the original letter, would you deny that the original existed? Would you then say that there is no credibility to the existence of an original? Yet there are more than 15,000 manuscripts and manuscript portions of the Scriptures. Do you assert that no original manuscripts existed? Can you present any credible evidence surpassing this kind of manuscript support for the works of William Shakespeare, Sophicles, Socrates, Plato or anyone else in history?

Your point that: "In fact, we don't even know who the authors of the Gospels were. Remember, it's the Gospel accordng to Mark, Luke, Matthew, or John. This means that it's only an attribution, but not an established fact that anyone named that actually wrote a word of any Gospel" is quite weak. You seem to be implying that because we can't verify the authors as being actually the "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" to which they are attributed, they are not credible. I'm not so sure that I would throw out the evidence of the New Testament writers just because I could not verify the authors. The striking fact is their similiarities and mutual support with no discrepancies in the identity of Christ and the resurrection (which are the key issues), and the fact that there are no other writings that refute the accounts or claims. Perhaps I am wrong here, but you are most welcome to produce such documentation, keeping in mind that such documentation could, by your own standard, be entirely refuted unless we are able to trace it to the original book and writer . I think there is much more to it than your suggestion. You seem to be swallowing a gnat and swallowing a camel on that one.

Finally, you say: "We have none until at least 40-60 years later (that is none was written down until then, but things remained in an oral tradition form), and we have no copies of any Gospel until the Codex Sianaticus of 350 A.D., more than 300 years later." Your conclusion here is lacking any scholarly integrity at all, and reflects your lack of understanding of the place of oral tradition. In fact, your conclusion reflects the idea that history is not credible unless it was written immediately. The gospels record events that were not written commensurate with their occurence. Therefore, the gospel accounts cannot be true. But your view neglects the reality of oral tradition and its significance. You entirely overlook the fact that anyone else could have circulated an oral tradition discounting the resurrection and the gospel accounts and undergone the same form of being written 4-60 years later, etc - but such never happened. How this can be overlooked is quite disturbing to the educated person. To consider that there is scarcely the kind of refutation one would expect to discount the claim of a resurrection, let alone the other works of Christ, should be a major part of accepting their credibility. If I were to write that JFK were alive and raised from the dead, there would be witnesses who could/would refute me and the claim would die down quickly. By comparision, nothing of the sort happened for the gospels, which reflect the life of Christ.


As a scholar, I am surprised at your lack of scholarship to try and debunk the entire argument based on the man presenting it, in this case McDowell. True, he's not the greatest presenter and detailer, and may not be a scholar at all, but if you can get beyond him and his presentation and do the research, you may be surprised at what you find out that is quite different than your current conclusions. You owe it to yourself, Dr. Stein.

Kindly,
Mike

A few notes and comments regarding Josh McDowell's Charade (1982) by Gordon Stein, Ph.D., submitted with humilty and respect for your opinions, though I question them:

Dr. Stein writes the following: "The bibliographic test for a manuscript in reality is 1) can we trace the manuscript back to the original in an unbroken chain?, 2) how many copies of the manuscript are there?, 3) how closely do the copies agree?, and 4) do we have any (or all) of the manuscript in the handwriting of the purported author? In reality, the New Testament flunks badly tests number 1) and 4). We have a 300+ year gap between the first entire Gospel manuscript and the time at which it was supposed to have been written. In addition, we have no manuscript in the handwriting of the purported author. In fact, we don't even know who the authors of the Gospels were. Remember, it's the Gospel accordng to Mark, Luke, Matthew, or John. This means that it's only an attribution, but not an established fact that anyone named that actually wrote a word of any Gospel.

"McDowell seems incapable of reasoning. He claims that there are 14,000 or 26,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. So what? What we need is not thousands of manuscripts from the Middle Ages (which is when most of these were written), but two or three from the exact time that Jesus supposedly lived and died. We have none until at least 40-60 years later (that is none was written down until then, but things remained in an oral tradition form), and we have no copies of any Gospel until the Codex Sianaticus of 350 A.D., more than 300 years later."

Interesting comments from a PhD, I believe. Actually, there is more evidence from a manuscript perspective, for the NT integrity (consistencey of the accounts, etc) than there is for Plato's works. The NT manuscript evidence is by *far* unlike anything else ofr any other books in the history of humanity. Plato's works are next, with less than two dozen manuscripts or manuscript portions . Would we, by Dr. Steins' reasoning, conclude that Plato never existed? I doubt it.

I'm not a huge McDowell fan, but I would be cautious to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. McDowell may not have presented such a scholarly presentation, or one that you would like, but there are countless others who could and have (c.f. "The Illegal Trial of Jesus Christ by Simon Greenleaf, or the works of Francis Schaeffer).

You say: "there are 14,000 or 26,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. So what?" So what? Now that is an interesting conclusion. One need not have a PhD to know that this support of original manuscripts (with, mind you, miniscule proportion of any significant manuscript differences that would change doctrinal conclusions) is utterly amazing, and is a fact that seperates the Bible from all other books at any time in history. No book or manuscript or author even comes remotely close to this circulation or verification of an original, save Plato whose manuscripts number less than two dozen. Plato's manuscripts are the closest thing, and there is no comparing two dozen manuscripts to thousands. We are talking apples and oranges here. If I were to present you with just 5,000 hand-copied letters, from three different languages, from three different parts of the world that claimed to be of the original letter - but we could not find the original letter, would you deny that the original existed? Would you then say that there is no credibility to the existence of an original? Yet there are more than 15,000 manuscripts and manuscript portions of the Scriptures. Do you assert that no original manuscripts existed? Can you present any credible evidence surpassing this kind of manuscript support for the works of William Shakespeare, Sophicles, Socrates or anyone else in history, for that matter apart from Plato?

Your point that: "In fact, we don't even know who the authors of the Gospels were. Remember, it's the Gospel accordng to Mark, Luke, Matthew, or John. This means that it's only an attribution, but not an established fact that anyone named that actually wrote a word of any Gospel" is not a strong one. I'm not so sure that I would throw out the evidence of the New Testament writers just because I could not verify the author's name. I think there is much more to it than your point, there. You seem to be swallowing a gnat and swallowing a camel on that one.

Finally, you say: "We have none until at least 40-60 years later (that is none was written down until then, but things remained in an oral tradition form), and we have no copies of any Gospel until the Codex Sianaticus of 350 A.D., more than 300 years later." Your conclusion here is lacking any scholarly integrity at all, and reflects your lack of understanding of the place of oral tradition. In fact, your conclusion reflects the idea that history is not credible unless it was written immediately. The gospels record events that were not written commensurate with their occurence. Therefore, the gospel accounts cannot be true. But your view neglects the reality of oral tradition and its significance. You entirely overlook the fact that anyone else could have circulated an oral tradition discounting the resurrection and the gospel accounts and undergone the same form of being written 4-60 years later, etc - but such never happened. How this can be overlooked is quite disturbing to the educated person. To consider that there is scarcely the kind of refutation one would expect to discount the claim of a resurrection, let alone the other works of Christ, should be a major part of accepting their credibility. If I were to write that JFK were alive and raised from the dead, there would be witnesses who could/would refute me and the claim would die down quickly. By comparision, nothing of the sort happened for the gospels, which reflect the life of Christ.


As a scholar, I am surprised at your lack of scholarship to try and debunk the entire argument based on the man presenting it, in this case McDowell. True, he's not the greatest presenter and detailer, and may not be a scholar at all, but if you can get beyond him and his presentation and do the research, you may be surprised at what you find out that is quite different than your current conclusions. You owe it to yourself, Dr. Stein.

Kindly,
Mike

-DM-

(Thank you for your feedback, submitted twice, regarding Josh McDowell's Charade by Gordon Stein. [Note that the Feedback forum is a fully moderated forum, meaning that no submissions are actually posted until approved by the forum moderator. See the Feedback FAQ.] Normally, e-mail notification of feedback would be sent to the author, however Dr. Stein died some years ago, thus I have moved this thread to the Biblical Criticism & Archaeology forum so that others might respond. -DM-)

Toto

Gordon Stein has been dead for eight years now (almost time to move him to the "History" section). His essay here is probably too polemical to be really effective, but his arguments are correct.

The question is how are any of these manuscripts "Evidence for the Ressurection of Christ"?

The only argument from the OP is

1. Substitute Elvis for JFK in the first sentence, and you will see that it is false. Especially when you are relying on oral tradition, there is no guarantee that oral traditions are transmitted so carefully.

2. We have no record of these gospels until the early to mid-1st century, by which time Jerusalem had been leveled by the Roman armies twice, and no eye witnesses were left.

Vorkosigan

No book or manuscript or author even comes remotely close to this circulation or verification of an original, save Plato whose manuscripts number less than two dozen.

LOL. Yen-shou, the chief priest at the famous Ling-Yin temple in Hangchow, printed more than a dozen titles of sutras, charms, and pictures, of which 400,000 copies have survived. That was in the tenth century.

And any original document from antiquity, of which there are thousands from all over the world, beats the NT for attestation.

<sigh>

Vorkosigan

keyser_soze

Could you please go beat down magus in the other thread? He's going on about how there is more attestation to jesus than caeser and columbus. Despite the OBVIOUS lie in this, and deliberate ignorance of the matter, he persists. I know you keep antiquities in your head, so if you'd care to leave him a few references, we'd all appreciate it. We have all reached the wall with our heads and cannot make ourselves walk further with him.

keyser_soze

By the way, the thread is titled "seriously".

Wayne Delia

I've never been impressed with McDowell's argument, because he is too willing to allow the sympathetic reader to jump to the conclusion that if a continuous chain of accurate translations exist, that implies that the claims made in the original manuscript are valid. We have, I am told, 20,000 manuscripts of the New Testament (the range is between about 15K and 25K) dating back to about 350 AD. Suppose we had fifty thousand manuscripts, all accurately translated, going all the way back to the original - but the original took the liberty of making up some (or all) of the stories to impress the point on gullible audiences of the time, without much concern for internal consistency. The accuracy of the chain of translation has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of the claims made in the original manuscript.
You may think there is much more to it than the point, and it's a shame you didn't mention any of it. The basis of the authority of the Gospels and Epistles is the idea that it was written by eyewitnesses and close followers of Jesus. Certainly, parts of it must have been made up, as they detail events and dialogue with no disciple eyewitnesses available - Jesus's trial before Pilate, for example, or Jesus's anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane - but the New Testament loses a lot of its persuasive ability if its parts could just as probably have been written by "Omar the Tent-Maker" as by "Matthew the Tax-Collector" or "Peter the Fisherman" or "Luke the Physician."

WMD