Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Apikorus · 12-31-2002, 11:55 AM

thebeast's wild assertions are so tendentious and misguided as to be laughable.

Here is a list of extant Greek NT papyri. While there are indeed many early witnesses to the NT - far more than for any other ancient text - the ms evidence does not begin to accumulate until the fourth century CE. The pre-Nicene texts are extremely fragmentary, and the number of extant 2nd century fragments can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Certainly there was ample time for any notional first century documents to be redacted, interpolated, etc.

So while there are indeed numerous (thousands?) of "early" NT fragments, almost all are post-Nicene and hence provide little help in establishing the composition and transmission history of the NT during the first three centuries CE.

This reminds me of a joke:

A man is placed on trial for stealing a watch. The prosecutor begins by addressing the judge and says, "your honor, I can produce five witnesses who saw this man steal the watch." The defendant then bolts up from his seat and exclaims, "but your honor, I can produce five hundred people who didn't see me steal the watch!"

thebeast · 12-31-2002, 12:02 PM

So Akiporous,

What sect do you adhere to?

Peter Kirby · 12-31-2002, 12:15 PM

thebeast,

Do you wish to evade the issue or are you just trying to pick out the correct slur from your hackneyed repertoire?

Peter Kirby (moderator)

CX · 12-31-2002, 12:34 PM

Gentlemen,

Let's try to keep on a topic and refrain from pointless ad hominem diatribes.

thebeast · 12-31-2002, 12:34 PM

What issue Peter? There is no issue here. The truth is there are no fragments, these are full documents, 25,000 of them, and the bible is fully accredited, yet he persists in his false fragment statement.

There is no issue here, the point has been debated in full, and proof has been submitted and rejected. There is nothing else I can add to his knowledge, so I want to find out what he believes in in order to compare what he believes in and the documentation he has to back up what he believes in with what I believe in.

Apikorus · 12-31-2002, 12:36 PM

thebeast:

אהיה אשר אהיה

thebeast · 12-31-2002, 12:46 PM

Well that explains it...

Here's some famous talmud quotes:

Yebamoth 98a. All Gentile children are animals.

Abodah Zarah 36b. Gentile girls are in a state of niddah (filth) from birth.

Abodah Zarah 22a-22b. Gentiles prefer sex with cows.

Insults Against The Blessed Virgin Mary

Sanhedrin 106a. Says Jesus' mother was a whore: "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters."

Also in footnote #2 to Shabbath 104b it is stated that in the "uncensored" text of the Talmud it is written that Jesus mother, "Miriam the hairdresser," had sex with many men.

Gloats over Christ Dying Young

A passage from Sanhedrin 106 gloats over the early age at which Jesus died: "Hast thou heard how old Balaam (Jesus) was? - He replied: It is not actually stated but since it is written, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days it follows that he was thirty-three or thirty-four years old."

Says Jesus was a Sorcerer

Sanhedrin 43a. Says Jesus ("Yeshu" and in footnote #6, Yeshu "the Nazarene") was executed because he practiced sorcery.

Horrible Blasphemy of Jesus Christ

Gittin 57a. Says Jesus ( see footnote #4) is being boiled in "hot excrement."

Sanhedrin 43a. Jesus deserved execution: "On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged...Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defense could be made? Was he not a Mesith (enticer)?"

Talmud Attacks Christians

Rosh Hashanah 17a. Christians ("minim") and others who reject the Talmud will go to hell and be punished there for all generations (see footnote #11 for the definition of minim).

Christian Book Burning

Sanhedrin 90a. Those who read the New Testament ("uncanonical books," see footnote #9) will have no portion in the world to come.

Shabbath 116a (p. 569). Jews must destroy the books of the Christians, i.e. the New Testament.

Dr. Israel Shahak reports that the Zionists burned hundreds of New Testament books in Occupied Palestine on March 23, 1980 (cf. "Jewish History, Jewish Religion," Pluto Press, p. 21).

Sick and Insane Teachings of the Jewish Talmud

Gittin 69a. To heal his flesh a Jew should take dust that lies within the shadow of an outdoor toilet, mix it with honey and eat it.

Shabbath 41a. The law regulating the rule for how to urinate in a holy way is given.

Yebamoth 63a. States that Adam had sexual intercourse with all the animals in the Garden of Eden.

Yebamoth 63a. Declares that agriculture is the lowest of occupations.

Sanhedrin 55b. A Jew may marry a three year old girl (specifically, three years "and a day" old).

Sanhedrin 54b. A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old.

Kethuboth 11b. "When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing."

Yebamoth 59b. A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a Jewish priest. A woman who has sex with a demon is also eligible to marry a Jewish priest.

CX · 12-31-2002, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by thebeast
The truth is there are no fragments, these are full documents, 25,000 of them

I'm afraid this is simply incorrect. I refer you to Appendix I CODICES GRAECI ET LATINI (cf. NA27 pp. 684-718)in Nestle-Aland 27th Edition Novum Testamentum Graece the critical Greek text on which the majority of modern translations are based. The vast majority of Greek MSS are fragmentary. Not only that but the vast majority (@85-90%)of existing handwritten copies of the NT are from the 13th century or later. I'd strongly suggest you give a bit more study to the issue.

thebeast · 12-31-2002, 12:49 PM

Fragmentary in the sense that they are isolated, the letters of Paul are not all together, as in the bible, you have a letter here and a letter there, but the letters are complete, not fragmented.

So the documents are full documents, not shards likethe scrolls.

dost · 12-31-2002, 12:51 PM

Thebeast wrote:

Quote:

One of the usual pagan vomit is that the bible is innacurate and corrupt, to use an islamaniacal idiom. But that is a lie, a bald face lie, that bald face liars have no problems with, parroting their idiocy shamelessly. No the bible is not corrupt, and every word in it is accurate. In fact, the bible is the most accurately transmitted document on the face of the earth, with a multitude of historical documents that attest to the exactitude of todays text.

The number of mss does not prove anything. The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible states that there is not a single sentence in the NT where the mss tradition is wholly uniform. According to the NT scholars themselevs, there are more variations in the mss tradition than words within the NT. So if anything, the number of mss only complicates the matter and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the NT has not been transmitted accurately. Secondly, the originals are long lost. So what you have now are the copies of the copies of the copies of the long lost originals, all imperfect copies. Most are just tiny fragments, the size of a credit card. The text of the NT is being restored through imperfect mss. Scholars vote as to which maybe perhaps the BEST reading, NOT the "original". The statement that the NT has come down to us accurately, or is the most accurately transmitted book on the face of the earth, is a silly statement not taken seriously by any scholar worth the name.

Look what a believing practising Christian scholar had to say a long time ago:

Quote:

"The New Testament was not produced as a single work issued by an authoritative Church for the instruction of its members. The four Gospels were composed in different times and places over perhaps a third of a century, and for a time circulated separately among a number of other narratives of our Lord's life (of which the newly discovered fragment of an unknown Gospel may have been one). The Epistles were letters, or treatises in the form of letters, addressed to different congregations and only gradually made known to other Churches. The book of Revelation was an isolated production, which for a long time was not universally accepted. There was no central body to say what books were to be regarded as authoritative, or to supply certified copies of them. The apostles were scattered, and even the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem had neither the power nor the means to impose uniformity.

In these circumstances, we must imagine the literature of Christianity as spreading gradually, irregularly, and in a manner which made variations inevitable. In the earliest days, while the generation that had known our Lord on earth was alive, and while His second coming was expected in the immediate future, there would have been little demand for written records. But as the promise of His coming was delayed, and as the faith spread beyond the range of those who had known Him, the narratives which we now know came into being, together with many which have long ago disappeared. But not every congregation would have possessed a complete set of the books of their faith. One Church might possess only one Gospel, another two or three or the complete four. A village or provincial where there was a Christian congregation might hear that its neighbour had a copy of a book unknown to them, and might send and get a copy of it - made, very likely, by a copyist of more zeal than skill. Exact verbal accuracy of transcription was, after all, of little account. The Gospels were not thought of as works of literature. People were not concerned with the literary reputation of Mathew or Mark, but with the substance of their records of our Lord's life. They did not have to respect their actual words, as they would if they were transcribing the works of Thucydides or Plato. Rather a scribe might have thought he was doing good service if he smoothed away difficulties of phrase, if he made the narrative of one Evangelist conform with that of another, if he inserted proper names or pronouns for the sake of greater clearness, if he used a conventional form of words instead of an unusual one, even if he inserted a new incident into the narrative. Edification was the object, not literary exactitude."

[Sir Frederic Kenyon. "THE STORY OF THE BIBLE" A Popular Account Of How It Came To Us. New edition with a Supplementary Chapter by Bernard M. G. Reardon. First published 1936. Eighth impression 1955. Second edition 1964 pg. 105-106 ]

What happened to the ending of Mark? "Accurately transmitted" or lost?

sincerely, dost.

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12-31-2002, 11:55 AM	#41
Apikorus Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,396	thebeast's wild assertions are so tendentious and misguided as to be laughable. Here is a list of extant Greek NT papyri. While there are indeed many early witnesses to the NT - far more than for any other ancient text - the ms evidence does not begin to accumulate until the fourth century CE. The pre-Nicene texts are extremely fragmentary, and the number of extant 2nd century fragments can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Certainly there was ample time for any notional first century documents to be redacted, interpolated, etc. So while there are indeed numerous (thousands?) of "early" NT fragments, almost all are post-Nicene and hence provide little help in establishing the composition and transmission history of the NT during the first three centuries CE. This reminds me of a joke: A man is placed on trial for stealing a watch. The prosecutor begins by addressing the judge and says, "your honor, I can produce five witnesses who saw this man steal the watch." The defendant then bolts up from his seat and exclaims, "but your honor, I can produce five hundred people who didn't see me steal the watch!"

12-31-2002, 12:02 PM	#42
thebeast Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: toronto Posts: 42	So Akiporous, What sect do you adhere to?

12-31-2002, 12:15 PM	#43
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	thebeast, Do you wish to evade the issue or are you just trying to pick out the correct slur from your hackneyed repertoire? Peter Kirby (moderator)

12-31-2002, 12:34 PM	#44
CX Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Portlandish Posts: 2,829	Gentlemen, Let's try to keep on a topic and refrain from pointless ad hominem diatribes.

12-31-2002, 12:36 PM	#46
Apikorus Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,396	thebeast: אהיה אשר אהיה

12-31-2002, 12:46 PM	#47
thebeast Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: toronto Posts: 42	Well that explains it... Here's some famous talmud quotes: Yebamoth 98a. All Gentile children are animals. Abodah Zarah 36b. Gentile girls are in a state of niddah (filth) from birth. Abodah Zarah 22a-22b. Gentiles prefer sex with cows. Insults Against The Blessed Virgin Mary Sanhedrin 106a. Says Jesus' mother was a whore: "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters." Also in footnote #2 to Shabbath 104b it is stated that in the "uncensored" text of the Talmud it is written that Jesus mother, "Miriam the hairdresser," had sex with many men. Gloats over Christ Dying Young A passage from Sanhedrin 106 gloats over the early age at which Jesus died: "Hast thou heard how old Balaam (Jesus) was? - He replied: It is not actually stated but since it is written, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days it follows that he was thirty-three or thirty-four years old." Says Jesus was a Sorcerer Sanhedrin 43a. Says Jesus ("Yeshu" and in footnote #6, Yeshu "the Nazarene") was executed because he practiced sorcery. Horrible Blasphemy of Jesus Christ Gittin 57a. Says Jesus ( see footnote #4) is being boiled in "hot excrement." Sanhedrin 43a. Jesus deserved execution: "On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged...Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defense could be made? Was he not a Mesith (enticer)?" Talmud Attacks Christians Rosh Hashanah 17a. Christians ("minim") and others who reject the Talmud will go to hell and be punished there for all generations (see footnote #11 for the definition of minim). Christian Book Burning Sanhedrin 90a. Those who read the New Testament ("uncanonical books," see footnote #9) will have no portion in the world to come. Shabbath 116a (p. 569). Jews must destroy the books of the Christians, i.e. the New Testament. Dr. Israel Shahak reports that the Zionists burned hundreds of New Testament books in Occupied Palestine on March 23, 1980 (cf. "Jewish History, Jewish Religion," Pluto Press, p. 21). Sick and Insane Teachings of the Jewish Talmud Gittin 69a. To heal his flesh a Jew should take dust that lies within the shadow of an outdoor toilet, mix it with honey and eat it. Shabbath 41a. The law regulating the rule for how to urinate in a holy way is given. Yebamoth 63a. States that Adam had sexual intercourse with all the animals in the Garden of Eden. Yebamoth 63a. Declares that agriculture is the lowest of occupations. Sanhedrin 55b. A Jew may marry a three year old girl (specifically, three years "and a day" old). Sanhedrin 54b. A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old. Kethuboth 11b. "When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing." Yebamoth 59b. A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a Jewish priest. A woman who has sex with a demon is also eligible to marry a Jewish priest.

12-31-2002, 12:49 PM	#49
thebeast Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: toronto Posts: 42	Fragmentary in the sense that they are isolated, the letters of Paul are not all together, as in the bible, you have a letter here and a letter there, but the letters are complete, not fragmented. So the documents are full documents, not shards likethe scrolls.

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