Who Do You Say I Am?

[Commodore Angryy]

OH GOD! The walls of text ... they're closing in, can't, breathe. AAAAAAAARGH!

[JM]

Originally Posted by Someday

Who are these New Testament Scholars you speak of?



For most documents of antiquity only a handful of manuscripts exist, some facing a time gap of 800-2000 years or more.
after the facts that they describe. Yet scholars are confident of reconstructing the originals with some significant degree of accuracy. In fact, virtually all of our knowledge of ancient history depends on documents like these. By comparison with secular texts, the manuscript evidence for the New Testament is stunning. The most recent count shows 5,366 separate Greek manuscripts. Not all of these are full texts, many are fragments. But they are all part of the textual criticism process. The most fascinating evidence comes from the fragments (as opposed to the codices). The Chester Beatty Papyri contains most of the New Testament and is dated mid-3rd Century. The Bodmer Papyri II collection, whose discovery was announced in 1956, includes the first fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John and much of the last seven chapters. It dates from A.D. 200 or earlier. The most amazing find of all, however, is a small portion of John 18:31-33, discovered in Egypt known as the John Rylands Papyri. Barely three inches square, it represents the earliest known copy of any part of the New Testament. The papyri is dated at around A.D. 117-138.

Keep in mind that most of the papyri are fragmentary. Only about 50 manuscripts contain the entire New Testament, though most of the other manuscripts contain the four Gospels. Even so, the manuscript textual evidence is exceedingly rich, especially when compared to other works of antiquity. In comparison, The Jewish War, by Josephus, survives in only nine complete manuscripts dating from the 5th Century, four centuries after they were written. Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome is one of the chief historical sources for the Roman world of New Testament times, yet, it survives in partial form in only two manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages. Thucydides' History survives in eight copies. There are 10 copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars, eight copies of Herodotus' History, and seven copies of Plato, all dated over a millennium from the original.

Another thing to consider is that copies of the New Testament writings were no linear, They were copied geometrically. In other words, it was spread out throughout the Roman world, and copies of copies were made in different places and translated into different languages. One letter birthed five copies which became 25 which became 200 and so on.

And what have they found? They found enough to create our latest more improved translations. They haven't found mass changing, rewriting and recreating the New Testament.

Blessings

Hi Someday here are a few of the scholars i mentioned

David Parker, Eldon Epp, and William Petersen three of the leading scholars in the field in the 21st centuries in the UK and America (Petersen has now passed away).

Originally Posted by Commodore Angryy

OH GOD! The walls of text ... they're closing in, can't, breathe. AAAAAAAARGH!

Amen to that!!!!!

(I was trying to post an emote to go with that, but I can't seem to figure out how to get an emote from off site to appear. Has that feature been turned off?)

[Someday]

I am slightly familiar with David Parker and Eldon Epp. I know a little more of William Peterson.I best know William Peterson for having reviewed other textual scholars inaccurately. For an example of this, while reviewing "The Construction of Biblical Certainty: Textual Optimism and the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament."I quote:
"There is, however, an obvious flaw that makes the (seemingly) impressive tables of numbers assembled by Clarke and Bales pointless. They failed to ascertain whether the definitions used in GNT3 to assign the A, B, C, and D rankings are identical with those in GNT4. If they were the same, then a comparison could, conceivably, be made. But if they were different--as they are--then any comparison is meaningless. It is astonishing that such a simple, obvious, elementary check was, apparently, not undertaken, especially when it is absolutely critical to the edifice Clarke and Bales wish to erect upon it."

I don't think he read the whole thing. Clark and Bales provide in unambiguous detail the very information Petersen accused them of carelessly omitting:
"'The Committee also redefined the various levels in the evaluation of evidence on the basis of their relative degrees of certainty. Thus the evaluation of all the 1437 sets of variants cited in the apparatus have been completely reconsidered." A closer look at these newly fashioned demarcations reveals the extent of variation that occurs between the first four UBS editions and the UBS4. The definitions for the A, B, C, and D letter-ratings are identical in UBS1 to UBS3. The letter A signifies that the text is virtually certain; the letter B indicates that there is some degree of doubt; the letter C means that there is a considerable degree of doubt whether the text or the apparatus contains the superior reading; and the letter D shows that there is a very high degree of doubt concerning the reading selected for the text. Turning to the UBS4, we have already seen that the letter A indicates that the text is certain; the letter B indicates that the text is almost certain; the letter C, however, indicates that the committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text; and the letter D, which occurs only rarely, indicates that the committee had great difficulty in arriving at a decision. The original ratings, defined on the basis of their "relative degrees of certainty," have been redefined on the basis of their "degree of doubt."
Peterson was not dishonest, but not always as careful as others will have you believe.

David Parker is especially critical of many textual works such as Nestle-Arland's "Novum Testamentum Graece" as not being perfectly original. This is not the point of it. The point of it was to bring forth by a committee of scholars an agreed upon 'best' reading. In other words, as close to the original texts possible. Two of the most respected textual scholars, Gordon Fee and Bruce Metzger have defended this as very close to the original texts. Not perfect, but very close. Neither one of them had lost their faith because of the difficulties in sifting out the errors of copyists in the earliest days. Of course, The UBS4 is based on the Novum Testamentum Graece, and Scholars such as Bales and Clark support it. Most scholars do.

Epp concluded that the "Textus Receptus" that many older translations were based on is inherently flawed. Most of what I know about him is his criticism of that and his book concerning Junia that I never read.

Blessings

[JM]

Originally Posted by Someday

I am slightly familiar with David Parker and Eldon Epp. I know a little more of William Peterson.I best know William Peterson for having reviewed other textual scholars inaccurately. For an example of this, while reviewing "The Construction of Biblical Certainty: Textual Optimism and the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament."I quote:
"There is, however, an obvious flaw that makes the (seemingly) impressive tables of numbers assembled by Clarke and Bales pointless. They failed to ascertain whether the definitions used in GNT3 to assign the A, B, C, and D rankings are identical with those in GNT4. If they were the same, then a comparison could, conceivably, be made. But if they were different--as they are--then any comparison is meaningless. It is astonishing that such a simple, obvious, elementary check was, apparently, not undertaken, especially when it is absolutely critical to the edifice Clarke and Bales wish to erect upon it."

I don't think he read the whole thing. Clark and Bales provide in unambiguous detail the very information Petersen accused them of carelessly omitting:
"'The Committee also redefined the various levels in the evaluation of evidence on the basis of their relative degrees of certainty. Thus the evaluation of all the 1437 sets of variants cited in the apparatus have been completely reconsidered." A closer look at these newly fashioned demarcations reveals the extent of variation that occurs between the first four UBS editions and the UBS4. The definitions for the A, B, C, and D letter-ratings are identical in UBS1 to UBS3. The letter A signifies that the text is virtually certain; the letter B indicates that there is some degree of doubt; the letter C means that there is a considerable degree of doubt whether the text or the apparatus contains the superior reading; and the letter D shows that there is a very high degree of doubt concerning the reading selected for the text. Turning to the UBS4, we have already seen that the letter A indicates that the text is certain; the letter B indicates that the text is almost certain; the letter C, however, indicates that the committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text; and the letter D, which occurs only rarely, indicates that the committee had great difficulty in arriving at a decision. The original ratings, defined on the basis of their "relative degrees of certainty," have been redefined on the basis of their "degree of doubt."
Peterson was not dishonest, but not always as careful as others will have you believe.

David Parker is especially critical of many textual works such as Nestle-Arland's "Novum Testamentum Graece" as not being perfectly original. This is not the point of it. The point of it was to bring forth by a committee of scholars an agreed upon 'best' reading. In other words, as close to the original texts possible. Two of the most respected textual scholars, Gordon Fee and Bruce Metzger have defended this as very close to the original texts. Not perfect, but very close. Neither one of them had lost their faith because of the difficulties in sifting out the errors of copyists in the earliest days. Of course, The UBS4 is based on the Novum Testamentum Graece, and Scholars such as Bales and Clark support it. Most scholars do.

Epp concluded that the "Textus Receptus" that many older translations were based on is inherently flawed. Most of what I know about him is his criticism of that and his book concerning Junia that I never read.

Blessings

Someday there is always going to be rebuttals to scholars that state things about the bible that others hold to believe as true

And there will be those who lean towards the people rebuttals views and those who lean towards the view which is being rebutted

We have to remember its not easy letting go of things that we have held on to for so long thinking they are true

Its like going through dark clouds ( confusion, not sure ) and being told that, it will consume you and then breaking through to the other side above the clouds and entering the brilliant light, there is a real sense of peace, calm and knowing its ok

Take Bart Ehrman for example. A guy wrote a book immediately after he came out with Misquoting Jesus.

I bought both to be fair. Yet the rebuttals found in " Misquoting Truth " are extremely weak. The author comes across as just someone pissed off, than someone who is able to give any solid reason for Barts Research being inaccurate.

What I have found is the ones that question the bible are not necessarily trying to destroy peoples faiths they are helping people to not just live with blind faith when their are things which can be explained and some things which are being taught which are not even close to having any historical relevance or authority.

[Someday]

Someday there is always going to be rebuttals to scholars that state things about the bible that others hold to believe as true

And there will be those who lean towards the people rebuttals views and those who lean towards the view which is being rebutted

We have to remember its not easy letting go of things that we have held on to for so long thinking they are true

I agree with this. At some point, when people who are examining the very same documents disagree, one can decide what camp makes the best case. This will remain until a smoking gun is found that may shed light on the subject in much the way the dead sea scrolls did for the old testament. Something that was heatedly debated for years was settled quickly in that one find. The optimists won the day in that debate. Time will tell. I'm on the optimistic side here too.
I'm not naive about the subject. I know it is not proper to appeal to majority opinion, but when it comes to a subject like this one, I rely more on scholarly consensus than individual scholarly opinion. When a smoking gun is found that changes my mind on that, I will allow my mind to be changed. I tend to be a lone voice anyway (not that I haven't found plenty who agree with me after I developed my beliefs), so I am not afraid to go with what I believe is right no matter what the majority of Christianity believes.

Blessings

[JM]

Originally Posted by Someday

I agree with this. At some point, when people who are examining the very same documents disagree, one can decide what camp makes the best case. This will remain until a smoking gun is found that may shed light on the subject in much the way the dead sea scrolls did for the old testament. Something that was heatedly debated for years was settled quickly in that one find. The optimists won the day in that debate. Time will tell. I'm on the optimistic side here too.
I'm not naive about the subject. I know it is not proper to appeal to majority opinion, but when it comes to a subject like this one, I rely more on scholarly consensus than individual scholarly opinion. When a smoking gun is found that changes my mind on that, I will allow my mind to be changed. I tend to be a lone voice anyway (not that I haven't found plenty who agree with me after I developed my beliefs), so I am not afraid to go with what I believe is right no matter what the majority of Christianity believes.

Blessings

Well even there with the mention of the dead sea scrolls

There are scholars that argue and dispute as to the validity and accuracy of them to the originals

Well you say you go on scholary consensus vs individual but yet if that was the case that would have made you one of the jews that got Jesus on the cross as the consensus there was they were correct and jesus and his small band of merry men were wrong.

Also if we take the stories from the bible. There were many jewish prophets who came into towns and cities who were opposed and consensus over rided what they had to say to the point where they were put to death

What may appear as the larger portion of people agree upon a subject can be deceiving, its like taking a group of people who are against blacks and saying the overall consensus is that blacks should remain slaves. Watch the movie " Amazing Grace " when he made his appeal to the others. There were many in that room that looked like supporters of slavery but were quiet and finally stopped going along with the general census, there were many that supported it for personal gain, and others because they didnt know how it could be changed.

There are many that use the term scholar that have only education from one view of the bible, while there are others who have the title of scholar which have education from 2 or more views of the bible.

There are many religions and beliefs held, do we determine which one is truth by comparing which one has the largest amount of followers?, today 100 for christianity, tommorow 101 for islam

Who is correct.
How do you know why they are correct?
Do you use their words? Words are the least effective means of determining what is truth

I wouldn't rely heavily on consensus as a litmus test of what is truth when it comes to spiritual matters, people have been doing that for years and look where it has got them.

Ultimately among the noise of religions, beliefs, scholars arguments and a mountain of books published on God, Jesus and Truth

It only matters that you get it right, if a person is doubting and fearful of the outcome, the creator, God.. i.e thinking that God Judges, Rewards and Punishes as a regular parent would do is what leads people to strive so hard to establish for all what is absolute