It was an observation, not a criticism. He is welcome to believe what he wishes, but when he drags it in here to claim that everyone in the world who does not see things his way has been misled and only he has (apparently) been blessed by the Spirit to see the truth, he is expressing an odd theology, and when he appears to have no way to adjust his views based on new information, he appears rigid. (Note that I did not say unique. I make no claim that he is the only believing person to have either an odd or a rigid theology.)
There are no problems at all with the parables or Job, since these are clearly fiction used in order to make a moral point. No one I know uses the fact that there is no historical Prodigal Son as evidence that the Bible is incorrect.
But I have to disagree with you on the use of the Davidic stories only as moral points - or even primarily as moral points. The greatness of these stories is that David is a fully realized character, full of human flaws. Yes, he sinned in the Bathsheeba story, but what are we to make of the fact that the issue of that union was Solomon? Is there any research on how much of them were pre-exiting legends and how much was written to make a political point? In my understanding, the moral and political would hardly be considered distinguishable by those who wrote the Bible anyway.
As I said, I’m aware of the explanation. But wouldn’t a more accurate story give this while not turning off future generations - and make the disobedience part clear?
As I said, the parables are not an issue. The authority of their moral message (as opposed to the value of the message) comes from the authority of Jesus - or those who actually wrote the parables. Would we treat Aesop’s stories any differently if we uncovered writing that said he claimed they came from Zeus? Clearly the parables give no evidence one way or another as to whether they should be considered divine.
You and I are both relativists - but where does this view put God as the giver of morality? I don’t think you have to be a fundamentalist to believe that - in fact, if God does not have that property, he is nothing but a very powerful alien. Older, successful religions have figured out that Biblical laws don’t really work as stated, and therefore must be interpreted. I really don’t see this as much of an argument for Biblical authority - quite the opposite, in fact. The cleverness of these people in working out explanations must be admired, but you’d think the Western God wouldn’t need this kind of help. Greek and Norse gods weren’t considered to be morally perfect, so there wasn’t this problem.
A study of the history of the scriptures is a good place to start.
I’m not sure you’re serious but just in case.
It’s not just a suggestion, it’s a well documented fact among biblical scholars at this point. Now we might have to discuss exactly what does or does not constitute “highly distorted” but we do know that of the many of the books of the NT were changed and edited by copyists in some fairly significant ways.
I listed some here
For more I recommend “Misquoting Jesus” by biblical scholar Bart Ehrman. It’s a great laymans book for understanding the basics.
Faith, although I am not sure how much “alone” it is. The entire tradition of Christianity (with all its recognizable foibles–sometimes despite and sometimes because) resonates with my world view, so that I accept the authority of scripture–with all its foibles–as a repository (not a source) of the Word of God.
If I ever publish an autobiography, I’ll try to lay out the whole confusing mess, sometime.
Okay, so you claim to have done a study of the Scriptures. On what ground do you conclude that they were merely written with political and personal goals in mind?
Really? Then tell me… How many translation steps did the Scriptures go through before we arrived at, say, the King James Version? Or the New American Standard Version? And which languages were the documents translated into before we arrived at an English version?
Okay, so where is your evidence for this assertion?
Those changes are few and far between, and none of them constitute a major change in doctrine. Your discussion of 1 Cor 14:34, for example, assumes that this was a deliberate change, whereas it could have just as easily been a copyist error… especially since there was no systematic attempt to reflect those changes elsewhere in the Scriptures. The other changes can likewise be chalked up to omissions here and there.
For more I recommend “Misquoting Jesus” by biblical scholar Bart Ehrman. It’s a great laymans book for understanding the basics.
Why else would they be written? There is really no dispute that the books of the Bible were written by many different authors at many different times with many different agendas. None of them knew they were writing a Bible and the odds are that few, if any, that any of them had any idea that their works would ever be taken as the perfect word of God. Any assertion that the authors did NOT have personal or political agendas is so extraordinary as to require some kind of proof on the part of the person making the assertion. I assure you, it is taken for granted in Biblical scholarship that the authors had personal agendas.
The claim about translations I grant you is overstated, but the source texts for the English translations still contain a considerable number of variations, redactions and interpolations.
The evidence is the manuscripts themselves which contain thousands of variations copy errors, redactions and deliberate interpolations by copyists
You should really read Ehrman’s book.
[ hijack - Why not? ]
While I generally agree with you that we do not have any manuscripts from the origfinal authors, I will note that my (possibly faulty) review of the specific selection you noted in Luke has the “extra” portion missing from the Bezae Cantabrigiensis from the fifth or sixth century while it appears in the Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century), Codex Vaticanus (fourth century), and Codex Alexendrinus (fifth century) with no special notations for the papyrus fragments or the Peschitta.
Am I reading my sources wrong or did you have a specific claim in mind when you said the shorter version preceded the longer one? (I am aware of the discussions regarding the insertion or omission, but you specifically said we had older texts with the shorter version.)
[ /hijack ]
OK. I was merely amused by disparaging (or observing) a theology with those two particular terms. It seems to me that faith is inherently both odd and rigid, and to the extent that a given belief isn’t, it isn’t faith - it’s reason.
I may have read my Ehrman wrong. He says
“In one of our oldest Greek manuscripts as well as several Latin witnesses”
and then describes the shorter version. He goes on to say “in most manuscripts” to describe the longer version. So, it doesn’t say specifically that the shorter version is older but I seem to have read it that way. Thanks.
As you know. Textual criticism of the Bible isn’t always an exact science. Some things are fairly obvious while others are still being discussed by the scholars. Since the documents are removed from the originals by so many years there’s no guarantee that the oldest is the closest to the original. For the sake of accuracy I will amend my approach to that section of Luke.
Absolutely true–and I noted that there was discussion on the issue. I was just surprised to see the statement that the shorter text was older (in available manuscripts) and wondered if I was misreading my text.
[ /hijack ]
Not an in depth study but enough to draw a few conclusions. I didn’t say it was only for political and personal goals, although the authors having personal goals seems fairly obvious. The evidence shows us that even the copyists had goals other than an exact copy. Sometimes they changed the text to clarify a passage and in doing so transfered their interpretation on to any copies made from their altered copy, which might then be compounded by another copier doing something similar.
The translations is only one contributing factor
I gave you some examples and there are more. There was a lot of discussion in the early centuries of Christianity about the details of Christs divinity and other doctrinal issues. What seems evident from the evidence is that some changes were made specifically to support one doctrine or another. When Christianity became a state sponsered religion then certain dioctrines were declared official by certain men. Others still disagreed but few dared to do so publically.
They certainly effect what is stressed in doctrine. The question of when did Christ become the “only begotten son” of God speaks directly to the disagreements about his divinity. The changes in the last supper stress his death with the body and blood “given for thee” Also a doctrinal hot spot of the era. 1 Cor 14 shows a change that directly effects the perception of women’s roles in the church. And that is only the beginning.
The main point is that we know beyond a reasonable doubt that the texts were altered significantly by men and that fact needs to be understood and considered as we read the Bible.
and once again
For more I recommend “Misquoting Jesus” by biblical scholar Bart Ehrman. It’s a great layman’s book for understanding the basics.
You’re still dodging the questions, cosmodan. How many translations did it take to go from Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic to, say, the New King James Version? And into which languages did the Bible first go through before being rendered into English? That’s a fairly simple and objective question, deserving an objective answer.
You seem awfully reluctant to answer this question, cosmodan. No offense, but could it be because you’re laboring under a misperception. Could it be that you only think that the Bible went through multiple translations, becoming garbled as a result?
By and large, modern Bible translations have been rendered directly from the extand Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic documents. Contrary to your claim, they were not translated from one language to another, eventually winding up in English form. (There are some older Catholic translations, such as the Douay-Rheims, that were taken from the Latin Vulgate; however, these are seldom used, and even these versions only require one intermediate step, not a long sequence of translations.)
As for Ehrman’s arguments, I find them to be exceedingly weak for various reasons. At best, one could only conclude that there are a few questionable spots – none of which seriously impact any point of doctrine. Erhman’s examples certainly do not indicate any pervasive and systematic attempt to rewrite the Scriptures, thereby subverting the core of its message. As scholar Daniel B. Wallace says in his review of Erhman’s book,
"A distinction needs to be made here: just because a particular verse does not affirm a cherished doctrine does not mean that that doctrine cannot be found in the NT. In this case, anyone with an understanding of the healthy patristic debates over the Godhead knows that the early church arrived at their understanding from an examination of the data in the NT. The Trinitarian formula only summarized what they found; it did not inform their declarations. "
Just interjecting some history about various translations:
The Latin Vulgate was a translation into common Latin from the original Hebrew in 382 by Jerome and is still the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. The vulgate was translated into English in 1582 (Douay\Rheims translation) and is the official English Catholic version. Between those versions there were several other major versions followed by the KJV:
Wycliffe 1385, the first translation of the whole Bible from the Vulgate into vernacular English.
Martin Luther 1522, translation of the Greek NT and Hebrew OT into vernacular German
Tyndale 1525, translation of the Greek NT (consulting the Vulgate and Luther’s)
Coverdale 1535, little change from Tyndale’s
Matthew Biblel, 1537, essentially Tyndale’s but authorized by Henry VIII, the first authorized English Bible
Great Bible (Cranmer) 1540 revision of Matthew’s bible
Geneva Bible 1560 revision of Tyndale and Great Bible
Bishop’s Bible 1568 a rebuttal by the bishops to the Geneva Bible
Douay\Rheims Bible 1582 as mentioned, translated from the Latin Vulgate
King James 1611 used the original Hebrew and Greek while comparing to the earlier English versions
Contrary to Cosmos assertion, translations did not go through a series of translations from one language to another before finally being translated into English. They are all formed from the original languages or from translations which used the original languages. These arguments are always used to undermine the authority of the scriptures ie, that we don’t have to take them as God’s actual Word because they’ve been changed so many times that they don’t resemble the originals. It’s just another feeble excuse not to obey God’s commands. Although translation from one language to another has problems they are not insurmountable, as the detractors would like to maintain. Translators constantly face the decision whether to translate a passage literaly (word for word) or to use a dynamic equivalence (thought for thought), and it’s an art and a science to do so. Some do a better job than others but the main thrust of God’s communication to man is very clear, there’s no excuse not to obey it.
The best “excuse” is that we don’t have to play make-believe, too. But your attempt to control and subjugate the entirety of humanity is sure appreciated… theocracy sure is wonderful. Sure as heck blows my mind that there are people who think that the Taliban was a great idea, but they happened to follow the wrong religion.
See, just because you’re dogmatic about unprovable and untestable claims revolving around an undefined and undefinable God? That doesn’t mean that anybody else needs an excuse to refrain from following something that they’ve got absolutely zero reason to believe in.
Or do you have an excuse for not following Islam? Zoroastrianism? Judaism? Paganism? You don’t, of course. Other than, perhaps, dogmatic claims about “Truth”.
Intellectual dishonesty isn’t a virute.
And, believe it or not, intellectual consistency isn’t a “sin”.
Just in the interest of promoting The Straight Dope[sup]®[/sup]:
The Vulgate has not been the “official” Catholic version for many years.
The Douay-Rheims translation is just one of several translations to English and is not the “official” translation, having been superseded over 250 years ago. As far as I know, it is not used as the basis for the Lectionary in any English speaking country. Additional Catholic English translations include the Challoner-Rheims (1752) (which actually replaced the Douay-Rheims version by the end of the eighteenth century although it was still based on the Vulgate), the Jerusalem Bible, the New American Bible, and the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version, all of which were translated from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and published in 1965 and 1966. Canada uses the more recently corrected New Revised Standard Version as the basis of its lectionary and the recently published New Jerusalem Bible will probably make its way into the liturgical celebrations of several English speaking Catholic countries in the near future. (As an interesting side note, the compilers of the Authorized Version (King James Version) relied on the Douay-Rheims version when seeking appropriate translations of several passages to English, following which, the Challoner-Rheims version borrowed back other phrases from the AV/KJV.)
(Just trying to keep some semblance of the actual facts in play, here.)
One more time…It’s Cosmos with that second S.
No I am not dodging the question. If you read my posts you’ll see I made no assertion such as you and** Bibleman** describe. I did not present multiple translations as the key issue in the way you present it. Note that I specifically mentioned copyists editing the text. Many of the significant errors made were made by copyists rather than translators.
I appreciate the links. I’m always glad to read other opinions by other scholars. I will comment on those more fully tomorrow. Since you link to reviews about Ehrmans book i ask specifically. Have you read it, or have you just read about it?
I’m going to try and respond without re-treading where Voyager capably went and for which I don’t recall any disagreements.
I would somewhat agree if we changed your words from “some” to a lot. But once we sap the bible of literal truth, there is really no reason to see god there. If the miracles were real, then yes, I agree there is something supernatural going on, if the miracles are metaphors then all we have is moral lessons that really aren’t that impressive today, or even for the time period, when compared to the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus etc.
I agree, and when he not only sees these errors as errors but also points them out, I have a hard time buying his claim that he is not questioning biblical authority. I don’t have a high opinion of Bible man but I agree with his criticisms here.
Thanks, and I would accept the your word “nearly” for a person like Bible man but Tomndebb should really know better.
But as I said before, once I start quoting embarrassing “messages” I think said biblical defenders will have a hard time defending them as accurately depicting the moral authority of god.
I think someone is misusing the human language here, and it isn’t me or Bible man. Our use may be simplistic but it’s not errant. Tom’s use seems the opposite, as he says such and such things are untrue but later claims not to challenge said authority.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. You agree with me but what?
I don’t buy your first justification. I recall you arguing wholeheartedly against those claiming psychic powers, yet those people don’t really impede science, nor abridge civil liberties. Your wife being a “nominal” I think explains a lot.
Well something else should be seen as literally true, else we are just reading fictional parables about a man who teaches parables. I think when authors start throwing dates, locations, years, and names around as well as claims of miracles to prove the existence of god then it seems most rational for one to assume that the authors were giving these details to convince others they were factual. Anyone who argues the opposite should have even less reason for believing the messages and morals are true. If the authors can’t get other details right then there is no reason to think the moral messages came through any better.
Would you think that an author who hopelessly muddles and sometimes just got his facts wrong, would be any better at teaching the will of god?
That’s a charitable underlying message. Equally derived, if not better supported, is “stay faithful to god” or god will smite you dead as fried chicken.
Well then, I think Tomndebb should change his claim from “I have never challenged the authority of Scripture” to “I have challenged the authority of scripture on plenty of occasions, but not the moral authority of scripture.”
But much of the fiction, Christians, even nominal ones, want to hold as true. They take resurrection of Christ as real in spite of all the other errors, perceived or not.
Which is fine and good, till we ask what the moral message is of killing every man, woman and child in a town, the stoning stubborn children, the bashing of babies against the stones, the tearing up of pregnant women, the threat of hell, and on and on and on?
Ask your wife why she thinks the writing of tablets is a hyperbole but the resurrection of Christ and a pleasant afterlife of believers isn’t.
Do you have a high opinion of this belief?
I’m sure you and I both know that this “guidance” is just Christians accepting what they wish to accept.
So what’s god saying when he had 2 bears run out from the woods and maul 40 and 2 children just for making fun of a bald man?
So then you agree with the morality of Jesus when he says not to save your money, and not to marry a divorced woman? What do you do when the moral authority contradicts itself, like “though shalt not kill” not jiving with “though shalt kill a man for gathering wood on Saturday?”
Since the authors thought they were writing history and since their stories contradict, even with regards to morals, what makes you think that the later recognition as the word of god was correct?
So you really don’t care much about Christ’s moral message to preach the gospel to every creature? You don’t care if we all go to hell?
I’d like to point out and for you to acknowledge that I did *not * make the assertion you mention here. While we don’t see eye to eye about the Bible I still expect honesty if you are describing my arguement. I’ll assume this was an honest mistake.
What you list here only demonstrates that someone felt there was need for revision after revision and a rebuttal of a revision. That only supports my position.
When someone decides to translate a Greek, Latin, or Hebrew text of the NT they have to decide which text to translate. Of the thousands we have no two are alike. AsI’ve said before,many of the differences are minor but some speak directly to certain doctrines and show clear evidence of men, {perhaps well meaning Christian men} who purposely changed the original texts. The evidence is undeniable. Even if we were to accept that the original text was “breathed by the spirit” and the direct word of God {which I don’t} the fact is we don’t have the original text. we have to discern the meaning with all the errors and influnence and traditions of men.
Incidently, JThunders link is pretty interesting. It contains some review of Enrmans book by another scholar named Dan Wallace. I found an interview with him that I thought was interesting. In this interview there are a couple of exerpts I thought were particularly relevent.
bolding mine. A 2nd one.
seem familar? Wallace suggests a solution that seems readonable to me. The evidence reveals that resaonable men can still make legtimate and varied judgement calls about the same information. It doesn’t make either right or wrong. It’s part of the human equation. What I hope for is contained in the portion I bolded.
Thanks again for the link. I enjoyed reading it. I also found this interview with Wallace. Also a good read. I’m always glad to read informed alternative views. Obviously not all scholars agree and you and I must make our own assessment of the evidence available. If we ultimately come to different conclusions that’s okay. We do need to examine ourselves as well as the evidence to see how much our own bias is influencing our analysis of the evidence.
Your original link was written by Ben Witherington who has great credentials. Even with those academic props I object to his style.
After quoting Wallace he insinuates that Ehrman is arguing against certain doctrine, such as the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus. I reviewed Ehrmans book. He doesn’t make any arguments against traditional Christian doctrine. I don’t even think he implies it. He simply presents the facts about certain passages being altered to inform the reader. It is up to us to decide what that means about our belief. Considering Witheringtons credentials I find this disingenuous. IMHO Ehrman doesn’t draw many conclusions or try to convince the reader that any of his theories must be correct. He simply presents a list of facts to the layman about the field of textual criticism.
Witherington from your link
IMHO it is this author who is closer to falsehood than Ehrman in that he heavily implies Ehrman is purposely attempting to discredit certain traditional christian doctrine. It is an erroneous leap conclude that because Ehrman correctly points out that a certain passage was altered he is also concluding that the doctrine isn’t reasonable by any other passage.
I am also not suggesting that the Bible is completely discredited by the changes it went through. I say very openly that the kind of literal inerrancy that **Bibleman ** presents is completely unjustified by a realistic look at the evidnce.
Other than that I maintain what I said previously. We **know ** beyond any reasonable doubt that the biblical texts that we derive the Bible from were altered by men and it is clear that some of these alterations were done very specifically to influence doctrine. If we are to follow Wallaces suggestion in the interview I linked to
“it is imperative that they pursue truth rather than protect their presuppositions”
then it is up to the reader to decide. I might also add “traditions” to the end of that quote. The fact of the alterations should impact how we view our relationship to the Bible and it’s purpose in any spiritual quest.
I’d also add that the evidence also indicates that the very books selected or discarded were also influenced by men trying to support a certain agenda and doctrine. Christianity may see them as the “real” christians but IMO judging by the violent persecution of alternative views that occured in that era I see no reason to trust their judgement without question. As someone who tries to do what Wallace suggests I want to read the rejected books {such as the Gospel of Thomas} myself and decide what worth it has to me. As an observer of humanity it doesn’t seem smart to accept a theology or spiritual path simply because it’s a tradition that many others have accepted. The history of christianity itself reflects the questioning minds of mankind.
So, I stand by my previous statements. The fact that the Biblical texts were altered and selected by men at least in part to support their favored doctrine means IMO that the doctrine is in question {as it should be} and anyone who seeks truth over tradition should consider that. Does that seem reasonable to you?