The Bible Questions its Own Veracity

[Malacandra]

Well played, sir.

[JThunder]

@cosmosdan

Aside from that text Biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman provide lots of examples of how scribes changed the text as it passed through time and several hands.

Misquoting Jesus is a very good layman’s book on the subject. The evidence is pretty strong.

I have to disagree. Bart Ehrman focuses on minor textual varaitions that don’t necessarily reflect any deliberate alterations, much less any widespread revisions. Heck, the title of his book is itself misleading, since virtually none of these variations pertain to sayings of Jesus himself.

This review of the book discusses many of the problems with Ehrman’s analysis.

[cosmosdan]

@Malthus

Interesting. As you say, they don’t exactly strike me as rock-solid claims of inerrancy for the biblical texts themselves.

2 Tim 3:15 is usually quoted first and most often. Even it doesn’t say inerrant. It says
useful. Even if you make the leap that a or the Holy Spirit does inspire people there’s no indication that the results of that inspiration is anything other than useful, or that there would ever be one final compiled group of inspired writings, or that those who selected which books to include hundreds of years after the fact were equally inspired. Nothing asks us to surrender our ability think and ask questions. Quite the contrary.

The analogy I use , if you accept the possibility of inspiration, is that, pouring the purest water through a less than pure filter will result in the water coming out less pure than it went in. In the case of the NT that a load of filters.

[cosmosdan]

@JThunder

I have to disagree. Bart Ehrman focuses on minor textual varaitions that don’t necessarily reflect any deliberate alterations, much less any widespread revisions. Heck, the title of his book is itself misleading, since virtually none of these variations pertain to sayings of Jesus himself.

This review of the book discusses many of the problems with Ehrman’s analysis.

Coincidently I was just looking at that very review moments ago. I don’t have time to read it now but will try to in the next few days. I glanced through part of it. The problem I have with evangelical scholars is that they inevitably seem to study and interpret to support the belief they already hold.

It’s been a while since I’ve read the book but I recall there are a few deliberate alterations. One to support the trinity concept and others to support popular concepts of Jews and women. I can think of one that clearly pertains to Jesus words. The story of the woman taken in adultery in which Jesus says, “He who is without sin cast the first stone.” may have been added much later. I was just listening to Ehrman’s discourse at Stanford on Youtube. He freely admits that most of the differences are minute and insignificant. How many significant ones does it take to change the way we look at things? IMO the fact that we don’t have the original texts and can’t be completely sure of what was on them, and the fact that it was men who declared what official Christian doctrine was and decided which books would be declared authoritative scripture, places the responsibility back where it ought belongs. On the individual making the choices. If somebody chooses to believe something because another person told them it was true fine. If a particular group declares something to be true and an individual decides to accept their take on it, that’s also fine. It’s a personal choice that people should make. I just want to be clear about whether we’re asked to have faith in Jesus or faith in the* people* who want to declare what Jesus meant, which books are inspired and which aren’t, what acceptable beliefs and doctrine are, and what God’s will is?

[cosmosdan]

dang it. I meant to fix that last post but the edit window wouldn’t open for me.

I’ll add that I have more respect for those groups that give fair consideration to the idea they may be wrong. They pursue their own beliefs and traditions while allowing others the same freedom. I also have more respect for groups that will seriously look at the evidence available when trying to seek the truth.
It’s a forgivable human trait to try to fit facts into our preconceived notions but in some cases religious fervor creates a form of denial of evidence that is very hard to deal with.

[cosmosdan]

@JThunder

I have to disagree. Bart Ehrman focuses on minor textual varaitions that don’t necessarily reflect any deliberate alterations, much less any widespread revisions. Heck, the title of his book is itself misleading, since virtually none of these variations pertain to sayings of Jesus himself.

This review of the book discusses many of the problems with Ehrman’s analysis.

I read that version and a lot of the longer version it linked to. Of the several reviews of Ehrman’s book I’ve read they all seem to imply that Ehrman has some agenda that includes casting serious doubt on Christian doctrine. I never took it that way. I took it that he was offering some facts, an introduction to textual criticism of the Bible, that are not common knowledge. He then asks questions about what that might mean and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. In the discussion at Stanford I mentioned he says “theology is not derived from one or two verses” he’s not attacking Christian theology but merely introducing facts and making valid observations about certain facts that may cause believers to question concepts they previously held.
Part of the problem , that Wallace acknowledges , is that those who teach Christianity to others, pastors etc often don’t acknowledge these facts. I’d even say many of them don’t even know. In the name of protecting and/or preserving their faith they don’t present these scholarly facts to the laypeople in their congregations. For that reason misconceptions about the Bible abound. One thing I appreciate about Wallace’s review is this in his conclusion.

what I tell my students every year is that it is imperative that they pursue truth rather than protect their presuppositions. And they need to have a doctrinal taxonomy that distinguishes core beliefs from peripheral beliefs. When they place more peripheral doctrines such as inerrancy and verbal inspiration at the core, then when belief in these doctrines starts to erode, it creates a domino effect: One falls down, they all fall down.

I think he accurately touches on a fear that affects a lot of believers. They resist certain facts because they are afraid that if they let go of one belief they may have to let go too many, perhaps all of them. Too often they react with anger and are combative. Instead their primary concern should be learning the truth. After all, it will set them free right?

[monavis]

@tomndebb

There is ample internal evidence in the Torah that it was writen by multiple persons at different times and redacted/edited by otrher persons at later times. Therefore, any appeal to Moses as the single author can be ignored regardless of wild speculation regarding what the Egyptians may or may not have ever written.
The Egyptians are known to have suppressed references in their history to defeats in battle. If some large group of slaves had wandered away from their tasks, led by some charismatic character, and particularly if an Egyptian army had disappeared into the desert chasing them, there is no reason to believe that the Egyptians would have included those events in their history. On the other hand, if the events never occurred, there would have been nothing to write. So the absence of an Egyptian record means exactly nothing, either way.

If I understand you right, it is meaningless,but the Archaeologist Kent Weeks found the tombs of all of the Pharoh 2d Ramsey sons and none of his sons had died as children. During the time the Israelites were supposed to be slaves there is reference to them fighting in an other country according to Funk.

Most of the Moses stories are most likely symbolic. If the Hebrew god was so small that he could show Moses His backside seems a bit hard to swallow.

Monavis