Yuri Kuchinsky

OK, I though about this case some more, and I now come to the conclusion that Metzger is crooked more than incompetent. Here's why he's crooked.

Quote:

Metzger: "The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming. . . . No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage

When he says "The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming", this is really just a sleight-of-hand. Because simply due to this pericope being non-Johannine -- while it is now found in Jn -- this wouldn't mean that it isn't ancient. (IMO this was most likely originally a Lucan pericope that was later moved into Jn.)

And when Metzger says, "No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage", this is _really_ a clever sleight-of-hand... Because now Metzger uses the fact that Augustine is generally considered a _Latin_ writer to create an impression in the reader's mind that Augustine's testimony wouldn't matter somehow?

So, while technically he _might_ be right about no _Greek_ Church Father prior to Euthymius commenting on the passage, in effect he comes through as a deceiver, because Augustine's testimony on this passage was just as valid as that coming from any Greek Church Father.

I've said Metzger "might be right", because he's probably wrong, anyway, although this might be checked further. Because if we are to trust the website that I've already cited,

http://www.bibleword.org/john10.html

"Jerome included the passage in his Vulgate, which means he found it in the earlier manuscripts. Jerome himself states (c. 415 AD) that the pericope de adultera was found in earlier Greek and Latin manuscripts."

So, if this ref checks out, and if Jerome really said this, then this would mean that Metzger is incompetent, in any case, since a Greek father Jerome _did_ comment on this passage after all before the twelfth century...

Regards,

Yuri.

Bernard Muller

quote:

"Bernard, how much Lewis are you familiar with? This is hardly his only NT error, every time he opens his mouth on the topic he sticks his foot in it. What would you say about someone who claimed to be an authority but knew nothing about the topic?

Vorkosigan"

Vork, I do not know anything about Lewis, except what I learned from Peter's post (and others by now).
I despise apologists, more so the ones who claim to be an authority (but are not), whose only aim is to fool the converts (the ones with doubts), which is what their job is all about.
However Peter's remark was on one point only and I still think it was too brash as coming from a moderator.

Regards, Bernard

Peter Kirby

Get a grip, Yuri. Both Jerome and Augustine are Latin fathers.

best,
Peter Kirby

Bede

Graham Stanton, Professor of NT studies at Cambridge, also thinks the story of the woman caught in adultery is true (see his book Gospel Truth) so I suppose he is a crackpot too.

Peter, you can say truthfully that Lewis was ignorant of Text Criticism but to take that to mean he's a crackpot is wrong and you should withdraw the remark. His expertise was in medieval and renaissance literature and he was an OUTSTANDING scholar of that subject. You seem to be trying to brush up your atheist credentials rather than making a serious point here.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

WinAce

I need to get me some of those! Being an uncredentialed atheist just sucks these days; you don't get any of the really cushy atheist jobs without 'em.

Yuri Kuchinsky

OK, Peter, my argument didn't quite work out. So now, the verdict is shifting more and more to Metzger being quite a competent prevaricator and sophist.

But of course there's still that matter of Eusebius and Papias both commenting on the pericope adultera many centuries before Euthymius... Although Metzger might have left for himself some way to weasel out of that one, too, somehow, depending on how he phrased that particular sophistry in the service of his Alexandrian cult...

To sum up, the pericope adultera is most likely as ancient as anything else in the NT, so Lewis is blameless of any accusation of crackpottery on that account. (Not to say that, personally, I'm a fan of his. He's just a popular apologist, that's all, with a certain gift of gab.)

Cheers,

Yuri.

Clutch

I don't find Peter's reasoning so impenetrable.

His point, as I read him: That the originality of the pericope to GJohn is dubious, on grounds that have been well-known for a long time, and would have been well-known to anyone competent to comment at the time of Lewis's writing.

Whether the story is an old one is obviously tangential to the question of whether it's reasonably considered eye-witness reporting.

Now, look again at Lewis's remark:
It is a liberal though hardly extreme use of the term "crackpot" to denote someone who confuses his ignorance with the absence of any other explanation. It seems to me that this is the essence of Peter's post.

So, for example, if Bede's Professor Stanton holds that the pericope is true on the grounds that this is the only explanation for its existence, then yes, he would be a crackpot. My suspicion is that the professor holds a more nuanced view, but this is conjecture on my part.

Toto

Mirriam-Webster defines "crackpot" as "one given to eccentric or lunatic notions." I think that generally crackpots are assumed to hold bizarre ideas against the grain of social acceptance.

C.S.Lewis, however, is not going against the grain. He is just using pathetically bad reasoning in favor of a socially approved religion. We usually call people who do that politicians, or lawyers, or apologists.

Certainly to say that an old story with an unexplained detail must be true because writing good fiction hadn't been invented in Biblical times is silly, inane, shows that Lewis is logically impaired and couldn't reason his way out of a paper bag. But crackpot? That's a slur on true crackpots.

Nom

Lewis' apologetics are pretty pedestrian, IMHO. As for his fiction, I never did get past the first page of his Perelandra sf, and I remember his Narnia books as being a good read when I was, oh, about 8. He did manage one work of genius (again, IMHO), tho: The Screwtape Letters.

Arken

Aww, I liked the whole series. I don't care if it's biblical allegory... it all falls down anyway since he openly discusses things like 'river gods' in the novels so he wasn't exactly sticking to straight theology himself. I thought they were very entertaining childrens' novels and I had them read to me and later read them myself and got absolutely nothing religious out of them. (I make an exception to The Last Battle which is pretty blatant and I don't care for it at all)

Also, Tolkein fans all owe Lewis a debt of gratitude because he convinced J.R.R. to publish his novels despite J.R.R.'s misgivings about their being contrary to his christian beliefs.