On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:05:10 -0400, Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:02:38 -0400, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
>> I didn't say that.
>
>Correct, you didn't. I did.
>
>
>
>>text, nor is it an accurate chronological history of the jewish nation
>>(the old testiment). Rather it is a true story (or a series of true
>>stories) of things that happened in the history of the jewish people,
>>transcribed from the oral tradition over 3000 years ago.
>>
>>The New Testament is a combination of the writings of some of the
>>followers of Jesus - some who actually knew him and travelled with
>>him, and some who only knew of him, along with others who came later
>>on the scene. Again, like the old testament it is not meant to be an
>>accurate historical record, but a "true representation" of the life
>>and teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth, who was called "the christ".
>>
>
>The problem is, like anything handed down, translated, and portions
>selected, the accuracy is marginal. Ever play that party game when
>you were in school where you whispered a secret to the person next to
>you and by the time it got to the last person, it had little or no
>resemblance to the actual statement? Translate from Hebrew to Greek
>to a myriad of other languages and see what happens.
>
>
>
>>If you attempt to study either as something it was never meant to be,
>>of course you will have problems and if the fact they do not measure
>>up to your expectations (when they were not meant to), you may decide
>>The Book is wrong, because it is not possible YOU and your approach
>>are wrong.
>
>Agree
>
One interesting thing this "top biblical schollar" got totally wrong
was about scribes putting their own interpretation into their copying
of the scriptural manuscripts. Up untill releatively recent time,
scribes were illiterate, and basically just "human photocopiers" - for
exactly that reason. Which is how so FEW differences have crept in
over the centuries. There is LESS variation between copies made 500 or
more years apart than there are in virtually any "secular" manuscripts
over a period of close to half that time spread, in the same period.
Yes, there were some changes made over the years by certain groups -
just as there are changes made today in the wordings between, say, the
King James and New King James versions - and more when you go to other
translations and paraphrases.
And obviously translating from one language to another introduces
changes - but even the change in idioms in the same language over
centuries almost REQUIRES changes in wording and phraseology.
Doesn't necessarily make one any less "true" than the other - - - .
On Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:14:03 -0500, "Dr. Deb" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>BV BV wrote:
>
>> Top Bible scholar leaves Christianity
>>
>> This is a short interview with a renowned Bible scholar who talks
>> about why he left Christianity.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/v/aYSDTXYmdvs?rel=0
>>
>> thank you
>
>FYI to all, the terms "top" and scholar" are being stretched to the limit in
>the above
>
>Ehrman is not a top flight scholar, though he does have an evangelical
>background.
>
>I really hate this type of thing, where something is hyped. It would be so
>nice if folks were a tad more honest. But then this is not Camelot, is it?
>:-)
>
>
>Deb
Just because someone is raised in a fundamentalist ultra
conservative, evangelical home and goes to all the right schools does
not make him either a Christian OR a top bible scholar - and to be a
"top bible scholar" does not even REQUIRE one to be a christian.
And just because one's very firm belief that every WORD of the
scriptures is not only true but 100% factual, and therefore EXACTLY,
word for word and jot for jot what was spoken almost 2000 years ago
has been shaken by finding out the earth realy is NOT 6000 years old,
or that several of 500 different copies of biblical manuscripts have
some different words in them, does not make either the bible or
Christianity WRONG.
I consider myself to be a Christian, and I believe the bible is TRUE -
but I do not necessarily believe it is 100% ACCURATE , or even 100%
FACTUAL. Truth, accuracy, and fact are not the same thing.
And contrairy to common (baptist) belief, the Baptists do not have a
corner on God or Truth.
Ehrman's BAPTIST beliefs have been challenged, and now he does not
know what to do with CHRISTIANITY.
On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:56:53 -0500, -MIKE- <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On 3/19/13 5:05 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>> The problem is, like anything handed down, translated, and portions
>> selected, the accuracy is marginal. Ever play that party game when
>> you were in school where you whispered a secret to the person next
>> to you and by the time it got to the last person, it had little or
>> no resemblance to the actual statement? Translate from Hebrew to
>> Greek to a myriad of other languages and see what happens.
>>
>
>That's a common argument that hasn't ever stood the test of scrutiny.
>
>For example... when the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, they were
>dated to about 1000 years earlier than the Masoretic texts which were
>the earliest manuscripts of the Bible, up until the Dead Sea
>discoveries. (A.D. 980-100 B.C.)
>
>When compared to one another, they were 98% identical. The 2%
>difference was what we'd attribute to typographical errors and
>differences in spelling that evolve in every language over centuries of
>use.
>
>Furthermore, when you do get text fragments of scripture that have
>errors, it easy to obtain the original text from comparing the errors.
>Manuscripts from different eras and locations obviously won't have the
>same errors. Using your "telephone game" analogy, a more accurate
>analogy would be to conduct the experiment with several different
>classrooms, using the same sentence, and compare the results.
>
>The sentence is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." These
>are typical results that would come back from the different classrooms.
>The quick brown fox jumps over the dog.
>The brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>The quick fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.
>The quick brown fox jumps the lazy dog.
>By comparing the results, it's pretty easy to extrapolate what the
>original sentence was, because the errors are all different and the
>correct parts are congruent.
>
>However, and more accurate analogy with this school game would be if the
>kids had to write down the sentence when passing it along, since this is
>the tradition used when passing scripture from generation to generation.
> And the more accurate analogy of the errors in Biblical manuscript from
>different eras and locations, using the same sentence, would look more
>like this....
>The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>The quik brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>The qick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>The quic brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>The Quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
>
>It's even easier to extrapolate the original text when comparing the
>errors of those written sentences. That's a pretty good representation
>of the kind of "errors" there are in the thousands of early manuscripts
>hat have been compared.
Correct.
Extremely minor error counts - and extremely minor errors within thise
counts.
On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:01:56 -0400, [email protected] wrote:
>
>I consider myself to be a Christian, and I believe the bible is TRUE -
>but I do not necessarily believe it is 100% ACCURATE , or even 100%
>FACTUAL. Truth, accuracy, and fact are not the same thing.
>
It is really more like a novel, but has a bunch of different authors
and they put in and left out what was convenient to them, not to
mention their own translations.
On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:51:25 -0400, Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:01:56 -0400, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
>>
>>I consider myself to be a Christian, and I believe the bible is TRUE -
>>but I do not necessarily believe it is 100% ACCURATE , or even 100%
>>FACTUAL. Truth, accuracy, and fact are not the same thing.
>>
>
>It is really more like a novel, but has a bunch of different authors
>and they put in and left out what was convenient to them, not to
>mention their own translations.
I didn't say that. Just that it is not a "history of the world"
text, nor is it an accurate chronological history of the jewish nation
(the old testiment). Rather it is a true story (or a series of true
stories) of things that happened in the history of the jewish people,
transcribed from the oral tradition over 3000 years ago.
The New Testament is a combination of the writings of some of the
followers of Jesus - some who actually knew him and travelled with
him, and some who only knew of him, along with others who came later
on the scene. Again, like the old testament it is not meant to be an
accurate historical record, but a "true representation" of the life
and teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth, who was called "the christ".
It is not an "accurate collection of his sermons" or a "complete
collection of his writings" nor an "accurate history of his life".
If you attempt to study either as something it was never meant to be,
of course you will have problems and if the fact they do not measure
up to your expectations (when they were not meant to), you may decide
The Book is wrong, because it is not possible YOU and your approach
are wrong. This is a problem with many fundamentalist / literalist
scholars - They have grown up where everything is laid out for them -
everything fits into their theological box - and when they find
something that does not agree with / fit into their box they don't
know what to do with the whole thing - it must be wrong because it
does not fit their box - or what is in their box must be wrong because
they found proof of something that does not fit in their box - instead
of admitting their box is just too small.
The same is true of sceptics and critics..
On 3/19/13 5:05 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> The problem is, like anything handed down, translated, and portions
> selected, the accuracy is marginal. Ever play that party game when
> you were in school where you whispered a secret to the person next
> to you and by the time it got to the last person, it had little or
> no resemblance to the actual statement? Translate from Hebrew to
> Greek to a myriad of other languages and see what happens.
>
That's a common argument that hasn't ever stood the test of scrutiny.
For example... when the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, they were
dated to about 1000 years earlier than the Masoretic texts which were
the earliest manuscripts of the Bible, up until the Dead Sea
discoveries. (A.D. 980-100 B.C.)
When compared to one another, they were 98% identical. The 2%
difference was what we'd attribute to typographical errors and
differences in spelling that evolve in every language over centuries of
use.
Furthermore, when you do get text fragments of scripture that have
errors, it easy to obtain the original text from comparing the errors.
Manuscripts from different eras and locations obviously won't have the
same errors. Using your "telephone game" analogy, a more accurate
analogy would be to conduct the experiment with several different
classrooms, using the same sentence, and compare the results.
The sentence is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." These
are typical results that would come back from the different classrooms.
The quick brown fox jumps over the dog.
The brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps the lazy dog.
By comparing the results, it's pretty easy to extrapolate what the
original sentence was, because the errors are all different and the
correct parts are congruent.
However, and more accurate analogy with this school game would be if the
kids had to write down the sentence when passing it along, since this is
the tradition used when passing scripture from generation to generation.
And the more accurate analogy of the errors in Biblical manuscript from
different eras and locations, using the same sentence, would look more
like this....
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quik brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The qick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quic brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The Quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
It's even easier to extrapolate the original text when comparing the
errors of those written sentences. That's a pretty good representation
of the kind of "errors" there are in the thousands of early manuscripts
hat have been compared.
--
-MIKE-
"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com
[email protected]
---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply
On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:02:38 -0400, [email protected] wrote:
> I didn't say that.
Correct, you didn't. I did.
>text, nor is it an accurate chronological history of the jewish nation
>(the old testiment). Rather it is a true story (or a series of true
>stories) of things that happened in the history of the jewish people,
>transcribed from the oral tradition over 3000 years ago.
>
>The New Testament is a combination of the writings of some of the
>followers of Jesus - some who actually knew him and travelled with
>him, and some who only knew of him, along with others who came later
>on the scene. Again, like the old testament it is not meant to be an
>accurate historical record, but a "true representation" of the life
>and teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth, who was called "the christ".
>
The problem is, like anything handed down, translated, and portions
selected, the accuracy is marginal. Ever play that party game when
you were in school where you whispered a secret to the person next to
you and by the time it got to the last person, it had little or no
resemblance to the actual statement? Translate from Hebrew to Greek
to a myriad of other languages and see what happens.
>If you attempt to study either as something it was never meant to be,
>of course you will have problems and if the fact they do not measure
>up to your expectations (when they were not meant to), you may decide
>The Book is wrong, because it is not possible YOU and your approach
>are wrong.
Agree
BV BV wrote:
> Top Bible scholar leaves Christianity
>
> This is a short interview with a renowned Bible scholar who talks
> about why he left Christianity.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/v/aYSDTXYmdvs?rel=0
>
> thank you
FYI to all, the terms "top" and scholar" are being stretched to the limit in
the above
Ehrman is not a top flight scholar, though he does have an evangelical
background.
I really hate this type of thing, where something is hyped. It would be so
nice if folks were a tad more honest. But then this is not Camelot, is it?
:-)
Deb